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Here in Pittsburgh, a neighborhood called East Liberty's neighborhood development group (ELDI) found a novel way to deal with crime/blight in their neighborhood. They figured out the rental properties which had the biggest crime problems (e.g., those owned by absentee slumlords) and bought them out. Depending upon the status of the properties, they then either demolished them, had them converted back into single-family houses, or had themselves or other more reputable property managers take over.
There's no doubt that East Liberty is gentrifying today, but much of the new development continues to include mixed-income components, and relatively few people who weren't criminals or abetting them were displaced. The neighborhood was 66% black in 2010, and will likely remain around 50% black by 2020, meaning the vast majority have not been displaced. Crime in the residential portions of the neighborhood has dropped by 50%.
Of course, this doesn't mean the issue has been solved, because the lowlives must have moved elsewhere. But it has resulted in a method of "controlled" gentrification which has allowed for local communities to remain mostly intact while becoming much safer places to live.
In the end, I think there is no solution to the "ghetto" problem except dilution though. Spread around the worst troublemakers into small pockets so that there are not enough to make any one area go to hell.
Hmmm.....why does this make me think of putting a teaspoon of excrement into everyone's quart of ice cream?
It might be better to concentrate the social services in one place, making it easier to police the area, rehabilitate the hopeful, and incarcerate the hopeless.
Hmmm.....why does this make me think of putting a teaspoon of excrement into everyone's quart of ice cream?
It might be better to concentrate the social services in one place, making it easier to police the area, rehabilitate the hopeful, and incarcerate the hopeless.
But then all that trouble caused by riff raff concentrated in one area can spread. It's basically a question of quantity versus quality.
Conversely, how does one move the trouble-prone? We can't just take anyone up out of their homes.
Here in Pittsburgh, a neighborhood called East Liberty's neighborhood development group (ELDI) found a novel way to deal with crime/blight in their neighborhood. They figured out the rental properties which had the biggest crime problems (e.g., those owned by absentee slumlords) and bought them out. Depending upon the status of the properties, they then either demolished them, had them converted back into single-family houses, or had themselves or other more reputable property managers take over.
There's no doubt that East Liberty is gentrifying today, but much of the new development continues to include mixed-income components, and relatively few people who weren't criminals or abetting them were displaced. The neighborhood was 66% black in 2010, and will likely remain around 50% black by 2020, meaning the vast majority have not been displaced. Crime in the residential portions of the neighborhood has dropped by 50%.
Of course, this doesn't mean the issue has been solved, because the lowlives must have moved elsewhere. But it has resulted in a method of "controlled" gentrification which has allowed for local communities to remain mostly intact while becoming much safer places to live.
In the end, I think there is no solution to the "ghetto" problem except dilution though. Spread around the worst troublemakers into small pockets so that there are not enough to make any one area go to hell.
That's class warfare and I oppose it.
Also i am opposed to 'gentrification-lite' when non-lowlifes are displaced.
I guess I should have said "potential troublemakers." Basically spread around the most at risk kids so that they're less apt to learn the ways of the street from experienced hoods.
Dovetail this with a vibe that's already seeping in to some of those areas, the realization by a segment of residents that they are living in a "Blackistan" and that their only hope as individuals is to escape. It would not be difficult to set those programs up to remove families that show evidence of trying to "keep it together."
I see a polarization occurring in the so-called "black community" that seems to be the old "crab bucket mentality" revving into high speed and virulence. A "Blackistan" is a community where the crabs rule. Don't know what you can do about the crabs that won't do anything more than pull back the ones trying to climb out...that may just be a doomed genetic line. But those who are trying to climb out can be detected and given a hand.
Hmmm.....why does this make me think of putting a teaspoon of excrement into everyone's quart of ice cream?
It might be better to concentrate the social services in one place, making it easier to police the area, rehabilitate the hopeful, and incarcerate the hopeless.
It's well known that if you take one troubled kid out of the ghetto, and put him into a middle-class school, chances are his outcomes will be considerably improved. He may not become an A student, but he will do better in school, and have less disciplinary issues.
Conversely, if you move say 30% of the population of a troubled school to a suburban one, it effectively does nothing - the kids do just as badly (in all senses of the term) as they would have in a segregated school back in their home neighborhood. The difference is thought to be due to peer groups - the lone kid from the hood has to hang out with middle-class kids, and so picks up those social norms, while the school with the large hood population means that troubled kids can only hang out with other troubled kids - indeed, there's probably some level of student-enforced segregation, so any kid who tries to "break free" will probably be taunted by his hood peers.
The question is, what is the best threshold? Somewhere there's an ideal number where a relatively large number of at risk kids can be in an integrated school without it self-segregating. Is it 5%? 15%? We probably need to do more studies to find out.
It's well known that if you take one troubled kid out of the ghetto, and put him into a middle-class school, chances are his outcomes will be considerably improved. He may not become an A student, but he will do better in school, and have less disciplinary issues.
Conversely, if you move say 30% of the population of a troubled school to a suburban one, it effectively does nothing - the kids do just as badly (in all senses of the term) as they would have in a segregated school back in their home neighborhood. The difference is thought to be due to peer groups - the lone kid from the hood has to hang out with middle-class kids, and so picks up those social norms, while the school with the large hood population means that troubled kids can only hang out with other troubled kids - indeed, there's probably some level of student-enforced segregation, so any kid who tries to "break free" will probably be taunted by his hood peers.
The question is, what is the best threshold? Somewhere there's an ideal number where a relatively large number of at risk kids can be in an integrated school without it self-segregating. Is it 5%? 15%? We probably need to do more studies to find out.
Fifteen percent is too large--that particular kind of peer-group pressure is too strong.
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