Something that disturbed me greatly tonight

[keg in kc]

Well said, HC.

[Luzap]

keg,

It's never good enough. That's why I advocate making heroes (and examples) of those that do achieve it.

It educates others on how it can be done.

Luz
prosperity is a life long choice, not a spur of the moment whim...

[Logical]

Kyle,

I plan to take a different approach to answering your question.

Did you and your fiance, stop and look at homes in the area. Did you for even a nanosecond consider buying. You ask why there are nothing but rundown homes and businesses. Well look to yourself and people you know and you will find the answer. Throwing money at problem does not a solution engender. People with the guts, courage, and stamina to move in clean-up and set the example that this blight can be overcome are what is actually required, along with the critical element of the restoration of some semblemence of family and community loyalty. Am I then a part of the problem, sure I am. Do I believe that there is much hope the problem will go away in my time or even my childrens time heck no. Is the problem segregation, no that may have contributed to the problem 30 years ago but the problem today is that even the fiscally advantaged minorities are unwilling to return to these communities to help clean them up. Prospect was like this back in the 50s (my father was a Policemen and from Independence Ave to at least 39th and Prospect has been this way since as long as he can remember in the sixties the corridor widened both to the west and the east and extended pretty much to the area surrounding Swope Park to the south. The families that improve economically flee the area to the Suburbs and the area grows. Little other than true reinvestment coupled with commitment to occupy those areas will reverse the trend.

It should be noted that people who try to make this commitment are met with anger and hostility and are often driven back out either through violence or in the case of business economic starvation. This is a very complex problem with no easy answers. I really do not believe it is a case of wanting to overlook the problem as a dirty little secret, but of people feeling that a hopeless problem exists and that concentration on problems that can be fixed should instead be the priority.

[keg in kc]

True.

As long as you realize that making connections and moving up the ladder can have an ugly side to it also (study the history of the Bush family during the first two world wars and you'll see what I mean) but I think there's nothing wrong with idolizing honest success. Better heros there than most of the current pop star idols, actors, athletes (bad place to say that I know...) and so forth. At least in my humble opinion.

[Oxford]

keg -- I understand your concern and to be honest, situations as you describe bother me too. I really have a problem when "material items" define how high someone rises. My Uncle and Aunt raised 8 kids in a little house over on 77th and Main, all the kids worked (paper route etc) and the money went into a cookie jar. Movies, eating out came from the "jar". My Uncle was a work-a-day guy, not a white-collar guy. Anyway, from that family we have a priest, a attorney, a police officer, a teacher/social worker, and chemist. Their measure of achievement is their children and grandchildren. Did they have money (NO), fancy house (NO), fancy car (NO), paid for their kids college (Are you kidding?). What bothers me in the "Prospect" is that MLK's message of "I have a dream" has been erased by "Blame someone else for your problem" or "take what you want from others, you deserve it", or "you haven't got a chance they are all against you so nothing really matters". What ever happen to "poor and proud of it"?

[keg in kc]

Actually, Jim, we did look at about 5 houses close to Prospect, although I can't remember exactly which streets they were on. You have a legitimate point there, although the condition of the houses and the facts that neither of us really want to live in a city area were also a large part of the problem. What concerns me when I think about it is whether or not the people there were acting/appeared hostile, or if that's the image I had of them in my mind. Honestly, I don't think I would get out of my car to find out. This is a complex problem, and I think you're right, at least to some degree, that it's not addressed because of the difficulty of it.

Lots of good points from lots of different people with varied opinions on this. It's nice to see some political/social discussion that remains respectful and friendly. ;)

By the way, the houses we're looking at with our realtor on Saturday are all in Independence, and all have some space between houses, i.e. yards and the neighbors are more than 2 feet away. I felt...clausterphobic, for lack of a better word, looking at the houses in the actualy city of KC.

[oleman47]

As far as I can tell, no one said what could be done other than the people in need helping themselves. Is this a lack of imagination or desire not to do something? In pioneer days the concept of building homes for one another, sharing whatever, was commonplace and seldom questioned as a course of action towards another.

[BIG_DADDY]

I think that we are kind of tapping around the real issue here. The problem begins with our education. If there was ever an institution in our great country that deserved an F- it would be our schools. We quit teaching people a long time ago how to be entreprenuers and started teaching them how to be good employees. Many of our parents have bought into the same thing. How many of us have heard that all we need to do is just go to school and get good grades and then go get a good job. Our educational institutions continue to teach vocational literacy and fail to teach us financial literacy. A great majority of educated Americans cannot even tell the difference between a true asset and a liability much less read balance sheet or financial statement. Is it any great wonder why we have failed so.
I Still believe that 99.9% of citizens in this country need not be in poverty for long if they are just willing to learn how the system works while they work hard. Some of these people deserve our sympathy but most do not.

BIG DADDY

Knows that he will probably get railed for saying that.

[BIG_DADDY]

keg,

Just for the record, I have trained and developed literally thousands of employees in my life and I can assure you that there have been many of them that had tons of talent and just wanted to do as little as possible in order to get by. They were the exact same employees that were the first to blame anyone and everyone else for there plight. Is it any wonder that we have slums and poverty. As soon as something goes wrong in their pathetic lives they are also the first ones looking for a free handout.

