Monday Musings...
Been a rather sedate weekend here in Ft. Wayne's SE ghettohood...
I guess the locals don't like dealing with the heat (considering their land of origin, that's kinda odd. I thought Ghana or Botswana was NICE this time of year?)
Sure, we still have the boomcars (that never get caught) and we've had our share of police calls as SOME people STILL love to smack each other around first thing in the morning, no matter WHAT the temperatures are. Nice to know SOME things just refuse to change.
But, we here at the Fortress of Reason, refuse to knuckle under to ghettohood "conventionality".
We continue to UP our standards...after all, that's what evolution is all about...becoming better than you were the day before.
Damn shame these primates around us can't figure that one out...must be a "lack of a developed pre-frontal cortex" thing.
There are enough stories out there that it's a little difficult to choose what to post about today, but I found one in yesterday's paper that literally SCREAMED ( "You have GOT to go with this one, Bob" )...and so I shall.
Hard to argue with LOGIC...an REASON.
So here we go, boys & girls...please observe the rules for this ride, make sure the safety bar is down AND locked, and please, at all times while the car is IN MOTION, keep your hands and feet INSIDE of the car.
*** Published: July 24, 2011 3:00 a.m.
Racial shift noticed in southeast - Census: More blacks leaving
(Ron Shawgo The Journal Gazette)
Fort Wayne – Southeast Fort Wayne, deserted by many whites during previous decades, is now being abandoned by significant numbers of blacks.
Nearly 5,000 fewer blacks live in Fort Wayne’s southeast core than did in 2000, replaced by a nearly equal number of Hispanics and Asians, largely Burmese refugees.
Blacks still dominate the southeast with 19,300 residents. But with other minorities and whites making up the difference, there are more non-blacks among the area’s population of 39,100 than blacks, according to 2010 census figures.
(I predicted this would happen HERE in much the same way it has out in parts of California where Hispanics displaced the blacks)
The 20 percent decline among blacks in the city’s southeast comes as Allen County’s black population grew 10 percent in the last decade, according to the census.
While an increased number of blacks have settled farther south along the city’s border, greater numbers have moved throughout the city, with the largest change in the northern and western parts of Fort Wayne.
(Perhaps that's why Phil Marx's neighborhood HAS indeed IMPROVED...the riff-raff from HIS part of the SE moved farther south to MY area now)
The reasons for the movement are multiple.
For certain, the southeast has had hundreds of vacant or abandoned houses demolished over the years, reducing available housing. "There would be some population loss because we lost some housing units," said John Stafford, director of the Community Research Institute at IPFW.
(And we always run a list of over 400 houses that REMAIN on the list to be razed...damn shame many blacks TRASHED them, causing property values to TANK big time! There is NO background checks when houses are sold or rented "off the books", as it were)
Some blacks cite a shortage of stores, restaurants and other services in the southeast as reasons for the decline.
One of them is Tony Ridley, president of the Renaissance Pointe Neighborhood Association in an area the city has long eyed for transition.
What association members talk about, he said, is the lack of development.
"You have some loyal people here. But the bottom line is, I don’t know where they’re going," Ridley said. "They’re going where the jobs are, and evidently, the jobs aren’t here for them."
(That's not TOTALLY true, Tony. We have MORE liquor and convenience stores PER CAPITA per square mile than ANY OTHER part of town, but if you refer to REAL BUSINESSES, then I agree, because the CRIME forced them all OUT of this area...period!. But when it comes to blacks seeking work, too many of them REFUSE to work at all, except to claim that monthly gov't handout - ditto for the white trash meth-heads)
The largest black population increase is in the area of Lafayette Street and Tillman Road, two neighborhoods near the city’s southern border that gained more than 600 people. Ridley describes property there as reasonably priced with a good atmosphere and less congestion.
(Amazing how property values DROP when this occurs...it's happened to US.)
But in sheer volume, more than 2,600 more blacks are found in areas north and west.
An increase of 316 people more than doubled the number of blacks living in an area north of Lake Avenue, where Hobson Road cuts through to State Boulevard. Bordered west by Randallia Drive at Parkview Hospital and east by Coliseum Boulevard, the area contains several
apartment complexes, a number of them along Hobson. The area now has nearly 600 black residents.
(and Randalia Drive as well as Hobson Rd. are seeing MORE police calls...wonder WHY that is?)
Shira Menson, 31, has lived in Baldwin Creek Apartments at Hobson and State for four years.
She said she grew up in the area but knows a number of other black people who moved there from the southeast side.
"It’s a big change," but not a surprising one, she said.
Housing near State is centrally located, she said. There are many restaurants and fast-food shops nearby. And not far are Ivy Tech Community College, Brown Mackie College and IPFW. "The college is just down the street," she said. "It’s all about the location."
(ask ANY drug dealer...that happens to be TRUE)
For some blacks, the location is not Fort Wayne at all, but New Haven.
From South Anthony Boulevard, the 6-mile drive east on Oxford Street, past McMillen Park and out of Fort Wayne, goes from light industrial to suburban as Oxford jogs across railroad tracks to become Moeller Road.
Here on the south side of New Haven is Cameron Court Apartments, just south of Moeller, off Seiler Road. In 2000, no blacks lived in this part of New Haven, bordered by Moeller, Minnich, Seiler and Green roads. Today, more than 200 have settled here, according to census figures.
