is detroit getting better? is the crime and murder rate going down? (Atlanta: neighborhood, place to live)
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The stuff I spoke about were city wide. Not just a "few pockets". Since you are in the city all the time you should know exactly what I'm talking about with regards to street lights, emergency response times, public transit, even street sweepers, ect. Even the emptiest hoods have working street lights now. That was not a luxury many neighborhoods had 4 or 5 years ago, just like emergency response times. I had to call the police to report an accident at nighttime in the hood on a weekend and they actually showed up within 15-20 minutes, had I tried to report an accident and no one was hurt back in 2013 I would probably STILL be waiting for police to come.
Improving street lights, police response times, etc., are all great things. But I'm speaking of the cultural issues that have persisted for 50 years in the black community. Things like fatherless homes, reliance on government assistance as a way of life, the acceptance of crime and criminal behavior, the lack of pride in neighborhoods, etc, etc, etc.
Improving these issues is what will make Detroit neighborhoods a desirable place to live. If these things are improved upon, everything else like the schools, crime issues and blight will take care of themselves.
I don't think anyone's arguing that pojack, the problem is how does someone like me, and I assume you, directly influence that? (And that's a real question, I'd love to have input from someone who has a better grasp on this stuff.)
I can't force someone to stay with their partner to help raise their kids, or to spend their money on home repairs and education rather than things with more immediate gratification. I also can't meaningfully influence a culture that I'm not part of. Realistically, I can't even tell someone their unique culture is wrong. It's different than mine, and I like my culture, but the suppressed nihilist in me doesn't require that someone must contribute to society in the same way that I do and keep their house in the same shape I keep mine in, in order to be an ethical person. My culture is not "right" - it's only the one I am most comfortable with. I could certainly argue that an ethical person should help raise and guide their offspring, based on the cultural constructs we have and the fact that statistically speaking a child is going to have far more opportunities if they have two parents, but I don't know how to convince another person of that.
I'm kind of in the weeds here, but I guess what I'm saying is - how do I, an individual relatively ignorant to life in the city, influence this? My objective take would be that over the last 100 years or so, my peers have done nothing but make matters worse through various policies such as racial redlining, the proliferation of highways, subsidized suburbanization, and the misguided "war on drugs". It seems that policy wise, we're pretty bad at cultural integration and doing things which help all cultures equally.
People know it's not right to leave your kids or to have kids when you can't afford them, or to commit crimes, or to make a lifestyle out of living off of government aid, etc. I believe people know right from wrong, but in certain cultures, the end justifies the means. How do you and I influence that behavior? We can't. The government can influence it, but the government is politically correct, which ends the conversation.
Improving street lights, police response times, etc., are all great things. But I'm speaking of the cultural issues that have persisted for 50 years in the black community. Things like fatherless homes, reliance on government assistance as a way of life, the acceptance of crime and criminal behavior, the lack of pride in neighborhoods, etc, etc, etc.
Improving these issues is what will make Detroit neighborhoods a desirable place to live. If these things are improved upon, everything else like the schools, crime issues and blight will take care of themselves.
Well were in agreement there but that issue I think is a little bigger then just Detroit. I see alot of blacks doing quite well for themselves in Detroit, the problem is even they don't want to be around lower class blacks because of the problems they bring. Even though most people in the hood are decent people, it's the bad apples that make it a undesirable place to live. Your own friend down the street could be the one who breaks in your house and robs you or steals your car.
But most hoods across America are similar, they have the same issues and problems for the most part. People in dangerous neighborhoods in Miami or LA or Atlanta have the same mentality as people in dangerous neighborhoods in Detroit. I would like to say it's something better we could do other then price people out of their own neighborhood or have a heavy police presence. But the reality is, all of those cities that "came back", that's the only thing they did was pushed them out to surrounding cities.
Well were in agreement there but that issue I think is a little bigger then just Detroit. I see alot of blacks doing quite well for themselves in Detroit, the problem is even they don't want to be around lower class blacks because of the problems they bring. Even though most people in the hood are decent people, it's the bad apples that make it a undesirable place to live. Your own friend down the street could be the one who breaks in your house and robs you or steals your car.
But most hoods across America are similar, they have the same issues and problems for the most part. People in dangerous neighborhoods in Miami or LA or Atlanta have the same mentality as people in dangerous neighborhoods in Detroit. I would like to say it's something better we could do other then price people out of their own neighborhood or have a heavy police presence. But the reality is, all of those cities that "came back", that's the only thing they did was pushed them out to surrounding cities.
