North Side = Pittsburgh's wild wild west (Harrisburg, Sewickley: crime rate, loans, home)
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Several buildings in the abandoned stretch of Perrysville (from the 2000 - 2600 blocks) are controlled either by the City, the URA or the Federal Marshalls. These powers-that-be refuse to help our neighborhood and that area continues to deteriorate. We've fought for years to get improvments made and we continue to be ignored. The U.S. Attorney's office especially holds us hostage in our own neighborhood by letting four properties seized in a drugbust in 2002 continue to be targets of vandalism and grafitti. They said we (the community) must prove that we can afford liability insurance. We did that. They told us we'd have to do a title search on all four properties. We did that. Now, after years of being ignored and unreturned calls, they tell us that the properties are in the process of being turned over to the City.
Thanks to these bureaucratic boneheads our neighborhood is indeed a housing development for drug dealers and gangs.
That's so frustrating. And all this beating down the private folks that are putting their own money and effort into making the neighborhood better, not some federal money or a developer. And yet the city and others in power continue to be no where to be found.
Some of you folks evidently have no idea how much government money went into the restoration of the Mexican War Streets area. The city bought up a lot of those properties and then turned around and sold them at about a 30 to 50% loss. I believe they were sold under these circumstances on the condition that the buyers agreed to be subject to landmark status and all the attendant rules & regulations. It's quite possible state grants were involved as well. As for the city and other powers being nowhere to be found, the city just announced that the North side would be the first neighborhood to get surveillance cameras courtesy of a federal grant.
A city selling property at low low rates is nothing new. Was it a good early step? Of course it was. And you can see that out of the entire North side area the Mexican war street area is the largest area where property values have universally risen over time. Thank you strong community association development for maintaining community values in the War Street area!
As for the rest of the North side I find it hard it hard to give the city much credit for anything. North Avenue has looked like a Detroit dump for years. The city never took AGH to task to clean up it's property on North Avenue. Now we are finally seeing some rehab on adjacent property to the hospital complex that AGH owns.
The much touted URA has been mostly non existent on the North Side for years. With federal money available we are told we will see some housing development on Federal Street. But why no creative thinking, public-private strategy for development in the past. It's a lack of brains in city hall that's what I think.
Kudos to the non profit folks for raising money for the park as well. More than 15 million will help to restore and enhance the park setting. That is a true gem on the North Side !
And with Zone 1 Pittsburgh police being located on the North Side it would be nice to see more beat cops and police on bikes through the neighborhood. I know this mayor is in love with technology use in law enforcement. And that is fine but it should not take the place of beat cops.
More importantly how about improving the economic base of the neighborhood. How about some creative private-public strategy encouraging retail and entertainment development and home ownership thus encouraging the tax base to grow and property values to improve. City Hall would rather spend their time and effort towards creating tax roll backs for high priced condo and hotel high rises downtown.
Some of you folks evidently have no idea how much government money went into the restoration of the Mexican War Streets area. The city bought up a lot of those properties and then turned around and sold them at about a 30 to 50% loss. I believe they were sold under these circumstances on the condition that the buyers agreed to be subject to landmark status and all the attendant rules & regulations. It's quite possible state grants were involved as well. As for the city and other powers being nowhere to be found, the city just announced that the North side would be the first neighborhood to get surveillance cameras courtesy of a federal grant.
Beautiful! - - - Yet one more li'l bit of proof, that it is not the city's burden to "make an area better", but the citizenry OF the area.....
Unless and until the people living in the "rougher" areas make concerted and non-wavering efforts to rid their streets of gang activity and criminals, then the city won't be able to do much about the issue, short of reactive projects designed to minimize the impact of the crime....
People really need to look more closely at the other aspects of "crime", like the recent "Stop Snitching" campaign, which actually discourages people from ratting out criminals in their neighborhoods, and has been shown to be a campaign that aids and abets criminal activity... this campaign has been largely focused on the black communities, and basically, preaches that if you "snitch" on someone that is acting criminally, then you are a traitor to your community and your race.... It's "prison mentality", at its finest, and nothing more.
The larger socio-economic and racial issues aside for the moment, we HAVE to mentally come to a place as a culture, where we will no longer accept duplicity in our views of "Neighborhood Health", and work towards raising the bar in the poorer communities in a way which actually addresses the ROOT causes of decreasing property values, increased criminal activity, and the repression of those who would stand up and fight for a better tomorrow for their kids and their families.
Personally, I believe that people in general, want to live near other, like-minded and like-cultured people, and there's no shame in that, whether you be black, white or grizzly-green... that said, however, there IS something wrong with institutionalizing a belief that somehow, it's okay for black or other "minority" communities to be allowed to wallow in filth and crime, while the white areas get the pick of the litter in terms of city services and programs designed to help maintain the Quality of Life standards.
Why CAN'T we have minority areas that are just as free of crime as the white areas?.... Okay, so you say there is a larger percentage of minority criminals, and so there will naturally be a larger percentage of the other negative things that go along with that.... fine. . . . so, let's address the root causes, and stop trying to band-aid the situation!
If minorities have fewer job opportunities, then we need to find out why that is... is it because of a lack of comparable education?.... Reliable transportation?.... Or, is it simple racism?.....
