7 ms·

I’m extremely lucky, I was raised in projects at an early age in an absolutely horrible area and went through middle school and high school there (mother eventu

I’m extremely lucky, I was raised in projects at an early age in an absolutely horrible area and went through middle school and high school there (mother eventually moved out of the projects but in the same city). Random beatings were common once you neared your teen years, I was physically attacked many times just because I was white I guess (judging by the racial words said towards me). But yeah, most people do not do well in life there, they are stuck in a cycle of violence, drugs, and other destructive behavior that they never recover from. It makes absolutely no sense how I was able to make it out and end up doing very well in life. I want to help others break free from the cycle of self destruction but it’s very hard unless you are with them daily. Anyways, to this day I’m thankful for John Carmack for giving me that spark of interest in computers.

apexalpha 7y ago
Glad to hear you've done well for yourself and found a way out in IT. Question though: what do you mean with 'raised in projects'? I can't really Google it. Or is this a reference to the song I find?
- keiferski 7y ago
  > Subsidized apartment buildings, often referred to as housing projects, have a complicated and often notorious history in the United States. In everyday American English, "the projects" often refers to a very dangerous urban residential area, or at the very least, a non-desirable one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidized_housing_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidized_housing_in_the_Unit...
  - apexalpha 7y ago
    Ah thank you. Is it synonymous with a Ghetto?
    - keiferski 7y ago
      They are almost equivalent in everyday use, but in actual meaning, they are different. "The projects" strictly refers to the building developments themselves, but is often used informally to refer to a poor neighborhood in general. "The Ghetto" refers to a neighborhood of an urban area and not a particular building or group of buildings. "The projects" are often in the ghetto but not necessarily. Saying "I grew up in the ghetto" and "I grew up in the projects" are more-or-less equivalent. Both only refer to urban areas; there is no such thing as a rural ghetto.
      - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
        Rural poverty is definitely poverty. The term rural ghetto can be used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_ghetto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_ghetto
        keiferski 7y ago
        > Rural poverty is definitely poverty. I didn't say that rural poverty isn't poverty. I'm simply saying that the word "ghetto" almost always refers to an urban context.
        TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
        ”there is no such thing as a rural ghetto.” ”the word "ghetto" almost always refers to an urban context.” These are not the same thing.
    - itronitron 7y ago
      not really, a ghetto is a larger residential area that may or may not include 'projects' housing
    - amalcon 7y ago
      Ghetto technically refers to a neighborhood into which a racial minority tends to be segregated. It comes from Jewish ghettos enforced legally in Europe in the 16th century, but it is also used for neighborhoods where minorities live for other reasons (such as social or economic pressure). Project refers either to public housing, or more generally any group of buildings where economically disadvantaged people tend to be segregated. Because these very frequently overlap in the US, people often use them interchangeably.
  - wil421 7y ago
    It doesn’t have to be urban or dangerous. Most of the time it is but not always. My father grew up poor in a rural area and was in the projects in his county.
    - keiferski 7y ago
      My experience is that public housing in rural areas aren't referred to as "projects."
      - wil421 7y ago
        I’ve only heard the word projects in movies. Most people call it section 8 in my area. I’m in the South.
        rory 7y ago
        My understanding is that these are logistically different things. Public housing projects are state owned, whereas Section 8 refers to privately owned housing where rent is paid at least partly by government vouchers.
        bena 7y ago
