Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall
I was just in St. Louis. The city wanted to expand the limited light rail it has to connect the city with the suburbs. The amount of anger generated from white people who think that blacks will use it to come into their neighborhoods and steal and create crime is astonishing. Proposition defeated before they could even draw something up.
The white people who are against it don't look at it as something that will improve their city, create a more connected experience, move labor efficiently, be attractive to potential employers, etc. They see it as an infringement on the bubbles they have created to keep people out.
And when I say, "bubbles," I mean that streets which are technically in the city, are private streets owned by the people who own the houses on that street. They shut them down so that only people who live there can be on them. You can't even drive on them to get to the other side. They're everywhere. And the line of demarcation between this:
and this:
is regularly just a street dividing the two.
Spend some time on this site to see just how insane it is there: http://toursbyjoshwhitehead.blogspot...-st-louis.html
TM |
People are more protective of their property values than almost anything else in their world. Even ridiculously rich people.
If you live in a city, however, part of the price for being close to everything you need, and all the other advantages of living in a city, is being part of the melting pot (in terms of both people around you and commercial and public property mixed very closely with residential).
The St. Louis people sound like they want to live in suburbs within the city.
(Why anyone would want to live anywhere in St. Louis is another story entirely...)
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