-
What Are the Risks of Syria Involvement?
May 23, 2013 | 25 comments
-
Pray and Grow Rich
May 16, 2013 | 68 comments
-
Ruthie’s Way
May 2, 2013 | 6 comments
-
A Free and Indivisible Union
April 25, 2013 | 70 comments
-
Revoke Obama’s Peace Prize
April 18, 2013 | 80 comments
The Nation's Pulse
Mixing It Up
Mixed-income housing doesn’t work in theory or in practice.
One of social scientist Charles Murray’s novel solutions to closing the widening chasm between the well-to-do and the poor is to encourage them to live next door to one other. Presumably, by living in the same neighborhoods as the upper class, the poor would — by something akin to osmosis — acquire the habits of success.
Murray claims to practice what he preaches. He wanted his children to have the same small town experience he had growing up in Newton, Iowa (without actually having to live in Iowa). “I did not want my children to grow up only knowing other upper-middle-class kids like themselves,” Murray recently told the New York Times. So he moved his family some 50 miles northwest to quiet, picturesque, historic Burkittsville, Md.
It all sounds perfectly wonderful. It also sounds a lot like the policies social engineers have been promoting for decades, ever since they were forced to admit that their grand public housing projects were unmitigated disasters. Down, but not out, they are back peddling a new brand of urban panacea: mixed-income housing.
The theory is that back in some long lost Golden Age people of all socio-economic castes lived together in near-perfect harmony. The banker lived next door to the milkman who lived upstairs from the town drunk who resided across the street from the cop who lived catty-corner to the druggist. Murray even quotes Tocqueville saying, “In the United States, the more opulent citizens take great care not to stand aloof from the people. On the contrary, they constantly keep on easy terms with the lower classes: they listen to them, they speak to them every day.”
Perhaps, but this is no Golden Age. This is more like another Iron Age (marked by the prevalent use of iron piercings). Let’s say, for arguments sake, that there was indeed a time when all classes lived in communal bliss. As Murray details in his new book Coming Apart, times have changed. Values, manners, taboos, crimes rates, you name it, they have all changed, most radically for the underclass, and certainly not for the better. The manners and mores that encouraged good conduct were long ago washed away by the liberal and libertarian drift of contemporary society.
I HAPPEN TO LIVE on a mixed-income street, and the few middle class people here are united in their desire to move away. The reason is simple. Too many of our poor neighbors make this an extremely difficult place to live. I say “poor,” but finances have little to do with their conduct. Economics is simply the prism through which we insist on viewing people. (You can be poor and conduct yourself with style and grace, just as you can be wealthy and behave like an ass.) No, what makes our neighborhood unbearable at times is how our “poorer” neighbors’ values and lifestyles are so radically different from ours. In general the middle class craves order, stability, security and tranquility. The poor, meanwhile, lead lives that are slovenly chaotic.
Some examples: Few of the poor young men and women on our street are employed (most are high school dropouts, and yet washing dishes would be beneath them). This allows them to hang out all night in the street playing loud music. Asking them to be quiet does little good. You are likely to be called horrible names. Phone the cops and you only make enemies of them. Besides the noise, there is the litter. You quickly grow weary of cleaning up your neighbors’ mounds of discarded beer cans, fast food bags, and wrappers. Marijuana is smoked openly on the sidewalks and stoops. It is not unusual to come home and find a drug deal going on in a car parked in front of your home. One’s home must be secured like Fort Knox with house alarm, gates, outdoor lighting, and still you find your car window shattered and your car radio stolen.
As for the habits of the middle class rubbing off on the poor, it would likely be the other way around. Which is why the few responsible middle class parents on our street do not allow their children to associate with their poorer neighbors. I can’t say I blame them. The foul language, the filth, the drug use, the frequent spousal and child abuse, and the unsecured firearms are all excellent reasons why, even on our block, the children are segregated into classes.