        It's one of those technically different, but functionally the same things. "Projects" and "Section 8" are two separate government programs, but they both wind up with similar demographics because it only attempts to solve one issue. And in the case of Section 8, assumes best faith action of a third party. Which is hardly the case. Often, an apartment complex gets built as "Section 8" housing. And since the government is footing the bill, not the tenant, it's built to the least possible standard and service is usually poor. Because the incentive for the landlord is to spend as little as possible on it.
        nostrebored 7y ago
        Living in Atlanta, that usually depended on who you were talking to. I've heard both, but "section 8" usually came from middle class+ white people
- WindyCityBrew 7y ago
  It refers to public housing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing
- astura 7y ago
  "The projects" means public housing in the US.
  - fennecfoxen 7y ago
    And for reference, public housing in the US doesn't have a very good reputation. It's not just the poverty of the residents, it's the management, too. A survey of headlines about the NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) will find problems with lead paint that the agency tried to cover up, issues with toxic mold, falsified maintenance records, energy-efficiency projects which change out the light bulbs in the apartment for LEDs at a cost of $2000 a bulb, and workers who just sleep on the job — which is in fact a step up from the workers who made headlines about having orgies on the job (no, seriously.)
    - bena 7y ago
      It comes down to the tenants not being the customer. The customer is the government. And as long as they're paying, you do the least possible to maintain that. If the government standard says you need to do maintenance on HVAC once every 6 months. You do maintenance once every 6 months, regardless of whether or not it needs it more often.
- StreamBright 7y ago
  You should watch the series The Wire. It gives you great insight into projects.
  - loblollyboy 7y ago
    Or The PJs
  - itronitron 7y ago
    I also recommend this documentary on the Pruitt-Igoe public housing project in St. Louis >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pruitt-Igoe_Myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pruitt-Igoe_Myth and also this youtuber (donoteat01) has some excellent commentary >> https://youtu.be/xqJbE1bvdgo https://youtu.be/xqJbE1bvdgo
michannne 7y ago
Ah man, you are just like me, except I'm the opposite skin color. Violence in ghettos knows no bounds, I can't recall how many times as a kid I've had to look the other way or keep my mouth shut so as to not get killed. At a certain point you realize the only way to succeed in life is to leave. I also was inspired by developers like John Carmack and Chris Sawyer, and fortunately my dad had a Compaq Presario in those days, so I took a love for programming early. I can remember having to haul a bookbag full of programming books from the local library, through the ghetto to our apartment, nervous day that was. I don't people really understand how much different it is living in the ghetto vs living in a middle-class area. It is night and day, and anyone can attest that once you make it out you never want to return if you can help it, and most fail to appreciate the incredible difficulty of "fixing" an area like that or even helping someone who refuses to leave
- danielmg 7y ago
  Just in response to both of you. I feel you! I went through similar things. I do alright now but my brother stayed on the same line and things aren't so good there. If there is one difference I can point at, it was my friends and girlfriends (and now wife) that are the causative factor in my direction. They pushed me to be more than the sum of my past and circumstances. My brother's friends just held him in place. I was lucky.
  - michannne 7y ago
    Same with me! My relationships pushed me to go higher, put myself in a better place, while my brother had friends who kept him down, some months back I heard a family member had to stay in jail over a weekend for doing something his friends told him were okay. It's absolutely, crushingly, depressing seeing how far you've come up, vs how others are staying down and the incredibly thin line of circumstance that seperates you both.
    - ej12n 7y ago
