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judecorpI'll probably post more about it at a later time, but I wanted to put up this snippet of Flag Wars that really stuck with me:
Court Person: "When you hung up your original sign in 1979, were you told you were in a historical district?"
Neighborhood Man: "I was told I lived in the ghetto."
~//~
Oh, and Jennifer and I went![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
geocaching yesterday! We found A Sunday Afternoon Cache and Zen's Random Cache.
Ain't she cute? :)
Court Person: "When you hung up your original sign in 1979, were you told you were in a historical district?"
Neighborhood Man: "I was told I lived in the ghetto."
~//~
Oh, and Jennifer and I went
geocaching yesterday! We found A Sunday Afternoon Cache and Zen's Random Cache.Ain't she cute? :)
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Date: 2003-03-23 07:33 am (UTC)My how times change... the ghetto is so QUAINT.
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Date: 2003-03-23 07:40 am (UTC)Society is always saying that our race problem is over, that we're not classist, and I don't know how anyone can believe that. Rich White people didn't want to live in the inner city, so they colonized the suburbs and made all of the poor people cram into the inner city. They even built big tenement homes for them, so more people could fit into less space. Then rich White people decided it was cool and hip and metropolitan to live in the inner cities, so they started buying up all of those houses and fixing them up, gentrifying the area and pushing the residents out. And then they complain about the blight of the housing projects, and the crime.
I remember watching it happen in Boston. I know more about that than in Old Towne, just because I don't go out there much. But I know that when I lived in Dorchester, people were buying up the houses and making them gorgeous, and then the working-class families had to move.
We just keep cramming poor, unhappy, angry (ethnic minority) people into smaller and smaller spaces. If that's not repression, or oppression, I don't know what is.
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Date: 2003-03-23 07:58 am (UTC)I left the movie feeling not overly strongly about either side, which left me a bit disappointed. But I started thinking about differing perspectives -- I honestly think the affluent whites felt they were bettering the area -- and not solely for their own gains. Who really WANTS a crackhouse next door? It just made me think of how we carry our own perspectives of what is desirable and too often don't stop to ask what those afected truly think. Hmmmm, like, oh let's say, the US versus the rest of the world. We just assume everyone wants this great western-like capitalist society, so we get in there and muck about to try to 'help' without ever considering their society, history, values, etc etc.
How do we really know if we're helping?
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Date: 2003-03-23 08:52 am (UTC)I work with lots of low income African-American men. I know that if I asked them, "Would you like a crack house in your neighborhood?" they would say, "No."
The problem isn't the cleaning up of the neighborhood for me, it's the Whiting-up of the neighborhood. Instead of someone (or the city, or whatever) helping the residents to keep their properties up and keep crime low, we've got an influx of affluent White people showing the "others" how it's done.
:(
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Date: 2003-03-23 09:26 am (UTC)Geting a sense of pride back in the neighborhood is a tough thing to acheive when there are whores and dealers on the corner.
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Date: 2003-03-23 05:47 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-03-23 07:29 pm (UTC)The film talked about the homeowners conflicts, right?
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Date: 2003-03-23 09:22 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2003-03-23 10:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-23 05:47 pm (UTC)I wish there was a go in and help, without the fix. To me, fixing means that something is wrong, and that makes me nervous. Because then my mind thinks, "Wrong to whom? Why?" But then again, I think too much. :)
I think that it's a GOOD idea to revitalize neighborhoods, to glorify historic things, and to reduce crime. I just don't think it's a good thing when it's at the expense of other people.
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Date: 2003-03-23 09:39 pm (UTC)It is so encouraging to see someone else who thinks this way!
Not a lot of people are going to say, "Crack being 'wrong' is subjective," but crack isn't the only reason for gentrification. Around here, it's called "modernizing," but there's also "cultural restoration," "rehistorizing," or "community replanning."
All of these things equals a group of people who don't like the neighborhood, so they buy up the houses, rebuild them on credit, jack the price up, and sell them to the wealthier class up the chain; people who came to that neighborhood, seeking the false sense of history only achieved by the intermingled "new" and decaying past around their new home.
Ridding an area of crime isn't a bad thing. But I hate it when people assume poverty always = crime. You couldn't steal SHIT from the poverty-stricken area around my shcool; at any given time, there's dozens of people on porches or milling around, always talking to the people walking by. There's always dirty kids playing in the streets, which is why cars never zoom by.
Grrr. I love how you think.
poverty = crime? NO WAY!
Date: 2003-03-24 07:52 am (UTC)There was no way I could expain to my mother that there was no way in hell anyone in the neighborhood was going to try to rob me. After all, I lived there for a reason - because it's where I could afford to live. I wasn't one of the ones buying the big houses and refurbishing them - I was living in an apartment with 3 other people!
Everyone in the neighborhood knew where I lived. I shopped at neighborhood stores, I got my car repaired down the road, I went to the bar down the street, I walked to the train every day. Aside from that, what would robbing me do? I was making $600/month at the time. :)
I realize that the houses are old and historic and look beautiful when they're all fixed up. But does that mean that a homeowner should have to give up her house she grew up in and move into an apartment because she can't make it as pretty as someone else can?
Beautiful Shambles
Date: 2003-03-24 09:13 am (UTC)As beautiful as it is, there's just something off about a rambling, 1900s "historic and restored" home with a 2003 Jetta in the driveway.
My bicthing isn't so much the visual argument, as it is about there will ALWAYS be SOMEPLACE that SOMEONE considers run down. Instead of running out the tennants, why hasn't someone started a habitat for humanity type organization that teaches and assists people in repairing their home if it isn't up to code, so they can STAY there?
Maybe I need to start that. Who wants a job?!
Re: Beautiful Shambles
Date: 2003-03-25 06:33 am (UTC)I'd join your workplace!
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Date: 2003-03-23 09:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-23 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-23 10:24 am (UTC)*HUGS*
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Date: 2003-03-23 05:26 pm (UTC)Yup, I loved that quote too
Date: 2003-03-23 10:46 am (UTC)Re: Yup, I loved that quote too
Date: 2003-03-23 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-03-23 05:27 pm (UTC)id like to be back caching also, but ive still got a mountain of the damn stuff covering every cache!!
hurry up spring!!!!!!!
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NEENER!
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Date: 2003-03-24 08:00 pm (UTC)PS...Did you ever get your cache in working order? I was going through old journal entries and found the time when J and I tried to find your cache but couldn't.
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Date: 2003-03-25 06:32 am (UTC)(And I think I'm going to check on my cache some time this week, and if it's really and truly gone, I'm going to replace it. Wanna come?)
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