Thanks for pointing this out. The problems in the African-American community are magnified in this city because, unlike those cities, white folks almost completely abandoned Detroit.
People do not realize the role they often play in manifesting their fears or beliefs. Things are often not destined to become a certain way, but are conditioned to be a certain way by our beliefs. You can see this speculation in the stock market. If a few big name investors, such as Warren Buffet and others, all of a sudden started dumping stock based upon his belief that the market would crash this year, guess what, others will start doing the same thing based upon their fears.....and wallah....the market crashes, even if the fundamentals of the market are solid. Even the economic "Paradox of thrift", where masses of people hunker down and curtail their spending out of the prediction that they economy was going to go bad and needing to save, results in the economy going bad because of reduced consumer consumption.
Well....the same thing holds true when you make assumptions, stereotypes and have certain beliefs about certain demographics. Its the people who hold these assumptions, stereotypes and beliefs.... that often make them come true via changing their behavior as a reaction to that demographic. When people believe that certain demographics moving into the neighborhood or schools is going to bring down the value of the neighborhood or school.....well....that could not happen if everyone who was there stays. Its the people deciding, in mass, that they should leave that depresses home values, not the demographic moving in that could afford to.
People often don't like what I have to say or say that I focus too much on a particular topic. Well, that is how one becomes an expert....through specialization. I talk about things I really understand, have studied and know about and I present it and the majority of the people don't like hearing it. The majority demographic in Detroit is not what ruined Detroit, its the assumptions, stereotypes, fears and belief of the other demographics, about the current demographic, that created a self fulfilling prophecy resulting in what we have currently.
If people reverse how they think about Detroit, regardless of the fundamentals, Detroit will become a better place. Yes....its just that simple, but it will not happen overnight. Treat people better and people will behave better. Treat people like they are inferior...and that is how they will behave.
Here is a stat concerning Detroit that you probably never seen.
0.0004% of Detroiters commit murder each year.
Last edited by Indentured Servant; 02-15-2018 at 06:48 AM..
People do not realize the role they often play in manifesting their fears or beliefs. Things are often not destined to become a certain way, but are conditioned to be a certain way by our beliefs. You can see this speculation in the stock market. If a few big name investors, such as Warren Buffet and others, all of a sudden started dumping stock based upon his belief that the market would crash this year, guess what, others will start doing the same thing based upon their fears.....and wallah....the market crashes, even if the fundamentals of the market are solid. Even the economic "Paradox of thrift", where masses of people hunker down and curtail their spending out of the prediction that they economy was going to go bad and needing to save, results in the economy going bad because of reduced consumer consumption.
Well....the same thing holds true when you make assumptions, stereotypes and have certain beliefs about certain demographics. Its the people who hold these assumptions, stereotypes and beliefs.... that often make them come true via changing their behavior as a reaction to that demographic. When people believe that certain demographics moving into the neighborhood or schools is going to bring down the value of the neighborhood or school.....well....that could not happen if everyone who was there stays. Its the people deciding, in mass, that they should leave that depresses home values, not the demographic moving in that could afford to.
People often don't like what I have to say or say that I focus too much on a particular topic. Well, that is how one becomes an expert....through specialization. I talk about things I really understand, have studied and know about and I present it and the majority of the people don't like hearing it. The majority demographic in Detroit is not what ruined Detroit, its the assumptions, stereotypes, fears and belief of the other demographics, about the current demographic, that created a self fulfilling prophecy resulting in what we have currently.
If people reverse how they think about Detroit, regardless of the fundamentals, Detroit will become a better place. Yes....its just that simple, but it will not happen overnight. Treat people better and people will behave better. Treat people like they are inferior...and that is how they will behave.
Here is a stat concerning Detroit that you probably never seen.
0.0004% of Detroiters commit murder each year.
Actually the number is 0.04%, you gotta move the decimal place back a couple spots when multiplying and then converting to a percentage. Stated otherwise, 0.0004% is 0.4 in 100,000, a number only seen in the safest of safe communities; while 0.04% 40 in 100,000, a number we're all pretty familiar with in Detroit.
