People in the 'burbs don't talk about it.

 

The origins of the "no snitchin" phenomenon.

 

Again, it's how they deal and how the community responds.

 

When I was in Junior High, there was a drug dealing family on tolland I believe.  But nobody ever said anything.  People in the 'burbs don't talk about it. 

 

I could never figure out why my aunt wouldn't allow the kids, we went to school with, not to come to their house.  It wasn't till we were older that we connected the dots.

 

They were the nicest people on the block always volunteering etc., but the late night "creeps" and "suspicious" visitors always worried people.  My aunt couldn't figure out how the wife could afford to stay home and driver a convertible.

 

I can clearly remember the other mothers giving her the evil eye.  But nobody would talk about it.

 

I agree.  Maybe people are quieter about it in the suburbs, but that is b/c they have too.  If they make any noise, there will be upheavel. 

 

When I was in high school, we had neighbors who we suspected were part of the Russian Mafia.  We didn't know anything for sure, just suspicions.  And believe me, my mother gave them the same evil eye MTS describes.  Eventually their house was raided and our suspicions confirmed.

 

The difference is the "threat" comes from the people obeying the law rather than breaking the law.  In poor, urban settings the eveil eye comes from the drug dealer.  In suburban settings, the evil eye comes from the law abiding citizen.  Both are saying "make too much noise and I'll get you". 

 

What happens in the inner city when a drug deal goes bad?  They hold a candle light vigil.

 

What happens in the suburbs when a drug deal goes bad?  People get arrested, curfews for minors are implemented, and police start harrassing people for hanging around food courts for longer than 5 minutes after they are done eating.

Suburban drug dealers are better at hiding.

 

True, and the incentive to hide and still keep up a "good" appearance (donating money to the community, even if it came from drugs, etc.) helps maintain a higher standard of living in their neighborhoods, regardless of how questionable their personal choices may be.  Of course it would be better if they weren't involved in drugs, but it doesn't destroy the nieghborhood like those who don't care who sees them, who they offend, or who they hurt.

I'm sorry, but blacks faced much more discrimination and lack of opportunities for jobs and housing in the 40s, for example. However, if you look at Main Street in black neighborhoods, like Mt. Vernon in King Lincoln, the streets are lined with busy, vibrant, (though not as rich as their white counterparts) activity. Black owned businesses lined the streets and crime was not tolerated the way it is today. Just imagine if it were treated at the same level as homosexuality is in these neighborhoods. Today, many more barriers are down, but a good deal of young black men would rather be thugs and adopt the corresponding garb and language and shoot each other over mindless materialism. These guys don't have the brains to even know why they want big shiny stuff, they just want it and they want it fast even if that means killing someone.

 

The problem with education is that the aim is not to enrich the next generation intellectually, as is evident at college campuses where the mentality is that you're going to school so that you can make lots of money and buy lots of stuff. Actually quite similar to the thug mentality, but without resorting to barbarism as a means. Kids, especially in lower-income neighborhoods, need a decent education that will in turn give them a decent philosophy to live by. I was fortunate enough to seek that out on my own in high-school, where I did not get that. Few will do that, especially in low-income black neighborhoods where education is looked down upon and where you should instead be planting your seed for big money at the local church, which have been also been playing a role in dragging down their communities with vapid, meaningless preaching, theend result of which can be seen in black neighborhoods nationwide.

 

So to summarize, more opportunities and less discrimination against black people today, yet black neighborhoods are much more dysfunctional now, the aim of education should be intellectualism, not materialism, and black churches are doing more harm than good for their communities.

 

 

 

 

I'm sorry, but blacks faced much more discrimination and lack of opportunities for jobs and housing in the 40s, for example. However, if you look at Main Street in black neighborhoods, like Mt. Vernon in King Lincoln, the streets are lined with busy, vibrant, (though not as rich as their white counterparts) activity. Black owned businesses lined the streets and crime was not tolerated the way it is today. Just imagine if it were treated at the same level as homosexuality is in these neighborhoods. Today, many more barriers are down, but a good deal of young black men would rather be thugs and adopt the corresponding garb and language and shoot each other over mindless materialism. These guys don't have the brains to even know why they want big shiny stuff, they just want it and they want it fast even if that means killing someone.

