Posted on 05/23/2012 9:00:41 AM PDT by Kartographer
It happened again yesterday morning. There was an accident on the Schuykill Expressway so I had the pleasure of navigating through the 30 Blocks of Squalor, again. After having made at least 25 posts about the 30 Blocks of Squalor over the years, I keep thinking Ive run out of things to say. But it seems to be a never ending treasure trove of insights about our society and the people who live in this country. It was a particularly grey day in Philadelphia with a dreary overcast and intermittent rain. It seemed fitting for this trek through the slowly decaying landscape leading to my workplace in West Philly. Ive talked previously about the stretch of highway leading to the 30 Blocks of Squalor. Its called West Chester Pike (Route 3) and it cuts through Delaware County where I grew up. It cuts through Havertown, Haverford, Drexel Hill, and Upper Darby and eventually spits you out at 69th Street, where Ive previously detailed the flash mob of savages rampaging through the Sears stealing everything in sight (all caught on surveillance cameras to be shown on a future reality TV show). In a shocking turn of events, Sears decided to later close this retail establishment.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
Detroit takes the beating but in reality, few large cities exist without their neighborhoods of decay.
Welcome to the “Decay Plantation” that the Dems keep their indentured voting servants...
I don’t get this whole liberal “ideal” of stuffing people into the inner city stacked up on top of one another like so many cords of firewood.
It is almost like they are unconciously building voluntary concentration camps in the cities.
They whine about “suburban sprawl” where the suburbs are nice and green but the like the grey cold inner cities where people are cut off from the beauty of nature. Yet these same libtards “claim” to be “green” but they are the biggest pushers of the “grey”.
The point of clarity in the article:
“The Chestnut Plaza truly represents what is important to this community. This Squalor Center, as opposed to Power Center, includes a video porn store, cash checking/payday loan outlet, smoke shop, donut shop, Laundromat, and liquor store. No need for a wedding ring store or resume writing service. Evidently this community values gorging themselves on fast food, getting high, getting drunk, jerking off to porno, and then having their sheets washed. They wouldnt want to invest a few hundred dollars of their welfare payments on a washer and dryer, when they can spend it on the Direct TV NBA package. They utilize their 8th grade level education to get payday loans from the check cashing store at 40% interest.”
It is how I see American culture in general, and I spent 45 of the previous 46 years in Seattle.
I have an aunt and uncle who live in this area am familiar with that area. It used to be ethnic white and turned black. There is decay but you can’t stereotype it. There are a group of religious black Catholics who live in certain parts of that area who keep their houses very nice. You drive down those side streets and there is no trash, the yards are nice and the people take pride in the area. Then there are the older white people who live there who can’t keep their houses up anymore but can’t afford to leave. There also are a number of white and black drug addicts and drug dealers who have turned parts of the area into a ghetto. I guess its that way in a lot of places.
I’m a villager. I grew up in a town of about 300 people and got sick of the hustle and bustle of the big city so now I live in a town of about 150.
“On the first day of strikes alone, U.S.-led forces launched from ships stationed off the Libyan coast 112 long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, which cost in the range of $1 million to $1.5 million apiece.”
A couple of Tomahawks would pay for a lot of fixing in Philly or elsewhere.
The millions given to the Palestinians would do more good here than in the Middle East but no one cries poverty when filling the Swiss Bank accounts of thugs.
The author rightfully laments the deterioration of a once vital city community but appears unable to articulate the awful truth that society is engaged in a slow suicide and won't tolerate being rescued.
Hiroshima Japan does.
Where the jobs went.
I think he would do better to focus his attentions on "capitol hill" and "big government".
“A couple of Tomahawks would pay for a lot of fixing in Philly or elsewhere.”
A few of those Tomahawks would be handy for the first stage rehabilitation of those blighted areas.
In almost every major American city today, pawn shops and payday loan stores proliferate. Street corners are littered with yard sale signs and workers have exhausted attempts to find work. Detroit seems to be the prototype for the democrat (and union) version of an American city.
May they be voted out of office in November and never again come to power. Here's a taste of what Obama, Clinton, et al have planned for us:
Kill the Law of the Sea Treaty
Snips
.the Law of the Sea Treaty is one more step towards a system of global governance under which U.S. sovereignty would be subordinated to an international system......
. The Law of the Sea Treaty would do irreparable harm to U.S. military and intelligence operations and would force the United States to hand over proprietary technology to countries actively hostile to U.S. interests.
.The treaty would, Hanna says, impose global royalties and fees on American energy companies that will destroy U.S. jobs and make energy from traditional sources like natural gas and oil even more expensive. It might also embolden the military of countries like the People's Republic of China, who could use its language to justify a more aggressive posture in the South China Sea, while at the same time impeding the ability of the United States to interdict weapons of mass destruction being transported from one nation to another on the high seas.
True, but how long would it STAY 'fixed'. Cabrini Green was touted as the answer to the sorry state of housing in Chicago, and its planners claimed it would give people 'hope' and help them change their lives. It didn't do anything of the sort. It was low-income, high-rise housing, and by the time the decision was made to tear it down, turned into a prison for the low-income decent people who were being tormented by the drug-using and drug-dealing thugs who also lived there.
In less than 30 years, the prevailing culture of many of the people who lived there ruined the place, the good intentions of the planners notwithstanding.
“True, but how long would it STAY ‘fixed’.”
Indeed! As my mother said, Poor folks got poor ways.
Even so not having gainful employment or any real hope for the future can bring out the worst in people just as honest work and earning their own way seems to do the opposite.
But as you point out, just giving things to people without asking for any effort or earning on their part is a waste of effort and worse.
The degradation of the cities represents the failure of many institutions, schools, churches, business, most particularly government.
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