We want justice and dignity for all of God's people.
The Cheery Tree Crossing episode is a public embarrassment for the decent people living downtown. The most damning problem for this city, like New Orleans and Memphis, is that we have hot spots of too many multi-generational welfare people. Until we compassionately and strategically displace more of them with educated, upwardly mobile people, there is going to be a downtown public relations and crime problem.
Private gentrification, not HUD or federal funding, is the answer.
Landlords are accepting that Section 8 check solely because it is a sure thing, without realizing the possible future "ghettoizing" that has occurred when too many Section 8 families cluster. These landlords are invariably killing the golden-egg laying goose and slinging out the slippery infant with the grey water.
The findings are out. Please Google "Section 8" and "crime."
Spare me the passe argument about gentrification causing segregation. This is a moot issue, because in 2009 there is a robust middle-through-upper-class African-American population who will make splendid, welcomed downtown gentrifiers.
The Memphis Flyer explains the variables associated with urban decline, and more importantly the possible remedies: http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/Content?oid=oid%3A47488
Augusta's largest bedroom community has come unto its own with a town teaming with commerce and a pedestrian-friendly housing stock about to explode with foreclosure opportunities for Augusta's underclass. It is time that Columbia County leadership attain block grants and make affordable space for generational welfare recipients. On this coming Martin Luther King national holiday, Columbia County leaders need to do more than honor a great leader. They must embrace change. Justice must be and will be served.
Butch Palmer
community organizer
Harrisburg Organization Networking for Gentrification to Keep Our Neighborhood from becoming a Ghetto
The Augusta Chronicle ©2010. All Rights Reserved.
It's commendable that you're trying to "improve" the neighborhood, but my impression was that it was already a ghetto for at least a decade, it's going to take some doing to pull it back up. I don't know if calling for it's "gentrification" is all that helpful. I don't know how others feel about the word, but it sounds like something an effete elitist liberal would say or someone that knows nothing about life other than the ways of the Old South. I find the word irritating, arrogant, prissy and snooty, but maybe that's just me. Maybe another choice of words would better your cause?
baroness: "gentrification" is a process that is universally acknowledged. While it sounds like a race issue in Augusta because of statements like "we have hot spots of too many multi-generational welfare people," the intent is to "compassionately and strategically displace more of them with educated, upwardly mobile people" so that areas are revitalized.
Talk about a "pipe dream", and yes, I do mean that figuratively and literally. I will be anxious to see "educated and upwardly mobile people" lining up for that dream opportunity.
Sounds like a racist LTE. It's the RIGHT of section 8 people to negatively impact a neighborhood. Seems to me you jus tryin' to keep the section 8 man down.
I guess Butch is somewhat optimistic ... I noticed he spelled it Cheery Tree instead of Cherry Tree!
Until mothers love their children more than they love sitting on their a$$ not working, getting their 6" nails repainted and sharing a man with half the women in the neighborhood, until men love their children more than crack, more than a 40 oz, more than looking cool when they break the law, and until these families value education, hard work and family values...this ain't gonna change
Amen 14PUTT...
So what are you saying Butch ole pal? That you want Columbia County to take in all those Section 8 families that you yourself don't want in your neighborhood? I see, instead of "share the wealth" you want to "share the crime". SCREW YOU BUTCH!
Elominate Section 8 except for the very elderly and truly disabled. Let those with 2 working hands and legs fend for themselves and if they won't let them reap the benefits of their laziness; extinction instead of being a drain on society.
I4PUTT ....I agree with you...but we can work to move these six inch nail growers and crack heads away from decent people.
I totally agree with Baroness that the word "gentrification" is an ignorant choice. It originally meant the prettyfying that developers do to rundown historic districts with character so that the brie & chablis set can substitute sentimentality for history without having to think too much. Until he can get what he really needs, maybe Mr. Palmer can make do with a Xanax and a sip of Sisco.
baroness ...No other word is better than gentrification because we need to displace the trouble makers with decent people in order to have the best neighborhood possible. People who rent in Harrisburg usually move every one and a half years on average. By getting stable upwardly mobile people to move in the space where the unstable people were is taken up. In time there are no riff raff in the neighborhood just decent neighbors.