 

The problem with education is that the aim is not to enrich the next generation intellectually, as is evident at college campuses where the mentality is that you're going to school so that you can make lots of money and buy lots of stuff. Actually quite similar to the thug mentality, but without resorting to barbarism as a means. Kids, especially in lower-income neighborhoods, need a decent education that will in turn give them a decent philosophy to live by. I was fortunate enough to seek that out on my own in high-school, where I did not get that. Few will do that, especially in low-income black neighborhoods where education is looked down upon and where you should instead be planting your seed for big money at the local church, which have been also been playing a role in dragging down their communities with vapid, meaningless preaching, theend result of which can be seen in black neighborhoods nationwide.

 

So to summarize, more opportunities and less discrimination against black people today, yet black neighborhoods are much more dysfunctional now, the aim of education should be intellectualism, not materialism, and black churches are doing more harm than good for their communities.

 

 

 

 

 

I don't agree with what you wrote, but I know if I respond, we're going to "go there" and I'd rather not.

  Few will do that, especially in low-income black neighborhoods where education is looked down upon and where you should instead be planting your seed for big money at the local church, which have been also been playing a role in dragging down their communities with vapid, meaningless preaching, theend result of which can be seen in black neighborhoods nationwide.

 

So to summarize, more opportunities and less discrimination against black people today, yet black neighborhoods are much more dysfunctional now, the aim of education should be intellectualism, not materialism, and black churches are doing more harm than good for their communities.

 

while I agree with some of your points, these^ are particularly offensive generalizations. I'm quite sure that black parents, even in the poorest of neighborhoods, want the same kind of educational opportunities that kids everywhere get. Unfortunately the schools are functioning below par on average, due to many, many factors. Furthermore, the church is one of the mainstays of black culture and has hardly been instrumental in "dragging down communities." In fact, quite the opposite. You seem to be projecting your own personal prejudices in your analysis to the degree that you ignore facts. While everybody must ultimately take personal responsibility for their own actions, I'm sure "thug" mentality didn't just happen. It's a terrible symptom of systemic problems going back for generations.

OK, I've cleaned up this thread, which I admit I helped to mess up.  Let's keep discussion of race and drug policy relevant to urban sprawl.  And we shan't discuss swingers anymore.

 

Oh please, the Vice Lords were scamming the Great Society.  They used this community development thing as a window-dressing.  Sort of like the Black P Stone Nation recast themselves as Al Rhukn, a quasi-islamist cult :  "Hey we're not a gang anymore, we are a religion".  For the Vice Lords it made them look quasi-legit.

 

Like Chicago radio DJ Daddy-O Daley (no relation to that other Daley) used to say: "They maybe say they are Robin Hoods, but they is just hoods 'robbing"

 

 

 

 

Do you have any proof for this claim? Perhaps some Vice Lords operated like that, but at least in Lawndale, there is evidence to the contrary.

Where do you think the suburban dealers get their merchandise?

 

I think they are just as likely to get them from rural areas and cities under 100,000 as anywhere else these days.

Okay, besides Meth.

Columbia, Afghanistan, Kentucky?  Since you obviously have a point to make, you should make it.

Okay, X, I'll try to type this as slowly as possible for you:

 

Distressed urban neighborhoods serve as the port of entry for the narcotics that are dealt in affluent suburbs. Methamphetamine is the exception to this rule. By keeping the rough stuff confined to these less-desirable areas, a semblance of order is maintained in the suburbs, Madison and Dakota and their friends get their Crack and XTC, and everybody lives happily ever after.

It depends on the drug.  A lot of US pot, whether urban or suburban, comes from Mexico.  The rest of it is locally grown.  The locally grown stuff is a significant factor in the market, especially at the higher end.  The harder and more tropical drugs work like Kingfish just said.  Suburban kids link into the inner city distribution network.

Case in point that kid from Bay who was killed at W.44th or whereever.

 

Kingfish, I disagree.  The rough stuff is not confined to the inner-city by a conscious decision by the drug lords.  There just isn't the same market for it in the suburbs.  If there were, I think crime statistics and arrests for drug use would be a little closer than what they are.

Why do you think the Catholics in Ohio have continued to support their inner-city high schools?  :evil:

Let's just say that the boundary breaking nature of the catch basin for Catholic schools makes them great distributors for drugs from the 'hood to the 'burbs.

There's more use in the inner city, but suburban use is underreported.  Suburban crackheads don't rob people for crack money because they already have all the crack money they need.  And they tend to binge more, while inner city crackheads are gooned up on a steadier basis.

Why do you think the Catholics in Ohio have continued to support their inner-city high schools? :evil:

Let's just say that the boundary breaking nature of the catch basin for Catholic schools makes them great distributors for drugs from the 'hood to the 'burbs.

