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The flip side of this is that MGM considers the local workforce unsuitable so they're recruiting elsewhere. A casino is all about image. They're not going to pluck people out of the projects and give them public-facing jobs. Springfield has a 30% poverty rate. The unemployment rate is 6.5% so pretty much anyone who wants a job can find one. The problem is the usual failed city problem where there's low labor force participation rate and a large fraction of residents with no job skills. 64% of all births are to unwed mothers. Worst in the state. That's the problem that needs to be addressed.
Well any gateway city is going to have a low participation rate. At the same point on the national level it's about at 70%. Now that isn't to say that 30% aren't working and means a 30% unemployment rate. If someone is a disabled or on some form of a disability that can be a factor and of course generational time factors in. We can't expect that 85 year old grandmothers suddenly want to start working again.
As for unwed mothers frankly that depends. Remember marriage doesn't exactly assure anything anymore. We can't roll back no fault divorce etc. Say what you will about him but if there's one good thing Governor Patrick did it was eliminating lifetime alimony. There were poor guys paying out for decades for no reason. Think about how many couples didn't get divorced due to this fear It's just like with reproductive rights. How many people born pre Roe vs. Wade were really intended?
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Originally Posted by IWLC
3 Professors at STCC are astounded that Springfield graduates are barely at a 9th grade level. And GEDs - forget about it! It's pretty common knowledge that the greatest impediment to success is; not graduating, getting pregnant and becoming addicted. All the social programs address those issues AFTER the fact.
There's an interesting book called the Geography of Time and it pretty much argues that the view of time dictates quite a bit of life. Some look more to the past and say whatever has happened is it, others are more for the present but become hedonistic and some look forward to the future and that's pretty much the way it should be. One might argue that redemption of sin vs Max Weber and the Protestant Work Ethic can be against each other but it depends. Culture can be an iffy thing. Another part the book illustrates is in the Italian dialect of Sicilian there are no future tense verbs. Think about that. "I/she/he/they will" does not exist. If you don't have words to describe what you can do it limits you.
Supposedly when Clinton was president it came out that they recommended three things to avoid poverty.
1) Graduate high school
2) Don't have kids until you are at least 21
3) Get married before having kids
I'd argue most of the people I know in poverty broke at least one if not two of those.
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Originally Posted by timberline742
The issue is the U.S. has incredibly low social mobility. It is very uncommon for a person to say, be born into poverty in the U.S. and move up to middle class, or middle class to upper class. Scandinavia (pretty much all of it), Finland, Canada, Japan, Germany, New Zealand and on and on have better opportunities to improve one's lot in life than the U.S.
Right but all of those countries are directly subsidized by the US. It might be on using the dollar or using the military but without the US many would crumble. I'm not saying it is easy to move up but if you know how to plan it helps. I'd argue we have too much of a combination of ADD with high speed internet and social media distracting the hell out of people.The digital divide is not about who has and doesn't have high speed internet. It's more about those that use it for online classes and networking (linkedin etc) vs those that use it for pornography and stupid cat videos.
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Originally Posted by GeoffD
Most of the students in Springfield are special needs in one way or another. In Longmeadow, you could use uncertified new grads as teachers and you’d have the same outcome. The relatively few students in the Longmeadow system who have special needs get a ton of one-on-one. That’s simply not possible in Springfield.
No they aren't. The reason why there's few special needs students in Longmeadow is frankly they are in Springfield. Springfield is the 2nd largest district in Mass and attracts special ed students from across western Mass, southern vermont and CT. Tuition follows the student and special ed is pretty expensive. You aren't going to find a small town that is going to put in the time, money and efforts to establish a special ed program on the same level as springfield. The economy of scale is a major factor here.
I realize MGM jobs aren't going to make people rich but it starts somewhere.
Also with the Neal building behind it is an empty building that is being demoed for a new hotel. The demo work is supposed to be completed in three weeks. We've already seen higher rents causing government services to move. Take a look.
