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Separation, Personal
Alienation, and physical deterioration
Our problems are human ones. They are complex and continually
changing. There are no simple solutions. All solutions require
communication, Reconciliation, and Co-operation among the people in our
community.
Separation between people is our main challenge. We are mainly
separated by skin color, economics, and education. Lack of community
fellowship among people blocks resources and emotional support from people
who can give it to people who need it.
We have the idea that we must separate ourselves from people who we think
are different from us.
Our society perpetuates the idea that if you live in the older part of our
city you are a failure. We have promoted the idea that if you get an
education and a better job that you must move to a newer house and a more
suburban neighborhood.
There are too few opportunities for people in older neighborhoods to work and
socialize together to help combat the "move up move out" idea.
Our older neighborhoods have churches and schools (the institutions that
bring people together) that have too few participants for their programs
who live in the surrounding neighborhood. These institutions that once held
neighbors and neighborhoods together are not serving that purpose like they
did in the past.
Where different age groups once mingled and worked together at the church
and school in their neighborhood, now adults often are suspicious and
even afraid of their neighbors and teenagers in their neighborhood.
If we promote the idea that success is moving to a suburban neighborhood...
then you are a failure unless you live in the most expensive house in the
most exclusive neighborhood. The result is what we often
get...abandoned neighborhoods where no one wants to maintain or own
property, or develop relationships with their neighbors.
Solution:
Communication,
Reconciliation, Co-operation, and maintenance and reconstruction.
We need to promote the concept that success is not where you live but how
you live and your relationship with your family and your neighbors.
We need to change government housing programs that penalize families with
parents who are married and that reward people who do not establish
committed parental bonds for their children.
We need to work with churches to encourage their members to live in
the neighborhood around the church and become involved with their
neighbors.
We need to encourage public and private schools to become more involved in
the neighborhoods surrounding their schools. Schools should make it
easier for children in the surrounding neighborhood to attend their
neighborhood school.
We need to encourage regular home maintenance and updating of homes in our
older neighborhoods. We should find a way to reduce the cost for the
replacement of lead pipes supplying homes in older neighborhoods. We
should find a way to reduce the cost of the replacement of outdated
plumbing and electrical systems. We should find a way to reduce the
cost of the safe removal of lead paint and asbestos.
We need to encourage the establishment or renewal of citizen councils in
every neighborhood to meaningfully participate with the City government in
regulating and implementing the enforcement and encouraging the following
of laws that affect the well being of the neighborhood (zoning, housing,
parks, police, etc.)
We need to encourage the well being of neighborhood business
districts. We need to find more ways to encourage and even subsidize
remodeling of outdated structures and functional hardware. These buildings
are privately owned but also are a part of the community and will affect
the city long after the present owner is gone. We need to help
neighborhood business districts develop better parking and help them
advertise in the surrounding neighborhood to reduce the need for parking.
We need to increase the effort to educate our children about the hazards of
using mind altering drugs, alcohol and tobacco. We need to remove the
profit of selling illegal drugs by considering providing those drugs, in
a clinical/medical setting with treatment, for those people who have
become addicted.
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