urbanSTL

Doug wrote:

innov8ion wrote:

southsidepride wrote:To be fair to loftman the photo in the Post Dispatch showing two African-Americans on Washington Street who were not engaging in any illegal behavior got quite a few racist responses on their website.

Sorry, but that's a logical fallacy. The views of an ignorant minority have nothing to do with the issues noted in the petition letter: https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id ... EHvTjwBOng

Anything else is a mere distraction.

The ignorant minority have a loud voice.

Doug wrote:Yes, I am a huge player in the issue and distracting everyone. It's hard to distract from gunfire and my observations on race present and past were not for that purpose. Obviously no one wants guns going off downtown. I wish that the same attention was given to other areas where this happens to be a lot more common. Will these downtown residents work with other neighborhoods in the same manner?

Doug wrote:

Moorlander wrote:How is it the downtown residents responsibility to work with other neighborhoods? If those neighborhoods banded together like the downtown residents, maybe they would see things change. Just a thought.

St. Louis parochialism at its finest.

"Banding together" isn't as easy in areas suffering decades of high unemployment. Political participation happens to be tied to socioeconomic status. Organizing has an opportunity cost that the poor might not be able to afford when their basic needs are not being met. Moreover, living in areas of high crime and joblessness does bring about a sense of hopelessness and disbelief in community efficacy. The middle class environment with which we grew up in does not exist in these areas. So blaming the problem on those who live there isn't really fair while the position limits change. Of course suspicion will exist on both sides as St. Louis is very entrenched, us vs. them, with little cooperation. We don't discuss gentrification, crime, or controversial topics in public or private with people of markedly different backgrounds. But discussion and joined action needs to happen if we want to address crime City wide.

If your concern isn't about controlling the racial composition of downtown, but only public safety, this is your imperative. With starved areas so nearby, absent a police sate or Paul McKee's style of blockbusting, it's impossible to keep crime out of downtown no matter how many clubs you close. It would be better to invest in North St. Louis' existing social and physical capital along with forming relationships between neighborhood groups which can address crime and other problems. Again though I have concerns how this Lure issue is being handled, the public reaction is impressive and should be applied to other areas. I hope again alarm isn't because the issue happens to be seen as "this area demands our attention as we invested so much thus far/the Huns are invading quickly bring the Legion." If the same energy placed into this was joined with others, bringing the same about of scrutiny to problems in other areas, couldn't we fix more of the City?

Localism and fragmentation will not reduce crime in the aggregate. I would like to reiterate that neighborhood racial composition determines the responsiveness of public service delivery. Joe Frank found that areas like the 28th Ward submit drastically fewer complaints to the CSB, for example, than the 4th Ward though they have numerically similar populations. The former also gets quicker response times from our City. Anecdotally we know this is similar with the police. People are calling and complaining about the state of their neighborhoods. It's not as if they are lazy, do not care, or actually enjoy living next to a collapsing building. Frank concludes, and I agree, "...this study indicates that race drives service delivery...The national political discourse in 2008 and 2009 has highlighted the “post-racial” administration of newly elected President Barack Obama. But in many local communities like Saint Louis, racial discrimination, racial segregation and racial conflict are still very much part of the political discourse. And that racial tension influences how services are delivered on a daily basis."

dweebe wrote:

innov8ion wrote:Not to my knowledge. What posts?

Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk

Another baiting and trolling manifesto from Doug. The first line was something like "You're all racists."

Doug wrote:
It seems the venues on Washington are being a little reactionary. Had some issue at Shiver last night.

TheRemedy wrote:Things are definitely being deleted on the forum. Was there another revert recently?