"With the new offices relocating to Cottage St., there are a number concerns. Most residents will need to take at least two buses to reach the facility. The office is five miles away from Union Station and on a good day takes 38-42 minutes each way. Buses run every 40 minutes, making it difficult for residents to do the usual, “back and forth” from office to office to obtain and submit documentation to DTA and DHCD before their children get out of school. "
Yeah about that. There is no shuttle. If it takes a few buses then so be it. Wayfinders sold off their building to Balise (car dealership) and is moving to where the old Peter Pan building was. It's a bit obvious that they intend to get people onto buses and rail as it's easier for them to find services in other parts of the state and region. Cleanslate moved out of their Maple st building and is also near union station. Again just send them on the trains and buses out of the area. It wasn't that surprising to see the hartford location open up about 18 months ago. When you consider the coverage of the PVTA is practically all of Hampden and Hampshire counties and the rail can send you all the way down to New haven and the suburbs inbetween that is quite an area. Transit by itself doesn't create gentrification by it certainly is an accelerator to anything going on.
As property prices go up government and non profits will probably have to move and if they own properties sell them off or rent them out for higher cashflow.
Eventually those that aren't working will be crowded out. If people don't understand the concept of time it compounds. Once you start seeing development and people earning more it becomes harder to justify. For example STCC is already making a new parking lot by Friends of the Homeless. Another area is further down the south end. Until a few years ago it was just an open field....and then..
The parks dept put the relocated playground for divinchi park
The PVTA then put a bus shelter up
The police department put a police kiosk up
The PVPC put a bike sharing area up (comes with wayfinding too)
Parks then starts putting trees up.
Now keep in mind this is next to some lower end housing. Now as parents look out their window they have security, a bus coming and going, a playground and people moving around on bikes.
Like I mentioned before consolidation is going to bring more to springfield much of that also to MGM. MGM doesn't close but government and non profit buildings do. MGM also has much more security and is close to I-91, has the Loop shuttle and pvta stops. You can't exactly get the same access in other parts of the city. So your farmers market might start to relocate there, white lion Wednesdays has their first there next week etc.
Personally I think it might be interesting to see Chicopee changing in the future. They don't have rail or I91 access and half the city is a military base. If it isn't growing it's going to have to do other things (ie import people) to keep up. They've also seen a significant exodus of city employees the past few years.
as for the poverty in Springfield, the problems really do start early on. Too early for schools to be able to do anything about it. You'd need to have early intervention/kids removed from the home--something drastic that wouldn't go over very well. Otherwise, the kids get messed up very early and it's pretty hopeless. Those very early years are formative.
I saw too much even teaching first grade--six kids alone in a run down house, raising themselves. Mom came home every once in a while, no dad. Nothing anyone could do either apparently--I asked. You get homes where no one ever graduated, no one cares about school. The kids have that as a role model. No amount of money thrown at a school will help very much.
And for the social aspect, no one shows them how to dress properly or speak properly or act properly. It's hopeless. They learn from what they see at home as very young children.
Somebody should, as I often do, drive around the Old Hill neighborhood in Springfield. It's had an amazing resurgence in the past few years; more and more decrepit Victorian houses becoming "painted ladies." Gives me hope for the city, as it used to be one of the worst areas. I know I'm an incurable optimist, but this is actual evidence.
as for the poverty in Springfield, the problems really do start early on. Too early for schools to be able to do anything about it. You'd need to have early intervention/kids removed from the home--something drastic that wouldn't go over very well.
I've often said that they need to bring back orphanages - not the horrible Dickensonian type orphanages, but nice, small places with good staff as role models. At least the kids could have a fighting chance at learning to function outside of the areas they came from. Growing up like that isn't ideal, but a lot better than having the kinds of role models they have now.
Well any gateway city is going to have a low participation rate. At the same point on the national level it's about at 70%. Now that isn't to say that 30% aren't working and means a 30% unemployment rate. If someone is a disabled or on some form of a disability that can be a factor and of course generational time factors in. We can't expect that 85 year old grandmothers suddenly want to start working again.
