Also, a person with access to money can hire a decent lawyer and usually expunge at least the 1st offense, sometimes more than the 1st offense, provided the crimes are not violent in nature.

That's if they were not able to initially get the charges dropped, which most people with money (and I'm talking standard middle class, not loaded) can do with a little effort.

These avenues are closed to the truly poor.

Possible but the articles I found clearly cite fear of crime as a reason to shun the rail.

FWIW I considered Seventh and Highland Avenues to be pretty damn nice area, not to mention that the light rail doesn't even pass by there, though it's the kind of place that does get homeless/poor people wandering around it at times. Also I don't doubt that your reasoning is at least partially correct but the irony is that parking is a **** show in Old Town and it would benefit more from a light rail than any other area in Scottsdale.

FWIW, I didn't think that light rail going up Scottsdale Rd would look bad. And reading some hearsay letter from a random who might not even exist is lol bad to base an argument on. I just don't think racism had anything to do w/ it at all, esp back when it was considered bec the entirety of south Scottsdale is pretty much a mixed community from what I've seen. Ofc now there's some yuppie stuff but that's relatively recent.

But nm that: I wish they'd build the ultra expensive boondoggle out to the very white town that I live in bec I'd sure use it.

Dude Scottsdale is like 90+% white, not sure where you got the idea that it's mixed but that's objectively wrong. It might not be racism explicitly, maybe more elitism as vhawk says for Georgetown, where people just want to keep out the poorer people regardless of race. Pretty much every news story that I checked cited fear of crime so while one letter is not telling and maybe nonsense that seemed to be the general theme. However, like I said above, not sure how much of a success the light rail has been in Phoenix because it doesn't really seem to add much for the average commuter - there's not so much traffic that it's just easier to drive most places and apparently the route mirrors existing bus routes while not helping to alleviate traffics since it's not raised.

For my part I'm not looking to have a discussion about how white Scottsdale is - it's definitely very white - but you mentioned racism as a factor in the light rail being rejected. I mentioned SOUTH Scottsdale, to the south of Old Town and, iirc, that would have been the light rail terminus. I had a friend living there and it looked liked a pretty mixed working class neighborhood to me (nothing like North Scottsdale at all) - and I might as well mention - that if I outlive my mother it's my first choice to try to find a small house w/ an enclosed backyard (for the dog) to rent. North Scottsdale, and Fountain Hills where I live, is expensive. North Scottsdale is also where so many office parks got built. As an aside, I'm a secular Jew and there are more blacks living in my town than Jews which I know bec the Jews had a get together at the town hall and only 15 ppl showed up. Laughingly, OTOH, there's what I have to call a Jewish missionary who set up a Chabad outpost in town which I can hardly believe. There are churches on every corner but ofc no synagogue so he must stay w/ family or friends for the Sabbath.

Anyway, I really don't think racism was a component in the light rail decision. Maintaining the historic look (it's very much like Jackson, Wyoming) and light rail just wouldn't be right.

And here's a nice article on what the damn thing cost.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/warrenme.../#28665eb524ed

I'd still like to have it so I wouldn't need to go to the airport so damn much.

ETA: I knew that the black population of Arizona was low but not by this much. And most of that HAS to be in just Phoenix and Tucson.

https://www.google.com/search?client...UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

I used to think this was racist, but now I see it's just a matter of maintaining the historic, minority-free feel of a town. If you think about it, redlining real estate agents are basically just acting as a historic preservation society.

I agree this is a pretty stupid derail and I'm ready to stop discussing it as well. On the bright side the fact that we've all been sidetracked (all these puns are semi-intended) with public transport discussions means that there haven't been any highly publicized shootings or related stories over the last few days. If you're playing any of the WPT Deepstacks tournaments in Tucson check out my thread in MTTc, which currently has no replies.

Inso0 has his finger on the pulse of inner cities

I was traveling over the weekend and just got home so I haven't read these yet, but when I'm not tired I'm excited to dive into some NYT articles I noticed that seemed relevant for this thread:

Milwaukee’s Divide Runs Right Through Me, by a black NYT journalist who grew up there
Affluent and Black, and Still Trapped by Segregation, on the subject of why wealthier black people still live in super poor neighborhoods compared to white people, which as you may recall Inso0 dismissed with this:

I am sure this article will validate Inso0's well-thought-out argument here!

What's with this creepy habit of NYT journalists oversharing personal anecdotes from their lives to support their crazy political beliefs

'segregation is bad' is a crazy political belief?

I read the articles. They confirm things I've been saying, but still don't offer any suggestions. These people aren't stuck or "trapped by segregation", they're making a choice.

The family that moved to Whitefish Bay is about as extreme an example as you get. We do a lot of work there, and it's more aptly described as "Whitefolks Bay". The guy then describes frequent run-ins with WFB police early on? No ****. Those are the most bored cops you can possibly imagine, but it's close enough to areas of Milwaukee with extremely high crime rates that it isn't exactly unreasonable.

