[PRCo] Re: Fw: North side details

[Edward H. Lybarger]

The European governments interfere with OTHER aspects of the citizens'
lives, notably their pocketbooks, but they have left the bulk of the failed
social engineering to the US of A.  Communism, of course, was the exception,
and it is not fondly remembered throughout most of its coverage area.

-----Original Message-----
From: pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org
[mailto:pittsburgh-railways-bounce at lists.dementia.org]On Behalf Of Ken &
Tracie
Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2005 12:05 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Cc: Scott Greig; Robert Schwerer; paulwey at freecongress.org; Gregory
Forster; FRANK GRILLO; Eugene Kittredge; Michael Loth
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Fw: North side details


Off Topic Warning!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Harold G." <transitmgr2 at earthlink.net>


> Most European cities have not had this urge to redevelop.  Thank God.

The day of the average urban dwelling U.S. citizen being guaranteed
reasonable stability in a given neighborhood for even one generation is long
over.

Do Europeans have the same issues with violent, poverty stricken "victim
class" people being moved into working class and middle class neighborhoods
by well intended but misguided social programs? Programs which give the
former the opportunity to prey on the latter, forcing the latter to flee to
outlying areas in order to recapture the security and quality of life they
are accustomed to?

I have friends who grew up on Pittsburgh's North Side. Some told me the
horror stories about "the projects" built below their neighborhood during
the late 1950s and early 1960s. It started out okay, but by the late 1960s,
the officials responsible for the housing programs began losing control over
this housing project. At first, the crime was confined within the housing
complex, but it spread into the surrounding  old, established areas.

Only the most politically connected and wealthy can establish themselves in
a nice neighborhood and have some control over what the local, state or
federal governments dump upon them!

I am amazed that so many mass transit supporters and environmentalists align
themselves politically with people whose social programs destroy good
quality, high density urban living. The very thing which would be conducive
to rail transit development. And such development would also protect
outlying rural areas from urban sprawl.

Try to displace the criminal element and rebuild these "war zones" and you
are accused of "gentrification." Kick longtime, established homeowners out
to give their land to either deep pocketed commercial developers or public
housing projects and it's called "urban renewal."

K.

P.S.- Please do not read anything racist into this! The last neighborhood we
had to flee was next to a Section Eight apartment complex full of WHITE
single parent households....households full of out of control children who
vandalized and burglarized the longtime homeowners nearby. We were lucky.
They never bothered us (READ TWO LARGE DOGS!) We got out just in time.