I don't know how they arrive at the figures. It couldn't be the goofy way they do national figures (by new unemployment insurance sign-ups, because those make zero sense) I've never collected but I've been unemployed and self employed and underemployed and I don't think I ever made it into the stats.
The single mother stat is a bit deceiving. Some people live together, but never marry so as not to disturb their benefits. Officially there is only one adult in the house.
The rest of what you wrote is remarkable. I had no idea of all the shifting and reworking the city is going through. Could be good - except for the rise in housing costs, of course.
Stop rewarding the bad behavior and much of it will stop. Rather than EBT cards and see them stand in line at the soup kitchen, or at least change to a voucher system that can only be used on "cookable food". No kind of assistance while subscribing to cable, data phone plans, etc. Mandatory drug testing. Watch how fast behaviors change then...
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Mandatory drug testing has been tried many times. Always a total failure. Huge amounts of money spent on testing, very low positive result rates. Tremendous net loss of money.
I like the idea of cookable food, personally. Of course, we then need to make sure the people have the facilities to cook the food. That comes with an expense. And the corporate food industry would never allow the legislature to do that. "Food stamps" were more of a U.S. agricultural and food industry subsidy as it was/is a safety net. Lots of lobbying money by those folks.
That leaves shame. I don't think we want to shame people for being poor. Maybe some do. Of course, we would have to invest into a large system to create/staff/stock these food kitchens, and transportation to them. I don't see that happening.
Stop rewarding the bad behavior and much of it will stop. Rather than EBT cards and see them stand in line at the soup kitchen, or at least change to a voucher system that can only be used on "cookable food". No kind of assistance while subscribing to cable, data phone plans, etc. Mandatory drug testing. Watch how fast behaviors change then...
No need to be so mean to them. More social workers, more incentives to get jobs. I would never want to take away EBT or tv or even phones. I think there need to be more limits on the free money, like no increase in money when they have another kid. But some will find a way to get around that, like selling drugs.
Mostly, there needs to be early intervention (but that's never going to happen.) The very young kids need to have positive role models and be raised to want to learn and go to school. Not raised with drugs or alcohol or violence. I think some of us "solved it" one time on P&OC forum by suggesting a daycare facility that would take the kids at a very young age and keep them all day long. The parent would be forced to get training and then a job. BUT one reason they stay on welfare is to get health insurance. Their entry level or part time jobs aren't going to provide health insurance.
So if we get health insurance for all, then the single parent could work and not lose the insurance. They would have no excuse for not working. They wouldn't be worried about their kids because the kids would be in a really good daycare--not some dumb, cheap daycare, but something that was well designed to teach them how to become productive members of society. It comes off sounding like some sort of dictatorship that takes kids away though. But that's the only way. If they are raised by someone from the dregs of society who doesn't know better, there is no chance they will succeed in overcoming their upbringing.
They wouldn't be worried about their kids because the kids would be in a really good daycare--not some dumb, cheap daycare, but something that was well designed to teach them how to become productive members of society. It comes off sounding like some sort of dictatorship that takes kids away though. But that's the only way. If they are raised by someone from the dregs of society who doesn't know better, there is no chance they will succeed in overcoming their upbringing.
Well head start and kindergarten and school, in general is supposed to be kind of like that. A lot of times it just frees up mom to hang out with the boyfriends. The trouble is that you can't force anyone to do anything without someone being outraged, and outrage is the stuff media dreams are made of.
Remember when they limited welfare for two years unless the mother was getting some kind of training? That's when all those schools giving out useless diplomas for things like 'medical transcribing' popped up. They were happy to give out those government backed student loans because they knew the student would A. never finish the course and B. never pay back the loan themselves and that the government would. You can't scare people with the treat of bad credit when they already have it, and you can't get loan payments from someone who has no money.
More social workers? They can't find people who want to do those jobs now.
It always comes down to more and just the right combination of social programs and THEN we'll make some headway. I'd love to know just how many dozens of social programs there are now. I'm sure the number is very high.
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It's just like with reproductive rights. How many people born pre Roe vs. Wade were really intended? 
