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Just saw your comments here, as well as the mention of Teaneck, and definately think your points here are valid! Just because there is a presence of Blacks/African Americans in an area does not at all make that area necessarily undesirable or certainly a ghetto!
Teaneck does have a fairly significant concentration of African Americans being about a quarter of its total population. Looking at median incomes and housing prices, I'd say that for sure these folks owning homes are middle class.
However... and this is a sticky subject I dare to bring up... but... there are numerous communities across America that carry a sizable middle-class African American population who care well for their homes and properly parent their children so as these families are stable and productive citizens on their own being self-sufficient. And yet mixed into these communities are lower-income African Americans through federal subsidized housing such as Section 8, and for whom their neighbours (mind you also African American!) find to be disruptive to the community's middle-class values and ways of living. Are we going to label middle-class African Americans who complain about the behaviours of their lower-income neighbours who happen to be of their same race as racist?
This is precisely why I began my discussion here about ghetto being not just a place but a mindset. There is a saying in the ghetto (being the place) that "you can't take the ghetto out of the ..." and that's coming from again the people who live in the ghetto.
I think there is truth to this that has nothing to do with race at all. When a person has come from not just an economically disadvantaged place but also a socially disadvantaged place (meaning no home training... no discipline and no structure and no expectations for respecting both self and others, as well as a poor academic education), how in the world will that person who becomes a parent (at too young an age anyway regardless of upbringing) be able to parent their child effectively? They won't. And government subsidized housing like Section 8 does absolutely nothing to address this issue. It is simply yet another example of government spending that remains ineffective in reversing the problems of poverty in this country.
How so?
First, it only places low-income households (the majority of whom are single parent headed by a female which places the family already at a disadvantage) into higher income areas. That's it. No much needed services are ever given to these at-risk households. It is well-documented by minorities themselves that many of their Section 8 neighbours bring with them "the ghetto" being not the place itself but the culture.
Second, it continues to create the incentive for those eligible to receive housing vouchers to remain unmarried because of income requirements and a priority given to the lowest income earners. By default this attracts single parent or single wage earner households.
Third, it does not foster a high degree of personal investment (be it financial or any sort of sweat-equity) in the property they do find to accept their voucher. It is natural for someone who is so disadvantaged to begin with, and who on top of that doesn't have a great stake in the value of the property itself, to take less an interest in improving it than a home owner typically will do.
Fourth, the kinds of rental properties that do accept Section 8 are not of the greatest quality to begin with, as it's well-documented that certain Section 8 landlords oftentimes are simply milking the taxpayers dollars in the government-backed income they receive from participating. You find Section 8 landlords who own hundreds of properties and end up renting such to those with vouchers and by default such ends up creating once again large areas of concentrated low-income dwellers! The original intent of Section 8 was to deconcentrate low-income persons and place them in better neighbourhoods. Yet it just doesn't work that way in the end oftentimes. The saying is that we've gone from vertical ghettos to horizontal ghettos.
Section 8 I think is, indeed, an example where both the public and private sector fail.
And although the more recent government built Hope VI housing does address issues neglected by the 50s and 60s style public housing, being that it involves tearing down these old and run-down, high-density public housing complexes that history shows to be failures by and large because of how they quickly became traps of crime and violence for tenants, Hope VI too is not without flaws.
The newer public housing under this urban model does create more attractive and lower-density housing, and impose a time limit on occupancy by requiring its tenants to commit to working towards self-sufficiency through participating in funded vocational training/education, etc. to that end. But what it fails to do so far is to build enough units to handle the displaced tenants from the older public housing. Sometimes the gap is very wide according to published reports, and yet it is assumed by the federal government that Section 8 makes up that gap. The reality it doesn't work that way lots of times.
Have we made improvements in public housing. Yes I think so but again... I contend that our tax dollars to this end even in the 21st century are still not being managed effectively by the US government. The federal government (HUD) continues to put restrictions on private enterprise and even local housing authorities so that the objectives of these low-income housing projects continue to be unmet.
Like the above linked article says, Liberals like the voucher system because they assume the recipients will get housing they normally could not afford and Conservatives just assume you can transfer low-income families into a middle-class environment (through the private sector via vouchers) and somehow these folks will transition seamlessly. Not so... and such creates friction on all sides not because of racism but because of class.
