Comment by Hillman
"You know, this sounds an awful lot like what Anita Bryant said before she was served a fruit pie in her face." Not really similar.Anita Bryant hated gay people because they were gay.Them being gay had...
View ArticleComment by Hillman
"So with regards to all that, I think it's perfectly fine to still attribute a lot of the city's problems to racism despite personal failings of political leaders." It's not just personal failings of...
View ArticleComment by Thayer-D
People shouldn't forget the laws that encouraged demolishion of the fabric. You'd pay a lot less taxes on empty land so if you couldn't rent to whites and didn't want to rent to blacks and wanted to...
View ArticleComment by goldfish
@DA: Nobody is trying to wage a war on cars. AAA is just pushing the idea because after their long and successful war on urban placesIt is a mistake to lay the blame for such scenes on AAA; and your...
View ArticleComment by drumz
There was no reason DC had to be in decline or have crippling social issues.Yes, there was population loss. But it was also the seat of the federal government, and dang near recession proof. And has...
View ArticleComment by William
As DC has never really been an industrial city, I am not sure the smog thing is any sort of justification for the demographic shifts cited above. In DC it was all about race and schools, in my opinion.
View ArticleComment by Hillman
"You'd pay a lot less taxes on empty land so if you couldn't rent to whites and didn't want to rent to blacks and wanted to save some money, demo the building and rent out the space for parking to the...
View ArticleComment by Thayer-D
goldfish does make an important point about pollution. The garden city movement in England and the early romantic suburbs in America were all about industrial pollution and congestion versus the...
View ArticleComment by Thayer-D
Hillman, You don't have to be a racist to take advantage of a tax incentive that promoted needless demolition of ones downtown. Look on bing maps of countless midwestern towns whose city directories...
View ArticleComment by goldfish
@Thayer D: I'n not sure calling the whites who fled inner city neighborhoods "good" helps at all.I did not write "whites" and I did not mean "whites".
View ArticleComment by oboe
So a group of people locked out of political participation for decades are finally allowed to participate but only in places in decline and with crippling social issues. And since they can't fix the...
View ArticleComment by goldfish
@Thayer-D: let me explain a bit, before you go off the deep end about what I wrote. The police are responsible for probably only 30% of crime prevention. Take the case of the New Dragon. This...
View ArticleComment by Thayer-D
goldfish, you didn't say white, you said "The draining away the good, hardworking people with kids, that kept the streets clear of ne'er-do-wells" In the context of "white flight", you don't need to be...
View ArticleComment by Tina
@Hillman - look at who the victims of crime were (and are)-- young black men. It's really offensive for you to assert there was some sort of organized "war on whites" perpetuated by blacks. @Dave...
View ArticleComment by AWalkerInTheCity
"There's a long-running suburban middle-class conceit that, if DC in the 80s and 90s had only had the fortune of electing the Prince William County Board of Supervisors to public office, outcomes would...
View ArticleComment by goldfish
@Thayer D: you don't need to be a dog to hear that whistle..but apparently any sound will do, whether or not it was a dog whistle.
View ArticleComment by oboe
@Hillman - look at who the victims of crime were (and are)-- young black men. It's really offensive for you to assert there was some sort of organized "war on whites" perpetuated by blacks.The thinking...
View ArticleComment by Chris S.
So... if a black drug dealer kills an unfortunate innocent black youth... that's an act of racism? This line of thinking that all we have to do is stamp out racism and crime would disappear seems...
View ArticleComment by Publius Washingtoniensis
Richard Layman is exactly right. The Mount Vernon Square site was intended for the main UDC campus. For reasons that may have been related to cost, the DC Government decided to merge its public...
View ArticleComment by AWalkerInTheCity
this long discussion UDC and racism misses the point in my opinion. Go look at what was built in places like the I395 corridor in that era (and that was not distant sprawl, but close in multifamily...
View ArticleComment by Tina
@Chris S. -So... if a black drug dealer kills an unfortunate innocent black youth... that's an act of racism?:-~ total confusion. No one said black on black crime is an expression of racism. I said...
View ArticleComment by drumz
So... if a black drug dealer kills an unfortunate innocent black youth... that's an act of racism?No the circumstances that lead black people to be overwhelmingly the victims of crime as well as the...
View ArticleComment by C. P. Zilliacus
The population decline started years before the '68 riots, due to the US supreme court desegregation decision. This hollowed out the school system. Part of that response is racism, but this was...
View ArticleComment by Tina
...I also suggested there may be evidence that violent crime is correlated to automobile traffic in the era of leaded gasoline (and lead paint) b/c of the elevated level of lead in the blood among...