 

And in other news, the US government, led by Barack and Michelle Obama, is purposely waging a war on black America.  St. Malachi and other religious charities?  Just a front.

 

 

Okay, X, I'll try to type this as slowly as possible for you:

 

Distressed urban neighborhoods serve as the port of entry for the narcotics that are dealt in affluent suburbs. Methamphetamine is the exception to this rule. By keeping the rough stuff confined to these less-desirable areas, a semblance of order is maintained in the suburbs, Madison and Dakota and their friends get their Crack and XTC, and everybody lives happily ever after.

 

You could have just said that in the first place. :wink:

 

I don't disagree with your statement of the supply chain, but I think that what still matters is that the dealers have stepped into a power void in many of these distressed neighborhoods and so exercise the power of violent coercion over the neighborhood.  How it's "confined", I'm not sure.  It seems to me it isn't and that the gangs go (or maybe grow) wherever they think they can take control.

Okay, X, I'll try to type this as slowly as possible for you:

 

Distressed urban neighborhoods serve as the port of entry for the narcotics that are dealt in affluent suburbs. Methamphetamine is the exception to this rule. By keeping the rough stuff confined to these less-desirable areas, a semblance of order is maintained in the suburbs, Madison and Dakota and their friends get their Crack and XTC, and everybody lives happily ever after.

 

I'm not sure where you get that idea.  It's generally the exact opposite.  Mid-level suppliers feeding your typical drug dealer have money - they aren't living in a distressed urban area; they are living in a suburb.  I'm a bit surprised that you don't think anyone, regardless of who they are, where they come from, or how they made their money, immediately moves out of the ghetto into some swanky subdivision as soon as they have any kind of money (see Bone Thugs N Harmony's house in Barrington, Aurora, OH).

 

There is a middle man with connections to the distressed urban area that supplies both the street corner drug dealer in the hood and the out of my garage drug dealer in the suburb.

 

By no means is the urban area the point of entry.

 

Next time there is a large drug bust in Cleveland take note of where the "leader" lives.  It ain't the corner of Kinsman and 74th.

 

Or see this story from this past winter.  http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/12/thomas_g_longo_disgraced_lawye.html

 

He was the point of entry - he wasn't in a distressed urban area.

 

 

Okay, X, I'll try to type this as slowly as possible for you:

 

Distressed urban neighborhoods serve as the port of entry for the narcotics that are dealt in affluent suburbs. Methamphetamine is the exception to this rule. By keeping the rough stuff confined to these less-desirable areas, a semblance of order is maintained in the suburbs, Madison and Dakota and their friends get their Crack and XTC, and everybody lives happily ever after.

 

You could have just said that in the first place. :wink:

 

I don't disagree with your statement of the supply chain, but I think that what still matters is that the dealers have stepped into a power void in many of these distressed neighborhoods and so exercise the power of violent coercion over the neighborhood.  How it's "confined", I'm not sure.  It seems to me it isn't and that the gangs go (or maybe grow) wherever they think they can take control.

 

Sorry about missing points and general prickliness. It's been a tough week.

 

Drugs do end up confined to certain areas, and it's not a stretch to say this is by design. After interdiction, the other tool of the war on drugs is to make the drugs harder to get. An atmosphere of danger is a big deterrent, and dysfunctional inner-city neighborhoods offer this up in, um, never mind. Hard drugs become concentrated in these areas and out of the reach of the average suburbanite and the war on drugs is successful! Middlemen, however, fill the void between the 'hood and the hills, drugs make their way to the suburban drug house, and the rest is capitalism.

 

That suburban neighborhoods don't become gangland battlefields is more a testament of home ownership and the resulting NIMBYism. But as the foreclosure crisis wears on, more and more neighborhoods will approach majority rentals and harder to police, we will absolutely see more suburban gang/drug violence.

Okay, X, I'll try to type this as slowly as possible for you:

 

Distressed urban neighborhoods serve as the port of entry for the narcotics that are dealt in affluent suburbs. Methamphetamine is the exception to this rule. By keeping the rough stuff confined to these less-desirable areas, a semblance of order is maintained in the suburbs, Madison and Dakota and their friends get their Crack and XTC, and everybody lives happily ever after.