But how can we expect the urban planners to know this? They do not live on mixed-income streets. They live in lush suburbs in college towns. Lacking first-hand knowledge and real-life experience, they have only their grandiose theories to go by. Besides, if they are proven wrong again, it is not they who will suffer the consequences. They will just return to their drawing boards.
About the Author
Christopher Orlet writes from St. Louis.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (58) | Leave a comment
More Articles by Christopher Orlet
More Articles From The Nation's Pulse
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/03/15/mixing-it-up
Follow us:
ADVERTISEMENT
SPONSORED LINKS
FLASHBACK TO: 1995
-
Pope Culture
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
-
Why the GOP Does Not, Like, Totally Suck
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
-
Dames at Sea
-
In the Absence of Guns
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
-
The Metaphysical Martini
-
Counting the Costs of Clintonism
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
-
Chuck McHagel
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
-
The Legacy of Old John and Mother Fresh-Roasted
-
It’s the Best Time of the Year
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
-
The Bush Crack-Up
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy?
Clip of the Day
H/T to National Review Online
ADVERTISEMENT
Appleby| 3.15.12 @ 6:32AM
I lived in a "mixed income" housing block in Buffao that had been erected on the former site of a slum (as we used to call them). The place was thrown up quickly using shoddy materials, and most of the people who lived there were the same people who had lived in the slum, I think -- I never met any of them; in typical Buffalonian style, they only spoke to people who had been known to their families for at least three generations. Their children (who were many) relentlessly smashed and defaced everything they could reach, and it was common for the parents to smash the security locks on the common doors, because they did not want to have to let their children in and out of the building.
Poverty was a way of life in Buffalo at that time, so the financial differences between families were not that great. But it was clearly obvious that the "poor" inhabitants didn't know how to "be poor" as we working class folk did. For one example, during one of our frequent power blackouts (due to shoddy electrical work), the "poor" neighbours were yowling about their endangered freezers full of food, while the broke neighbours had noticed that it was well below zero farenheit outdoors and had already put their perishables on our balconies, which were a foot deep in Buffalo's trademark snow. I moved out of that place as soon as my lease was up, and into a comfortable neighbourhood "flat" (a kind of stacked duplex) on a street of middle class people.
Doctor_X| 3.15.12 @ 8:04AM
Appleby,
I grew up in Buffalo (North) and when I was in college I watched them put up those houses and you are right about how cheap they were!
I was also right in thinking that the middle-class people who moved in wouldn't put up with it for very long.
numbatdog| 3.15.12 @ 8:25AM
Remember the Boston busing experiment?
Same liberal social engineering mindset.
Same disastrous results.
What lesson was learned? Nothing.
Stuart Koehl| 3.15.12 @ 9:31AM
I grew up in Boro Park, Brooklyn, in the early-mid 1960s, at which time the neighborhood was of mixed German-Italian ethnicity, but within that ethnic mix were a whole range of economic classes. There were dentists and doctors living in the neighborhood (and running their practices out of their homes, living upstairs, with their office downstairs). There were shopkeepers, cobblers, accountants, teachers, auto mechanics, construction workers--they all lived cheek by jowl.
The same phenomenon seems to have pertained in black neighborhoods in DC, prior to the 1968 riots. Rich, middle class and poor all tended to live in close proximity, but that ended after the riots, as the well-to-do abandoned blighted neighborhoods for more secure and upscale areas. Ironically, those poor black homeowners who could not afford to move, and who had to weather the crime and poverty for decades are now having the last laugh, as they now sell their classic brick and brownstone row houses (for which they paid peanuts back in the day) for more than a million bucks to rich white yuppie urban homesteaders.
One thing both Brooklyn and DC had in common was a strong church presence in those neighborhoods, which served as both a social and moral center. Much of that is strongly lacking in neighborhoods today and undermines Murray's proposal.
I agree with Orlet, who says things have changed far too much to put the toothpaste back in the tube. The gap between the underclass and even the working poor has become so great as to be incapable of bridging simply through proximity.