BIG DADDY

Never noticed that ALL of them just happened to be Demorats. There that ought to stir something up.

[keg in kc]

I don't doubt that BD, and I'd say I probably fit squarely into the underachiever mold myself, although I have never asked for anything from anyone. I don't think, however, that every impoverished person on the face of god's green earth is an underachiever, nor are they all asking for handouts.

I do think, however, you were on the right track when you were talking about the education system. I have some unique views on the development of the US eduation system based on Prussian models in the 19th and 20th centuries that I think is pertinent to the discussion. I can't get into it now (I need to get my a$$ in gear and do some work) but suffice to say that, in my opinion, the development of our (public) schools into what they are today has hampered the intellectual development of children as much as it has advanced it. Children are "taught" but they don't "learn". You're presented material but not necessarily required to digest it. Would be a lengthy discussion, so I doubt I'll get into it, but I will certainly say I think our education system in the United States needs a complete overhaul.

[Yosef_Malkovitch]

Big Daddy,

Just a question. Have you read "Rich Dad, Poor Dad"?

Your point of view about financial literacy and such is very similar to the author's.

[DanT]

I've spent a lot of time on Prospect--in fact, I finished the last essay for my college degree (in 1988) by pulling an all-nighter on a computer in a friend's family printshop on Prospect, just north of 31st. My parents live just east of Paseo, not all that far from where the former U.S. 50 (Swope Pkwy) crossed the former U.S. 71 (Prospect) and my high school sits on that big hill just south of the 18th and Vine district and just a little west of Prospect. I've had fairly extensive experience with that street all through my schoolboy days, from about 1971 through 1984, and intermittent experience with it since then, which is only a fraction of the interval between when a big midtown freeway (the new US 71) was first proposed and when its first section opened. That decimated a lot of areas around Prospect and exemplifies the kind of powerlessness that exists in poor neighborhoods. Crack was just plain devastating: it would be very hard to overstate what that drug did to KC's inner-city and its kids' plans for the future.

Anyway, I don't believe the folks there are much different than anyone else, not in any fundamental way. I think we have Prospect Avenues for the same kind of reasons we have rough neighborhoods in Northern Ireland--poverty, ignorance, segregation, etc.

[Edited by DanT on 02-21-2001 at 10:58 PM]

[Lbedrock1]

Logical ask a question that I would have had to say no to. There is this thing happening here in ATLANTA as we speak where white suburbia has gotten tired of the 2 hour drive to downtown so they are basically kicking the poorer black residents out to build condos' and houses. Im not saying there is nothing wrong with people getting tired of the drive and wanting to move closer, but it is the way they are going about it. In order to get the residence out they are raising the taxes on property higher than what the houses are worth either to get them to move or sell their homes. Now once the nieghborhood has been purchased they rebuild on the whole block and the house or condos are so expensive that only the more previledged people can buy there. Now unlike Prospect or downtown Atlanta, before the people were forced out, there was not a heavy police presence. In order to get the people to buy or even move in they had to make a deal with the mayor to provide the police presence. I would not move into a place where I didn't feel safe and wouldn't expect anyone else to do so either. Now before I would even consider moving into a run down nieghborhood and start to build up, there would have to be that same type of police protection they provide for a more upscale nieghborhood. I would have to feel safe. So I don't blame you one bit for not moving there. find a safe place for you soon to be wife. Don't move into the hood to prove nothing. Now for Yosef, I understand that the rich pay more in taxes, but they are also able to write off alot more. Now here is a question for you. You have two families
married couple w/two kids and a combined income of 75,000 taxed at 28% which means they actually make about 54,000 and may get back 2-5000 for writeoffs if they have a house.
The other family is married double income making 3,000,000 taxed at 39% which means they bring home about 1,170,000 in the fair world but not in this world. because you see they first of all are able to afford the first 16% that comes out that is not taxed which means they are taxed on 2,520,000 which means they bring home 1.5 million. now after the write off for the house, cars, equipment they use for a side business (it doesnt make money its for write off purposes only), what they give to the church ( they are Christains), and to charity they are paying in my best guess somewhere in the bracket of 10-25% in taxes which means they actually make about 2.25 million not including what the first 16% is making and you make fun of me when I tell you the tax codes are made for the rich? Honestly which family would you want to be. 28% of 75,000 or 39% of 3,000,000? Thats what I thought. I would say that the rich needed a tax cut if they didn't have the writeoffs that go along with making that kind of money. Lets push for a tax system that taxes you on things you buy with no writeoffs then no one would need a tax break.

[Baby Lee]

regarding the comments of Logical and Lbedrock1 on moving into a neighborhood and fixing your portion of it up, I think Cee [Martin Lawrence] on 'Do the Right Thing' summed up the sentiment of those you would prospectively be seeking to help when he said "Man, motherfu%k gentrification."

[Oxford]

LBedrock -- you have it all wrong!!!!!!!!!!!! It's not what you get back, ITS WHAT YOU PAY!!!!!! FICA, FWH, FUTA, SUTA, SWH, property tax, sales tax, estate tax, inheritance tax, tax on investments, tax on interest, tax on utility and telephone, tax on cable TV, fuel tax, energy tax, etc. Darnit, quit thinking the government is giving you money back, they took it from you in the first place, used it for a year, and return the overtaxed portion with no interest paid to you.