Has increased ethnic diversity improved the quality of life of Minneapolis/Minnesota? (New Ulm: homes)

[pirate_lafitte]

Originally Posted by Rick2Rio

I don't think ethnic diversity has improved the quality of life for the average Minneapolitan. I don't know if its culture or race, but the statistics show crime is way up over the last 30 years as the city became more diverse. Like most other cities, white flight is a reality. In can be a very tough life for anyone of any ethnicity that now resides in the city, especially areas of north Minneapolis.

As a suburban dweller, ethnic diversity has increased my quality of life. I live in a very safe suburb, but am able to enjoy the shops and restaurants of Minneapolis.

I do not think it is so much culture or race, but more many of the persons moing to MPLS have been poor and some have resorted to crime. Furthermore, the few people who committ crimes committ most of the crimes and sometimes the media can be sensationalist. Have crime increaed? Yes. I think culture and race just happen to be included in the mix.
Ethnic diversity can have its benefits it people are willing to realize that there are good and bad in every ethnic group and the first and foremost, we are all human. If we all take those two concepts in mind, things can go more smoothly.

[JMadison]

I can't speak to the underlying causes, but here's the list of most dangerous and safest cities. *Seems* the most dangerous are the most diverse. You can check the diversity figures using Stats about all US cities - relocation info, maps, race, income, photos, education, crime, weather, houses, etc., I haven't checked all 20 yet. Let me know what you find.
Ranked Most Dangerous

1. Detroit, Michigan
2. St. Louis, Missouri
3. Flint, Michigan
4. Oakland, California
5. Camden, New Jersey
6. Birmingham, Alabama
7. North Charleston, South Carolina
8. Memphis, Tennessee
9. Richmond, California
10. Cleveland, Ohio

Ranked Safest

1. Mission Viejo, California
2. Clarkstown, New York
3. Brick Township, New Jersey
4. Amherst, New York
5. Sugar Land, Texas
6. Colonie, New York
7. Thousand Oaks, California
8. Newton, Massachusetts
9. Toms River Township, N.J.
10. Lake Forest, California

[K-Luv]

Originally Posted by JMadison

I can't speak to the underlying causes, but here's the list of most dangerous and safest cities. *Seems* the most dangerous are the most diverse. You can check the diversity figures using Stats about all US cities - relocation info, maps, race, income, photos, education, crime, weather, houses, etc., I haven't checked all 20 yet. Let me know what you find.
Ranked Most Dangerous

1. Detroit, Michigan
2. St. Louis, Missouri
3. Flint, Michigan
4. Oakland, California
5. Camden, New Jersey
6. Birmingham, Alabama
7. North Charleston, South Carolina
8. Memphis, Tennessee
9. Richmond, California
10. Cleveland, Ohio

Ranked Safest

1. Mission Viejo, California
2. Clarkstown, New York
3. Brick Township, New Jersey
4. Amherst, New York
5. Sugar Land, Texas
6. Colonie, New York
7. Thousand Oaks, California
8. Newton, Massachusetts
9. Toms River Township, N.J.
10. Lake Forest, California

Detroit (city proper) is one of the least diverse cities in the country, but I guess that it all depends on what parameters that are used to define diversity.

It seems as though the safest city list contains retirement communities, hippy communities, and/or are rich communities. No wander.

[pirate_lafitte]

Originally Posted by JMadison

I can't speak to the underlying causes, but here's the list of most dangerous and safest cities. *Seems* the most dangerous are the most diverse. You can check the diversity figures using Stats about all US cities - relocation info, maps, race, income, photos, education, crime, weather, houses, etc., I haven't checked all 20 yet. Let me know what you find.
Ranked Most Dangerous

1. Detroit, Michigan
2. St. Louis, Missouri
3. Flint, Michigan
4. Oakland, California
5. Camden, New Jersey
6. Birmingham, Alabama
7. North Charleston, South Carolina
8. Memphis, Tennessee
9. Richmond, California
10. Cleveland, Ohio

Ranked Safest

1. Mission Viejo, California
2. Clarkstown, New York
3. Brick Township, New Jersey
4. Amherst, New York
5. Sugar Land, Texas
6. Colonie, New York
7. Thousand Oaks, California
8. Newton, Massachusetts
9. Toms River Township, N.J.
10. Lake Forest, California

You also have to take in mind that the 10 ten most dangerous cities in the USA are also some of the poorest.