The only solution, in my opinion, is to wean the underclass off the teat of government benefits. It may have to be done cold turkey to have any real effect, but the time is coming when we'll have to quote John Smith quoting Saint Paul: "He who doth not work, neither shall he eat".
tdiinva| 3.15.12 @ 9:37AM
Mr. Orlet:
You live in a CCW state. Do you have a permit? If not, you should get one. It might save your life some day.
tdiinva| 3.15.12 @ 9:37AM
Mr. Orlet:
You live in a CCW state. Do you have a permit? If not, you should get one. It might save your life some day.
RJ| 3.15.12 @ 9:42AM
I think it really gets down to wanting to live in a community with people who have similar values because their conduct impacts on your quality of life. In California, there are many wealthy liberals that I would be very happy to exchange for stable, secure and tranquil citizens of the middle class.
Edward White| 3.15.12 @ 9:47AM
A perceptive, accurate analysis of mixed income housing, Mr. Orlet. Thank you.
I live in a rural neighborhood that used to be solid middle-class--attractive houses beautifully landscaped. The highway that runs through my neighborhood was designated "scenic" on our state map, but that was a long time ago. Now the highway winds through mile after mile of rural blight.
The owners of the beautiful, meticulously-kept properties have died off, their properties divided and sold, and now the lower classes--the lazy, noisy, littering classes-- have moved in and there are eyesores everywhere.
It seems to me that the low class residents have a message for me, and it is "I don't give a damn, and I want you to know I don't give a damn."
They are destroying the rural aesthetics my neighbors and I treasure. They are sorry, good-for-nothings who litter their yards and the whole neighborhood by throwing trash out their car windows. They never plant a tree or a shrub, and they would never think of hiding their junk behind a fence or a privacy shrub.
And you're right when you say that it's not a matter of economics, but of values and of a lifestyle so radically different from those of the respectable, responsible middle-class.
I do not live directly next door to these low-class dregs yet. But they are just down the highway and they are moving my way. I hope that by the time they get closer to me I will be dead.
Mixed-Income Housing? A nightmare!
Thank you for your excellent article. I shall pass it on to likeminded neighbors, friends, and family.
uh-huh, uh-huh| 3.15.12 @ 10:39AM
Edward, you sound like a prissy snob to me.
You expect rural areas to be free of so-called blight? I don't mind what you call eyesores. They add visual interest to an otherwise bland environment.
And speaking of bland, that word describes you perfectly, Mr. White.
loulou| 3.15.12 @ 11:35AM
I guess I'm a prissy snob as well because I believe that you can put ghetto type thugs in the nicest neighborhood and they will proceed to trash it and ruin it for everyone else.
Bland? I prefer bland to grafitti'ed up eyesores. And grafitti is not art, BTW.
Emily| 3.15.12 @ 12:11PM
Amen, loulou.
bull-gator| 3.15.12 @ 1:57PM
and you, sir, sound like an empty headed social engineer wanna be..."They add visual interest to an otherwise bland environment." Are you serious? Please explain this nuanced statement in plain middle class speak.
uh-huh, uh-huh| 3.15.12 @ 2:34PM
Well I just happen to believe that a property owner has the right to do anything he wants with his property. I don't want any town or county official telling me what I can or can't do with my own house and yard.
If I want to junk it up, paint my house chartruse, leave a junk car beside my house, THEN I HAVE THE RIGHT TO DO SO! IT'S MY PROPERTY! GOT IT?
2323| 3.15.12 @ 2:36PM
Obviously, you're trash.
So glad you don't live in my neighborhood.
uh-huh, uh huh| 3.15.12 @ 3:57PM
Well I'm glad you and Edward (Mr. White Bread) don't live near me, both of you forcing your "Keep America Beautiful" crap on every property owner in sight.
I've been approached by these types about my properties (I also own two used-car lots), and I say if you don't like it lump it, and get the hell off MY property.
I'm a man who stands up for his rights. And the "Keep America Beautiful" folks are lily-livered LIBERALS who want to force their precious, tea-sippin' pinky raised "tastes" down everybody's throat.
