Urban Decay

[*Don*]

From Los Angeles to New York and beyond the world, the cities are rapidly decaying.
I'm not talking about the posh "Beverly Hills" areas, but rather the backdrops of the city like Crenshaw, Harlem, etc..
These places have begun to see a rise in immigrants (i.e. Latinos) and housing projects that have, consequentially, increased the crime rate.
The government tries to pump money into these neighborhoods in an effor to create jobs but, so far, this has failed.

Alot of it has been blamed on the influx of crack cocaine that infiltrated America in the 80's during Reagan's election as well as the recession that the American and global markets are facing.

Is there any way to reverse this process?

[Jvstice]

None of these are foolproof, and none a guarantee, but are a start, and I think necessary to improve things permanently for the people living in those areas.

1) Education. Better teachers and parents more involved in their children's education. What teachers are enticed to work there, should be paid what they're worth, and they should be entrusted with more.

National standards for teachers are only a good thing if you have people teaching your children who have no business teaching children, because the most qualified teachers are forced to teach to the tests rather than following their own judgement when you have one size fits all programs like are being promoted currently. So it's actually kind of scarey that the national standards movement has been as effective as it has, though still far from effective if you look at it in terms of the lives of the students once they graduate. The thing to remember is that when spending money on preparing kids for the future, you get what you pay for.

Economists have measured a direct corelational relationship between amount spent on education in one generation per capita in an area and the standard of living there in the next.

2) Something to occupy kids other than drugs. It's all well and good to tell kids not to use them, but unless they have something to do with idle hands the message just doesn't get through. Yeah. A lot of it's parenting. And a lot of people are saying that it's not the government's responsibility, and to a great extent that's true, but that's still not the children's fault while they are minors. Organizations like Big Brother / Big Sister and churches are a great start, and make a strong positive impact in a lot of lives by giving children adults they admire and respect to bond with, but obviously more could be done or the situations in those cities wouldn't be overall worsening.

3) As for spending money in inner cities, and making bank loans easier to qualify for to start businesses there, that is also a step in the right direction. I think something more needs to be done to teach people that live in these areas how to start up and run their own businesses. I have to wonder how much not knowing how to deal with the red tape or knowing how to organize something like that intimidates people from trying.

[TheRonto]

I find it endlessly ironic and sad that DC's schools are falling apart, along with parts of the city, the crime rate, drug problems etc, right down the road from the White House. How can they turn a blind eye to what's on their geographical doorstep?

[MdKnightR]

Originally Posted by Jvstice

1) Education. Better teachers and parents more involved in their children's education. What teachers are enticed to work there, should be paid what they're worth, and they should be entrusted with more.

National standards for teachers are only a good thing if you have people teaching your children who have no business teaching children, because the most qualified teachers are forced to teach to the tests rather than following their own judgement when you have one size fits all programs like are being promoted currently. So it's actually kind of scarey that the national standards movement has been as effective as it has, though still far from effective if you look at it in terms of the lives of the students once they graduate. The thing to remember is that when spending money on preparing kids for the future, you get what you pay for.

Thanks for voicing this opinion! Too many people want to blame teachers for the ills of public education.

[Totenkopf]

Actually, I think that the teacher's are often ill served by the bureaucracy known as the NEA as well as the union itself (both of which seem more interested in politics than actual education). Urban decay isn't helped by the regressive tax policies many cities engage in, which has a tendency to drive away potential jobs.