James Howard Kunstler: The tragedy of suburbia
It is probably too dreary today to watch this TED TALK again, but perhaps not.
“The immersive ugliness of our everyday environment in America is entropy made visible.”
Oil company subsidies, Zimmerman, Romney, our desperate County Sheriffs and teabag zealots clawing for meaning in the brutalist wasteland of talk radio and Walmart parking lots – the thing that ties all of our modern psychopathies together is our shitty architecture.
Love, love, love TED! That video is amazing, and it really says what we already know. What’s the difference between Concord Pike and Kirkwood Highway? Nothing. They are the two most depressing, souless areas in NCC.
I remember the outcry when MBNA built its fortress downtown. City residents were asking for shops/restaurants on the ground level. We didn’t get it. Instead MBNA gave us blocks of dead space. They might as well posted “Keep Out” signs on every building.
I have always understood city, town and country living. I’ve never understood suburbia – which combines the worst of each.
I’ll have to get to a pc with audio capacity!
I grew up in the 1950’s suburbs of Brandywine Hundred when the Concord Pike was our sole commercial strip.
Thanks to state’s tax-free shopping mantra (now super-morphed into the newly-minted development models of the Pam Scott-Paul Clarky era), we’ve got mixed-use redevelopment smattering onto every formerly quite corner of NCC.
…think mega-influx of white block and aqua Happy Harry-anchored strip centers that primed Levine’s sale to Walgreens.
…or Barley Mill Plaza office park zoning suddenly equating to a by-right dense commercial of King of Prussia Mall.
~*~
HecateDemetersd: “Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals.” ~ Aldo Leopold
….oops……
um, where do YOU live pandora? I apparently didn’t realize i lived on the intersection of depression street and souless avenue. I just thought i was conveniently close enough to ride my bike to things and in a safe enough area that i could lock my bike outside.
Do you consider the architecture on Concord Pike and Kirkwood Highway inviting? Do you think it defines us as a people? Does it encourage people to hangout and walk around? To me it’s a row of strip malls that people zip in and out of – useful, but hardly inviting. People don’t spend their afternoon’s or evening congregating at Fairfax Shopping Center or Brandywine Town Center.
I live in the city, where most of our space is only filled when there’s a festival or a 5k. Not good, either. Some architecture is in place – and I beat up on MBNA’s city fortress – but it’s not being used to attract people. There are some signs of life, but not enough.
Concord Pike, Kirkwood Highway, and the MBNA buildings exist as they are due to lack of vision, our love of cars, and the bottom line in terms of cost.
BTW, did you watch the video? The intersection shown in the beginning to could be Anywhere, USA. If someone had shown me that picture and asked me to guess where it was in Delaware (even though it wasn’t in DE) I would have guessed it was on Concord Pike or Kirkwood Highway.
didn’t get to watch the video yet but took offense to my home (and my parents home, and my grandparents home) as if i lived in some barren wasteland. Yes not all of the parts of 202 are gorgegous but there are still some interesting structures, how about the 50s throwback that is the original charcoal pit location?
I just don’t understand what you’re arguing. Even a pretty strip mall is still a strip mall, a shopping center with a pretty park and fountain in the middle is still a shoping center.
and maybe if the “nice” part of the city wasn’t two blocks away from the “oh my god, bad” part of the city it wouldn’t be so hard to get people to go there. I dont care HOW much they dress up that waterfront. I still remember what it looked like when they just opened the baseball stadium (my dad helped build it) and you had to run to your car.
also in middle school, my favorite place to hang out was the fairfax shopping center. no joke.
As far as car based suburbs go, 202 is on a more human scale than most. The question is, are we building places that nourish our souls? Are we building places that foster a sense of civic pride?
If you think civic pride is not essential to a Democracy (as CRI seems to think), then you don’t see our built environments as a problem.
I happen to agree with Pandora and Jason330…shocking, I know!
Watch the video, V. It’s about building communities through architecture. It’s about building communities where people want to be and hang out together; communities that tempt us away from our homes. It’s about being a citizen rather than a consumer.
QP, It is because, unlike most wignuts, you’ve traveled outside of the United States and know that things don’t have to be this shitty looking.
excellent point Pandora. I just didn’t like you shitting on my home. There are lots of parks and places to congregate just off 202, I promise.