Get the hell off MY property and my rights!
Emily| 3.15.12 @ 4:00PM
May I nominate you for "Sorry Redneck of the Month"?
You deserve the award, Mr. Redneck Trash!
WRTolkas| 3.15.12 @ 8:35PM
Dear uh-huh, uh huh,
John H. Is that you?
Andrew| 3.15.12 @ 2:40PM
Yes, you have rights. Low class people are all about their rights. People of quality are about responsibilities.
2323| 3.15.12 @ 3:50PM
Exactly! Well-stated, Andrew.
This is a serious issue with me, for like Mr. White, I live in a rural area that is becoming more blighted by the day. It's terrible what low class people can do to an environment . . . and get away with it!
papa g| 3.15.12 @ 5:00PM
in keeping with the season . . .
you just scored a 3-pointer from beyond the NBA arc. Nice shot, Andrew.
Marc| 3.15.12 @ 5:12PM
You do not have that right anymore than you have the right to yell "fire" in a crowded movie theater.
Seek| 3.15.12 @ 7:07PM
Is there something romantic or "traditional" about eyesores in rural areas, as opposed to urban ones? I don't see where a barely-standing shack lends visual interest to anything.
Buck Bradley| 3.16.12 @ 10:05PM
Prissy? Where do you get that? Snob? Well I suppose an Occupier might view it that way. Bland? From what evidence do you derive that conclusion? You presume to state that a single word "perfectly describes" someone you have never met and about whom you know virtually nothing? Forgive us if we fail to swoon at your brilliance and charm....
Dean| 3.15.12 @ 9:51AM
This is like mixing a bucket of clean water and a bucket of dirty water. The clean water does not make the dirty water cleaner; the dirty water makes the clean water dirty.
DG in GA| 3.15.12 @ 9:53AM
Why can't the "social engineers" wake up to the fact that people want to live in areas where there is low/no crime, where people take care of their properties and where they do not have to endure the social ills of the underclass? People who believe in personal responsibility do NOT want to be forced to live cheek-to-jowl with people who are the poster children for "This is your brain on drugs."
I have a colleague, a young black man, who was living, with his wife and two children, in a mixed-race, lower income neighborhood, because that was where his wife grew up (before the neighborhood went to hell). My colleague told me that he was afraid to walk to the corner store because he had been robbed so many times. He never wore a watch, or even his wedding ring, when walking in the neighborhood, and took only a minimum amount of cash with him, NOT his wallet, if he did venture out. The last straw was when he and his family were sitting in the living room watching TV and the heard a loud "Bang" from outside. His children both dove for the floor shouting "Incoming," expecting that the loud noise was gunfire from the street. At that moment he decided that "celebrating diversity" and having his children grow up in the neighborhood where their mother had fond memories had to take a back seat to the safety and well-being of his family. They moved to the suburbs a few weeks later.
Renaissance Nerd | 3.15.12 @ 10:00AM
One problem is that we only have poorer folks in America, but no real poverty. You have to work at it to be poor in the old-fashioned sense, meaning starving, naked, and shelterless. When we have riots the 'poor' don't run into the grocery stores and steal bags of beans and rice, but instead rob shoe and electronics stores. Part of the reason for this is the middle-class desire for order, stability, security and tranquility, translated into government help for those who need it so they won't have to do it themselves. Charitable outsourcing, so to speak. Even when giving money to truly worthy charities like the Salvation Army, it allows us to stand aloof from dealing directly with those who are not like us. It's perfectly natural, if not exactly Christian.
I've lived in several mixed-class neighborhoods, including some where I was the only anglo on the street, which made me an outsider even though I speak fluent Spanish. I have no problem respecting those who have jobs and work hard, and I don't care if they flip burgers or do heart surgery for a living. Overexposure to those who do literally nothing worthwhile hasn't made me pity them; rather I despise them. I'm not talking about a desitute mother with a deadbeat ex-husband who has too many young children to be able to work either, I mean big strong men and women who hang around doing nothing because they can. You can't respect nothing.
albert constantine jr.| 3.15.12 @ 10:33AM
Income levels by themselves do not determine social class, and class is not necessarily static. Values and the adherence to them are much more important than the size of an income stream, particularly when that income stream is derived illicitly or from handouts from the taxpayers.
