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You need to go to Bailey's Crossroads and see the Culmore apartment complex on Leesburg Pike. The place was built to hold 4,000 people. 10,000 live there now.
You've only seen a small section of NoVA. Arlington has some not so great areas, too, as does Alexandria. Same for Springfield, Woodbridge, Dale City, Manassas, Sterling, Herndon and Leesburg.
Upper Marlboro is an upscale community---lots of white collar professionals.
It's easy for you to say that there is "no motivation to cringe in fear" when you are living in a good part of Arlington. Heck, if I were living like you, I would think the same way.
Seeing the destruction of my community up close and personal, I speak from experience. It's easy to be dismissive and say there is no problems with illegals without having seen it yourself.
I live right outside of NYC, around plenty of illegals both in the city proper and the metro. I don't have any issue with them.
I understand that there can't be unrestricted immigration, but the right wing fear mongering is ridiculous.
1. I talked about gentrification and you decide to switch to overcrowding. Let's go back here. In the DC region and actually in the whole Bos-wash Corridor there is a demographic shift happening. Young adults and some older empty-nesters are moving back into the cities and X-burbs. They just don't want to live in the suburbs anymore they don't want to deal with commutes. The real thing. Though you were trying to throw it off as not a big factor....well it is. Also they love the conveniences and the lifestyle City can offer them......Again they WANT the city lifestyle. They want to be in the action.
Inturn One can see the gentrification of the cities. Especially in your neck of the woods in DC and NoVa. New Buildings are going up everywhere. Old house / Row houses are being redone. The prices are going to the roof. Rental prices are going up. Deny all you want. But money is going into the cities....illegals and the poor less so. Granted there are always pocket with in that. They're getting pushed out to the suburbs....maybe that's where you're at. I don't know. But if you are. Then you should expect more people to come in the near future. And you can thank all the Young professionals, empty-nesters and transplants to the area for your plight.
2. Now as to overcrowding. Expect it to get worse in the near suburbs before it gets better. Again you can thank the young professionals, empty-nester, and transplants for that also. They've kicked out the folks from the cities that can least afford to live in a suburban environment/lifestyle.
Energy prices while better than a few years ago are not near as cheap as they were when the suburbs were first being constructed. The poor/illegals are not going to commute that far from where the work is because they really can't afford to...considering their pay is low. Of course who says either group has a car to begin with. So they are going to live close to where they can get picked up/get a ride to work.
That in turn is part of cause the situation that your taking about.
Of course one can still see that house prices/rent rent in those suburbs are rather high for a low wage earner(s). So that also adds to the problem of large groups needing to live together whether legal or illegal.
Lastly...at least with illegals....you should probably focus more than a bit of your anger to people/companies that are willing to employ those folks. They are helping to give motivation to illegals to stay. From my pov you need to stop them first and foremost. Now would all illegals "self deport" if work dried up? No. But it would give more of an impetus to most leave? Methinks yes.
Those groups are not responsible for my plight. Illegal aliens and legal immigrants who overcrowd and turn townhouse communities into slums are the culprits. I never said that I let off the hook those who hire illegals. They need to be heavily fined---even lose their business licenses and have the IRS come after them for tax evasion
3. My main dismissal of you stems from the fact that you and others are trying to fear monger. Look if you want to complain about illegals by all means do. There are plenty of people in mass. that do that to. Search through the Massachusetts board you'll see. And you'll see plenty of complaints about the poor too.
But when you take the tact of "the barbarians are breaking through the gate!"....."and they're going to pillage, rape, and murder the people of your state if you don't stop them!" Well yeah of course your going get ignored as a wackadoodle. The imaginary hellscape you trying to sell doesn't phase the typical cynical New Englander. And since you've been in mass. You should know better to use that tact.....you have to be more subtle.
I'm not "fear mongering". I'm telling you exactly what happened to my community. If you refuse to believe it---too darn bad. That's your problem. Just because you've never seen it, in your mind, when it happens to someone else, you call it "fear mongering".
You really don't know the typical New Englander, do you? You are too young to remember METCO. There was lots of hysteria as to what would happen should it come to their towns. You should know better. Here---read up on it:
Maybe you ignore my story and think I'm a "wackadoodle" but there are many others out there across the country who can tell you similar stories. Are you going to accuse them of lying?
