Gentrification vs. Illegal Immigration

[MickintheHam]

Birmingham, as with many revitalized cities, is experiencing gentrification. The attached article from AL.com written by the President of Alabama College Democrats appears to support racism in the AA community when it comes to issues of gentrification. I ask the question, how is it that black people opposed to white people moving into black neighborhood's is different from Trump and his supporters opposing Muslims entering this country? Other than the legality of it, not much.

Racism comes in all shapes and sizes. Conservatives and tea partiers have not cornered the market on racism. It is thriving in black urban democrat communities. For once I can agree with the good mayor of Birmingham,
"we are one people".


http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/03/why_some_black_residents_fear.html#incart_river_ho me

[Darrell KSR]

This is related, but different, Mick--I hope this doesn't take this off track. Did you see the article in AL.com three days ago, where John Archibald described Birmingham's Saddest Day?

If you didn't, you should read it. Interesting read.

http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/03/birminghams_saddest_day.html

[MickintheHam]

Yes, I read the saddest day. It is a shame how polarized our country is becoming when it comes to race relations.

[CitizenBBN]

There's a whole group of Americans, of every color, who seem to think that black people cannot by definition be "racist". I consider it a statement on the pitiful state of American education and our incredible level of self-absorption.

I don't know if I have energy to tell this story or not, but in brief we had a thing here with a very poor neighborhood where a lady came in to an "environmental impact study" on the people living there. She went on about how this was a generational neighborhood and "culture" and how we needed to be careful to respect and preserve it.

Here's the problem: it is a culture of poverty and illiteracy. yes it's almost 100% minority, but we're talking about generational poverty here, not some subculture on some Pacific island. They really thought that wasn't some evil we should address but rather we should respect it as a kind of culture.

It was bizarre, and it was astoundingly racist, but in a very Leftist way. Then you had some rampant racism from the community aimed at white folks, and both of those groups were accusing white people who simply wanted to invest in the area of being the racists.

Meanwhile, the guy who stabbed people in California months ago was found to have ISIS stuff, wrote a manifesto with constant "Praise Allah" stuff in it, and in every other way acted as a self-radicalized terrorist for the radical Islamist movement, but the FBI refuses to call it terrorism b/c they are so afraid people might actually conclude there is a group of Muslim extremists out there trying to kill us. B/c if we think that we must be racist.

[bigsky]

It isnt black or white as much as class. Poor people who rent in desirable urban areas will lose. It will happen in most cities. Cities re- invent themselves--a Chicago or NYC has seen this happen over 100s of years.

SanFrancisco is unreal because the gentrified neighborhoods wont allow any building, causing huge jumps in the value of even the worst hovel. Milliondollar teardowns.

Institutionalizing slums and making them permanent as a "cultural heritage" cant be the answer--it is incredibly cynical and destructive. The editorial seems to think that low property valuEs and rents arent connected to crumbling swimming pools and bad schools-but they are.

[bigsky]

So why would any city choose crumbling infrastructure and bad schools over gentrification?

I dont know, because Flint and Baltimore and Detroit are poor futures compared to cities who are seeing gentrification.

[bigsky]

What Richmond VA is seeing is gentrification of the city and decay of the 60 year oldest suburbs right now--suburbs with no mass transit or other municipal services.

I wonder if that is happenin down your way too. That is a tough problem because crumbling suburbia rarely has any tax base other than a bit of decaying strip mall commercial to go along with decaying tract houses.

[bigsky]

I read a piece today where there are complaints that white heroin addicts are getting treatment where for decades when heroin was "The Wire" like ghetto problem the policy was a "war" not "treatment".

That has validity. But heroin addicts in rich white suburbs have high taxable value gentrified neighborhoods that provide their governments with resources to treat.

Cities exist because they facilitate commerce and that commerce creates wealth. When cities stop being money machines they die. Verify that with Flint or Detroit or all the small towns in the south and midwest who lost their manufacturing to nafta. or their ag business to fed programs encouraging firlds to lie fallow ebcouraging