View ArticleComment by Potowmack
"It'd take one heckuva committed racist to tear down office buildings and forego millions in rent and value just so they didn't have to rent to black people." There's a simple answer for why there are...
View ArticleComment by Thayer-D
Speaking of reasons crime spiked in the 50's and 60's, I wonder what television's role might have been. The social isolation and removal of a lot of street life that tv's afforded couldn't have helped...
View ArticleComment by Thayer-D
"There's a simple answer for why there are so many surface parking lots in that picture: there wasn't enough demand at the time in that area to make any other use economically feasible." This is true,...
View ArticleComment by Chris S.
Well, frankly, I think we've veered way off the topic of parking lots by this point, so it's probably time to let this rest. I'll just say that I am glad that DC has made great strides in recent years...
View ArticleComment by Hillman
Tina: You are misquoting me.I said DC has experienced institutionalized racism from blacks directed at whites (and Hispanics and Asians and other groups, thought I didn't mention that specifically).I...
View ArticleComment by Tina
@Thayer-D the crime spike was not in the 50's & 60's. It was late 70's to mid 90's, coinciding exactly with the aging of the population with the highest blood lead levels into adolescence and young...
View ArticleComment by David C
Like most chicken and egg debates...There's no debate. The egg came first.
View ArticleComment by Hillman
"I don't care who your political leaders are, when your city's population consists of 400,000 crushingly poor people and Peggy Cooper Cafritz, you're f-ed. I think Barry was and is deeply flawed, but...
View ArticleComment by Tina
@Hillman-I'm sorry you had such a terrible experience. i too have had my life threatened on the street. Twice. Once resulted in an ambulance ride and reconstructive surgery to my face. However I did...
View ArticleComment by Tina
@And DC was never just crushingly poor people. There have always been a sizeable number of wealthy people here, and a small middle class.But quite often they were overlooked and their contributions...
View ArticleComment by Hillman
Tina: I'm very sorry to hear of your incident.Luckily mine was just the threat with the gun - they got scared and ran off.What was perhaps the most painful part is they ran right into the public...
View ArticleComment by Potowmack
"All I was saying is be sure the regulations are such that there's no incentive to tear down perfectly good buildings that might both contribute to a sense of place and who's loss might further...
View ArticleComment by oboe
There's no debate. The egg came first.Pish! Everyone knows the Archaeopteryx lithographica came first...
View ArticleComment by Thayer-D
Hillman, what you say about the permit office and a lot of other offices is true, there was preferential treatment for blacks by real or percieved favoratism for years to whites. Two wrongs don't make...
View ArticleComment by Tina
@Hillman-yes services were appalling. i experienced abuse trying to PAY taxes! And I know plenty of blacks who also suffered bad service and abuse. Though it may have seemed so to you, the rudeness...
View ArticleComment by Potowmack
"Having an expressway next door wrecks your property value." Probably true for residential property. But not really true for commercial or industrial land.
View ArticleComment by Hillman
I do wonder how the relatively new townhouses built within feet of 395 in SW would be value-wise if the freeway wasn't there. It didn't seem to stop them from being built, but common sense would say...
View ArticleComment by Hillman
Tina: Absolutely service from the DC government was dreadful for all.But it was particularly worse if you weren't black.And specifically because you weren't black.Of course that wasn't universal.I...
View ArticleComment by Hillman
"Though it may have seemed so to you, the rudeness was really not reserved for whites only" Plenty of rudeness to go around.But absolutely a bunch of it was based on racism toward non-blacks.
View ArticleComment by David Alpert
OK, I think this racism sub-thread has gone on long enough and people have made their points. I'm putting this thread on moderation and will let through any posts about the urban fabric of the past or...
View ArticleComment by Horace
The riots did not come out of nowhere--those neighborhoods were in decline well before 1968. The economic decline likely was at least in part due to the fact that businesses on strips like H street, U...
View ArticleComment by Alf
The reason that there was lots of surface parking is that the lots were cleared and the only short term viable economic activity was cheap leased parking. Back then DC's central business district land...
View ArticleComment by alexandrian
@Tina: There was actually a huge crime spike in DC in the 60s: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/dccrime.htm
View ArticleComment by Tina
@alexandrian, its hard to read a table of figures like that (would prefer a histogram) but yes it looks like violent crime started to creep up in the 2nd half of the 60's with a huge spike in '69, with...
View ArticleComment by Tina
see the figure titled The Pb Effect http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline?page=1
View ArticleComment by Thayer-D
"If taxes are based on assessed value, vacant land is typically going to have a lower assessment than a parcel with improvements" Then change the way abandoned buildings are assecced. Tax it like it...
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