Ah, the power of denial- I mutter a few truths about the
prevalence of crime in parts of Minneapolis and how overpriced
housing is here, and the backlash begins:
>On Sunday 13 October 2002 22:09, dyna wrote:
>
>> All this set Stephanie back less than $100,000- what will that
>> kind of money buy in Minneapolis' overheated housing market?
>
>It may not buy much of a house, but it will buy you an easy/fast commute to
>one of several hundred thousand jobs.
The best paying jobs tend to be in the 'burbs. Thusly both
inner city and rural folks suffer lack of good job opportunities.
Like many of the vast horde of baby boomers, I'll be retiring in a
few years so this issue is moot.
>It will get you nearly instant
>access to a large number of high quality libraries, museums and art
>galleries.
And I can get better internet access in the Glenwood area
than I can here. I highly value good research libraries, but don't
have to visit them often. Some aren't in this metro area anyway. As
for the museums, they change so slowly that regular attendance is
unnecessary. My working class salary can't afford original art, so no
point in my bothering the galleries.
>It will save you 4 hours driving should you want to watch a
>Gopher, Viking, Twins, T'Wolves, or Wild game.
Sorry, all but a Twins general admission ticket are beyond my
budget. The Whippets put on a pretty good show up in the Old Sod
Shanty League, so why drive all the way to the city?
> It puts you next to the
>Mississippi, which has miles of great parks along it.
The glacial lakes are more than a match for the Mississippi
at it's finest. And they haven't been dredged and the shoreline isn't
occupied by leaching junkyards and such.
> It puts you in easy
>reach of hundreds of restaurants (much better selection than choosing
>between Torgy's and the A&W in Glenwood).
Again, I suspect that most of your favorite restaurants are
pricier than my budget will allow. BTW, Glencoe has a Subway and
coffeehouse too.
>In Minneapolis, I can shop at Rainbow if I want, but I can also buy all my
>favorite weird foods at the Wedge or Whole Foods (which I suppose is
>actually in SLP) or a wide variety of ethnic groceries... even Kowalski's
>has a pretty good selection.
In greater Minnesota you can grow your own, or buy from the
farmer. I don't believe Minneapolis has had a working farm in some
years...
>I can go to night clubs easily
And pay their outrageous cover charges!
>, take a huge
>variety of classes at the many local educational institutions.
I earned my bachelor's degree while trucking around the
country- thank you Metro State! U of M Morris and St.Cloud state are
just down the road a bit, and outstate universities in the midwest
have provided innovative learning options for far flung students for
years.
>Now, if you can tell me that Glenwood has libraries that even come close to
>touching Minneapolis Central (even the slapped together interim location
>with its lack of stacks)...
Try that DSL line I mentioned- I can't even get DSL here in the hood.
> if you can point out to me where in Glenwood I
>might get a bite of Ethiopian food for dinner...
Cook it yourself or ask the local immigrants, who are
flocking to outstate Minnesota. This brings up an interesting trend-
Minneapolis had better not rely on minorities to keep the city alive.
At one time immigrants and minorities migrated first to the central
cities and put down roots. Now days they get out of the city as soon
as they are able to.
> if you can tell me where
>I'll be able to buy a decent variety of cheeses and wines...
Again, beyond my economic strata- although you can always
make your own with such a variety of raw materials available.
> if you can
>introduce me to an employer who can offer me a job as interesting as the
>one I've got that won't require a 50% cut in pay...
Like I said, for us soon to be retired jobs are irrelevant.
> > Pulling into my driveway I was greeted by a couple junkies
> > trying to subtly park their late model car in front of my house. That
>> clinched it- I, like many folks, I will be retiring within a few
>> years. We're not stuck in Minneapolis- we can spend our pension
>> checks anywhere.
>
>Hmmm. Looks like hard work and careful saving can pay off. Retiring to
>Glenwood sounds grand, it's not a bad place... but I've been here and
>there, and there is no here.
Yes, here is coming home at night, and wondering if some
druggie is going to kill you for the $20 in your purse. There is
pulling over in a rest area and peacefully sleeping, the only sound a
distant train whistle. I wouldn't dare sleep in a similar place (park
or street) here- if the criminals didn't get you the MPD would make
sure you didn't sleep long.