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by pirate_lafitte

You also have to take in mind that the 10 ten most dangerous cities in the USA are also some of the poorest.

I suspect that "not having stuff" is one of the major reasons why some people have a need to acquire other peoples' stuff illegally. Too bad there isn't an easy way to insert money (and better things for young people to do) in those areas...

[AQUEMINI331]

Originally Posted by JMadison

I can't speak to the underlying causes, but here's the list of most dangerous and safest cities. *Seems* the most dangerous are the most diverse. You can check the diversity figures using Stats about all US cities - relocation info, maps, race, income, photos, education, crime, weather, houses, etc., I haven't checked all 20 yet. Let me know what you find.
Ranked Most Dangerous

1. Detroit, Michigan
2. St. Louis, Missouri
3. Flint, Michigan
4. Oakland, California
5. Camden, New Jersey
6. Birmingham, Alabama
7. North Charleston, South Carolina
8. Memphis, Tennessee
9. Richmond, California
10. Cleveland, Ohio

Birmingham isn't diverse. It's 73% black, and as far as I know, there's still a net loss of whites in the city. There is an increasing Hispanic and Asian popuulation, but the city is still overwhelmingly black. Same thing for Detroit, that city is over 80% black.


New York is the most diverse city in the U.S. and guess what - it's also the safest major city in America. The only cities that beat New York as far as low crime rates are concerned are cities like the ones on the "safest cities" list - mostly white, mostly suburban, mostly elderly, secluded communities.


_

[AQUEMINI331]

Originally Posted by rcsteiner

I suspect that "not having stuff" is one of the major reasons why some people have a need to acquire other peoples' stuff illegally. Too bad there isn't an easy way to insert money (and better things for young people to do) in those areas...

Even if you could, that would solve little. Having been born and raised in a rough neighborhood of one of those 10 most dangerous cities, I can tell you that it would take a LOT more than money to solve the problems there.

Let me give a brief insight as to why inner city black communities remain violent, even in 2008, in the post-crack, post-Reaganomics, post-welfare reform, post-civil rights movement era. It's quite simple actually - old habits die hard.


What do I mean? Well let's go back in history, to the late 19th century and early 20th century. Back then, in the days of Jim Crow in the Deep South, blacks were still treated and perceived as being next to nothing. Slavery was over but blacks were not treated any better. Blacks lived in segregated communities amongst themselves, seperate from whites. Whites held virtually all law enforcement positions in any given city, county, or state in the South. When one black man killed another, law enforcement turned a blind eye. Why? Because whites saw blacks as being beasts of the wild. Would you think to punish a dog who killed another dog? No. Same concept. Whites saw blacks as being subhuman, so they couldn't care less about one black man killing another, so long as a black man didn't lay his hand on a white person. Only when a black person committed a crime against a white person did law enforcement bother to press charges. And in those cases, often the poilce as well as the court system almost completely threw out due process of law and often convicted blacks on pure heresy, as opposed to actual criminal evidence. The 14th Amendment may as well have not existed for blacks in the South in the Jim Crow days.


Anyway, the point that I'm trying to make is that since whites in law enforcement turned a blind eye towards black-on-black crime, blacks learned to solve problems through violence, particularly because no one would punish them. If you killed a fellow black man, there would be no consequences. So what's to stop you? Nothing. And so a culture of violence developed. It existed for decades before Jim Crow came to an end during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. But just because the laws were changed does not mean that the culture did. Old habits die hard.


Cultures tend to not change very much unless there's a conscious effort among the members of that culture to change, or if there's an outside influence that acts on it and changes it. The culture of black-on-black violence has not experienced a large, conscious effort to change nor an outside influence strong enough to change it. Yes, police are more than happy to arrest the perpetrators of black-on-black crime nowadays, and the court system is more than happy to try and convict them. But that does not mean that the culture is going to change. You have an entire generation of young blacks who honestly don't know any better. For many whites and/or suburbanites that may be hard to completely fathom or understand. But trust me - for the most part, young black criminals really DON'T know any better and have never known a life outside the violent culture in which they live. It really does make perfect sense for them to solve problems through violence and display acts of bravado and super-masculinity, even if the consequences are severe (as they currently are). Old habits die hard. I don't know what it's going to take to change the culture, but I know that money is hardly a solution and that it will take years to undo the decades of violence that has flourished in our community.



