Originally Posted by
envane
Every major city has hoods, some worse than others.
The locals do not cooperate with police. Its hard to fight crime if no one wants to be a witness to a murder.
If police become too aggressive, the locals cry racism.
Throwing more money at the problem will not solve the problem. These areas are enormous tax sinks as it is.
Daley had the right idea when he demoed some public housing and shipped the residents to Section 8 downstate. Of course, then Peoria and Urbana are stuck with the problem.
This kind of discussion always quickly degenerates into this, so this will be my last response.
If you want to ride through a neighborhood, then do it.
If you don't want to, don't do it.
If you want to write little internet posts about things that you saw on "The Wire" and assume to be true of everyone in any middle-class (yes, much of Austin is pretty solidly working and middle class - if you spent a little time there, you'd figure that out pretty quickly. or maybe not) to poor black neighborhood, then do it.
My chances of getting hit by a Land Rover in Lincoln Park (happened to me almost twice on Racine within two blocks the other day) are astronomically higher than some of "the locals" doing anything to me more threatening than saying "good morning" on any random block of the West Side or South Side that I happen to be riding through. Let alone being murdered, and having none of those pesky "locals" wanting to snitch to the 5-0. Which, I admit, would suck.
The rest of your post, if I'd had several more beers, would be something to reply to as well. I'll leave it alone. And any response of "well, I used to live in a tough neighborhood, I have a lot of black friends, I'm a cop, I know what I'm talking about, one time I heard about this one guy that this bad thing happened to, etc" will go without a response from me. But feel free.