I think such is a factor that can cause some people of any race to now find "undesirable" certain communities that are not just inner-city. We continue as a nation in our public policy to fail to address the social issues surrounding poverty and primarily focus on the economic issues.
I nominate this as the "Post of the year" on C-D.com. Just perfect. I wish I could write this effectively.
I nominate this as the "Post of the year" on C-D.com. Just perfect. I wish I could write this effectively.
Well when you write for a living you get a little practice at it... but thanks.
I do not mean to imply that all families on Section 8 housing are undesirables. That's not true either but unfortunately, it is becoming crystal clear that the worst aspects of the ghettos, particularly gangs and all of their activity criminal and violent as well as just unacceptable socially, are being transported via the voucher housing system into once peaceful communities of mixed race.
There is no doubt there is a direct correlation between "undesirable" and crime of which poverty historically has also been a given, and which many of those in such poverty find undesirable, but there is now emerging a direct correlation between crime and areas where Section 8 housing is located which is not inner-city. I'm not making this stuff up... there are a number of criminologists, police officers, and other urban planning professionals who have mapped the two data and when put together, you find the spikes in suburban crime in the same location as Section 8. The transferance of gangs from the inner-city projects out to the suburbs has a lot to do with it so it isn't just about "being poor." There are plenty of poor people who do their best to shun all that "ghetto" as a mindset and culture embraces.
To bring it up for many immediately stirs a "you're being racist" sentiment which on the surface seems legitimate. But the data doesn't lie.
More importantly, this thread here about "the worst places to live in NJ" is very enlightening if you follow it from beginning to its end, as everyone here who's jumped in has made an important contribution by proving this very phenomenon. It's a discussion that unfortunately too many public leaders all the way from the White House to the town Mayor seem to not want to address because of race. Even the Obama website has nothing on it indicating that President-Elect Obama has put the issue of addressing municipal crime as a priority.
I just hope we aren't headed down the same 'ole path simply repackaged as "change" in this area of American policy. Yes... having an African-American President with his lovely African-American wife and their two beautiful children there in the White House for all children of colour to look up to and have hope that they, too, might someday be that kind of success is a start. However... when you tear down the old projects and put up better looking buildings have you changed the people there? Have you helped them transform themselves to make better life choices when they leave that crumbling brick and mortar? That's where it's at.
It seems like there is also a misguided belief that because New York City and its former Mayor Guilliani reduced its high crime rate that crime in the US somehow must be down. It certainly is overall in NYC, particularly Manhattan, but not so for many medium-sized cities in America. What concerns me greatly is that NYC has the highest concentration of public housing in the US, and much of it is still the old 50s & 60s style tenement high-rise you'll find especially in the Bronx. A little of bit of this is beginning to be torn down, and of course you have Section 8 being given (albeit limited which is another issue), but some people may not realize that not only does Section 8 currently impose no time limit on the family for use (therefore creating a disincentive to become self-sufficient) but it is also transportable across state lines. Specifically, there are folks coming from these torn down projects across the river into suburban Jersey, and of course many are hard-working and just want to do the right thing and start clean. But unfortunately, some of the worst aspects of that ghetto culture are being brought over. It's true... I'm not making this up. You can call it nice things like "social dysfunction" but everyone from the poor to the rich know now what this means... it's a highly self-destructive culture that many African-Americans from all economic classes shun and are greatly worried about, rightfully so.
Further, the worst aspects of ghetto culture aren't simply a Black thing. You have middle-class and upper-class White kids immersing themselves in that culture now and becoming socially dysfunctional without ever living in a project! Here's where the music industry, for example, plays its part. Certain corporations marketing only the worst of the worst of rap music so that our children never end up hearing the remaining 90% of that particular genre that doesn't carry any of the negative values in it such as glorifying violence, drugs, demeaning women, etc. etc.
So the worst thing is it eventually hurts everyone regardless of race, gender, class.
