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Disclaimer: I'm actually pretty annoyed, because whenever I try to search for raw data on Google, I come up with some hits for "city-data.com" From some of the posts I have browsed, it seems like some people do recommend some legit data, but otherwise this is just a website for airing personal bias. As a matter of fact, I'm supposed to be working on an economic development report on North Minneapolis for a community development nonprofit.
That said, I think it's pretty amusing to read a lot of the posts. I live in a first-ring suburb of the Twin Cities, which frankly feels pretty isolated to me. Heck, I rarely ever see my neighbors, let alone talk to them. By contrast, while I was in North Minneapolis doing my research this summer, people were always on the streets. It was nice to be able to look people in the eye as I was passing them on the sidewalk and greet them. I even got into some pretty good conversations that way. That sort of thing doesn't happen much in my neighborhood. People mostly stay indoors and keep to themselves. I guess that's America, though. We're pretty individualistic here - we like our personal space and our sense of safety and comfort. None of which is necessarily bad, of course, but it's definitely lonely. I have a pretty good friend in graduate school who's from India, and she was reamed out by a lady who was in front of my friend in the checkout line at the U of M's bookstore because my friend was standing a little too close. It was my friend's first week in the States, and Indians don't treat personal space quite like we do.
I'm not going to say I don't like space. I grew up in Colorado, and some of my earliest and most nostalgic memories are of myself as a toddler wandering the plains east of Colorado Springs where we lived, with the big, open sky overhead and the picturesque mountains to the West. However, I love people too. I really learned to appreciate what big cities have to offer in the way of diversity and interpersonal interaction when I moved to Chicago for college. For four years, I lived and studied next to Cabrini Green, the infamous high-rise projects. As a naive, white, suburban kid, I foolishly wandered into the projects a time or two, and I was taken advantage of by panhandlers who knew how to jerk my emotional strings, but I also learned to listen to peoples' stories. Across Orleans Street from Cabrini, there was this dive where Pakistani cabbies hung out. They served some amazing Pakistani food there, and I had some pretty interesting conversations. One summer, I lived in a southside latino neighborhood. I remember one time when I was walking to the bus stop, this drunk guy looked at me in this really intense and scary way and said "what's up, white boy?" There was a pretty rough area a few blocks north of my street, and a kid was killed by gunfire a few houses down from where I lived toward the end of the summer, but my neighbors were fantastic. They would always invite us over and grill some carne asada for tacos. The tacos were served with homemade pico de gallo.
Sure there is some criminal activity in parts of Minneapolis, but what city doesn't have its share of violent crime? The interesting question is why crime is concentrated in certain areas. You're right, there is often a correlation between high unemployment and high crime - but what is the true cause? I just found out from the 2000 census data I was looking at that among African American men over 16 in North Minneapolis, the unemployment rate at the time of the census was 17%. It's much higher in some neighborhoods on the northside. People aren't unemployed because they're lazy. By definition, someone is considered unemployed because they're out of a job but are actively seeking work. The historical truth is that in Minneapolis, as in most other midwestern cities, blacks have always faced racism and discrimination. Housing discrimination after WWII, unequal access to quality education (Jim Crow's "separate but equal" is well known to be a myth), and a changing economy which has caused low-skill manufacturing jobs to leave central cities (among other factors) have combined to concentrate urban poverty in American cities, and African Americans have disproportionately borne the brunt of this concentration.
Racism is alive and well in America. Some of the comments in this forum attest to that. Another indication or racism related to housing is the rash of mortgage foreclosures that has swept the nation and in the Twin Cities metro area is concentrated in North Minneapolis. In 2005, the Minneapolis Federal Reserve published a study concluding that race, credit history, and geographical location are better predictors of probability of foreclosure than income. Predatory lenders disproportionately target African Americans, people who live in North Minneapolis, and people who have poor credit histories (many of whom may be African Americans who have not had access to prime lending rates in the past). you can google the report and read it yourself. Your or I might choose to lash out as well If we faced the same sort of hopelessness that many poor urban-dwellers face. This does not expiate anyone of personal responsibility for violent or criminal behavior, but understanding can lead to compassion. Believe me, people are not so scary when you listen to their stories and come to realize that they really are people.
All this goes to say that it's fine if people do not feel safe in cities, whether because of negative personal experiences, crime statistics, hearsay, or pure prejudice, but I still have to laugh at what we consider to be "common sense."
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09-28-2006, 11:29 AM
Northern Minneapolis that bad?
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