      > It's absolutely, crushingly, depressing seeing how far you've come up, vs how others are staying down and the incredibly thin line of circumstance that seperates you both. I hear you! this hits home hard with me. It is truly sad to see your family "stuck" in the same circumstances but at the same time I also think is very motivating to know that you "broke" the cycle from your family's "unlucky" past circumstances.
efa 7y ago
Awesome you were able to get yourself out of that situation and are having a prosperous life. Though there are real problems of poverty and violence in the US, I've always thought it was great how in a generation a family can raise themselves out of these situations. My father was raised in a coal mining camp. Talk about dirt poor - one pair of shoes with holes, one pair of pants to wear everyday, no running water, 1 or 12 kids, etc, etc. After high school my father traveled to Oregon (from West Virginia) and joined the Coast Guard. He made a career of the Coast Guard eventually retiring in So Cal where he purchased a house (early 70s) for $30K which is now worth $800K. I grew up there in a comfortable suburban neighborhood, went to good schools, and was able to to go to college and have a good life.
- carti 7y ago
  How many are rising out of that sort of situation in the U.S. in 2019? It's in the interest of those who seek to maintain the status quo to have people believe that this is a real possibility, when for most, it isn't.
  - agensaequivocum 7y ago
    Not quite 2019 but here's an opinion by a co-director of the Brookings Institution. https://www.washingtonpost.com/postlive/opinion-three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/2013/03/13/8695a056-8a97-11e2-8d72-dc76641cb8d4_story.html?noredirect=on https://www.washingtonpost.com/postlive/opinion-three-simple...
uncletaco 7y ago
I didn't grow up in the projects but I was projects adjacent, where I caught the school bus with the project kids and hung out in their homes. In fact my best friend whom I still talk to regularly now that we're both in our early 30s grew up in multiple projects throughout his childhood. The thing that really helped the both of us out were magnet schools. By taking us out of our neighborhoods and giving us friends and relationships from more walks of life, I think it helped us see that the world was larger than the blocks we grew up on and we adjusted for living in a world that didn't begin and end with things that were in our immediate surroundings. Recently I've watched 'The Wire' for the first time and the season focused on education really hit hard. Having gone to 'inner city' schools where I wore uniforms and felt pressure to pursue... let's call them 'non-academic' goals, I really related to the outlook of the adults in that school. Particularly when the kid's mom was scolding him for not having the initiative to start selling drugs (this was my friend's mom in spades) and the retired police officer who explained to that kid's dad that he didn't have to live in the same world they grew up in. I got a similar speech from a vice principal who grew up in my neighborhood.
- aantix 7y ago
  I attended a computer science magnet jr/high school in Omaha Public Schools. 68111. McMillan and Omaha North were my first introductions to computer programming. I fell in love. Met so many people of different backgrounds. And I don't know where I'd be today without those initial classes.
GuB-42 7y ago
Interesting how a man known for making violent video games (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, ...) helped people break free from real life violence. And inspired many others, myself included, to go from playing video games to making video games, and programming in general.
shademaan 7y ago
You don't have to work in the field to help. In fact, might be effective to go through established channels. I recommend giving money to proven nonprofits (do your research and read disclosure documents before you do) that help at-risk youths from the projects develop job skills and stay out of jail. I support and train at a gym that employs at-risk youth and reformed criminals and trains them to become personal trainers with the appropriate certs. It's run by a guy who used to work with these kids in the hood and has devoted his life to this cause. Graduates of his training program enjoy significantly lower rates of recidivism. I feel great about being able to help out as a person with a good salary in tech (and the young trainees/formerly imprisoned youths I've met through the program are absolutely phenomenal people).

