🚀 go-pugleaf

billnech@aol.com wrote in article
<19970228221301.RAA24231@ladder02.news.aol.com>...
> In article <01bc252a$7b47f9e0$8da320cc@nebular.ix.netcom.com>, "nebular"
<nebular@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> 
> >.In other words
> >Suburban living is killing the city life (have you ever lived in a
> >functional city. ?)  
> 
>And finally some real discussion about merging local services which could
result in more non-residential development in the city -- since the
suburbanites don't want it anyway -- followed by renewed city life.

A short story on the subject of city services and how they are perceived by
different people:

My neighbor noticed one day a guy pulling bags of garbage from his car and
dropping them at the curb.   My neighbor had been working on his car and
planned to take the car for a test drive, so he decided to follow this guy.
 He ended up in a Guilderland neighborhood.  He followed the guy right to
his driveway, hollered to the gentleman that he had left something behind
in our neighborhood.  By the time my neighbor got home this suburbanite had
come back to reclaim his trash.

> 
> Yes, cities are in trouble.  But they are still viable or potentially
viable.  If you convince people that there are safe neighborhoods, nice
homes and good schools in cities, they will remain or return.  In many
cases, those things exist, but suburbanites are too frightened to find out.
 

On a trip to Portland Oregon last summer it wasn't unusual to see single
women roaming about the city by themselves unescorted and without fear of
being harmed.  Portland's malls are in the downtown city center and the
nightlife there is great.  The wife and I were (unknowingly) walking around
the "seedy" side of the city commenting on how the neighborhood is in
better condition than ours.  Only after seeing a couple of strip clubs did
it dawn on me that this was probably the worst part of this city.

What surprises me Bill is that in this State, the blatant disregard at the
State (legislative) level for our urban centers.  At the convention for
city mayors recently it was brought to the publics attention that revenue
sharing (aide to cities ) is being cut.  I believe during the Rockerfeller
years, due to changing demographics brought on by the Moses public works
projects (in which .25 million New York urbanites were relocated or
dislocated and their neighborhoods leveled to make room for interstate
highways) it was mandated by NYS law that 8% of the budget would be
funneled back to urban centers.  The State in their infinite wisdom found a
way to get around that and the actual percentage is now around 1.5% which
will be reduced even further.

Safety is a key point.  Most people don't realize that they are safer in an
urban environment.  I believe that the statistics would bear me out on
that.