Likewise, when aberrant behavior (drug dealing, disruptively loud music) is tolerated or accepted, you’ll get more of it, and even more when it is subsidized. The moral center that Mr. Koehl notes was provided by churches in the past is an important instrument to communicate which values are shared and what is to be proscribed. Likewise, meaningful home ownership (not “flipping houses’ or buying what you can’t afford) and roots in a community are stabilizers that might be found in Burkitsville, MD, but by all of Mr. Orlet’s reports are in short supply in his St. Louis environs.
The poverty that one sees in the pockets of a number of those who occupy the lower rungs on the economic ladder is a reflection of the poverty of their souls. Many have squandered the opportunities to achieve, and descend or remain to those points. While we are a society that has upward mobility, the opposite exists, as well. One can be born to middle or upper class circumstances, but through bad choices can descend.
I used to posit what I called the “Chicken Bone Theory” of urban blight. Most neighborhoods have take out restaurants where the local residents can purchase prepared foods. Upon obtaining a meal, those who aspire towards middle class values consume it and dispose of the refuse in a manner that is generally not very visible to an observer.
On the other hand, those who don’t feel concerned about their quality of life or empowered to do anything except make it worse will be eating it publicly and throwing the bones and trash in the street.
The presence of partially eaten chicken wings on the sidewalk will tell you as much as you need to know about the crime rate, ratio of renters to owners or any other statistical figure about an area that you might wish to avoid if you don’t want to see or experience bad behavior.
Petronius| 3.15.12 @ 10:37AM
BTDT Chris is too young to remember Lacledetown in the central corridor just west of Jefferson. Today it's Harris Stowe St. University, a subsidized boondogle which graduated English (?) teachers who employed such usage as "had already did that". The place lasted until the good hearted lower class whites left after they had nothing left to steal, and all the fixtures had been torn out and sold to salvers for drug money by the squatters in the unoccupied units. These people don't want to be civilized. Dr. Price was right. "They don't want to live in the brightly lit mansion on the hill. They just want to stand outside and throw rocks."
You better move out while you can Chris. The only real asset close you is Hodaks.
mike daniels| 3.15.12 @ 10:44AM
Every so often in the affluent suburbs where I have lived there is curfluffle about building low income "senior" housing. This is always brought about by some activist group that has no ties to the community and no identifiable sponsor or source of funding. They rant and rave and threaten lawsuits at local government meetings and then when the "concerned" board members promise to study the problem they fade away for a while. Ever wonder who these folks are? I served on a locally elected board and had my fill of these nasty loud mouthed bullies. Acorn ???
Louis Jenkins| 3.15.12 @ 11:05AM
You can't mix the two. One or the other will want to move out, and most of the time it's the people who can move. The neighborhood will return to being a slum, including the crime. So why even bother? A liberals dream?
Dick Nome| 3.15.12 @ 11:08AM
Many of these 'low income affordable housing' developments are demomolised in two stages. First by the occupants who tear out the plumbing and wiring to sell for scrap and them by the local governments after they become unliveable crack houses or abandoned derelicts.
cicero| 3.15.12 @ 11:50AM
Marvin Olasky wrote a book in about 1972, titled, I believe, "The American Way of Poverty", or something close to that. He posited that society was divided into classes, ranging from the high class, through middle classes, to the low class. The thing that distinguished the highest class was the fact that they tended to view things in terms of three generations out, and made their life style choices accordingly. On the other end of the spectrum, the lowest class tended to think in terms of 24 to 72 hours. While class was not strictly dictated by wealth, wealth tnded to follow class. This book came out at the end of the urban riots of the late 60s. He correctly described these affairs as opportunities for the lowest classes to steal other peoples' stuff, and riots of opportunity rather than oppression.