apexalpha 7y ago

Glad to hear you've done well for yourself and found a way out in IT. Question though: what do you mean with 'raised in projects'? I can't really Google it. Or is this a reference to the song I find?

keiferski 7y ago
> Subsidized apartment buildings, often referred to as housing projects, have a complicated and often notorious history in the United States. In everyday American English, "the projects" often refers to a very dangerous urban residential area, or at the very least, a non-desirable one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidized_housing_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidized_housing_in_the_Unit...
- apexalpha 7y ago
  Ah thank you. Is it synonymous with a Ghetto?
  - keiferski 7y ago
    They are almost equivalent in everyday use, but in actual meaning, they are different. "The projects" strictly refers to the building developments themselves, but is often used informally to refer to a poor neighborhood in general. "The Ghetto" refers to a neighborhood of an urban area and not a particular building or group of buildings. "The projects" are often in the ghetto but not necessarily. Saying "I grew up in the ghetto" and "I grew up in the projects" are more-or-less equivalent. Both only refer to urban areas; there is no such thing as a rural ghetto.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
      Rural poverty is definitely poverty. The term rural ghetto can be used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_ghetto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_ghetto
      - keiferski 7y ago
        > Rural poverty is definitely poverty. I didn't say that rural poverty isn't poverty. I'm simply saying that the word "ghetto" almost always refers to an urban context.
        TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
        ”there is no such thing as a rural ghetto.” ”the word "ghetto" almost always refers to an urban context.” These are not the same thing.
  - itronitron 7y ago
    not really, a ghetto is a larger residential area that may or may not include 'projects' housing
  - amalcon 7y ago
    Ghetto technically refers to a neighborhood into which a racial minority tends to be segregated. It comes from Jewish ghettos enforced legally in Europe in the 16th century, but it is also used for neighborhoods where minorities live for other reasons (such as social or economic pressure). Project refers either to public housing, or more generally any group of buildings where economically disadvantaged people tend to be segregated. Because these very frequently overlap in the US, people often use them interchangeably.
- wil421 7y ago
  It doesn’t have to be urban or dangerous. Most of the time it is but not always. My father grew up poor in a rural area and was in the projects in his county.
  - keiferski 7y ago
    My experience is that public housing in rural areas aren't referred to as "projects."
    - wil421 7y ago
      I’ve only heard the word projects in movies. Most people call it section 8 in my area. I’m in the South.
      - rory 7y ago
        My understanding is that these are logistically different things. Public housing projects are state owned, whereas Section 8 refers to privately owned housing where rent is paid at least partly by government vouchers.
        bena 7y ago
        It's one of those technically different, but functionally the same things. "Projects" and "Section 8" are two separate government programs, but they both wind up with similar demographics because it only attempts to solve one issue. And in the case of Section 8, assumes best faith action of a third party. Which is hardly the case. Often, an apartment complex gets built as "Section 8" housing. And since the government is footing the bill, not the tenant, it's built to the least possible standard and service is usually poor. Because the incentive for the landlord is to spend as little as possible on it.
      - nostrebored 7y ago
        Living in Atlanta, that usually depended on who you were talking to. I've heard both, but "section 8" usually came from middle class+ white people
WindyCityBrew 7y ago
It refers to public housing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_housing
astura 7y ago
"The projects" means public housing in the US.
- fennecfoxen 7y ago
  And for reference, public housing in the US doesn't have a very good reputation. It's not just the poverty of the residents, it's the management, too. A survey of headlines about the NYC Housing Authority (NYCHA) will find problems with lead paint that the agency tried to cover up, issues with toxic mold, falsified maintenance records, energy-efficiency projects which change out the light bulbs in the apartment for LEDs at a cost of $2000 a bulb, and workers who just sleep on the job — which is in fact a step up from the workers who made headlines about having orgies on the job (no, seriously.)
  - bena 7y ago
    It comes down to the tenants not being the customer. The customer is the government. And as long as they're paying, you do the least possible to maintain that. If the government standard says you need to do maintenance on HVAC once every 6 months. You do maintenance once every 6 months, regardless of whether or not it needs it more often.
StreamBright 7y ago
You should watch the series The Wire. It gives you great insight into projects.
- loblollyboy 7y ago
  Or The PJs
- itronitron 7y ago
  I also recommend this documentary on the Pruitt-Igoe public housing project in St. Louis >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pruitt-Igoe_Myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pruitt-Igoe_Myth and also this youtuber (donoteat01) has some excellent commentary >> https://youtu.be/xqJbE1bvdgo https://youtu.be/xqJbE1bvdgo

michannne 7y ago

Ah man, you are just like me, except I'm the opposite skin color. Violence in ghettos knows no bounds, I can't recall how many times as a kid I've had to look the other way or keep my mouth shut so as to not get killed. At a certain point you realize the only way to succeed in life is to leave. I also was inspired by developers like John Carmack and Chris Sawyer, and fortunately my dad had a Compaq Presario in those days, so I took a love for programming early. I can remember having to haul a bookbag full of programming books from the local library, through the ghetto to our apartment, nervous day that was. I don't people really understand how much different it is living in the ghetto vs living in a middle-class area. It is night and day, and anyone can attest that once you make it out you never want to return if you can help it, and most fail to appreciate the incredible difficulty of "fixing" an area like that or even helping someone who refuses to leave

