Where is the Ghetto? (Pittsburgh, Bethel Park: low income, real estate, cheap apartment)

[MissShona]

Originally Posted by vwscottie

Come meet up with me someday and I'll take you through East Liberty and you can decide for yourself if the homes I speak of are just here and there boarded up old homes or the sign of a community that doesn't have a whole lot of pride in themselves. Yes, things are going up and there is a move to clean it up, but there is a LONG way to go.

Glassport is another community that doesn't have a whole lot of pride about itself; but that place is never labeled "the ghetto" .

There's that "boarded up home thing" again. You know in Clairton, very few empty homes are boarded up...which is way worse in my opinion because then the structure just attracts vagrants, pests, theives and G-d knows what or who else. At least someone cares enough (even if it's not the owner....but it very well could be...or the bank) to properly seal the home.

My old office building cost over 25 million dollars but was wrecked by Hurricane Katrina. Funny, it too is boarded up - most 12 stories of it...right in Miami's South Beach. I guess that city doesn't have any pride in itself either.

[vwscottie]

Originally Posted by MissShona

Glassport is another community that doesn't have a whole lot of pride about itself; but that place is never labeled "the ghetto" .

There's that "boarded up home thing" again. You know in Clairton, very few empty homes are boarded up...which is way worse in my opinion because then the structure just attracts vagrants, pests, theives and G-d knows what or who else. At least someone cares enough (even if it's not the owner....but it very well could be...or the bank) to properly seal the home.

My old office building cost over 25 million dollars but was wrecked by Hurricane Katrina. Funny, it too is boarded up - most 12 stories of it...right in Miami's South Beach. I guess that city doesn't have any pride in itself either.

You remind me of someone I used to date. No matter if the truth or reality was starring her dead in the face, it still could be something else. The problem is, East Liberty is widely a black community, and you can't stand seeing yet another community labeled as black and run down, which it is, plain and simple.

[MissShona]

Originally Posted by vwscottie

You remind me of someone I used to date. No matter if the truth or reality was starring her dead in the face, it still could be something else. The problem is, East Liberty is widely a black community, and you can't stand seeing yet another community labeled as black and run down, which it is, plain and simple.

The "truth" packaged wrongly can be mis-interpreted...and THAT is my point. The "problem" that you pointed out is not unique to Black communities; and SW Pennsylvania is FULL of run-down, White communities. Is that not true?

I doesn't bother me at all personally if you wish to label something and not tell the whole story; because I've been around to see predominently Black neighborhoods with homes from half a million on up. The whole point of me saying what I am saying is to issue a disclaimer if you will to people who may just be driving around and observe these things. Because appearances can be very deceiving.

[vwscottie]

What you see is what you get in East Liberty. Empty store fronts, trash constantly littering and blowing along Center Ave, Highland Ave and Penn Ave, people soliciting you for drugs while fueling up at the sunoco on Aiken or Highland, etc.

[MarinoG711]

I live two streets over from E. Liberty right next to the busway... I am there all the time and never had a problem.... I frequent the shadow lounge and Kelly's Bar in E. Liberty almost every weekend... I do not think that pittsburgh has a big gang problem or graffitti code gang problem or whatever it is you saw on the Today show... You are trying to act like you know it all off of something you saw on tv that had nothing to do with the Pittsburgh Area... It dont make sense to me...

[MarinoG711]

Originally Posted by vwscottie

What you see is what you get in East Liberty. Empty store fronts, trash constantly littering and blowing along Center Ave, Highland Ave and Penn Ave, people soliciting you for drugs while fueling up at the sunoco on Aiken or Highland, etc.

This is what happens in the city and all over any city... Bums ask me for money and drugs downtown, does that mean downtown is a bad ghetto... E liberty is in the middle of a revival and most of those store fronts among penn are not empty or have just recently moved like Sneaker Villa... That whole area is changing... when I moved here 4 yrs ago it was alot different with highrises but I still felt fine walking through there in the daytime... To me E. Liberty looks no different then alot of other parts of Pittsburgh

[Drover]

Right, and you're so much more knowledgeable on the subject because you hang out in one corner of East Liberty that's actually developing and where yuppies go shopping and bar-crawling. You'll have to forgive me if I don't bow down to your incredibly superior street cred.

[MarinoG711]

Originally Posted by Drover

Right, and you're so much more knowledgeable on the subject because you hang out in one corner of East Liberty that's actually developing and where yuppies go shopping and bar-crawling. You'll have to forgive me if I don't bow down to your incredibly superior street cred.

bout time you recognize... Space Moose

[BVH]

Originally Posted by MissShona

The "truth" packaged wrongly can be mis-interpreted...and THAT is my point. The "problem" that you pointed out is not unique to Black communities;

Here's another truth for you: East Liberty, like Wilkinsburg and and many other "ghettos" across the city and country used to be predominantly white and very nice and safe communities. The "urbanization" of these neighborhoods led to massive "white flights". Contrary to popular beliefs held by some, the whites leave because of the influx of crime the "urbanization" brings with it and not blatant racist beliefs.

Originally Posted by MissShona

SW Pennsylvania is FULL of run-down, White communities. Is that not true?

Quite true, there are a lot of economically depressed areas around here and that is certainly not limited to certain ethnic groups. There are indeed white neighborhoods that I have seen or heard of that I would not want to visit at night time either, but, there are MUCH fewer of those than there are black neighborhoods.

If you cannot agree with that, then as VW said, there aren't enough facts in the world that can break through a wall of denial. We can discuss/dispute reasoning behind the facts (poor education, poverty, oppression, etc), but, that does not change the statistical facts that we have to prove that predominantly black neighborhoods are statistically higher in crime than white neighborhoods.

[vwscottie]

East Liberty doesn't look any different than any other part of the city huh? LOL my neighborhood, in Point Breeze, which is in the City of Pittsburgh, sure as hell doesn't look anything remotely like anywhere in East Liberty