Best Urban Areas are also Deadliest

[Urbanrailfan]

I came across an old article about why the best cities are also the deadliest. In the heyday of civil rights and suburban sprawl, inner cities were left to decay and succumb to crime. For some third generation suburbanites, they possibly had racist grandparents who decided to move away from Black people into these new sprawl cities. Other suburbanites should consider moving back to the city and helping out in renewal projects rather than leave them rotting. Even worse, Blacks who are unlucky enough to live in safe cities are more likely to end up not getting a loan to start their own business if they wanted to. Don't take my word for it; read this.

Report from: Black America Web

Best Cities for Blacks also Among the Most Deadly

Date: Tuesday, June 22, 2004

By: SHERREL WHEELER STEWART, BlackAmericaWeb.com

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[yochillout]

washington DC is very dangerous id have to say. I live there.

[monsoon]

[josita]

The crime in inner cities have increased once business and investment decided to leave the cities and encourage sprawl and business development outside of the city cores in the 60s and 70s. The blight and lack of disinvestment was so powerful, many of these cities are still today trying to recover from it. But the question is Why so much Crime?

In most inner cities, when the mercury rises, the number of violent crimes substantially increases - why? Is it because of these densely populated inner city neighborhoods that lack adequate cooling centers or housing to "cool" people's tempers when the temperature rises?

But violence isn't a seasonal occurance -- I would say that the fact that jobs for decades have left the cities and now that the manufacturing/industrial sector, once thriving and vibrant, are losing jobs fast and in great quantities. No money at home -- leads to drug dealing and crime in order to survive. In my opinion it is all about economics.

We are currently on the cusp of the present inner city redevelopment going on in many cities -- who knows? Maybe we'll see what happened to inner cities in the late 1900s begin to happen in the suburbs -- actually we already do!

[monsoon]

[sleepy]

Ironically, the end of segregation in the 60's also opened up new areas for middle class blacks to move to. Like their white counterparts, they also left areas of the inner city, leaving behind the poor.

Prior to that, most blacks, the poor and middle class together, were confined to the same areas of town, and you had doctors and lawyers living next to single moms. Once the middle class left, the neighborhoods lost role models, and stability.