 

I'm not sure where you get that idea. It's generally the exact opposite. Mid-level suppliers feeding your typical drug dealer have money - they aren't living in a distressed urban area; they are living in a suburb. I'm a bit surprised that you don't think anyone, regardless of who they are, where they come from, or how they made their money, immediately moves out of the ghetto into some swanky subdivision as soon as they have any kind of money (see Bone Thugs N Harmony's house in Barrington, Aurora, OH).

 

There is a middle man with connections to the distressed urban area that supplies both the street corner drug dealer in the hood and the out of my garage drug dealer in the suburb.

 

By no means is the urban area the point of entry.

 

Next time there is a large drug bust in Cleveland take note of where the "leader" lives. It ain't the corner of Kinsman and 74th.

 

Or see this story from this past winter. http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/12/thomas_g_longo_disgraced_lawye.html

 

He was the point of entry - he wasn't in a distressed urban area.

 

Management seldom lives among the rank and file, though the most successful drug dealers keep a low profile. The ones that don't usually make headlines.

While sprawl up north continues at a rapid pace:

 

Milo-Grogan: Counting on a rebirth

 

By Sherri Williams

 

As a young girl in Milo-Grogan, Gail Brown grew up amid thriving Italian delis and small businesses; she watched parents head off every morning to jobs in nearby factories and rail yards. "We had strong families and homeowners," said Brown, 57, who has lived in the neighborhood northeast of Downtown most of her life.

 

Then the freeway came, taking away hundreds of homes and cutting off Milo-Grogan from surrounding communities. The factories closed, and the homeowners who could afford it moved to the suburbs.

"Renters have moved in. We have more boarded-up houses," Brown said, and more violence among the neighborhood's young people.

 

When David C. Warren II, 20, was killed during an argument on Oct. 25, 2006, it was the third time he had been shot. The first time, he was 5 years old.

 

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/index.html

There's a soft spot in this guy's heart for Milo-Grogan. It's good to see the neighborhood pulling together. Now it would be wonderful to bring some of the light manufacturing back to this area. It's got a great bus line going through it, the location is still prime, and there's plenty of room to develop.

This sounds a bit like the north side of Columbus version of that neighborhood on the South Side that was posted on up in the pix subforum.  Columbsites posts give you the feeling of Columbus as more of the blue collar industrial city than the modern stereotype of the place.

 

 

PD story on Brookings Institute report regarding employment sprawl away from the city

 

Spread of jobs outside city centers hurting Cleveland and other cities, study shows

 

Posted by Olivera Perkins/Plain Dealer Reporter April 06, 2009 00:01AM

Categories: Economy, Real Time News

Plain Dealer file A rider gets on a RTA bus.

 

The Brookings Institution ranked metropolitan areas based on the percentage of jobs located more than 10 miles from downtown.

 

The closer you live to downtown in Northeast Ohio, the farther you may be from a job, concludes a national study to be released Monday.

 

Read the full article at:

http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2009/04/spread_of_jobs_outside_city_ce.html

This sounds a bit like the north side of Columbus version of that neighborhood on the South Side that was posted on up in the pix subforum.  Columbsites posts give you the feeling of Columbus as more of the blue collar industrial city than the modern stereotype of the place.

 

Columbus' showpiece neighborhoods bore the hell out of me (and living in one, I know of what I speak). I appreciate the attention Columbusite pays to our less sexy, harder working 'hoods.

^And, if the jobs relocate to the city center (which I prefer, of course), the suburbs will then be hurt. 

 

Does this study prove that the underemployed are adversely affected?  Of course.  Why else would they be underemployed? 

 

However, I do not see a solution to this.  The underemployed/poor are generally screwed in most things they do.  That is a fact of all societies throughout history.

I think the issue is that the underemployed aren't able to follow these jobs into the suburbs.  There's a mobility gap.  The solution lies in fixing that gap, whether it involves bringing the jobs back in, or making the underemployed more mobile, or both.

I realize that.  I am sure it greatly contribures to their underemployment. 

^And, if the jobs relocate to the city center (which I prefer, of course), the suburbs will then be hurt. 

 

Does this study prove that the underemployed are adversely affected?  Of course.  Why else would they be underemployed? 

 

However, I do not see a solution to this.  The underemployed/poor are generally screwed in most things they do.  That is a fact of all societies throughout history.

 

I disagree, most suburbanites don't have the mobility issue inner city residents have with the reverse commute.

Hmmm....smaller cities have more of there jobs within a 10 mile radius than larger cities.  I wonder why that might be?  I think this is some pretty poorly designed research.