Nothing has changed. It is just that the lowest classes have lost the energy to engage in full fledged riots, and now engage only in individual acts of mayhem, thievery, and looting. Of course, the educatedl ower classes engage in demonstration, such as OWS.
cicero| 3.15.12 @ 11:58AM
Marvin Olasky wrote a book in 1972, titled "The American Way of Poverty", or something close to that. In the book he divided society into classes: upper, upper middle, middle, and lower. While, in his estimation, wealth and class were not synonimous, wealth tended to follow class. He characterized upper class individuals as those who tended to think, and make decisions based on an horizon of three generations. The lowest class had a horizon of 24 to 72 hours. This book came out closely on the heels of the urban riots of the late 60s, which he correctly identified as opportunities to steal other peoples' stuff, and engage in general looting, rather than resistance to oppression. Not much has changed, except that the lowest classes have lost the energy for communal activity, such as looting and burning down their own dwellings. They now engage only in individual acts of the same. Of course, our educated lower classes have picked up the slack, as was recently exemplifies by the OWS crowd.
Seek| 3.15.12 @ 12:00PM
It isn't so much income-mixing as it is something unmentionable in polite company -- race-mixing -- that's the problem. I detest lowlife rednecks, too, but they're a sight better than life among lowlife blacks. Blaming "the planners" for neighborhood deterioration here is scapegoating. The main problem is blacks; the other problems are manageable.
Sociogeographic sorting is an inevitability in the human condition. But it's become an absolute necessity for whites in this country.
theblackcommenter | 3.15.12 @ 7:46PM
I don't think "race" has anything to do with it, and really not income. It is about class, or better said, about values. The kinds of values that lead to a middle class or upper middle class income are generally anathema to some folks, regardless of race. Choices like having babies out of wedlock or dropping out of school lead to predictable and largely inevitable results.
I grew up as one of the few Black families in a largely White working class neighborhood, and was constantly annoyed by the parade of classless White folks whose attitude of racial superiority was ludicrous in light of the obviously dissolute lifestyle they lived, complete with sofas on the front porch and junked cars in the driveway. It was always interesting to see them sneer and make racial comments about the "n**rs" (us) who had moved in, when we clearly were a better class of folks than them in every conceiveable way. We were delighted when the neighborhood finally got it's historic designation and a better class of people began to move in consistently -- some Black, some White, and some Asian. What we had in common of course was not our external racial characteristics, but our values.
RJ| 3.15.12 @ 10:04PM
100% agree. It is all about having compatible values and being considerate.
fed up| 3.16.12 @ 10:48AM
Thank you, Black Commentator, for your patient reply to Seek. You proved Seek wrong simply by your class.
I have always known that quality---and trash--- come in all colors.
THKrupp| 3.16.12 @ 11:18AM
Nicely said
Buck Bradley| 3.16.12 @ 10:10PM
To deny that a certain race in this country is a "culture" onto itself, and that that "culture" is less a "culture" than a cancer is to play the ostrich.
Joe D.| 3.15.12 @ 12:52PM
Chris, two things I need to understand. First, why do you live in this bad environment. I am sure you have noted it before. Second, any time the idiots in the ivory towers want to experiment from now on, they should use themselves as the ginny pigs first.
Claypoole| 3.15.12 @ 1:30PM
Section 8 vouchers have ruined one of the most beautiful and historic streets in my town. Owners of elegant, early 19th century houses can no longer put out the pots of flowers and veranda furniture they used to--anything left outside that is not chained down will be stolen. There is litter all over the sidewalks and gutters. The owners of the Section 8 houses don't earn enough in rentals to make maintenance of their properties worthwhile.
End all government welfare; it is the cause of the destruction.