With all of that being said, I don't think Minnesota has much to worry about. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Minnesota doesn't have the violent history that many other parts of the U.S. have, particularly the Deep South (or for that matter, right here in Chicago). This is reflected in the generally non-confrontational, more sensible, diplomatic character of most of its people. And that's a good thing. A REALLY good thing. In the South, it's completely different. Violence is everywhere, and it's hardly discouraged. Even if you get outside of the inner city black communties, where are you? The rural, mostly white areas. The towns that are full of gun-toting, trigger-happy rednecks who in some cases have more firepower and artillery than the army of a small nation. So no matter where you go in the South, violence and a violent culture is present and there's not too many people that see anything wrong with using violence as a means of solving problems and disputes.



Chicago is kind of the same way. The perception here is that it's only blacks and Hispanics who perpetuate violence here, but the truth of the matter is, Chicago was a violent city long before we got here. Back in the 1920s, there were few blacks in Chicago but there was a notorious, hard-core gangster roaming the streets of the South Side - and he wasn't black. His name was Al Capone.


But Minnesota? They just don't have that kind of violent history. It's good to know that some places don't. It seems to me that the majority of violent crime in Minnesota is committed by people who come from other places where violence IS the norm (like Chicago), not native Minnesotans. Minneapolis and St. Paul seem to lack the ghettos filled with deep-seeded hopelessness and multigenerational crime and poverty that afflict many cities like Chicago.


_

[questioner2]

I am discouraged that this thread turned into a discussion of race and crime. This was not my intent. What I was getting at was the shock many long term Minnesota residents feel when they see their previously almost 100% White community, with a distinct Scandinavian culture, being quickly turned into a completely different place with a large ethnic minority and immigrant population. The local media thinks it is great, and are constantly laughing at the old fashioned Minnesota culture like it was really bad up to the 1970s when it started to be more ethically diverse.

Has the Minnesota culture and quality of life improved for the typical Minnesota resident because of today's widespread ethnic diversity?

[pirate_lafitte]

Originally Posted by questioner2

I am discouraged that this thread turned into a discussion of race and crime. This was not my intent. What I was getting at was the shock many long term Minnesota residents feel when they see their previously almost 100% White community, with a distinct Scandinavian culture, being quickly turned into a completely different place with a large ethnic minority and immigrant population. The local media thinks it is great, and are constantly laughing at the old fashioned Minnesota culture like it was really bad up to the 1970s when it started to be more ethically diverse.

Has the Minnesota culture and quality of life improved for the typical Minnesota resident because of today's widespread ethnic diversity?

Has increased ethnic diversity increased one's quality of life in MN? That depends on the point of view you're coming from. If you like ethnic shops and you don't mind being around people of a different ethnic group, then yes, it can increase your quality of life. If you like a homogenous population and don't care for anything outside of your own culture, then it wouldn't increase your quality of life. As for criminals, that exists in every ethnic group. I think that MN just hasn't had the violence that other states have had and therefore, is not use to dealing with issues other states have dealt with.

[LM1]

Originally Posted by questioner2

I am discouraged that this thread turned into a discussion of race and crime.

Wait... Let me see if I got this straight. You start a thread entitled "Has Increased Ethnic Diversity Improved The Quality Of Life In Minneapolis/Minnesota" and then become 'discouraged' when it turns into a discussion about race and crime?

Seriously?

The local media thinks it is great, and are constantly laughing at the old fashioned Minnesota culture like it was really bad up to the 1970s when it started to be more ethically diverse.

The media in MN "is what it is", just like the media anyplace else.
It seems that media outlets are far more concerned with pushing a 'diversity agenda' than the citizens are with receiving it. As such, the MN of years past is something they absolutely hate, since it was basically a bunch of white people living together peaceably and being productive, as opposed to the new, more 'exciting' diverse Minnesota.

On the mater of media and the diversity agenda, once upon a time, we used to play a PBS drinking game...

Any time they used a politically correct colloquialism for a race or ethnicity, any time they mentioned the holocaust, slavery, womens suffrage, or gay rights, any time they mentioned the plight of some poor, disadvantaged group, you had to shotgun a beer.

It was the only TV drinking game where everyone in the room would consistently get drunk 100% of the time at almost any time of the day.