You'll never get it because you are insulated from it all. Just please don't insult us who have seen the quality of life in our communities go down.
ETA: It dawned on me why you don't believe my story. You've never owned any real estate. Nor are you a parent to school-aged kids. When renting, if your building goes downhill, you can just pack up and move to another place. When people don't have school-aged kids, they tend to not care about how the schools near them are rated. Once you own your place be it a condo, townhouse or single family, you will understand what it is like when the neighborhood goes downhill. There will be no more just packing up with no looking back. You will either have to sell your place or become a landlord, that is if you care about your credit rating. If you have a child in the local schools and the schools go downhill, you would care because your child's education is at stake.
Location: Sitting on a bar stool. Guinness in hand.
4,428 posts, read 6,510,291 times
Reputation: 1721
Quote:
Originally Posted by BOS2IAD
I'm not "fear mongering". I'm telling you exactly what happened to my community. If you refuse to believe it---too darn bad. That's your problem. Just because you've never seen it, in your mind, when it happens to someone else, you call it "fear mongering".
You really don't know the typical New Englander, do you? You are too young to remember METCO. There was lots of hysteria as to what would happen should it come to their towns. You should know better. Here---read up on it:
Maybe you ignore my story and think I'm a "wackadoodle" but there are many others out there across the country who can tell you similar stories. Are you going to accuse them of lying?
You'll never get it because you are insulated from it all. Just please don't insult us who have seen the quality of life in our communities go down.
ETA: It dawned on me why you don't believe my story. You've never owned any real estate. Nor are you a parent to school-aged kids. When renting, if your building goes downhill, you can just pack up and move to another place. When people don't have school-aged kids, they tend to not care abouut how the schools near them are rated. Once you own your place be it a condo, townhouse or single family, you will understand what it is like when the neighborhood goes downhill. There will be no more just packing up with no looking back. You will either have to sell your place or become a landlord, that is if you care about your credit rating. If you have a child in the local schools and the schools go downhill, you would care because your child's education is at stake.
Nope. Your message continue to fails because you don't understand the culture Massachusetts. That been shown through the whole thread. Make any excuses that you wish. But you are clueless to what the people of Massachusetts think/feel toward your attitude and tone with your message/ messaging.
Tell you what though. Why don't you get the b***s and start spouting your message on the Massachusetts forum. You actually have a subject to post there. So post it. Have that discussion with other Baystaters. By the way.....you will mostly likely get some support there from certain individuals that post there. But for the most part my guess is you're going to receive the same type of resistance Up there that you have received from me.
Good luck.
As for real estate. I owned real estate before 2008. If I had to take a loss on it when I decided to sell it....but not because of illegal aliens but because of Shenanigans in the financial markets. And honestly after that whole event. I probably will never want to own again. Plus I like the new mobility that I have. Granted I understand that that's not for everybody. But that works for me. And works for a lot of other people I know.
as for school and children.
Having children is a choice. You have to deal with the consequences for having those children....you decided to saddle yourself. If you expect me to feel sorry for you because you don't have the same options I do.....you're sadly mistaken. Look You're unfortunately caught in a situation where well off folks are pushing out the poor and illegals to your area. That's just not going to change. Your community is probably not coming back any time soon. The pushed out poor (Americans and legal immigrants) alone will see to that. Gentrification of the cities is the cause of your plight. Any illegals/poor that are coming to your area are really just a symptom of that gentrification.
Also I do have friends that have children I mention that earlier in the thread. Far as I know they love their school system in there part of Arlington. Of course they waited to have kids till they were older and they were financially settled. They're also the type of people that would rather have their kids grow up either in or around the city because of the available options to gain experiences that they just can't get being out in the further away suburbs. I mean all you have to do is look at the calendar of events of things happening in Washington/southern Maryland/NoVa on any given day to see there's a lot going on in the area. Something tells me within the gentrification movement of the cities there are parents ( with the means ) that also want that for their children.
Last edited by baystater; 02-20-2017 at 10:01 AM..
This conversation is taking interesting turns. Haven't followed the whole thing. I'm a MA resident. Arlington is a sought after town, so I'm not sure what impact this METCO thing has. With that said, I am a parent and a homeowner. Massachusetts suits me quite well, but I understand to a degree what some people are talking about. My family and home come first, so I most definitely have a "not in my backyard" attitude to any bull. But, I don't see why we, as a community and society, cannot manage these hard situations better.