> > Most of our city fathers and mothers don't have to rub shoulders with
> > armed drug dealers while transferring buses at Franklin and Chicago
> > or Broadway and Lyndale. As long as the tax base exists to fund their
>> city government and positions, they pretty much don't care.
>
>Well, considering the potential deficits on the horizon, I'd say the tax
>base no longer exists.
Agreed, although it hasn't completely disappeared yet.
>The citizens certainly get it, and voted in some
>new management. Crime is a hard one to solve. We can't realistically
>compare Minneapolis to Glenwood in that regard.
But we can compare my neighborhood, Hawthorne, to Glenwood.
Hawthorne would be a city of under 10,000 population, like Glenwood.
I've never heard of a murder or drug houses in Glenwood, but we've
had several here in Hawthorne. What is Glenwood doing right that
Hawthorne is doing wrong?
>What we can do is compare
>Minneapolis to other similar cities. We can start with St. Paul. We can
>then look at places like Cleveland, Detroit, Portland, Seattle, Kansas
>City, St. Louis, Dallas/Ft. Worth, [list cut short]. How are we doing to
>other places with similar population bases? Are you telling me that none
>of those cities have their own Jordan neighborhoods?
How about New York City, with a much larger population. Our
murder rate has competed with theirs in recent years.
> > I think we need to send a message to Minneapolis city
>> government where it hurts- in their property tax receipts. Unless
>> Minneapolis finally performs their duty to provide all neighborhoods
>> equal protection under the law, we need to make our housing and
>> business investments elsewhere.
>
>OK. But I think you're letting your experience in one small part of
>Minneapolis cloud your judgement. Certainly what you've described is
>horrible conditions. But it's not nearly so bad even a few miles away from
>there where I live.
Buy a scanner at Radio Shack or whatever, their under a
hundred dollars. Tune it to 460.100 megahertz, the 2nd and 4th
precinct frequency. You'll hear cops dispatched all over the
Northside and even Northeast. The shooting friday night was up on
34th, and it's not unusual to hear "shot's fired" calls north of the
Drive.
> Your $100K would buy you a decent house in my
>neighborhood, and I've never knowingly witnessed any of what you describe
>as a daily ordeal in your neighborhood.
Don't bother listing the property, I'll be right over to buy
it. Because such a deal doesn't exist in Minneapolis any more. A
basic house (about 1000 square feet) that doesn't need any serious
repairs is near impossible to find in the Criminal Containment Zones,
never mind the few safe neighborhoods or city still has.
>My neighbor just had her car broken into, but that's one such experience in
>the four years I've been here. My biggest problem used to be kids playing
>football in my front yard. I put in a garden to prevent that and now I
>have some grass out there where it's supposed to be.
Just about every car in my neighborhood gets broken into and
worse. And some of the kids here play with guns, not footballs.
>What Minneapolis needs is an (un)official red light district, but that
>hasn't been tried. Ongoing efforts to turn downtown into a
>suburbanite-friendly shopping mall preclude it. So where else to sell
>drugs and sex? In neighborhoods... and we all know which neighborhoods
>that means. That you are stuck in one is unfortunate, but most of
>Minneapolis isn't like that.
I'll delve into the history of Red Light districts from
Storyville to Superior's another day. Suffice to say, we already have
them, as several folks from the Northside and Phillips have reported
on this list. BTW, as you seem to think ready access to drugs and sex
is such a good thing, can we move the Red Light district to your
neighborhood?
>While I certainly can't naysay Glenwood (a great town in which I've spent
>many happy times of my life), I certainly wouldn't write off Minneapolis.
Neither would I- if this once great city could make it's
streets safe again it might be worth the high cost of housing here.
>What I'd really like to know is what you expect Minneapolis to do... post
>police outside these houses all day every day? Tear down these houses?
>Crime is highly mobile, and any such efforts are not likely to reduce
>crime, only to displace it. That was the whole fallacy that tore down
>Block E.
Since this list inception many members have posted workable
solutions to our city's crime problems... and been ignored. I expect
that MPD, Inspections, etc. will continue to use the same tired
tactics they've used in the past... with the same lack of results.
> -michael libby (cleveland/north mpls)
>
Stuck in Hawthorne tonight (gotta see the dentist and work tomorrow)
Dyna Sluyter
p.s.: Just noted that I could drive out to Glenwood after work
friday night and back to work on monday morning. Gee... I'd only have
to spend 4 nights a week in Minneapolis!
--
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