8 ms·

Chicago is my home and this was a mixed blessing for the city. When we destroyed projects we created many small pockets of "section 8". This introduced danger

by aosmith 12y ago

Chicago is my home and this was a mixed blessing for the city. When we destroyed projects we created many small pockets of "section 8". This introduced danger into otherwise nice neighborhoods. I live in wicker park and I've had people try to rob me at gun/knife twice as a result of public housing. It's an unfair burden on the residents.

techsupporter 12y ago
Where should they go to not be an unfair burden?
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  Cluster then in a single, easily avoided neighborhood. Its one thing to ask productive people to give up their income to support the unproductive - its another to ask them to be victims of violence.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    That's a reasonable description of a prison.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      A prison is a place you are not allowed to leave. In contrast, I encourage everyone in public housing to find a job and leave.
      - maxerickson 12y ago
        Is it just received wisdom that Cluster then in a single, easily avoided neighborhood [that is apparently violent] is the best way to accomplish everyone in public housing to find a job and leave?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - kasey_junk 12y ago
    The problem with this form of hyper-libertarianism is that a large percentage of the people your are consigning to your "unproductive" ghetto are children who are not productive in or out of these neighborhoods and who had no agency in the process that got them placed there. So you've doubled down on the hardship these children have to overcome. Even if you are ok with this from a moral perspective (which is a pretty high bar to get over in my opinion) it seems like a pretty ineffective way to limit the number of "unproductive" in your society.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      From what I see, a fixed number of people will be subject to the predatory behavior of the underclass. We are collectively unwilling to fix this. I don't see a compelling reason why it matters which children are victimized this way. Now if you want to say that none should be, I agree. Find a way to stop crime. Spreading crime around is not that way. (FYI my thinking on this issue draws far more from neo reactionaries than libertarians.)
      - com2kid 12y ago
        > Spreading crime around is not that way. There is also the idea that by separating out problem elements, that in the long term you decrease overall crime. A child in a ghetto who knows not of the potential for escape will likely stay in that ghetto. A child who is surrounded by choices, options, and multiple role models has a choice to make.
        yummyfajitas 12y ago
        If you have evidence that exposing everyone to criminals reduces crime, I'd love to see it. Not knowing one can leave can be handled with direct communication. For example, billboards: "get a job and you can leave this place. Any adult is here by choice."
        techsupporter 12y ago
        Other billboards we can put up in the ghetto to make sure people are fully informed and that experience tells us work just as well: - Not having sex means no babies. - Don't do drugs. - Stay in your local, neighborhood school to perform as equally well as your similarly-aged peers in schools located in more affluent areas. Well, maybe that last one not so much. Your argument strikes me as a reason people raise in objection to mass transit: the "undesirables" might come to town. I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to your position. I live in an area of my city that, on paper, has a pretty high average household income but due to history also has a decent amount of petty crime. The answer isn't to redline those people off to somewhere else. There is a huge difference between being poor and committing crime, except that the poor tend to go to jail and the wealthy tend to pay a fine with no admittance of wrongdoing. And the latter also tend to screw over more people in one pop. The answer is to make it socially unacceptable, in all areas, to commit crime and to demonstrate that the law and society won't tolerate it.
  - aosmith 12y ago
    Creating ghettos isn't the answer. Letting the free market dictate where people live is a much better solution.
- aosmith 12y ago
  Somewhere they can afford to pay for without assistance. Putting people without means next to those with some (albeit limited, in my case) means creates an asymmetric problem.
tomohawk 12y ago
I remember living in an affluent suburb (in the top 20 income wise in the country) when I first graduated. There were section 8 folks peppered throughout the condos we lived in. We got to know a number of them personally. To get all of the benefits, they were required to follow a low probability of success lifestyle, such as refusing to work and having children out of wedlock. We knew one young woman who had an affair with an older man, got pregnant, then moved out of moms house into a hotel. She then called up the gov't and went right to the top of their list (pregnant single woman with no means of support and no skills, and in temporary housing). The next week, she was living in a nicer condo than I could afford. She had free housing, food, medical, and legal. We visited the old neighborhood a few years after we left and there were open air drug markets. I think a negative income tax would be a much better approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM
- xacaxulu 12y ago
  We get more of what we incentivize. Give financial incentives for unhealthy behaviour? Get more of it.
- aosmith 12y ago
  Income tax is a mess in this country. We should just get rid of it and tax people based upon spending.
wrongc0ntinent 12y ago
Hilarious. You must not have been in wicker park when gang fights were a common occurrence. Bundling up the poor in massive housing complexes was/is a structurally racist, classist move.
- aosmith 12y ago
  I think you're confusing race and financial ability. I never lived there before 2008. Before that I lived in / around Detroit.
rayiner 12y ago
How do you know those incidents were the "result of public housing?" Wicker Park is still a gentrifying neighborhood, and though it's less than it was in the 80s and 90s, still has a significant latino gang presence: http://patch.com/illinois/bucktown-wickerpark/chicago-gang-map-shows-latin-kings-maniac-latin-disci6962aa32cb; http://patch.com/illinois/bucktown-wickerpark/chicago-gang-m... http://loyolamosaic.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/from-trouble-to-trendy http://loyolamosaic.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/from-trouble-to.... In contrast, we had Section 8 buildings in Streeterville, and they didn't cause any trouble. At the end of the day, you can't address urban poverty by creating ghettos. Such areas just become the breeding ground for the next generation of urban poor--kids who have no exposure to successful behaviors and attitudes, but do have a cultivated distrust of authority and social structure. It's not an "unfair" burden on residents. It's a burden that we have to bear in order to create integrated, successful communities.
- aosmith 12y ago
  I lived on Leavitt for a number of years. In that time my home was broken into and I was robbed at gun / knife point multiple times. Every time this happened the police pointed out two buildings that were public housing as the likely source. I tend to believe them as well as the CAPS officers who agreed. I am a Detroit native so I hate the idea of ghettos but I would prefer to live around people of similar means / financial ability. Public housing introduces inorganic problems with equality and perceived equality.
- davideads 12y ago
  I agree that it's hard to prove that conclusion. I lived in Humboldt Park next door, right next to Section 8 buildings, and didn't have any issues related to the Section 8 folks. I think a more likely explanation is that affluent, rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods attract certain kinds of crime. When I worked at the Chicago Tribune, I covered crime extensively and saw some distinct patterns that coincided with gentrification in Wicker Park: an increased concentration of night time crime, specifically theft and muggings, along Milwaukee avenue. Because crime is down on average, crime definitely did not go up in Wicker Park, but theft, assault, and battery did not go down as quickly as the average in the night life zones. That said, it seems very likely some former public housing residents caused trouble in some of their new neighborhoods. Similarly, I had a petty thief from the projects once tell me that on 35th street, he saw me as either a drug buyer or a do-gooder, but either way it wouldn't make a lot of sense to mess with me. But if he saw me in Hyde Park, where I lived at the time, he would have seen me as "prey". I think it's safe to say that to some degree, affluent neighborhoods are targeted by criminals because they are affluent. There are parallels here to mass transit. Minor theft is very high at downtown CTA stations, places with tremendous foot traffic and jostling bodies. It's one of the few crime categories that has seen some increase/very little decrease and it seems to track with the widespread use of smartphones. Your comment also gets at some of the really tough questions of social ethics around these issues. For example: is it better to have more petty crime or to incarcerate people at unprecedented rates? None of this stuff is easy, but the ways it is often framed -- like making unsubstantiated causal links between Section 8 and crime -- make the conversation that much harder. (Full disclosure: I'm the author of the piece)
ycombobreaker 12y ago
When I moved into that area (while the Atrium was still standing), I was told by some neighbors to expect to get robbed, sooner or later. Given the surrounding neighborhood (Humboldt Park, and various racially-segregated and ridiculously gerrymandered neighborhoods) and the historical presence of subsidized housing (Atrium, Cabrini Green), it is not fair to attribute violence to the demolition of one building.
- aosmith 12y ago
  There seem to be a a lot of people that think I'm talking about race -- let's be clear I am not. I am talking about economics, drug problems and desperation. Regardless of race people who are desperate will take desperate measures.
aosmith 12y ago
I feel like this comment was taken it a very strange way. This isn't about race, it's about economics. I pay a lot to live in a nice neighborhood so I don't have to carry a gun / shoot someone for trying to rob me. I shouldn't have to worry about tax dollars being used to physically & economically harm myself and those around me.