Seek| 3.15.12 @ 7:00PM
Remember, it was HUD under the "conservative" Reagan and Bush I years that pushed Section 8 vouchers as a substitute for project-based aid. At least with Section 8 new construction/rehab, you knew where to stay away. With vouchers, the riff-raff comes to you.
wolflen| 3.15.12 @ 1:58PM
in santa monica(a rent controlled city) they call it "affordable housing"...and its a sacred cow...all new "development" is required to allocate a percentage of the units to "affordable housing"..years back the building next to mine began accepting state/federal sponsored "section 8" program folks..it was an instant disaster..and after several months the tenants could not/did not pay their share of the rent and were evicted..and that ended the experiment for the owner of the building..the noise and grafitti left also..i pity the new tenents paying 1500-2000 month rent that HAVE to live next to folks that think "lil kim" is an artist at 2AM..
loulou| 3.15.12 @ 2:32PM
The book to read is, "The Unheavenly City" by Edward Banfield.
Seek| 3.15.12 @ 7:02PM
It's what made me into a conservative years ago : the real kind. Interesting fact: Banfield was the Ph.D. thesis adviser at the University of Chicago for the recently-departed James Q. Wilson. Both left in the early 60s to teach at Harvard.
Stan REdmond| 3.15.12 @ 2:33PM
People naturally segregate themselves. Look anywhere on earth. From our basic unit the family common to all of us to social clubs of the extremely wealthy. We have ancient tribes and now street gangs. Go to any school cafeteria. The well off sit with the well off. The black students tend to sit with other black students and the same for asians hispanics and whites. And it's a pretty harmonious existence.
Chaos ensues when some liberal do gooder tries to force us against our nature in to the same melting pot while at the same time telling us diversity trumps human nature.
Sam Vaughn| 3.15.12 @ 2:38PM
Very well said. I sit on the board of an association trying to govern the condominium units in a "mixed" income area. It's mixed because some of the owners don't live here and will rent to anybody with a pulse. All manner of disgusting behaviour is inflicted upon the owners that live in their dwellings and take pride in their appearance. There seems to be a tipping point in terms of percentage where a community crossed the threshold of no return, we're not there yet but I can see the horizon. NO amount of "gentle" persuasion, chiding and outright confrontation makes a difference as the offsite owners do not manage their own tenants. The hard fact of the matter is that when we try to correct behaviour ask people to abide by the community rules we become targets. In a nutshell in our little microcosm of a community we are witnessing the absolute and total failure of liberalism and our community.
Curtis Rasmussen| 3.15.12 @ 3:22PM
I once owned a condo where other owners rented out their units. In one of those units was a thief who systematically robbed the local businesses and marginally secured units. One time he broke in to my garage and took a floor jack. Unfortunately for me, I left the remains of my phone bill in the garbage leading to that scumbag calling my phone repeatedly to get an idea of when I was there. I used the *69 feature to call back and got a name. I knew who it was and called the cops. The cops would do nothing. I changed my phone number soon thereafter, double bolted my garage, and got out.
I will not buy a condo again. If the proportion of renters reaches a certain level, then the real estate value of the entire complex will be compromised and banks will raise mortgage rates or stay away because of the risk. All because of a few irresponsible turds like my thief lowlife neighbor.
Petronius| 3.15.12 @ 5:23PM
Liberal Social Engineering is grounded in the theory that good living is their purview and nobody else should be allowed any without their consent. Hang the lot of them.
Dave Williams| 3.15.12 @ 5:54PM
This country started its descent to hell when the property qualification for voting was abolished. Face it, there are more trashy people than decent ones, and we are about to be totally swamped....
Fed up| 3.15.12 @ 8:34PM
Orlet know of what he speaks because he is/has experienced what he wrote about.
If Obama and Michelle want to make a small improvement in this world...why don't they take on the black society and its 70% unwed birth rate, its high abortion rates, the high percentage of its young men spending their years in prison, the murder rate of black against balcks and whites, etc., etc. etc. why don't they address how the black society is destroying itself?
PCP Smoker| 3.15.12 @ 8:38PM
"The theory is that back in some long lost Golden Age people of all socio-economic castes lived together in near-perfect harmony."
I think you are reducing Murray's point to absurdity.
