Crime in Delaware (Wilmington, Bear, Bellefonte: bankrupt, living in, beaches)

[ebuch]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

ebuch, I'm confused. Your location says "Newark DE" yet you claim to live in Fort Worth?

Haven't updated this thing in forever. Lived in DE for 23 years then moved to Fort Worth. Still have some family in area though.

[doctorjef]

I just want to point out, as well, that you really can't compare the demographics of poverty in Wilmington and Fort Worth, respectively. I lived in Fort Worth before the Basses started doing their thing in downtown Forth Worth, between 1976 and 1980, and then again between 1982 and 1984. Downtown Fort Worth never had much in the way of Section 8 housing or poverty areas immediately abutting downtown, just a few seedy looking projects immediately east of downtown and another old but fairly respectable subsidised apartment complex to the northwest of downtown. The poor areas of Fort Worth have largely occupied the eastern/southeastern part of the city, i.e. south of downtown and largely east of I-35, as well as some areas off of East Barry, all at considerable distance from downtown. That is quite unlike the situation in Wilmington, where the poverty areas immediately abutt and surround downtown. It was an easier thing to come into downtown Fort Worth and rejuvenate the nightlife (which it had never really had previously) and service economy/hospitality industry type businesses, because the commercial area had never been surrounded by a slum and a resident population that frightened people from coming into downtown. The problem with downtown Fort Worth is that it had just become another daytime banking center, with a few other things like the courts. After dark it may have been a little scary because of riff raff drifting in to places like the water gardens, but there was no reason for middle class people to go down there anyway (there was all of one mid-range priced steak house on one edge of downtown for a long time). Some revitalization did start in the early 1980s but didn't really start to take off until after we had moved away the second time. The situation with the downtown of Wilmington just presents intrinsic challenges that Fort Worth never did.

[ebuch]

Doctor I definitely agree. Only thing that can be done though is to push the section 8 of downtown Wilmington further out. Your never going to correct their issues. Do you remember poly technical neighborhood in east fort worth? Much of the African American population has dropped over there but many of the same section 8 moved to south fort worth now and Crowley. And guess what, that area is worse now than poly.

So you might be able to clean up one area, but in doing so your just dirtying up another area.

[doctorjef]

I don't see how making slums in Newport, Stanton, Christiana or Bear is going to be a good solution to Wilmington's problems. It's ironic that in the early 1980's when we lived at what was then the very end of S. Hulen, Crowley was still a nice little country town with just a bit of new development there. I used to ride my bike out there on the Old Crowley Rd. But the problem is that the construction from about Southwest High School onward south was so cheap that it was bound to turn very sketchy at some point in the future. I've seen that happen with neighborhoods in South Austin that were decent middle class enclaves when I was at UT in the 1970's but had become sketchy by the time we moved back to Austin in 1985. It seems that in FW now everything along Hulen south of Old Granbury Rd has become more or less sketchy. An uncle who passed away 2 years ago had left a house on Hulen not very far south of Old Granbury and it brought an extraordinarily disappointing sum of money after a year on the market. Evidently that area isn't too good these days.

This is why I advocate solutions that rebuild communities and develop local employment, rather than simply pushing the poor out of one place only to inflect the diseases of poverty somewhere else. Further, this has got to go along with a zero tolerance law enforcement (IMO).

[rdlr]

You've lost me. Am I in the Texas Forum?

[doctorjef]

Definitely not: the Texas forum is infinitely more self-obsessed than the DE forum. Sorry, I'll stop the Fort Worth digressions now -- just trying to illustrate for ebuch why I think trying to "solve" Wilmington's problems by forcing poor people out to the burbs is not a good idea.

[quiet life]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

Definitely not: the Texas forum is infinitely more self-obsessed than the DE forum. Sorry, I'll stop the Fort Worth digressions now -- just trying to illustrate for ebuch why I think trying to "solve" Wilmington's problems by forcing poor people out to the burbs is not a good idea.

Why not? They do it everywhere else Spreading the wealth isn't what this nation was built on anyway

[doctorjef]

Yes why not just foster an ever growing and permanent poverty class in this country. I am sure that will make life more secure and prosperous for us all. Especially when it is an ethnically based one.

[Legendof302]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

I don't see how making slums in Newport, Stanton, Christiana or Bear is going to be a good solution to Wilmington's problems.

DoctorJef try not to think from that perspective, nobody is advocating another Brookmont Farms/Sparrow Run or Kimberton.

You should know better than to say something slick like that.

[quiet life]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

Yes why not just foster an ever growing and permanent poverty class in this country. I am sure that will make life more secure and prosperous for us all. Especially when it is an ethnically based one.

Well yeah!! Why not? It's been going on for decades Survival of the fittest, etc. There is already a permanent underclass. The ones that wise up, rise up. That goes for Wilmington and beyond. As far as Newport, Stanton, etc., those places aren't Park Ave. by any stretch. Even 15 years ago when I lived in Delaware. Never had any inclinations to live in any of those places when I lived in Wilmington. Just my 2 cents.