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Louisville is fairly safe for cities of similar size. Probably about average. Plus, these rates quoted don't apply to people who don't gang-bang, don't buy crack, and don't hang out at inner-city clubs. The vast majority of times a murder victim was doing something they shouldn't have been doing. While it doesn't excuse the murder, it is reassuring to those of us who don't partake in high-risk behaviors.
You are so right about the victims' pre-death activities. I agree. I will just reemphasize that the socio-economic damage to the areas where crime is rampant is far worse than a depression. In the 2008 election, I believe it was the populations of these depressed areas that voted for Obama. Yes, it was a race based vote hoping for economic help for these areas. Yet, the only real hope for economic recovery in these areas is up to the local residents. There must be a social revolution from tolerance of crime to a complete sanitation. From black white collar & black official crime to the most gastly of murders, if the people living in these low property-value districts want to improve their living conditions and property values, crime must go.
A bleak commentary on life for African-Americans, though a fair and unbiased assessment. The problems in our communities is due to lack of discipline, which is the result. What is really needed is a solution to the CAUSE, only then will there be progress.
A bleak commentary on life for African-Americans, though a fair and unbiased assessment. The problems in our communities is due to lack of discipline, which is the result. What is really needed is a solution to the CAUSE, only then will there be progress.
Wagy, I believe that before the sons and daughters of slavery can get to truly equal socio-economic status several things must change. I hope they can because no one needs to be considered anything but equal in today's America. I beg your tolerance as I am doing everything I can to be genuinely caring, and in no way condemning or inappropriately discriminatory. I just think so many lives are at stake and the 50 years since Little Rock has not truly improved the overall educational status of Black or Hispanics, yet the Asians seem to have advanced and what hatred there was of that group even in the 1950's and 60's.
1st: The term African-American must go. Every hyphenated-American must go. To use such a term automatically segregates and therefore makes discrimination easier. The only time race should be used is in the Dr's office and then only as a diagnostic tool.
2nd: Slavery is history. Yes, Africans were wrongly imported and owned and the suffering that went with it was terrible, but then so too was the suffering my ancestors endured as they braved the frontiers to come to America and the many frontiers America itself offered. Yes, they were free to make the choices while most African descendants were not free to make such choices. I honor both groups sufferings.
3rd: Barack Obama is not the son of a slave by any manner, yet the sale job was that he equaled those whose ancestors had been. Obama is not "one of us" should have been recognized. This fact has absolutely nothing to do with whether he will be a good president or not. I only point out how political spin can make what is false or untrue seem real. All American's of every color, race, creed, etc, should have voted for the best presidential candidate, not the one whose demographical statistics most closely match theirs.
4th: Because of # 3, our educational system must revise its socialistic attitudes which fail to allow all people to achieve or fail at their own accord and not at the fault of others.
People, take CHARGE of this problem and act on it NOW!
If you don't you WILL end up with a ever declining city and perpetual crime and all that this crime brings. Sadness, suffering and misery for all involved.
Don't let your cites become like Detroit, Gary, East St. Louis, Watts, Richmond, Oakland, East Palo Alto, New Orleans etc. Every place where this problem gets out of hand, where law enforcement is completely subservient to political correctness, where the public education system produces dropouts, every city like this descends into ruins...
This is a wake up call! Don't wait to organize and save your community! Don't wait for the Fed's, the teachers unions, the ACLU, ACORN or the "massive" media to save you. They won't.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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The problems on the West End are becoming worse because all middle class Blacks already left or are leaving to move to the safer climes of PRP, Fern Creek, Lyndon, etc. Only 1/3 of Blacks in Jefferson Co live on the West End, yet 80% of Blacks murders occured in the West End.
Considering that E of 7th, W of Shelby St, N of I-264 is hugely commercial/industrial/educational (UofL / Sullivan) and downtown, it would appear that 10 is a higher ratio than the western area. Censusdata, what's the population ratios?
Tom, I don't believe you have any idea how many people live in those areas, and your statement that the area seems industrial/UofL is correct--if you have only seen that area by driving along the freeway, which is how I am guessing you have come to that generalization. If I had to surmise a guess, I would say it is upwards of 100,000 as it is nearly half the land area of the old city. Unlike suburbia, the urban nabes are still very dense, and about half of the densest census tracts in the metro area are in that region, with some areas having a population density over 10,000 persons per square mile, especially Old Louisville and the Taylor/Berry nabe around Churchill downs. Also, Sullivan is clearly not located in that area. The west end, west of 7th and north of I-264 has a much smaller population due to abandonment and population loss.
