Re: [UC] Kids Today

[Vincent/Roger]

Concerning the message about lack of place for teenagers to hang out in the Spruce Hill area, I very much agree with the sentiment.  While I am not a parent myself, as an employer in the middle of the Penn campus, I see plenty of teenage kids who work for us and also kids who try to hang out around Penn.  I notice that Penn and the Penn police seem to work very hard to drive away both white kids (with their skateboards) and black kids (with their bikes), and to me this is a shame.  It seems to be one of the off-shoots of being tough on crime in our area.   But I think it is a mistake to "blame" Spruce Hill or the University, or the local Police.  The alienation/marginalization of teenagers seems to be nationwide, and to me it comes from a misplaced desire to overly control their lives in some superficial way (and ignoring them in many others) while leaving very little time/space for them to hang out on their own.  If you think it is bad in Spruce Hill, just imagine what it must be like in some gated suburban housing developments.   I think that the message is a very important one.   Roger Harman