Exactly, Jason. Listen to what people talk about when they return from abroad, or from a walkable city. They love the little cafes they found where they sat outside and watched the people go pass, or the neat little shops, or cool butcher shop or how much they loved the piazza in Italy.
There’s an energy to these places.
To me one of the biggest shifts in American architecture came when we started putting garages on the front of houses.
I would LOVE for our country to have more walkable-city like structures, i just dont think it’s possible with the way we’ve already laid our area out. You NEED a car to get from place to place because people had cars when we designed the spaces. Paris is built the way it is because it was laid out before people had cars, and then they built the greatest public transport in the world to build upon that. I just don’t see that happening here.
plus any attempt to build on that stuff Pandora is listing here is derided as “elitist” (older people) and “hipster” (younger people)
An attempt by our city to have a place were people congregate and people watch: I give you Rodney Square.
That place certainly has an energy about it. I’ll give you that.
I’ve never felt comfortable in the suburbs. I feel like the very nature of having to drive to buy everything, and having everything you need for entertainment under your roof or behind you’re picket fence strongly discourages community. Sure, a lot of these places have “community watch” but to me, that is aimed at keeping outsiders out, and everyone in their homes… it’s sad really. Give me a smaller townhouse with a tiny lawn and lots of people outside interacting with each other ANY DAY over a Mcmansion where you cant even walk to grab milk.
well that’s because you grew up in a townhouse sb. I remember huge neighborhood crabfeasts in my backyard, and birthday parties and games running aroudn in the grass. We dont have community watch that i know of, but we do have neighborhood halloween parades, and easter egg hunts. The one thing i would really miss would be the yard.
V: Try to think outside the suburban big box. Not only does our land-use not have to be this way, it won’t be this way for very much longer. The entire system is built on cheap energy, which you’ll notice is disappearing.
Beyond that, the architecture being discussed here is the commercial strip, which is the capitalist equivalent of East German housing architecture: Not a penny spent on anything but the unavoidable basics. I’ve seen Third World barrios more attractive than Concord Pike.
Our suburbs contain thousands of miles of eminently walkable roadway, but arranged in little loops and cul-de-sacs that are not interconnected. So no matter which way you set off, you can’t get anywhere. But if there were intermittent pedestrian connectors between residential roads, you could walk or ride a bike across New Castle County on residential roads.
And if there were also connectors to shopping centers, then you would have somewhere to go. And with pedestrian access maybe the shopping centers and strip malls would be designed differently, perhaps with storefronts on the back as well as the front, and maybe more outdoor plazas and landscaping for spending time.
Jason330,
Perhaps (and yes, I’ve traveled extensively outside the “States”). However, one doesn’t need to travel outside the US to find good planning and design. There are many places within the US that are ‘great places’. For instance, the western and northern urban villages of Chicago, most of Boston/Cambridge (particularly along the green and red lines), Old New Castle here in Delaware, historic sections of Charleston, SC, a little town in NM called Mesilla. You’ll notice that all were laid out before the car became necessary to get everywhere outside of urban cores (let’s face it, bussing, as currently being mangled by DART, will never work).
As for the retrofit/redesign of our already developed suburban areas into more ‘urbane’ walkable/bikeable, sane/linear public transportation…the Kirkwood Highway and Concord Pike are precisely THE places we need to start!
Geezer: kindly eat me.
I think it’s an excellent point that we could be more interconnected. I would LOVE to have better public transport. I just am not sure there’s a way to get from where we are now to there, ESPECIALLY with a city as small as Wilmington. Puck’s suggestion is a good start.
in sum: i agree with you guys it would be nice, i just see hurdles to us getting there and would like it if all the city people wouldn’t use this thread as an opportunity to look down their nose at the suburbs as some sort of wasteland to be avoided when our city is also ugly as hell.
” I’ve seen Third World barrios more attractive than Concord Pike.”
dontcha think that is a little bit of a stretch? last i check, concord pike had electricity, running water, and climate controlled buildings… also ive never seen multiple sushi bars in a 3rd world bario…. can the hyperbolic rhetoric be saved for national politics?
It’s ugly, yes… YEAH V YOUR HOME IS UGLY! WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT? (please dont fight me about it) but there a fast swaths of Wilmington proper, and even (blasphemy) Philly that are worse than the sprawl of concord pike.