That type of arrangement is still alive and well in small Midwestern cities (8-15K in population). My general neighborhood consists of factory workers, police officer, retirees, people in the service industry, technical specialists, CPAs, and the head of local large manufacturing firm ($100 mill/year). I see them at Church, ball games, town gatherings, and most of them are involved in community activities. The town reflects Murray's Newton and, correctly, keeps everyone involved and cognizant of each other.
Having said that, your point is very valid. We don't have any welfare cases around us -- knock on wood -- and would be horrified if illegals started it moving in and setting up in the usual 10 to a house. The difference is, obviously, culture, allegiance to American values, and a sense of ownership and independence. Those qualities, as you can attest, are not displayed by the welfare masses. Good luck finding a place.
paul85| 3.15.12 @ 9:32PM
Claypoole: another twist on Section 8 vouchers. While living in Atlanta's suburbs I found a brand new apartment complex with reasonable rental rates. I was on of the first renters there. The neighbors, the staff were like a big family. The second year, management changed; old staff just fired; they went "Section 8." Before my second year's lease was up, I couldn't wait to get out of there - drug deals in the stairwells, muttiple families in single family units, and general fear and anomy throughout.
While searching for another place, I came across a brand new, beautiful complex; the lobby was gorgeous. The first thing the rental agent told me was that *ONLY SECTION 8* applications were being accepted. Apparently these builders get more from the government payouts, while they leave the apartments and commons to rot away. As with so much else, the government ensures dislocations of every variety.
Bob Grant| 3.16.12 @ 3:20AM
Mr. Orlet,
Did you read the entire book? Mr. Murray addresses all of your concerns in the book.
To start with, he never mentions a government solution (social engineering) to the problem of segregating classes. He simply stated society in general would be better off by more mixing of the two classes because as it stands today, the "super elite" who reside in these "super zips" have absolutely nothing in common with the lower classes of society. Literally nothing. No common thread whatsoever, save having the same president.
Many of these Super Elites have no concept of how poorer people earn a living, nor do they know of anyone who does. These folks are completely walled off from the rest of society visa vie culture, the law, shopping habits, how their children are educated, or just day-to-day activities in general. No common bond at all.
The problem is many of these super elites shape opinion, write law, run mega-corporations, and create the pop culture but know nothing about the majority of its fellow citizens.
Don't you think this could lead to problems, serious problems?
Curtis Rasmussen| 3.16.12 @ 12:15PM
This is America, idiot. people can live as they damn well please.
RJ| 3.16.12 @ 3:48PM
America has changed where I live. We have a nanny "Community Association" which willfully abuses its authority issuing "fines" for having Christmas lights after the holiday season and regulations for the architectural design of dog houses in the backyard of a single family residence. The police state has arrived and very few of the neighbors care enough to do anything about it. The common refrain is "at least there are no purple houses," as if that was ever a problem.
Gerry| 3.16.12 @ 12:26PM
Love how all these "conservative" are against property rights.
BHush| 7.21.12 @ 11:58AM
No one of a high Social class (which is not meant to be confused with “economic class” that has nothing to do whatsoever with class period, thank you) would ever live around questionable people. What morons dream this crap up is astonishing. The second you let these so-called underprivileged people in the entire neighbourhood goes down the sewer (and history has proven it true over and over again.) I remember many neighborhoods of both Buffalo and Niagara Falls that were elegant old money neighborhoods like Delaware Park in Buffalo and 700 block of Fourth and Park Place and Buffalo Avenue in Niagara Falls. In 30 years all down the sewer as the demographics went black slowly people moved out and today 30 years on a nightmare.
Is not it bad enough that even most private schools are so mass, one has to resort to private tutoring and home schooling? There are people I do not want to be around and I will not be around or subject my family to being around. This stupidity in America will not work. America, no matter what some PC liberal fool would like to push is NOT a so-called melting pot (that phrase was always improper) to real Society based on breeding and heritage, America is just a salad, and frankly there are plenty of American condiments I refuse to have in mine.