by aosmith 12y ago

techsupporter 12y ago

Where should they go to not be an unfair burden?

yummyfajitas 12y ago
Cluster then in a single, easily avoided neighborhood. Its one thing to ask productive people to give up their income to support the unproductive - its another to ask them to be victims of violence.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  That's a reasonable description of a prison.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    A prison is a place you are not allowed to leave. In contrast, I encourage everyone in public housing to find a job and leave.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      Is it just received wisdom that Cluster then in a single, easily avoided neighborhood [that is apparently violent] is the best way to accomplish everyone in public housing to find a job and leave?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- kasey_junk 12y ago
  The problem with this form of hyper-libertarianism is that a large percentage of the people your are consigning to your "unproductive" ghetto are children who are not productive in or out of these neighborhoods and who had no agency in the process that got them placed there. So you've doubled down on the hardship these children have to overcome. Even if you are ok with this from a moral perspective (which is a pretty high bar to get over in my opinion) it seems like a pretty ineffective way to limit the number of "unproductive" in your society.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    From what I see, a fixed number of people will be subject to the predatory behavior of the underclass. We are collectively unwilling to fix this. I don't see a compelling reason why it matters which children are victimized this way. Now if you want to say that none should be, I agree. Find a way to stop crime. Spreading crime around is not that way. (FYI my thinking on this issue draws far more from neo reactionaries than libertarians.)
    - com2kid 12y ago
      > Spreading crime around is not that way. There is also the idea that by separating out problem elements, that in the long term you decrease overall crime. A child in a ghetto who knows not of the potential for escape will likely stay in that ghetto. A child who is surrounded by choices, options, and multiple role models has a choice to make.
      - yummyfajitas 12y ago
        If you have evidence that exposing everyone to criminals reduces crime, I'd love to see it. Not knowing one can leave can be handled with direct communication. For example, billboards: "get a job and you can leave this place. Any adult is here by choice."
        techsupporter 12y ago
        Other billboards we can put up in the ghetto to make sure people are fully informed and that experience tells us work just as well: - Not having sex means no babies. - Don't do drugs. - Stay in your local, neighborhood school to perform as equally well as your similarly-aged peers in schools located in more affluent areas. Well, maybe that last one not so much. Your argument strikes me as a reason people raise in objection to mass transit: the "undesirables" might come to town. I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to your position. I live in an area of my city that, on paper, has a pretty high average household income but due to history also has a decent amount of petty crime. The answer isn't to redline those people off to somewhere else. There is a huge difference between being poor and committing crime, except that the poor tend to go to jail and the wealthy tend to pay a fine with no admittance of wrongdoing. And the latter also tend to screw over more people in one pop. The answer is to make it socially unacceptable, in all areas, to commit crime and to demonstrate that the law and society won't tolerate it.
- aosmith 12y ago
  Creating ghettos isn't the answer. Letting the free market dictate where people live is a much better solution.
aosmith 12y ago
Somewhere they can afford to pay for without assistance. Putting people without means next to those with some (albeit limited, in my case) means creates an asymmetric problem.

tomohawk 12y ago

I remember living in an affluent suburb (in the top 20 income wise in the country) when I first graduated. There were section 8 folks peppered throughout the condos we lived in. We got to know a number of them personally. To get all of the benefits, they were required to follow a low probability of success lifestyle, such as refusing to work and having children out of wedlock. We knew one young woman who had an affair with an older man, got pregnant, then moved out of moms house into a hotel. She then called up the gov't and went right to the top of their list (pregnant single woman with no means of support and no skills, and in temporary housing). The next week, she was living in a nicer condo than I could afford. She had free housing, food, medical, and legal. We visited the old neighborhood a few years after we left and there were open air drug markets. I think a negative income tax would be a much better approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM

xacaxulu 12y ago
We get more of what we incentivize. Give financial incentives for unhealthy behaviour? Get more of it.
aosmith 12y ago
Income tax is a mess in this country. We should just get rid of it and tax people based upon spending.

