Urban renewal, not as good as it sounds

If you are reading this, you have survived my rant about how the suburbs came to be (thoughts on the dreaded sprawl later).

Well, dear reader, suffice to say that the lure of the suburbs was strong, mighty strong and after we kicked Nazi butt in World War II masses of people, enticed by the new roads and cheap mortgage rates, headed out to the suburbs.

Unfortunately, not everyone was able to claim a stake in this utopia. Those who were poor, and were often a minority race as well, were left in the cities. Because of their economic status conditions tended to slide toward the not good side. Repairs went untended, crime increased, and downtown/inner cities began to acquire the unfair (and often untrue) reputation that has plagued them to this day- dirty and dangerous.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and the urban planners of the late 1940's through the 1970's, and even into the early 1980's looked at the disrepair that our nation's cities had fallen into and decided that it was cheaper to pull the plug, if you will, then perform triage. So that's exactly what they did. Veiled under the innocuous title of "urban renewal," many cities bulldozed blighted areas. In some cases they provided vouchers for the soon-to-be-displaced residents. In other cases, taking advantage of the people's lack of political power, they simply steamrolled their way, both literally and figuratively.

Leaving behind vacant lots, some of which are still vacant to this day. One need only drive around Kanye West's old stompin' grounds, Lawndale, Chicago, to see what I am talking about. I lived there for a few months and it is a tough and gritty place, where children are still raised and grow, but rarely escape.

The problem with vacant lots is that it can increase crime. And indeed it did. Empty lots became prime drug dealing grounds, ideal locations for gang wars, dirty needles, etc., This is similar to the "Broken Windows" theory from Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities by: George L. Kelling and Catherine Coles. The book, in turn, was based on an article entitled "Broken Windows" by James Q. Wilson amd George L. Kelling, which was published in the Atlantic Monthly March 1982 (information courtesy of wikipedia.org). In a nutshell, the broken window theory states that when a window goes unrepaired it shows a lack of pride in one's home, in one's neighborhood. This lets less-than-do-gooders know that other destructive activities are permissible. Therefore, if the windows aren't being repaired, then who's to say that anyone's going to call the cops if someone "shady" is in the neighborhood. Then "shady" people lead to drug dealers standing brazenly on the street corners and gang leaders strutting like they own the streets, which in all likelyhood they do because, if something as minor as a window isn't repaired, why would anyone bother to care about the big stuff either?

However, in the 1970's urban planning, with the benefit of hindsight, realized that urban renewal didn't deliver the way it had been proposed it would. But downtown cities were still in trouble.