What do you do about it? It takes a collective effort no doubt of people with savvy in a lot of different areas of knowledge... crime specialists like police officers who really know the scoop because their beat educates them to ordinary people who are street-smart and savvy through their own observations informally educating those around them by their word and deed. Change happens first at the individual level... education begins in the home... and little by little it is possible to make corrections and thus make things better.
I still content that big government more often than not just gets in the way of this taking hold and little by little being as effective as it could be. History so far in this country proves it to be true... I just hope that our President-elect does indeed recognize this and follows a course of real change domestically rather than re-packaging old social policy that now shows itself to not really work.
Here's a link to another very interesting article about this issue... again just so people can hear it from those in the know:
I see the race card is being played. What a shock!!
What exactly is the race card? I know when people bring up African American issues or problems they are said to be playing the race card. As an African American I am dying to know what that is so me and my friends can play it. Can people of all races play it or just black folks? I have friends of all races and ethnicities and I am dying to know if we can add this card game to one of our get togethers
Just saw your comments here, as well as the mention of Teaneck, and definately think your points here are valid! Just because there is a presence of Blacks/African Americans in an area does not at all make that area necessarily undesirable or certainly a ghetto!
Teaneck does have a fairly significant concentration of African Americans being about a quarter of its total population. Looking at median incomes and housing prices, I'd say that for sure these folks owning homes are middle class.
However... and this is a sticky subject I dare to bring up... but... there are numerous communities across America that carry a sizable middle-class African American population who care well for their homes and properly parent their children so as these families are stable and productive citizens on their own being self-sufficient. And yet mixed into these communities are lower-income African Americans through federal subsidized housing such as Section 8, and for whom their neighbours (mind you also African American!) find to be disruptive to the community's middle-class values and ways of living. Are we going to label middle-class African Americans who complain about the behaviours of their lower-income neighbours who happen to be of their same race as racist?
This is precisely why I began my discussion here about ghetto being not just a place but a mindset. There is a saying in the ghetto (being the place) that "you can't take the ghetto out of the ..." and that's coming from again the people who live in the ghetto.
I think there is truth to this that has nothing to do with race at all. When a person has come from not just an economically disadvantaged place but also a socially disadvantaged place (meaning no home training... no discipline and no structure and no expectations for respecting both self and others, as well as a poor academic education), how in the world will that person who becomes a parent (at too young an age anyway regardless of upbringing) be able to parent their child effectively? They won't. And government subsidized housing like Section 8 does absolutely nothing to address this issue. It is simply yet another example of government spending that remains ineffective in reversing the problems of poverty in this country.
How so?
First, it only places low-income households (the majority of whom are single parent headed by a female which places the family already at a disadvantage) into higher income areas. That's it. No much needed services are ever given to these at-risk households. It is well-documented by minorities themselves that many of their Section 8 neighbours bring with them "the ghetto" being not the place itself but the culture.
Second, it continues to create the incentive for those eligible to receive housing vouchers to remain unmarried because of income requirements and a priority given to the lowest income earners. By default this attracts single parent or single wage earner households.
Third, it does not foster a high degree of personal investment (be it financial or any sort of sweat-equity) in the property they do find to accept their voucher. It is natural for someone who is so disadvantaged to begin with, and who on top of that doesn't have a great stake in the value of the property itself, to take less an interest in improving it than a home owner typically will do.
Fourth, the kinds of rental properties that do accept Section 8 are not of the greatest quality to begin with, as it's well-documented that certain Section 8 landlords oftentimes are simply milking the taxpayers dollars in the government-backed income they receive from participating. You find Section 8 landlords who own hundreds of properties and end up renting such to those with vouchers and by default such ends up creating once again large areas of concentrated low-income dwellers! The original intent of Section 8 was to deconcentrate low-income persons and place them in better neighbourhoods. Yet it just doesn't work that way in the end oftentimes. The saying is that we've gone from vertical ghettos to horizontal ghettos.
Section 8 I think is, indeed, an example where both the public and private sector fail.
And although the more recent government built Hope VI housing does address issues neglected by the 50s and 60s style public housing, being that it involves tearing down these old and run-down, high-density public housing complexes that history shows to be failures by and large because of how they quickly became traps of crime and violence for tenants, Hope VI too is not without flaws.