wrongc0ntinent 12y ago

Hilarious. You must not have been in wicker park when gang fights were a common occurrence. Bundling up the poor in massive housing complexes was/is a structurally racist, classist move.

aosmith 12y ago
I think you're confusing race and financial ability. I never lived there before 2008. Before that I lived in / around Detroit.

rayiner 12y ago

How do you know those incidents were the "result of public housing?" Wicker Park is still a gentrifying neighborhood, and though it's less than it was in the 80s and 90s, still has a significant latino gang presence: http://patch.com/illinois/bucktown-wickerpark/chicago-gang-map-shows-latin-kings-maniac-latin-disci6962aa32cb; http://patch.com/illinois/bucktown-wickerpark/chicago-gang-m... http://loyolamosaic.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/from-trouble-to-trendy http://loyolamosaic.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/from-trouble-to.... In contrast, we had Section 8 buildings in Streeterville, and they didn't cause any trouble. At the end of the day, you can't address urban poverty by creating ghettos. Such areas just become the breeding ground for the next generation of urban poor--kids who have no exposure to successful behaviors and attitudes, but do have a cultivated distrust of authority and social structure. It's not an "unfair" burden on residents. It's a burden that we have to bear in order to create integrated, successful communities.

aosmith 12y ago
I lived on Leavitt for a number of years. In that time my home was broken into and I was robbed at gun / knife point multiple times. Every time this happened the police pointed out two buildings that were public housing as the likely source. I tend to believe them as well as the CAPS officers who agreed. I am a Detroit native so I hate the idea of ghettos but I would prefer to live around people of similar means / financial ability. Public housing introduces inorganic problems with equality and perceived equality.
davideads 12y ago
I agree that it's hard to prove that conclusion. I lived in Humboldt Park next door, right next to Section 8 buildings, and didn't have any issues related to the Section 8 folks. I think a more likely explanation is that affluent, rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods attract certain kinds of crime. When I worked at the Chicago Tribune, I covered crime extensively and saw some distinct patterns that coincided with gentrification in Wicker Park: an increased concentration of night time crime, specifically theft and muggings, along Milwaukee avenue. Because crime is down on average, crime definitely did not go up in Wicker Park, but theft, assault, and battery did not go down as quickly as the average in the night life zones. That said, it seems very likely some former public housing residents caused trouble in some of their new neighborhoods. Similarly, I had a petty thief from the projects once tell me that on 35th street, he saw me as either a drug buyer or a do-gooder, but either way it wouldn't make a lot of sense to mess with me. But if he saw me in Hyde Park, where I lived at the time, he would have seen me as "prey". I think it's safe to say that to some degree, affluent neighborhoods are targeted by criminals because they are affluent. There are parallels here to mass transit. Minor theft is very high at downtown CTA stations, places with tremendous foot traffic and jostling bodies. It's one of the few crime categories that has seen some increase/very little decrease and it seems to track with the widespread use of smartphones. Your comment also gets at some of the really tough questions of social ethics around these issues. For example: is it better to have more petty crime or to incarcerate people at unprecedented rates? None of this stuff is easy, but the ways it is often framed -- like making unsubstantiated causal links between Section 8 and crime -- make the conversation that much harder. (Full disclosure: I'm the author of the piece)

ycombobreaker 12y ago

When I moved into that area (while the Atrium was still standing), I was told by some neighbors to expect to get robbed, sooner or later. Given the surrounding neighborhood (Humboldt Park, and various racially-segregated and ridiculously gerrymandered neighborhoods) and the historical presence of subsidized housing (Atrium, Cabrini Green), it is not fair to attribute violence to the demolition of one building.

aosmith 12y ago
There seem to be a a lot of people that think I'm talking about race -- let's be clear I am not. I am talking about economics, drug problems and desperation. Regardless of race people who are desperate will take desperate measures.

aosmith 12y ago

I feel like this comment was taken it a very strange way. This isn't about race, it's about economics. I pay a lot to live in a nice neighborhood so I don't have to carry a gun / shoot someone for trying to rob me. I shouldn't have to worry about tax dollars being used to physically & economically harm myself and those around me.