Thursday, November 17, 2005
Post on Approaching Neighborhood Issues
I saw this short article in this morning's Post. The piece focuses on different approaches residents take towards crime in gentrifying neighborhoods. Soprry, that sentence almost sounds like I'm talking about what's distinctive about crime in gentrifying neighborhoods. What I mean is that when you have transitional/gentrifying neighborhoods you have neighborhoods where a lot of people are moving in who didn't live there before. So suddenly you have people who had different experiences wherever they lived before & they bring those with them to their new home. Sometimes this can play out in slightly tense moments at community meetings, or on local listservs. I think, however, that the most important things is that we all do get involved (by attending community meetings, by helping with neighborhood clean-ups/projects, & by making an effort to get to know our neighbors). As the article points out, we all have common goals. We all want to live in a clean, safe, friendly neighborhood where we can feel at home.
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8 comments:
I thought Cleopatra Jones's comments were a little irresponsible. I see her point, but it pains me everytime an older resident brushes of concerns about crime because "you should have seen how it used to be...".
Fine, it was worse. But you don't want it to keep getting better?
I have to agree with anonymous. I'm afraid that many long-time residents have become deadened to crime because they've endured it for so long. It's just "the way things are". That indifference hinders progress.
Sometimes its worse than that... long-time residents are often unwilling to acknowledge crime occurring in their own family... "my grandson is a nice boy" ... hmmm - then why is he always standing out by the corner of a one-way street with a cell phone?
Well there's that. And also there seems to be a tendency for no one to take responsibility for the neighborhood's current state-- or in some areas that have already "turned the corner", the previous state.
Hey, lots of us are realists. Crime happens. But when it happens, the criminals are always someone's kid, brother, sister, cousin, extended family, etc. A culture of permissiveness is why the "community" didn't stop stuff sooner. Blaming "newcomers" for trying to curb crime is ridiculous-- if you want the neighborhood to change, you have to work toward that. Who cares who's new and old, who used to do the crime, why it happened... just put an end to it, make the neighborhood a safer place and all who live in it or pass through will benefit. But the attempts to paint the newer residents as problematic to DC communities is completely perverse.
....man... these newcomers need to stop being so "goody goody" and damn at least indroduce ur self to ur new neighbors, c'mon now, they wont like u if u look at them like they're animals. gentrification is a wierd thing, becuase the people movin in just wanna make money off of the growin' prices, they dont care about the community, shit isnt good,
if u got sumtin to say about my thoughts, email me
moscoweastcoast@yahoo.com
why would anyone waste the time my fiend....lol...peace!
Play nice, Alex. For a teenager, you have quite a lip.
Google tells you volumes.
haha, how do u know my name?, anyway, woooaaah when did i write that? i was probably pissed off about sumthin, but I still have the same point of view, "genrification is to complicated to figure out."
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