The newer public housing under this urban model does create more attractive and lower-density housing, and impose a time limit on occupancy by requiring its tenants to commit to working towards self-sufficiency through participating in funded vocational training/education, etc. to that end. But what it fails to do so far is to build enough units to handle the displaced tenants from the older public housing. Sometimes the gap is very wide according to published reports, and yet it is assumed by the federal government that Section 8 makes up that gap. The reality it doesn't work that way lots of times.
Have we made improvements in public housing. Yes I think so but again... I contend that our tax dollars to this end even in the 21st century are still not being managed effectively by the US government. The federal government (HUD) continues to put restrictions on private enterprise and even local housing authorities so that the objectives of these low-income housing projects continue to be unmet.
Like the above linked article says, Liberals like the voucher system because they assume the recipients will get housing they normally could not afford and Conservatives just assume you can transfer low-income families into a middle-class environment (through the private sector via vouchers) and somehow these folks will transition seamlessly. Not so... and such creates friction on all sides not because of racism but because of class.
I think such is a factor that can cause some people of any race to now find "undesirable" certain communities that are not just inner-city. We continue as a nation in our public policy to fail to address the social issues surrounding poverty and primarily focus on the economic issues.
I absolutely love your post. I agree 100% that the program is a big failure. Just the other day I was reading the Herald News about and it had a big picture of a 49 yr old woman stating to have been walking the streets of Passaic for hours looking for a rental place that would accept her $1200+ Section 8 voucher and she only had 30 or 60 more days to use it. In the same article it stated she had quit her job at kmart because they wanted her standing for hours on end and she couldn't do it. Uhhh didn't the article just state she had walked "hours" searching for an apartment??? I think alot of urban areas like Paterson, Passaic,Newark, East Orange have been given a disadvantage by allowing these subsidies to be given out so freely. People often forget that there are homeowners that live in those towns that take pride in their homes, they pay high mortgages and property taxes, they mow their lawns, improve their homes, recycle, etc. but sadly they are outnumbered by the lowlifes who think you can leave dirty mattresses on front porches or on the side of the house until they get around to calling the city to pick it up and sit it out on the curb.
I wonder if it will always be that way? How can you turn a towns negative reputation around. Paterson seems to think it's by building luxury condos in an area that's only a few blocks away from a nudie bar, a jail, and non stop parades in the summer. Not to mention the ridiculous high taxes that you have to pay for a town who didn't even have the common sense to plow and salt one of the biggest hills in the city during a snow storm. Oh yea and also why not plow and salt the side streets where people actually live??? You pay thousands of dollars in taxes for absolutely nothing. Oh wait I forgot it's for our inept city council to hold dinners at the Brownstone for over $10k and then afterwards announcing "well it was open to the public"
Turning around urbans areas is tough. Simply put: You're not going to make everyone happy. Cities like Paterson, Newak, Passaic, etc, have to play to their advantages. One major advantage these cities have is that they're so close to Manhattan. These areas need to redevelop portions of land with with mix income housing for example. There is a chance for Paterson may have a light rail link to Bergen County. If that happens, I'm sure that a commuter village can pop up.
I still don't see how/why a place like Teaneck is compared to Newark or Camden.
Some one explain, please. I'm dying to know!
And yes, I did "play the race card" (whatever that is). What other reason could a wonderful town like Teaneck be even considered under the title of this thread. The taxes are killer......... That's about it.
I still don't see how/why a place like Teaneck is compared to Newark or Camden.
Some one explain, please. I'm dying to know!
And yes, I did "play the race card" (whatever that is). What other reason could a wonderful town like Teaneck be even considered under the title of this thread. The taxes are killer......... That's about it.
I would like to hear an answer to. I feel the same way about Hackensack and Teaneck.
they are no where near the worst when you have a city like Irvington on the map
they are no where near the worst when you have a city like Irvington on the map
Teaneck is a suburban town with a lot of black people, that's it. Crime is virtually non existent. My parents live there & don't even lock their doors at night!
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. Oh yea and also why not plow and salt the side streets where people actually live??? You pay thousands of dollars in taxes for absolutely nothing. Oh wait I forgot it's for our inept city council to hold dinners at the Brownstone for over $10k and then afterwards announcing "well it was open to the public"
