A friend of the blog writes:
The past week, neighborhood social media has been worked up over a shot fired at the Hamline light rail station. Reports are varied on what actually happened. And, yes, gun shots and other violence that is caused by gang activity, drug addiction, etc is scary. I really would rather not encounter it. Hundreds of comments blaming the BP gas station.
But, the hysteria reminds me of last year’s frenzy over the Starbucks drive through off of Marshall Avenue. Yes, a bad driver not paying attention can pull out and hit a pedestrian or bicyclist. And it could be a young person who doesn’t quite yet master the skill of looking at the surroundings. It could be an elderly person who can’t move out of the way fast enough.
I wouldn’t want my loved ones to die any of these ways.
What do both of these have in common? In both cases, the pitchfork crowd is screaming to shut down the business versus deal with the actual problem.
There are bad drivers out there. Ticket them. Fine them. Take away their license. Starbucks and the drive through is not the issue.
There are bad people out there. Arrest them. Rehab them or keep them in jail. Walmart, Taco Bell, BP are not the problems (unless the BP at Hamline is indeed a front, then the franchise owner is also to blame. They are apparently selling something the city council banned, so there is that).
Why can we not admit that there are bad people and we need to do something about them, not everyone?
Ooh! Ooh! I got this one!
Because Saint Paul is run, in effect, by a crowd of biddies and ninnies from Merriam and Highland Parks whose entire frame of reference is organizing to get rid of things in Their Backyards that annoy them.
Smoky bars.
Hot rods on University Avenue during Back to the Fifties.
Trash truck rolling their alleys.
Any business that crosses them.
Pretty soon, snowplows in the alley.
It’s really all these people know.
Regarding the smoking thing, I am a reformed 2 pack a day smoker over 45 years ago, but it really pisses me off that the libidiots banned cigarettes, yet go all in on smoking pot.
During the early 2000’s, I lived on Charles at Pascal, a few blocks from that intersection. Everybody in the neighborhood knew The Line was Lexington. East of there – Frogtown and bad people doing bad things. West of there – marginal but hoping to get better. The prevailing theory was bad people were too lazy to walk that far to do bad things, so we were “safe.”
The exception was the alley between Sherburne and University, where hookers and drug dealers who met customers on University went around the corner to conduct business. That problem existed on both sides of The Line. Solution – stay out of that alley.
Nowadays, low income housing built at light rail stations (to artificially create ridership where none existed) seems to have spread the blight, like boaters who don’t remove invasive aquatic plants from their props. Now the bad people do bad things all along the light rail, but mostly around the light rail stations. More support for the “too lazy” theory. Solution – stay away from light rail stations.
Yes, there are “no go” places in St. Paul, have been for decades. But whereas previously, one could avoid the bad places (like slicing off the moldy spot on a hunk of Cheddar Cheese), now the bad places are distributed throughout the city, like moldy spots in Roquefort Cheese. This had made neighborhoods more racially and economically diverse, and also more dangerous. Not an improvement, in my opinion.
JD hates Roquefort!
I’m used to my “progressive” neighbors in Merriam Park and Mac Groveland telling me that a racially and economically diverse neighborhood is a bad thing and increases crime. Since it is mostly liberals telling me this, I know it is not true. It’s the same liberals who think only low income housing can be built along transit lines, so it is obvious that they love to segregate by class and hope that their power remains by keeping the rest of us impoverished.
If we were truly to open up neighborhoods to be racially and economically diverse, then we would loosen zoning restrictions for development in more neighborhoods across the city, not just upzoning along transit. That would give families opportunities for better school districts, more job opportunities, and probably safer neighborhoods versus where they are relegated to now, all which will have an effect on crime.
This type of integration might also help white people consider voting Republican if they can actually see the benefits of a freer market lifting people up rather than believing the rhetoric of voting Democrat to give poor people things. All of the people of color that I know already have this figured out. Oops. I think I just figured out why those progressives don’t want neighborhoods to be integrated…
I’m used to my “progressive” neighbors in Merriam Park and Mac Groveland telling me that a racially and economically diverse neighborhood is a bad thing and increases crime.
This seems backwards… or is it that “racially and economically diverse” things are only for other people?
Mac Groveland and Merriam Park are the epitome of voting for something they think are good for other people, not for themselves.
Shot fired near the Hamline Light Rail Station? The answer is obvious. We MUST disarm the people being shot at.
Ah, OK. Understood. Thanks.