Liberty City: An Eye Opening Look Into Miami's Ghetto
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/3121856529_D2vWp3H-M.jpg)
The idea of having a healthy urban community is much more than seeing your downtown filled with tourists, yuppies, and froyo shops. It's also important to understand and attempt to address the neighborhoods and social issues of our cities that marketing types tend to ignore and cover up. This video documentary by GorillaShanks.com provides a raw and uncut look into one of Florida's inner city neighborhoods: Miami's Liberty City.
Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2014-mar-liberty-city-an-eye-opening-look-into-miamis-ghetto
I don't know why it is public policy to build section 8 housing in large tracts.....nothing breeds trouble like non-employed capable adults congregating in 'hoods'.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Miami_neighborhoodsmap.png/775px-Miami_neighborhoodsmap.png)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_City
Liberty City 2010 population: 19,725; Population Density: 9,669 residents/square mile
Quote from: twojacks on March 17, 2014, 06:43:14 AM
I don't know why it is public policy to build section 8 housing in large tracts.....nothing breeds trouble like non-employed capable adults congregating in 'hoods'.
Public housing and Section 8 housing are two different things.
Worth noting that both Liberty/Model City and Overtown were thriving middle-class cultural centers for Miami's black community prior to the construction of I-95 and I-395. It's no coincidence that I-95 was often jokingly referred to as the "slum clearing program" at the time.
^I-95/I-395 came up in a discussion I had with my dad over the weekend. He was explaining to me what Overtown and Liberty City looked like when he was a kid (late 40s/early 50s), when my grandmother lived in Overtown. She moved to Liberty City when her Overtown residence was removed for the highway's construction. He also mentioned that Liberty City was viewed as a nice community at the time.
This post got me interested, and I am reading a rather lengthy, very interesting paper on the politics and economics behind the creation of the Interstate highway system. One facet that is consistent throughout the entire period of planning and building (roughly mid-40s through the 60s) was that federal money for any kind of relocation assistance was considered "unnecessary extra cost", as these expressways mercilessly ripped through the low-income areas of all the major cities.
Lack of parenting (especially father figures) in the household is the absolute main reason why places like Liberty City, Eureka Gardens, and Roosevelt Gardens exists. There are plenty of ghettos with no highways around, and plenty of nice areas in which highways cut through. Every dead end isn't crime ridden either, contrary to popular belief.
The point is not why crime-ridden areas exist, and where they exist, but that the expressway system we know now was pushed through low-income areas deliberately as some kind of misguided urban renewal mission without the funding or effort to handle the resultant displacement.
Every transportation system has got to go through someones backyard...Blaming the highway system for displacement is wrong. Every geographically desireable area has a boundary where the other side of is not as swell. Railroad tracks, Rivers, highways, streets, and with the advent of gated communities, sometimes the other side of the fence. You would think that a highway system nearby would afford better employment opportunities. Not that they hinder community prosperity.
Quote from: twojacks on March 17, 2014, 04:44:17 PM
You would think that a highway system nearby would afford better employment opportunities. Not that they hinder community prosperity.
If you don't own a car, a highway isn't of much use.
my first thought as I begin to watch this is the sense of belonging -- it might be scary, it might be bad, but it is home -- but I'm not all the way through either.
Quote from: finehoe on March 17, 2014, 05:22:40 PM
If you don't own a car, a highway isn't of much use.
I totally agree that many in the hood do not have vehicles, so highways aren't of much use to many there. I still will never succumb to the argument (by some) that highways are the blame of festering crime-ridden ghettos.
The real ugly truth is that desegregation, drugs, and lack of parenting/education are the true reasons why many Blacks (because that's the subject here) live unproductive lifestyles like above. Also not all, but MANY rest on their laurels with entitlements ie EBT cards (I'm not talking about jobseekers, low wage jobs, and the disabled). Time to quit making excuses, and tell the truth. Blaming highways for the cause of ghettos is absurd IMO. As a black man, I really care about this issue (and I'm a critic of modern black communities in the US) and that's why I will never sugarcoat that by making US interstates a fallguy.
