I guess you don{'}t buy the peak oil theory...Well, I could've purchased a home with iron bars on the windows and an expensive alarm system, and paid the taxes for a police department that won't respond when the alarm goes off. I could've armed myself, and carried a concealed weapon (illegally) to defend myself, and prayed that my kids qualified for the school choice program so they won't be victims at the schools. It's easy to say YOU should stand and fight, and to the inner-city go. Fortunately, we've ended conscription, and you're more than free to go in my place instead.
At another time, instead of taking the do-nothing, walk-away, let it rot (as if everyone in the city deserves this), people like you might have had the balls to organize and fight for order with everyone else interested in that, but this sort of backing down in fear of being branded a racist is the chicken's way out. What's left of the black middle and upper class agrees with you, but your tone rubs the wrong way.
Good luck with suburbs full of such self-interested, fearful individualists.
- "Zippy"
Is there absolute safety in my neighborhood? No. A few blocks away there's been some graffiti. A few garages around here have been broken into. A few blocks beyond the graffiti there's the local porn and drug paraphenalia shop open 24/7/365. There's a tavern up the street next to the root beer stand. The tavern has had one incident that I'm aware of - a minor bar fight where the police got called and one of the guys tried to get away by running through the yards.
But for the most part it's a quiet neighborhood. My sister-in-law talked to some of Waukesha's finest recently and they said they rarely come to my neighborhood because it's pretty quiet. A house nearby had a domestic dispute last summer. The wife showed up at the house of her husband's girlfriend, threw his clothes on the ground, punched him, and drove off. I'm on the police report as a witness. The cops told me they were surprised to get a call from neighborhood.
As for the self-interested suburbanites, when the snow hits its a competition between my retired neighbor and I to see who can get the snowblower started first to do the walks. When we aren't snowblowing each other's sidewalks, we're watching each other's homes when somebody is on vacation. That extends to our other neighbors as well.
We had a couple of neighbors who got a permit from the police department to hold a block party for a couple of years. Everyone would donate something, and the organizers would hit up local businesses to donate food. The fire department brought one of their trucks last year and the police department let the kids play in a squad car. Unfortunately those neighbors moved away, taking advantage of the skyrocketing property values in my little neighborhood. Maybe this year my wife and I and a few of the other neighbors will throw the party instead.
People are buying homes and renovating them down to the rafters and beams. The neighborhood is seeing a steady improvement not only in value but in appearance. There's even talk we'll get our neighborhood designated as an historical area or something, with old-fashioned street lights.
It's a mixed neighborhood. Some rental, mostly homeowners. I don't believe there are any minorities on my street (I haven't met all the new neighbors yet) but a block over there's a few hispanics and African Americans. It's hardly "White Folks Bay" as my friends and I growing up used to refer to Whitefish Bay.
Every morning after a good snow there's a young minority kid who leads a group of other kids (race is no issue with him as an employer) to shovel the walks of the neighborhood. This kid will make more than all of us someday. In the meantime, he walks through neighborhoods without fear of accidentally knocking on the door of a crack dealer.
I've yet to hear any of my neighbors complain about the race of the kids walking the streets - whether it's on the way to school or to play or whatever. Just the usual "damn skateboarders" and "stupid kid rode across my lawn with his bike."
There's plenty of other gripes. Some neighbors park too many cars on the street. Other neighbors yell obscenities at each other, or their dog gets loose too often. Some neighbors haven't gotten with the program and started making improvements on their house. Our taxes are too high. The schools have started teaching what is jokingly referred to as "whole math." The current mayor is an idiot, and our common council looks like the Boca Del Vista condo board.
The other neighbors will usually say to me, it could be worse. It could be Milwaukee.