danielmg 7y ago
Just in response to both of you. I feel you! I went through similar things. I do alright now but my brother stayed on the same line and things aren't so good there. If there is one difference I can point at, it was my friends and girlfriends (and now wife) that are the causative factor in my direction. They pushed me to be more than the sum of my past and circumstances. My brother's friends just held him in place. I was lucky.
- michannne 7y ago
  Same with me! My relationships pushed me to go higher, put myself in a better place, while my brother had friends who kept him down, some months back I heard a family member had to stay in jail over a weekend for doing something his friends told him were okay. It's absolutely, crushingly, depressing seeing how far you've come up, vs how others are staying down and the incredibly thin line of circumstance that seperates you both.
  - ej12n 7y ago
    > It's absolutely, crushingly, depressing seeing how far you've come up, vs how others are staying down and the incredibly thin line of circumstance that seperates you both. I hear you! this hits home hard with me. It is truly sad to see your family "stuck" in the same circumstances but at the same time I also think is very motivating to know that you "broke" the cycle from your family's "unlucky" past circumstances.

efa 7y ago

Awesome you were able to get yourself out of that situation and are having a prosperous life. Though there are real problems of poverty and violence in the US, I've always thought it was great how in a generation a family can raise themselves out of these situations. My father was raised in a coal mining camp. Talk about dirt poor - one pair of shoes with holes, one pair of pants to wear everyday, no running water, 1 or 12 kids, etc, etc. After high school my father traveled to Oregon (from West Virginia) and joined the Coast Guard. He made a career of the Coast Guard eventually retiring in So Cal where he purchased a house (early 70s) for $30K which is now worth $800K. I grew up there in a comfortable suburban neighborhood, went to good schools, and was able to to go to college and have a good life.

carti 7y ago
How many are rising out of that sort of situation in the U.S. in 2019? It's in the interest of those who seek to maintain the status quo to have people believe that this is a real possibility, when for most, it isn't.
- agensaequivocum 7y ago
  Not quite 2019 but here's an opinion by a co-director of the Brookings Institution. https://www.washingtonpost.com/postlive/opinion-three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/2013/03/13/8695a056-8a97-11e2-8d72-dc76641cb8d4_story.html?noredirect=on https://www.washingtonpost.com/postlive/opinion-three-simple...

uncletaco 7y ago

I didn't grow up in the projects but I was projects adjacent, where I caught the school bus with the project kids and hung out in their homes. In fact my best friend whom I still talk to regularly now that we're both in our early 30s grew up in multiple projects throughout his childhood. The thing that really helped the both of us out were magnet schools. By taking us out of our neighborhoods and giving us friends and relationships from more walks of life, I think it helped us see that the world was larger than the blocks we grew up on and we adjusted for living in a world that didn't begin and end with things that were in our immediate surroundings. Recently I've watched 'The Wire' for the first time and the season focused on education really hit hard. Having gone to 'inner city' schools where I wore uniforms and felt pressure to pursue... let's call them 'non-academic' goals, I really related to the outlook of the adults in that school. Particularly when the kid's mom was scolding him for not having the initiative to start selling drugs (this was my friend's mom in spades) and the retired police officer who explained to that kid's dad that he didn't have to live in the same world they grew up in. I got a similar speech from a vice principal who grew up in my neighborhood.

aantix 7y ago
I attended a computer science magnet jr/high school in Omaha Public Schools. 68111. McMillan and Omaha North were my first introductions to computer programming. I fell in love. Met so many people of different backgrounds. And I don't know where I'd be today without those initial classes.

GuB-42 7y ago

Interesting how a man known for making violent video games (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, ...) helped people break free from real life violence. And inspired many others, myself included, to go from playing video games to making video games, and programming in general.

shademaan 7y ago

You don't have to work in the field to help. In fact, might be effective to go through established channels. I recommend giving money to proven nonprofits (do your research and read disclosure documents before you do) that help at-risk youths from the projects develop job skills and stay out of jail. I support and train at a gym that employs at-risk youth and reformed criminals and trains them to become personal trainers with the appropriate certs. It's run by a guy who used to work with these kids in the hood and has devoted his life to this cause. Graduates of his training program enjoy significantly lower rates of recidivism. I feel great about being able to help out as a person with a good salary in tech (and the young trainees/formerly imprisoned youths I've met through the program are absolutely phenomenal people).