Note he doesn't claim to have received any tickets, and apparently wasn't murdered by said cops. He's part of a new black family in a city where only 1% of the population is also black. You stand out. He also didn't claim there was any harassment going on and it seems the encounters stopped once the local police knew who he was.

Those people can easily spend more on a kitchen remodel than either of my homes are worth. This guy lived at 523 E Henry Clay Ave in Whitefish Bay. We did a $740,000 remodel 2 blocks east of that house on Lexington Blvd last year. He wasn't in Milwaukee anymore. The people in WFB spend a fortune to live there and don't want it to turn into what Brown Deer became.

Out of curiosity, I ran a real estate search through the MLS for homes in and near the Lindsay Heights neighborhood mentioned in both articles. I drive right through the middle of it every single day and can confirm that there are some truly remarkable houses there. It's honestly a shame that so many of the older homes in Milwaukee are in areas now considered the "ghetto" because the architecture and sheer size of these houses are just fantastic.

Anyway, as of 2 minutes ago, there are 72 homes available for sale in the neighborhood -- 54 of those for less than $20,000, and 40 are under $8000.

The rest: http://i.imgur.com/umjMa6T.png

The ones at the top of the list are in the southeast corner of the search area, east of the freeway in or near a neighborhood called Brewer's Hill, which is indeed expensive.

The other family runs a Juice Kitchen on 16th and North Ave. I was pulled over last week for expired registration literally across the street from his Juice Kitchen at the grocery store on the north side of the street. My office is 2 miles east on North Ave, on the other side of the river. He stays because he has "faith" in the neighborhood. Great, that's fine. But he's not stuck there.

He could just as easily have brought his mother to live with them somewhere else instead of moving his entire family into a shooting gallery on the North Side of Milwaukee.

Remember when Dids made fun of me for claiming that Milwaukee and the suburb I spent my highschool years in were two different worlds? The author of the first article, on living in Milwaukee and going to school less than two miles to the east:


But clearly goofy didn't read either article, or he'd realize that both of them confirm what I initially stated.

Good for these families for sticking around and trying to make those neighborhoods a better place.

Still, lol @ the Brookens' claims that a part of the reason for them moving back to Milwaukee was because their daughter started acting white and listening to Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber. Followed up by:

facepalm.jpg

Did you read my post? I already said I haven't read them yet (and I still haven't). I'm excited to read them and see if my conclusion agrees with your "redlining is so last century" argument!

My bad.

I think your post gives enough context for me to ask:

Why is this girl embracing her blackness and getting dreadlocks a facepalm?

He wasn't even murdered for driving while black! Why does anyone think racism still exists?

These parents could afford to live in and send their kids to school in one of the highest performing school districts in the state, but chose to move back to the worst one because of their concern that their daughter was losing her "blackness". More specifically, because she wanted straight hair like her friends and was starting to listen to Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift instead of proper black music, whatever that may be. They end by indicating that all is now well because she's in a school without any white kids to confuse their impressionable daughter, who has now decided to go with dreadlocks to cement her new "blacker" identity.

What the actual ****?

Reverse these race roles and tell a story about a white family with means from a ****ty white neighborhood moving in to a predominantly affluent black neighborhood. After a while, they decide to move back to their ****ty neighborhood, citing reasons like their son coming home wanting dreadlocks like his new friends and his new desire to listen to "black music". They move from the good neighborhood back to a bad one and then the NYT writes an article about how the family is happier now because their son gets to go to school without any black kids and he's got a proper "white person" haircut and listens to Celine Dion and Eric Clapton like a white person should.

Please explain to me how you wouldn't be labeling that as the most ridiculous story ever.

That does sound ridiculous. Affluent black neighbourhood lol.

Also good job whitesplaining how racial profiling of a black professional is fine because he lived in a predominantly white neighbourhood.

Let me guess you don't think institutional racism is a real thing too.

I think a Klan member hacked Phill's account.

Kind of a cop-out on my part, but there are no circumstances in which me engaging Phill on the topic of racism ends well. Especially when he goes straight for the Tumblr buzzwords.

You win, Phill.

The first part of that does sound potentially troublesome, you could have a debate about the tradeoff between providing a better environment for your kids but having to sacrifice your identity and background to do so.

But you didn't quote that part about leaving the better neighborhood and say "facepalm", you quoted the part about the kid embracing her background and getting dreadlocks and said "facepalm", which is a little weird because that sounds like a pretty normal and healthy thing for any kid to do?

Also great here is that vhawk apparently thinks Inso0's Peggy Noonan "I saw lots of Romney lawn signs"-level anecdotes are as valuable as those from someone who actually lived the experience

I suppose you're right, but I think you're just trying too hard to turn this into a "look at intolerant Inso0 showing his true colors again" tangent.

I read the article, and the way they describe their life before the move, the optimism about WFB, and then to end their story having moved back into the ghetto with a "Well, at least now she's at school with black kids, and she's getting dreadlocks!" is a huge facepalm. Hey, we're back in the crime-ridden city with **** schools, but at least we're acting sufficiently black again!

How very sad.