Is Louisville as safe as rural areas or white bred suburbia? Probably not. Is it safe for a city of almost any size? Absolutely. The fact that these were young black males shot in the ghetto is not random. They were very likely drug related. The Sudanese man who was shot did own a store so it may have been the wrong place at the wrong time, and the robbery may have been fueled by drugs. So, the problems boil down to poverty and drugs. If you are poor, you mess with drugs, which involves you in gangs, which gets you killed. The percentage chance of being a victim of a random crime when you are a clean, law abiding citizen is very low.
Time and again, the stats prove that Louisville is one of the safest Midsized /large (however you state it) cities in the country and I have verifiable stats that prove it. Censusdata has very good information, but his persepctive comes from that of a small town Kentuckian, and so does that of Tomocox and several others on this board. This does not discredit their opinion, but to pretend that Louisville is a dangerous gang wasteland is laughable.
People, take CHARGE of this problem and act on it NOW!
If you don't you WILL end up with a ever declining city and perpetual crime and all that this crime brings. Sadness, suffering and misery for all involved.
Don't let your cites become like Detroit, Gary, East St. Louis, Watts, Richmond, Oakland, East Palo Alto, New Orleans etc. Every place where this problem gets out of hand, where law enforcement is completely subservient to political correctness, where the public education system produces dropouts, every city like this descends into ruins...
This is a wake up call! Don't wait to organize and save your community! Don't wait for the Fed's, the teachers unions, the ACLU, ACORN or the "massive" media to save you. They won't.
Let me tell you this city is NOTHING like the above mentioned cities, having travled to them all (well, not Watts) and lived near a couple. What we have here is sensationalism from Kentuckians from small towns whose perspective on crime is much different than those who have lived in major cities. Compare Louisville crime and murder rates to any city its size and you will see it is much lower. Every city surrounding Louisville has more murders, and many more across the ****ry do.
Tom, I don't believe you have any idea how many people live in those areas, and your statement that the area seems industrial/UofL is correct--if you have only seen that area by driving along the freeway, which is how I am guessing you have come to that generalization. If I had to surmise a guess, I would say it is upwards of 100,000 as it is nearly half the land area of the old city. Unlike suburbia, the urban nabes are still very dense, and about half of the densest census tracts in the metro area are in that region, with some areas having a population density over 10,000 persons per square mile, especially Old Louisville and the Taylor/Berry nabe around Churchill downs. Also, Sullivan is clearly not located in that area. The west end, west of 7th and north of I-264 has a much smaller population due to abandonment and population loss.
Is Louisville as safe as rural areas or white bred suburbia? Probably not. Is it safe for a city of almost any size? Absolutely. The fact that these were young black males shot in the ghetto is not random. They were very likely drug related. The Sudanese man who was shot did own a store so it may have been the wrong place at the wrong time, and the robbery may have been fueled by drugs. So, the problems boil down to poverty and drugs. If you are poor, you mess with drugs, which involves you in gangs, which gets you killed. The percentage chance of being a victim of a random crime when you are a clean, law abiding citizen is very low.
Time and again, the stats prove that Louisville is one of the safest Midsized /large (however you state it) cities in the country and I have verifiable stats that prove it. Censusdata has very good information, but his persepctive comes from that of a small town Kentuckian, and so does that of Tomocox and several others on this board. This does not discredit their opinion, but to pretend that Louisville is a dangerous gang wasteland is laughable.
STX, I don't think you can read my words very well. I was pointing out that the ratios were out of balance. I even asked our resident stat guru, censusdata to confirm my hypothesis by advising the census comparisons of his "tracts". Just to say the 28 died in an area while 10 died in another area without looking at the entire picture is what I rail against on this forum so often. Liberal politicians have a terrible habit of passing on 1/2 truths, and conservative politicians don't say anything. Both are equally wrong in that regards.
I am very much aware of the entire Jefferson County community. It's my business to know these things.
STX, I don't think you can read my words very well. I was pointing out that the ratios were out of balance. I even asked our resident stat guru, censusdata to confirm my hypothesis by advising the census comparisons of his "tracts". Just to say the 28 died in an area while 10 died in another area without looking at the entire picture is what I rail against on this forum so often. Liberal politicians have a terrible habit of passing on 1/2 truths, and conservative politicians don't say anything. Both are equally wrong in that regards.
I am very much aware of the entire Jefferson County community. It's my business to know these things.
I understood quite well what you said. You wanted to look at ratios,. and I am here to tell you the west end has a much higher ratio than the central part of the city. As the city was broken down, I am guessing the ratio is 28/50,000 for the west end and 10/100,000 for the downtown and vast swath of the central city defined in that last post. The last 100,000 or so people of the old urban city live in the old "east end" that is the baxter/bardstown and frankfort ave corridors inside the watterson and outside the St Matthews and small river road city districts.
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