That being said, I agree with most of the rest of your post here. Had people not fled Detroit from 196X-201X, it would be a whole different world in most neighborhoods. You'd still have some rough ones with blight and abandonment, most cities do, but you wouldn't have entire mile by mile swaths of abandoned neighborhoods with few homes in good condition. If Detroit keeps a diverse population from 1950, you also don't have the financial issues the city faced leading to bankruptcy (no taxes) or the level of political corruption we saw. The people who left Detroit - sometimes at rates of 2.5-3.0% per year, leaving behind entire neighborhoods of abandonment, are every bit (probably more) to blame than the 0.04% of Detroiters who murdered someone last year.
Also, I have no problem with you offering input based on your expertise with racial issues when the topic is race, which is has organically moved to in this thread. Like I said before I think you had some great input and points here, and you often do on race. The issue I take with some of your posts is when we're like:
"Hey, I like Jolly Pumpkin better than Batch Brewing."
"No way, Batch is way better, but my favorite is Atwater"
and then you come along like, "Oh yeah, well let me tell you about the racist implications of what you're discussing and how evil gentrification is"
and we're all like, "Dude.. just.. have a beer.." "No, I will not accept this kind of racial oversight on the plight I experience from reading about this!"
...and then the topic dies, because it just got weird.
Okay, that's an exaggeration, but you get my point.
Actually the number is 0.04%, you gotta move the decimal place back a couple spots when multiplying and then converting to a percentage. Stated otherwise, 0.0004% is 0.4 in 100,000, a number only seen in the safest of safe communities; while 0.04% 40 in 100,000, a number we're all pretty familiar with in Detroit.
That being said, I agree with most of the rest of your post here. Had people not fled Detroit from 196X-201X, it would be a whole different world in most neighborhoods. You'd still have some rough ones with blight and abandonment, most cities do, but you wouldn't have entire mile by mile swaths of abandoned neighborhoods with few homes in good condition. If Detroit keeps a diverse population from 1950, you also don't have the financial issues the city faced leading to bankruptcy (no taxes) or the level of political corruption we saw. The people who left Detroit - sometimes at rates of 2.5-3.0% per year, leaving behind entire neighborhoods of abandonment, are every bit (probably more) to blame than the 0.04% of Detroiters who murdered someone last year.
Also, I have no problem with you offering input based on your expertise with racial issues when the topic is race, which is has organically moved to in this thread. Like I said before I think you had some great input and points here, and you often do on race. The issue I take with some of your posts is when we're like:
"Hey, I like Jolly Pumpkin better than Batch Brewing."
"No way, Batch is way better, but my favorite is Atwater"
and then you come along like, "Oh yeah, well let me tell you about the racist implications of what you're discussing and how evil gentrification is"
and we're all like, "Dude.. just.. have a beer.." "No, I will not accept this kind of racial oversight on the plight I experience from reading about this!"
...and then the topic dies, because it just got weird.
Okay, that's an exaggeration, but you get my point.
Thanks for the correction on the decimal (fractions and decimals I always hated as well as long division) and I am always open for constructive criticism.
Sometimes we don't see things if we are not looking for it and don't care to look for it.
Sometimes we don't see things that we don't want to see.
Sometimes we don't see things and we are actively looking for it.
Sometimes we see things that we are not looking for.
Sometimes we see things that we want to see.
ect.
As long as we are not BLIND or hallucinating......nothing is inherently wrong or incorrect. Things can and do exist without people noticing or paying attention to them. Its part of human nature. Even if something is in your sight, if its not in your focus, you really don't see it. I cannot speak for African Americans as a whole, only myself. As a 50 plus year old AA, what I have seen in my life creates a FOCUS on race which probably allows me to see the racial issue in something where others who have not really had to deal with being black in America, since the 60s', would see because they can never have the focus of a black person.
We both can have the same topic in our line of sight....but our focus is on different things. That does not make make either of us wrong in what we see or do not see.....it just means our focus is someplace else. Hence, I would hope people would be less averse to different focuses that are part of the same line of sight....as long as the person is not hallucinating or seeing a mirage. What I find, from people comments, is that people don't say I am hallucinating.....but rather, they just don't want to bring what I am seeing into their focus or the focus of the forum. I mean, why would someone else focus have more worth than mine of neither of us are hallucinating or blind?
Topics die when things come into focus posters don't want to focus on (see).
Last edited by Indentured Servant; 02-15-2018 at 01:48 PM..
(He doesn't get your point). IS, you have made far more profound points than you are aware of.
Last edited by mgkeith; 02-15-2018 at 01:50 PM..
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