Gentrification is done through private money. Isn't private enterprise or housing better than government funded ?
Decent people with the means to live will who will displace the trouble makers is exactly what gentrification is doing in Harrisburg. We have had eleven gentrified households in the last four months. We are working to snow ball this trend.
dashiel Downtown Charleston S.C is a prime example of gentrification.
As long as the state is willing to pay inflated prices for section 8. there will be landlords willing to take the money. What most landlords don't realize is the damage some of these families can do to a structure. But greed wins in the end for all concerned.
dashiel .....Substitute sentimentality for history ? How can poor people preserve historic structures? They can't even afford to buy the delapaded structure! Historic preservation efforts are not done by poor people. Well done historic preservation is part of the gentrification process. As far as the word gentrification being an ignorant choice. It was a calculated well thought out choice. Resentful daydreamer, What word would you use if you had the what with or the how to ...to make positive change?
disssman ...Structural damage is less of a problem than the negative social effects that section 8 dwellers have in a neighborhood. Can you imagine being surrounded by people who have the mentality like those who were rioting at Cheery Tree Crossing ? Those very same people may be getting section 8 vouchers and moving into your neighborhood soon. Only by pricing them out(gentrification) can we have decent neighborhoods.
At ease, sarge. "Remodeling" works for me. And I WAS thinking of Charleston which I much preferred before its starbucktification.
SargentMidTown, the concept of social influence on a town or closed group seems to be beyond the grasp of most Augustans. Since our society decided there is almost no difference between right and wrong, we've continued to decline. Augusta's heavy investment in government subsidy programs will continue to hinder the healing of the local social structure.
dashiel ....Remodeling refers to change. The word you are searching for is renovating. Why would change historic character?
patricianthomas.... "Augusta's heavy investment in government subsidy programs will continue to hinder the healing of the local social structure." Exactly! Only gentrification will make Augusta better! Government programs are always a disaster. School bussing and section 8 are two of the worst in American history.
Same old same old.
HYPOCRITES 08 ...Well, tell us somethng new and if you do not know anything new tell us somethng old in a fresh way.
sarge, this is getting tiresome. don't you have some comb-outs you should be doing? I don't search for words. Rainbow Row was REMODELED. you can't make it new again (literal Latin meaning) if it ain't there anymore. Bulldoze is another favorite.
feed the sharks
The problem I have is that you are into generalization. You assumed that anyone receiving section 8 are some how low lives who could care less about their property. Sure you have some but to try and paint a whole group of people with the same brush is not fair. The solution is to go after the violators to include those who rent and allow their property to decay. I know several people on section 8 that take pride in the way they keep their property looking. Why should they be maligned because of those who do not?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5299325.ece
really cant just put these people on the street without some transition 1. Offer English classes 2. Offer GED or equivalent skill trade 3. Offer family planning and basic money management classes. 4. Without a FICO score, you cant get anywhere. These people cant even get credit to get a cell phone.
You all bring up some very valid points! Just stop using the term " ghetto." It is an implied racist term. You may not mean it that way, but that what it ends up sounding like!
bailmeout...Those things are aready being offered. You can't make "these people" do what they don't want to do.
Hypo, go take a look at downtown Aususta, ALL OF IT! The mess is everywhere. You can't shake the stranglehold the thugs have without putting out the thug factoties. They'll just make more thugs, and cry fowl, as though their way of life was desirable and their presence was beneficial for ANY neighborhood. It has gone on so long that the gangs have moved in. Now they will have to be displaced as well. The time for looking the other way and minding you own damn business is over! Either Clean up the mess, or enjoy the crumbling ruins as long as you can, until they're gone. But don't sit in your hide-a-way world and call people racist because they don't like what's going on in their Neighborhoods.