This is a fairly big deal.  One of the solutions is those "donate your car" programs charitys run, where you get a tax write-off and they sell the car to some poorer person so they can drive out to the jobs out in the suburbs.  It pretty deals with the reality that employment is really disperesed nowadays.

 

This was discussed a bit in the Edgeless City concept, which is maybe more about offices.  But other things are dispresed, like factory and warehouse stuff, food & drink places, etc...

 

 

 

I should note that those Brookings numbers are from 2006.

 

 

This is a fairly big deal. One of the solutions is those "donate your car" programs charitys run, where you get a tax write-off and they sell the car to some poorer person so they can drive out to the jobs out in the suburbs.   It pretty deals with the reality that employment is really disperesed nowadays.

 

That is fine, but it does cost money to run and maintain a car.

This is a fairly big deal.  One of the solutions is those "donate your car" programs charitys run, where you get a tax write-off and they sell the car to some poorer person so they can drive out to the jobs out in the suburbs.   It pretty deals with the reality that employment is really disperesed nowadays.

 

That is fine, but it does cost money to run and maintain a car.

 

Another difficulty is that they recently reduced the tax write-off available to the donor, plus there's a growing push to get "dirty" older cars off the road and destroyed.  Add in high metal prices, and you have a dramatic drop in the number and quality of donated cars in Ohio over the past several years.  This is bad for rich and poor.  I would reverse this change and maybe even increase the incentives to donate cars.

^ Very true.  I heard the old rules would allow someone to write off the amount given by Kelly Blue Book. 

^And, if the jobs relocate to the city center (which I prefer, of course), the suburbs will then be hurt.

 

Does this study prove that the underemployed are adversely affected? Of course. Why else would they be underemployed?

 

However, I do not see a solution to this. The underemployed/poor are generally screwed in most things they do. That is a fact of all societies throughout history.

 

I disagree, most suburbanites don't have the mobility issue inner city residents have with the reverse commute.

 

I should have clarified.  I meant that the suburban economies, tax revenues, etc would be hurt.

Hmmm....smaller cities have more of there jobs within a 10 mile radius than larger cities.  I wonder why that might be?  I think this is some pretty poorly designed research.

 

Yeah, I saw that Dayton number and really questioned it as I did my own research on this using the same data source a year or two ago and was getting a very different number (I was using zip codes, not concentric circles).

 

 

^ Very true.  I heard the old rules would allow someone to write off the amount given by Kelly Blue Book. 

 

Right, and the new ones only allow you to write off the sale price, when and if it sells.  Previously you got the write-off as soon as you made the donation.  I have been driving donated cars for most of this decade.

 

Job sprawl:  if reversing it transfers wealth inward, isn't that a good thing overall?

The problem of disperesed employment is that mass transit doesnt work well in serving this as the concept is usally hub and spoke or some variation, and the frequencies/headways are too long.

 

To really do this right would cost too much money.  Doing it right means operating a transit system as a grid with very close "convenyor belt" style headways that operates early and late enough so people can use it for early and late shifts.

 

Another approach would be to use jitneys and gypsy cabs or an on-demand transit system that doesnt rely on scheduled routes.

 

 

 

 

Job sprawl: if reversing it transfers wealth inward, isn't that a good thing overall?

 

I am not sure I follow, at least the word "overall."  There are a finite amount of jobs.  Thus, if you take the jobs from A and put them in B, A is going to suffer.  Am I oversimplifying your conclusion?

I actually think these dispersed nodes of activity make high quality rail transit even more valuable. Take Cincy for instance, there is basically 5 major nodes - West Chester, Blue Ash, Downtown, Uptown, and Boone Cty near the airport. A serious rail line connecting those five nodes together would help the region.

Some of this can be skewed by the direction of development. For instance, Cincinnati has sprawled in a relatively long, narrow corridor, whereas Columbus has grown essentially in all directions.

Remember that most rail transit was built 1880-1920 by syndicates which included electric railroads, electric utilities and real estate companies. They built rail transit lines into farmlands and forests, turning rural areas into high density, walkable neighborhoods within a few years. All of this was sought to make a profit for stockholders, not just be fiscally sustainable for a governmental agency as we would expect of a transit agency today.

 

Nowadays, we think that the high-density, mixed-use neighborhood has to be in place first for a rail transit line to make sense (that presents all sorts of NIMBY and start-up cost issues). Or that a highway has to be congested with traffic to justify building a rail line alongside it (that presents issues of the rail service simply chasing after stressed-out car commuters rather than being a source of transformative land use change). A rail line often works best when you can design (or redesign) neighborhoods around it.