Also, my school district offers Spanish immersion on a lottery. This is a sought after program. Is it ridiculous to wonder why we cannot have the same in reverse for these immigrants? And how do you know who is undocumented? I do not have a lot of experience with undocumented immigrants from the south (only Canada), but the people I do know like my cleaning lady and her husband and his rather large, extended family may be undocumented as well. She's only learning English now, which makes me wonder because her children have been raised here. That's a little odd, but perhaps it's more common than I know. Her daughter wants to study either law or engineering next year. They are lovely people. They are certainly apart of my community.
Location: Sitting on a bar stool. Guinness in hand.
4,428 posts, read 6,510,291 times
Reputation: 1721
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cassy Fae
This conversation is taking interesting turns. Haven't followed the whole thing. I'm a MA resident. Arlington is a sought after town, so I'm not sure what impact this METCO thing has. With that said, I am a parent and a homeowner. Massachusetts suits me quite well, but I understand to a degree what some people are talking about. My family and home come first, so I most definitely have a "not in my backyard" attitude to any bull. But, I don't see why we, as a community and society, cannot manage these hard situations better.
Also, my school district offers Spanish immersion on a lottery. This is a sought after program. Is it ridiculous to wonder why we cannot have the same in reverse for these immigrants? And how do you know who is undocumented? I do not have a lot of experience with undocumented immigrants from the south (only Canada), but the people I do know like my cleaning lady and her husband and his rather large, extended family may be undocumented as well. She's only learning English now, which makes me wonder because her children have been raised here. That's a little odd, but perhaps it's more common than I know. Her daughter wants to study either law or engineering next year. They are lovely people. They are certainly apart of my community.
With Metco: I really doesn't have much to do with illegal Immigration Per se. My parents explained the whole situation as "forced busing". Really the issue was mostly about racism. The Irish American community (and that was the majority protesting) didn't want their kids going to black schools and vice Versa. And it cause "white flight" to the suburbs at the time.
But times have changed.....and neighborhoods have changed also. I think your proof of that.
Now is there still racism in mass. Ha! Ha! Ha! Of course there is.....plenty of it. Especially in the further out suburbs. Nobody denying that. But has it gotten better through the years...I'd say so. Especially in more urban environments. Nobody here is claiming Ma. Is perfect. But I think overall we're trying to improve....probably more than a lot of states.
With Metco: I really doesn't have much to do with illegal Immigration Per se. My parents explained the whole situation as "forced busing". Really the issue was mostly about racism. The Irish American community (and that was the majority protesting) didn't want their kids going to black schools and vice Versa. And it cause "white flight" to the suburbs at the time.
But times have changed.....and neighborhoods have changed also. I think your proof of that.
Now is there still racism in mass. Ha! Ha! Ha! Of course there is.....plenty of it. Especially in the further out suburbs. Nobody denying that. But has it gotten better through the years...I'd say so. Especially in more urban environments. Nobody here is claiming Ma. Is perfect. But I think overall we're trying to improve....probably more than a lot of states.
I'm not from MA, but I've heard of the racist history. I think we need to stay on course with our values (progressive, environmentally aware, pro-education) for all people here, which would hopefully address disparity. In the end it's likely not a race issue, but a class issue, which is all about disparity.
Location: Sitting on a bar stool. Guinness in hand.
4,428 posts, read 6,510,291 times
Reputation: 1721
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cassy Fae
I'm not from MA, but I've heard of the racist history. I think we need to stay on course with our values (progressive, environmentally aware, pro-education) for all people here, which would hopefully address disparity. In the end it's likely not a race issue, but a class issue, which is all about disparity.
I think racism back in the day was a major dividing line. That divide is now less....how much less depends on where you are and partly how old you are ( though that can vary wildly).
As for class. Yes that's always been an issue. With that....it harder to say how much we have improved. Hopefully a bit. But I can't say I know for sure. I don't think things will ever be near perfect with that issue. But yeah. Let's stay the course and try at least.
Well, I'm just saying that illegal immigration isn't the end of the world.
Also, you can be independent and still be either right or left wing.
It's not "the end of the world". However, I have family on LI who have watched their neck of the woods have problems due to illegal immigration.
Plenty of left wingers don't want it in their area.
Do you own your own home?
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