(And according to the police blotter, WHERE are we seeing MORE criminal activity?)
Overall, New Haven’s black population grew from 80 to 475 in the last decade.
(And now you know why THEY are seeing problems now)
Cameron Court is a new complex across from farm fields and within sight of Interstate 469.
Two months ago, Kyra Norris, 28, moved here from southeast Fort Wayne with her three young children.
About half of the apartment residents are black, said Norris, who moved from a house off McKinnie Avenue because of the cost.
"My brother and his girlfriend moved out here and said it was nice and cheaper," Norris said. "People don’t bother me, but (there’s) less crime, I guess."
(as long as you "play the game" when it comes to creating a slum district, no one WILL bother you...unlike US, who have tried for YEARS to keep our area from devolving further)
Due north, Marcus Lowe, 38, is filling his gas tank at a Marathon station near Maysville and Stellhorn roads. On the east side of Maysville is a new apartment complex among farm fields in the county. On the west side is a new housing subdivision within city limits.
(there goes THAT area, and the businesses nearby)
About 20 blacks lived here in 2000. Now, more than 200 do.
Lowe isn’t one of them. He lives in the Georgetown area off State Boulevard. But when he moved from Akron, Ohio, to Fort Wayne for employment a year ago, he had location in mind, schools in particular. He liked what he heard about Snider High School, where his son now attends.
There are lots of black and white people living in Georgetown, Lowe said. There’s more diversity in Fort Wayne than he saw in Akron, he added, "and people seem comfortable with that, too."
(And all it will take is ONE bad house to open up, and that area will be "handed over" to the flotsam of humanity...wait and see)
Lowe said he knows that from dealing with the public daily in his job servicing water softeners and purification systems.
"It’s a great place to be," he said of the city. "We’re happy here in Fort Wayne."
As for the southeast, Ridley isn’t giving up. He commends Hispanics for rehabbing long-vacant homes and living in them. And he discards the notion some blacks might be moving out because immigrants are moving in.
(Don't discard it totally, Tony...Hispanics don't take as much sh*t as you think, and WILL "defend their turf"...seen it all before)
For Ridley, reviving the southeast can be reduced to a formula.
"We try to draw business. Business draws jobs. Jobs draw rooftops," he said.
"It’s not lack of the city’s effort. The city’s made an effort. … I think it’s a lack of development and there’s nothing over here".
(Actually, it IS the city's lack of effort that dominates such a landscape as ours. We USED to have a lot more, but CRIME chased it all away, and it was mainly precipitated by BLACKS that moved down here...I've been here for close to 15 years, and I've SEEN the damage caused...very little of it reversible, because of a LACK OF CONCERN. The solutions are many, but the city NEVER wants to address the CAUSE of the problem for which these solutions are intended.The LACK of city concern is what CAUSES the lack of development, and the black community "leadership" is at the front of this pathetic "parade"...it's a domino-effect, plain and simple. )
"When you go toward Jefferson Pointe and stuff like that, there are things you want to go to", said Ridley
Wow, that was a LOT to take in...and SOME of it true. Much of it never really GETS to the "heart of the matter", though...
This paints one picture, while the REAL picture takes a much different route (to hell).
If one can call this situation anything, it's a perfect display of the new "double-standard" in Ft. Wayne.
We have, on the one hand, the way people SHOULD (or used to) conduct themselves as to behavior, stewardship of property, and the like, while on the other hand, we have others that do whatever the hell they want to, and the city all but looks the other way in pandering to them.

And they are almost all exclusively MINORITIES. And when a problem gets too "big", the city allows developers to come in and create a brand-new (like Renaissance Pointe) area, touting it as some universal panacea for societal woes, when ALL that is needed is for the city to ENFORCE the codes, laws and ordinances it has on the books, making ALL PEOPLE accountable (tenants, landlords and homeowners ALIKE).
It's not a new concept...it's just the way people USED to be, no matter where they lived, and no matter the color of their damn skin!
I will always maintain, that when you get rid of the CRIME in any given area, that area will bounce back, and it will take some time...but not before.
Now, if the city wants to "herd" certain people INTO a specific area to better "control" them...choose an area OTHER THAN MINE.
We supplanted the vertical ghettos of the past with horizontal ones "because these people need room to grow...to live". Cripes, that sounds just like Adolph Hitler back in 1938...and that sure as hell didn't pan out all that well for the Germans, did it?
What makes this city think things will be better under such similar auspices?
Diversity from a cultural standpoint is fine in AMERICA...that's what made this nation in the first place.
We are ALL descendants of immigrants in one way or another.
But when all the various CRIMES a part of any city "enjoys" becomes the ONLY "diversity" on the table, something needs to be looked into...and changed.
You find some way to remove the CRIME from the SE, and it will become a good part, a productive part of the city once again.
You just move the indigents and transient welfare queens to OTHER parts of the city, and you WILL see the already eroded TAX BASE for Ft.Wayne decline further...and we all know where that leads, right?
Just ask those in ABOITE who were forcibly ANNEXED into the city to shore up the tax base...
There's always THAT card to trump anything you might have in your hand.
Or, you can simply choose to get up from the table...when you know you're being dealt from the bottom of the deck.
Some games are intended to be rigged, and not in YOUR favor.
What YOU have to decide is whether or not to play
Have yourselves a good week, and remember to mind that heat and humidity.
Be well, make a difference to someone, and...
Stay safe out there, America.