 

There are many areas within older cities like Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Gary, East St. Louis, Buffalo, Youngstown, etc. etc. that have turned rural and left people living in hyperpoverty conditions similar to the acute Appalachian poverty of the 1930s. Here is where rail transit, along with real estate development, job training and urban farming can be united to transform urban prairies and forests into viable neighborhoods to meet 21st century challenges of resource depletion, falling real wages and desintegrating communities.

 

Unfortunately, we tend to look at urban prairies/forests only as a source of shame in remembering what was -- not what could be.

Job sprawl: if reversing it transfers wealth inward, isn't that a good thing overall?

 

I am not sure I follow, at least the word "overall." There are a finite amount of jobs. Thus, if you take the jobs from A and put them in B, A is going to suffer. Am I oversimplifying your conclusion?

 

I think he means "overall" in the sense that more people would be able to earn a living.  The people in the suburbs have more access to get to the city to work more than the people in the city have access to the suburbs, so the jobs should be in the city.

I actually think these dispersed nodes of activity make high quality rail transit even more valuable. Take Cincy for instance, there is basically 5 major nodes - West Chester, Blue Ash, Downtown, Uptown, and Boone Cty near the airport. A serious rail line connecting those five nodes together would help the region.

 

..the dispersal is beyond office clusters like Blue Ash.  In terms of employment strip retail & food/drink development and smaller industrial/warehouse & individual office buildings or small groups of them probably provide more employment in aggregate. That was the edgeless city thesis, that Joel Garreus' Edge City concept of intensely developed suburban nodes missess how diffused economic activity really is in suburbia.  Thought zoning does group it someonewht.

 

That is the challenge of suburban mass transit.

Job sprawl: if reversing it transfers wealth inward, isn't that a good thing overall?

 

I am not sure I follow, at least the word "overall." There are a finite amount of jobs. Thus, if you take the jobs from A and put them in B, A is going to suffer. Am I oversimplifying your conclusion?

 

I think he means "overall" in the sense that more people would be able to earn a living. The people in the suburbs have more access to get to the city to work more than the people in the city have access to the suburbs, so the jobs should be in the city.

 

Pretty much.  There's also a societal benefit in concentrating jobs in cities and near people. You get increased transit efficiency, which saves man-hours and fuel, plus you get each acre of land providing maximum output.  It's just plain better.  People have spent 10,000 years urbanizing for a host of reasons.  We're already seeing the unintended consequences of last century's experiment in taking society the other way-- it's unhealthy, it's alienating, and economically it's one giant pyramid scheme. 

I generally agree, but I'm actually okay with the multi-nodal city as long as they are urbanized nodes rather the sprawl. There are real problems with a single node urban form - very few places in the world have retained the single node form.

Hmmm....smaller cities have more of there jobs within a 10 mile radius than larger cities. I wonder why that might be? I think this is some pretty poorly designed research.

 

Yeah, I saw that Dayton number and really questioned it as I did my own research on this using the same data source a year or two ago and was getting a very different number (I was using zip codes, not concentric circles).

 

 

 

This seems very possible. The smaller the city the less distance (in general) it will be to the outer edges. 10 miles from downtown Dayton can very well put you at the bypass. 10 miles from downtown Cincy or Chicago may not get you even close to the bypass or edges of suburbia.

And thus why the study is a crock of sh-poop.

Speaking of sprawl I just went through a little bit of Berwyn today and the social decay just over a block east of James Rd is disheartening. Run-down corner strip mall and a night-spot I'd never dare enter (Rhythm Lounge). Not to mention some project- looking apartments that were burned to a shell and some teenage girl bending over and asking me if I liked that while biking by. Did not feel safe there at all and I think I refrained from taking more than a couple of pics of the area because,

 

1. There were a good amount of people out.

2. I wasn't expecting a suburban ghetto.

3. The sun was going down.

4. Probably most important is that I didn't study the roads well enough to know my way around the area.

 

Not only that, but there were no sidewalks, only littered mud, and the road (Bexvie) was falling apart at the edges. But hey, there is a well-kept Laotian Buddhist temple there, which stands in contrast to a dumpy Baptist church. It's too bad that residents didn't voice their displeasure with the changes which have become all too apparent and fight for the neighborhood, but silently leaving is the easier option. Rinse and repeat and all of a sudden it looks like Columbus' annexation policy will cost the city dearly.