I would venture to believe, that the buses run fine on the North side, and that the population has had adequate chances to acquire at LEAST a high-school education, in a system that has standardized tests and standards... now, if the kids don't make USE of those opportunities, and the parents don't drill the ethos of hard work = good return into their kids' heads, then at some point, we have to stop blaming the city or the politicians, and start pointing the finger at those who are actually responsible.... the people, themselves...
I would also venture to say that some of the Great Minority Achievers of the region should take on an increased role in helping show positive role-models to the youth of the poorer areas of town, so that they feel some sort of connection to those who have achieved, and it becomes a much more realistic and viable goal, to achieve withIN the bounds of societal law and reason, and LESS acceptable to forge their future with guns, drugs and whatever else goes outside those boundaries of accepted culture.
Slavery is over... equal rights is law.... and every man, woman and child in America has the same guaranteed minimum opportunities to succeed and help make this world a better place.... We HAVE to establish a point as "Ground Zero" to begin the change and the Culture OF Change.... might as well be right here; right now......
So now, the only thing left, is for people to make USE of these opportunities, and start DOING it, instead of just bitching about why it isn't already being done....
Sorry - - Didn't mean to get off on a rant, but it just started flowin'. . . . you know how that goes, right?.....
The bottomline is that sustainable neighborhood development usually requires everyone more or less pulling in the same direction and being to willing to invest resources now in the expectation of getting a return in the future (e.g., in the form of higher property values and rents, a larger tax base, less crime, and so on). This category of "everyone" includes the local residents, non-profits, private developers, and every level of government (city, state, and federal).
Arranging all that can be a tough task, and certainly when someone is not doing what they should be doing, any of the other people in the process should take whatever action necessary to bring them into line, including complaining to any relevant authority. But again, in the end pretty much everyone will need to participate, so the goal of any such complaints should not just be to vent, but to actually generate the necessary action.
I'm curious as to how the following fits into your world view.
Right now in Western Pa. for every 1 poverty stricken, uneducated, ghetto-dweller there are probably 10 poverty stricken, welfare dependent, uneducated trailer park dwellers.
Does that leave your thinking changed or unchanged?
Indeed, and if nothing else Pittsburgh/Western PA is useful for educating people to the fact that if you have a community with a lot of poor unemployed young people around, then there will likely be crime and drug abuse (and I include alcohol abuse, even though that is technically legal--until you get in a car, or a fight, or so on) in that community as well, regardless of the ethnicity of the people in question.
Which is not to say people shouldn't do everything they can to discourage drug abuse and crime regardless of the local economic conditions. But in the long run, those economic conditions are going to play a major role in determing what happens in any given community.
Indeed, and if nothing else Pittsburgh is useful for educating people to the fact that if you have a neighborhood with a lot of poor unemployed young people around, then there will likely be drug abuse and crime around as well, regardless of the ethnicity of the people in question.
Which is not to say people shouldn't do everything they can to discourage drug abuse and crime regardless of the local economic conditions. But in the long run, those economic conditions are going to play a major role in determing what happens in the neighborhood.
The reason I asked is because I have some unconventional (and perhaps controversial) thoughts about this. But a true discussion would require a serious conversation, and By~Tor said some things that made me question whether or not a serious conversation would be possible......he just posted a reply that misses probably 80% of the relevant factors and information.
I'm curious as to how the following fits into your world view.
Right now in Western Pa. for every 1 poverty stricken, uneducated, ghetto-dweller there are probably 10 poverty stricken, welfare dependent, uneducated trailer park dwellers.
Does that leave your thinking changed or unchanged?
Hi, Zip... well, to respond, I can say that, in my opinion, this is kind of like comparing apples to oranges, in that in relation to the "City/Crime" issues like what the North Side is apparently facing, the "uneducated trailerpark masses" are largely less likely to commit the kinds of crimes that make the papers and garner such bad publicity for an area... In my experience living in downstate Illinois and Missouri, the trailer-trash crowd are more likely to get busted for brewing up meth, beating their women ad getting into pub brawls, as opposed to gunning down postal employees or marking territory for their "gang"...
As such, their poverty, ignorance and socially-criminal behavior, while every bit as wrong and misguided as the minorities', is also PERCEIVED as less "invasive" to the general public, and therefore, less of a perceived threat.
Also, in western PA, I'd bet a dollar to a doughnut that the overall black or other minority population is far less of the general population than the trailer-trash crew you refer to... so, in essence, that underscores my point even further. . . . less people are having MORE of a "perceived" negative impact.
Now, "Perception Being Reality", the issue here in THIS thread, to which I addressed my response, was about the North Side and the violence perceived to be running rampant within it, not about the rednecks waving confederate flags outside their trailers while li'l Dale Junior runs around without his diaper on.... but I do also see the point I think you're trying to make, and to address it, I can only say that the negligent and socially-retarded behavior is no more acceptable amongst whites than it should be amongst minorities... it's just that I don't hear an outcry of people scared to drive through Trailer Town for fear of being mugged, shot or having their lives inextricably altered from the experience...
Last edited by By~Tor; 04-15-2008 at 02:53 PM..
Reason: spelling, additional descriptive
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