Blight and Perceptions

[dangerboy]

Just thought I would share an interesting story... A few days ago some visitors on their way o see me in Midtown encountered a backup on I-70 and had to detour through much of the East Side. Most of the trip was intimidating for them, they felt uncomfortable going through what they thought was the "hood". However as soon as they hit 18th & Vine they were fine.

The difference - 18th & Vine is shiny and new, with few boarded up or decaying buildings, new sidewalks, and at least some positive street life. While 18th & Vine is directly adjacent to some very blighted areas, that one small area was enough to change their impression of the surrounding areas. My point - the physical appearance really makes a huge impresison on people's perceptions of an area. Even in a place like 18th & Vine where a lot of the buildings are just movie set facads. It would do so much good for the city if we would just spend some money fixing up building facades, windows, sidwalks, etc.

People hear that the urban core is scary, then when they get there and it looks run down, that really cements their perceptions. If we can afford to offer American Airlines $200 million to keep the overhaul base, then surely we can afford a few dozen million on sidwalks broken windows.

[bahua]

We can afford a couple million dollars to beautify empty buildings and derelict sidewalks? Does that sound strange to anyone else?

What the city needs to do is encourage economic development, not fix broken windows. New businesses will clean up their corner of the world, without being asked or paid. Kansas City needs them, and not cleaning crews.

[KCPowercat]

or enough of a workforce on the codes dept. to hold landowners to the codes that are in place.

Another thing about urban areas, people are scared of them at first but once they live in the urban core for awhile, they really enjoy it. My wife is example 1a...when we moved to quality hill she was more than a little timid about it...the other day she breaks out that she wouldn't mind staying down here (if we could find an affordable loft with more than 700 sq. ft...won't happen I know)

Same way when I lived on the Plaza..she didn't care for it much at first but once she was down there, really enjoyed being close to everything.

[KCK]

I believe the greatest thing that tells people that a city is bad is trash. We need to make sure our city is clean. Also keep lawns and grass cut. Nothing gives me a worse impression of a city than seeing several houses with grass over 2 feet tall. Finally I detest boarded up buildings and houses. The people who own these building have to board up the windows because vandals will break them with rocks, and they also must board up doors because vagrants will move in and damage or vandals will once again damage. The real issue is vandalism and vagrancy. How do we stop this?

Imagine neighborhoods, even in lower income parts of town that are clean, with cut grass and no boarded up windows on houses because of low vandalism. Suddenly these neighborhoods don't seem so bad anymore, and people once again want to live there.

[bahua]

It doesn't matter how clean an area is. If it's full of vacant buildings and impoverished housing, nobody who will make an economic difference is going to want to live there. What will really help these neighborhoods is some success for the people who live there. If they're successful, they'll bring their success home with them. They'll raise property values, and businesses will want to locate near them.

[KCK]

It doesn't matter how clean an area is. If it's full of vacant buildings and impoverished housing, nobody who will make an economic difference is going to want to live there. What will really help these neighborhoods is some success for the people who live there. If they're successful, they'll bring their success home with them. They'll raise property values, and businesses will want to locate near them.

So you are saying it doesn't matter if an area has garbage everywhere, lawns overgrown, and boarded up vandalized housing if it is poor. Poor people don't even deserve to live in a trashy place. The fact is that as long as there is an upper income group, there will be a lower income group. The lower income group, might as well have a city that is just as clean and nice as the upper income group's city. Even if that area only attracts other lower income people this isn't bad as long as someone is attracted to an area.

I mean come on. You know an area sucks when even the low income people from that area don't like living there.

[bahua]

Nobody *likes* living in a blighted, poor place. I wasn't suggesting that, and I'm sorry if it sounded like I was, or if I sounded like poor people deserve some kind of worse fate than wealthy people.

What I meant is that the garbage and overgrown lawns are just symptoms of poverty, and it's the poverty that we need to strike at, not the symptoms. Poor people need to be given opportunities to succeed, and not just clean lawns to look at.

[rxlexi]

very true Bahua. But nonetheless, I've never understood why poor nieghborhoods can't be made up of reasonably clean homes. It cosn't cost a ton of money to mow a lawn or clean up trash or even improve an old house bit by bit. It doesn't cost anything to have a tight, proud, safe neighborhood. Numerous immigrant neighborhoods throughout history have proven this, and I don't understand why poor blighted areas must remain that way without any hope for improvement.

[chrizow]

well, a lot of homes in poor areas are kept up reasonably well - some exceptionally so...

but it's also true that some people just dont give a damn. and that's not only in poor areas.

[bahua]

There aren't as many homeowners in poor neighborhoods, either, and slum landlords don't generally have much interest in making their properties attractive, as that might just raise their tax burden.

[KCK]

very true Bahua. But nonetheless, I've never understood why poor nieghborhoods can't be made up of reasonably clean homes. It cosn't cost a ton of money to mow a lawn or clean up trash or even improve an old house bit by bit. It doesn't cost anything to have a tight, proud, safe neighborhood. Numerous immigrant neighborhoods throughout history have proven this, and I don't understand why poor blighted areas must remain that way without any hope for improvement.

I agree and this is a problem that we need to fix. Laziness makes lower income neighborhoods worse than anything else. Also I have to place blame on the city as well. There are many low income neighborhoods that have huge potholes, or crumbling sidewalks, or large city owned lots that are grown over, well it is the city's responsibility to take care of public problems like these, you won't see crumbling sidewalks on the plaza, so why should they be in any neighborhood?

[bahua]

I agree with you there, DMW. There is no excuse for deteriorated city services in an area whose only marked difference with others is that its residents are poor.

[KCK]

Not speaking of Kansas City, Missouri, but here in Kansas City, KS, they put a brand new sidewalk on Parallel Pkwy. between I435 and 110th street out by Village West, and no one uses it. Ever. At the same time, between 70th and 83rd streets on State Ave. people are walking through the grass and mud because a sidewalk was never put in and they don't want to be hit by cars. Believe me, there are a lot of walkers in this area, even though the layout is more suburban than inner city KCK.

Also in inner city KCK on Minnesota Ave. from 10th to 18th street, the sidewalk is in such disrepair, it is literally crumbling. Meanwhile they built a brand new walking path for Piper on Hutton road that very few people use. Once again the inner city loses and the suburbs win. I even wrote a letter to Marinovich about the sidewalks on Minnesota, but have yet to hear a word.

[bahua]

Write another one. I'd recommend sending her a letter a week, and getting others to do the same.