I'm a black guy who believes in cause and effect. As a whole, we've never recovered from the damages of the slavery and Jim Crow eras and we probably won't for several decades. That's probably another entire discussion to have though.
Highways as a form of urban renewal isn't exactly absurd. It's actually been pretty well proven throughout the years. Many of our mid-20th century expressways took out the economic hearts of older black communities (as well as other minority districts throughout the country). The placement of high density housing projects, black flight (due to desegregation...those who had the means.....left the city just like their white counterparts), a declining inner city industrial base, and 1960s riots all played a role to destroy what the highway's didn't.
I am also a black man with a need to see improvements in our communities. While there are parents that need to take more responsibility for their kids, this life style seems to be very profitable to the entertainment industry. Rick Ross and other (puppets) glorifies this lifestyle and make a profit off of the glorification of making large amounts of illegal money, shooting, selling drugs to, and murdering black people. This type of music would not be tolerated if it was aimed at kids in the white community.
While our neighborhoods seem "bad", Clear Channel - 93.3FM in Jax (puppet masters) is force feeding the residents of the community with the same things they see from day to day, which is shaping their mindsets and keep people in mental chains. If these neighborhoods are in such bad conditions, why does city officials, or better yet the people in and around the community allow it to happen? Why does entertainment push so hard to negativly impact these areas? :-X
Glad this video was posted...it's an eye opener.
#DoBetterNow
Here is an interesting read. This movement is happening in our own town. Let's make it better.
http://bit.ly/Nx3eIU
Stop with the highway excuse. Bad choices, bad parents, and laziness. Lets start there first. Not everyone can be Puff Daddy and Beyoncé.
No just stop with the excuses and take responsibility for your own actions.
Quote from: thelakelander on March 18, 2014, 12:20:38 AM
I'm a black guy who believes in cause and effect. As a whole, we've never recovered from the damages of the slavery and Jim Crow eras and we probably won't for several decades. That's probably another entire discussion to have though.
Highways as a form of urban renewal isn't exactly absurd. It's actually been pretty well proven throughout the years. Many of our mid-20th century expressways took out the economic hearts of older black communities (as well as other minority districts throughout the country). The placement of high density housing projects, black flight (due to desegregation...those who had the means.....left the city just like their white counterparts), a declining inner city industrial base, and 1960s riots all played a role to destroy what the highway's didn't.
Lake, out of curiosity, have you read "The Big Roads" by Earl Swift? Many fascinating stories on this subject. The desperate fight by middle-class black communities to save their neighborhoods from I-70 in Baltimore, only to see the neighborhoods decline just because of the threat of the highway's approach, is chilling.
Quote from: stephendare on March 20, 2014, 10:17:53 AM
Quote from: Keith-N-Jax on March 20, 2014, 10:14:50 AM
No just stop with the excuses and take responsibility for your own actions.
unless you are a corporation or a planning board.
Well I'm neither and I still graduated high school, raised by a single parents and certainly didn't have everything I wanted. You have rich kids who fall by the waste side also with no highway, so was it a stop sign at the end of the street? We lived right off Beaver st next to I95, some us made good decisions some bad. People make neighborhood decline not highways!!
Quote from: Keith-N-Jax on March 20, 2014, 10:14:50 AM
Well I'm neither and I still graduated high school, raised by a single parents and certainly didn't have everything I wanted. You have rich kids who fall by the waste side also with no highway, so was it a stop sign at the end of the street? We lived right off Beaver st next to I95, some us made good decisions some bad. People make neighborhood decline not highways!!
+1000
They say a rising tide lifts all boats. This is certainly true with urban development.
Create an environment where all the people who have the means to avoid it, do, and I'll show you a blighted community. The color of race really doesn't apply. Of course you'll have some exceptions (ex. me, Keith, etc.) but we're just that.......exceptions.
If there is a goal to improve the overall population, we have to find ways to make exceptions become the rule. That won't happen by taking the Bill Cosby approach of "I got mine, now you take personal responsibility and get your own." Personal responsibility is a huge part of the equation but we can at least attempt to develop our communities in a manner that better facilitates personal improvement, as opposed to reinforcing and stimulating the proliferation of negativity. This is the reason most communities don't purposely build high density housing projects anymore.