The city IS ugly as hell. Wilmington is an area where (for the most part, and the dynamic IS changing) people live in the burbs and work in town… not much is done to make the city look attractive for living, or the suburbs be attractive as anything but a bedroom community.
My brother lives in Cambridge (2 blocks off Central Square between MIT and Harvard). I get location envy every time I visit. Neighborhood block parties and Halloween parades are great (we do them, too) but they aren’t spontaneous.
Energy and spontaneity are the key.
And V, it isn’t the neighborhoods. It’s the bad, bad, bad commercial design. Every person living behind Fairfax Shopping Center is looking at the flat back of those stores (if there isn’t a bland fence). Imagine if that strip mall simply had some outdoor seating and a second store entrance out back.
Rodney Square needs even more density and a more imaginative central square for it to truly become, if not a great place, but at least a better place.
To start, the ugly, brown brick, arcade-belted structure that houses an amalagam of businesses and residents should be doubled in footprint (take up the rear parking lot) and height (but with a step back facades every 2 stores), with the front parking lot turned into an ornamentally paved public square with a parking garage underground.
The ACME should be raised, with a new multi-story (3 to 5 stories), mixed-use building fronting on DuPont Street. Parking would be in the rear, with a nice walkway from DuPont Street leading around the corner, beneath the railroad tracks to Kid’s.
The laughably out of place drive thru bank and stripmall opposite on DuPont St should be flipped to the front of the site and made 2 to 3 stories tall with parking in the rear.
Finally, a bomb should be dropped on C.R. Hooligans…
QP, i think you have Rodney square confused with Trolley Square
and CR’s is where it’s at. save your bombs for women’s health clinics, teabag.
Fairfax Shopping Center…another site ripe for redevelopment.
Sorry, typing too fast.
The Acme is depressing, but the area needs, and uses, a grocery store. When I lived in Trolley I walked to work, a drugstore, a liquor store, a grocery store, a bakery, a bank, restaurants, clubs, clothing shops, post office, florist, art gallery, herb shop, ice cream parlor, my doctor’s office, etc.
Rodney Square could become a hub if it was surrounded by cafes, shops, banks. The riverfront is designed as a boardwalk.
Another problem is the parking lot. They are overpowering. Crossing one to get to your destination is daunting, and far from welcoming.
Classic urban amenities grow organically from people having jobs in the same neighborhoods where they live. You can try to recreate it architecturally but it’s not the same. Wilmington no longer has the population density required to sustain a vibrant storefront landscape. Rodney Square will never be surrounded by shops until the upper floors of the nearby buildings are filled with residential apartments.
puck, couldn’t one argue that people wont move in and create a denser population without sufficient local businesses? The Market street area between Rodney and Biden Station is really coming along. UD could use their seemingly endless money bucket to expand the Wilmington campus to include housing.. or more housing. College kids with allowances help every economy. If Philly can turn Fishtown into “Northern Liberties,” ANYTHING is possible.
pandora: Lucky’s ice cream has done that (a little outdoor seating and a back window)and i think it’s served them really well.
I just don’t see Wilmington being able to bring people in to the city until the city isn’t so fucking scary (which would involve social programs to help the criminal elements etc. that I don’t think the city’s ready to invest). Some girl got raped in broad ass daylight in Trolley a few weeks back. That’s the “good” part of the city. The shame about Wilmington is that the nice parts and the not nice parts are only a few blocks apart, and bad people have feet.
also there’s not enough parking in the city as it is, so i dont know if getting rid of the existing lots is the answer. How else are you going to talk all of us sheltered souless suburbanites to relocate? (/sarcasm)
Sheesh, it doesn’t have to be a city. Many beach communities manage to do this, towns do this, and, yes, even cities do this. Concord Pike and Kirkwood Highway do not.
And if crime is your concern do NOT park at the Christiana Mall.
(Lucky’s or Sweet Lucy’s?)
It never ceases to amaze me that people think that crime only happens in Wilmington. I look at the NJ Crime page today and it looks to me that all parts of the state have issues. And the bad people have feet applies to bad people whether they come here from NY to do crazy stuff or if they just come from local neighborhoods.
Downtown Wilmington is seeing its population rise. There are actually waiting lists for a number of the signature residential spots downtown. A new apartment building is on the drawing boards for the Riverfront. I live at the edge of one of those “not nice” parts of the city right next to downtown. Houses for sale here are being looked at by people who want a more urban lifestyle and almost all of them are not from Delaware. Some of those houses are actually selling to these out of towners (like me) too.
And like me, most of these people do not have jobs in the neighborhood. But urban amenities don’t depend on working closeby (as places like NY or Philly or Baltimore or DC or you get the point), they depend on a vital core of locals who will keep these amenities in business. They also depend upon a good public transportation system which puts those amenities within reach. You can map property values in DC to their proximity to subway stations. It is worth something to a city dweller to not have to be in your car for everything. For some, it is worth something to NOT having a car, period. There is a neighborhood right by the train station in Baltimore that is revitalizing largely because people who work in DC could affordably live in Baltimore and still have a reasonable commute to DC. Baltimore actively worked for that population, though, and they have a good track record of hothousing neighborhoods that people are trying to reclaim. Wilmington could learn something from that.
ooh pardon me, Sweet Lucy’s.
i guess we’re talking about two different things at this point. I dont see us making Wilmington this kind of city you envision. You’re still talking about how ugly concord pike is. you’re right it’s ugly. you win.
The recent stuff in the Christiana mall is scary, but nobody’s getting shot or raped.
i dont think crime JUST happens in the city Cass, but it would be stupid to not admit that it does.
my moved-here-after-going-to-UD friends dont have the same aversion to the city/waterfront area as I do. Maybe it’s just because i grew up here and know what it looked like when i was a kid. but i can’t be the only one.
“puck, couldn’t one argue that people wont move in and create a denser population without sufficient local businesses? ”
No, typically an urban renaissance begins when artists, students, or young professionals seek cheaper rent precisely in those regions that are not popular with businesses. The cute shops come later.
What the Rodney Square area lacks is residential housing stock. They’d have to repurpose the office buildings for apartments, and put more shops in the ground floor.
also the amount of HUMAN SHIT i have seen while working in town has been almost impressive.
no matter how ugly the Target is, i have never seen a piece of human shit.
You know, I live in west Center City, My primary office is at 8th and Washington Street. I work with the homeless. I walk the streets daily. where is the human shit piling up so “impressively”? Just askin’ because I damn sure have not seen it.
“I just don’t see Wilmington being able to bring people in to the city until the city isn’t so fucking scary”
Maybe it will just have to make do with people who aren’t so scared.
As for Rodney Square, the problem is that the police won’t keep the homeless from congregating there. That one is easily solved — or would be, if the city’s honchos weren’t so busy trying to redirect most new business and investment to the riverfront. They have abandoned the rest of the city to its fate.
I live in West Center City too, and certainly have never seen all of this human shit all over the sidewalks. And once I get home I walk lots of places.
How does one determine whether feces came from a human or a dog? Or do I not want to know?
Maybe it will just have to make do with people who aren’t so scared.
Which is what most urban areas in the US do already. Because there isn’t a urban are in the US that isn’t scary to some folks and to most of those folks all cities are scary.
there are plenty of lovely things about cities. i’ve been to some beautiful cities. cities i would love to live in.
wilmington isn’t one of them. enjoy.
as for the shit, I’m hope you all have nice, affordable in-city parking.
This is mainly a perception thing that has been passed down through generations. (The same sort of things is happening now with “good” and “bad” schools)
The remnants of city flight are still alive and well. Parents taught their kids that cities or certain neighborhoods are dangerous. Those kids taught their kids. Over the years this has lessened, but some still remains. Most of us are simply living like our parents – now that’s scary! 😉 Most of the time we point out the “bad” things in something to justify our “superior” choices. That’s human nature.
As far as crime… take a look at the NJ’s crime map and get ready to never again venture into Newark, Wilmington, Talleyville, Christiana Mall, Concord Mall, Christiana, Delaware Park, Marbrook, Brandywine Town Center. Crime is a problem not specific to one area.
I don’t think im superior for living outside the city. I looked into moving into the city about a year ago and decided it didn’t suit what I needed. There are plenty of people for whom living in the city plays to what they want. Part of the reason I decided not to move had to do with prior personal experiences in the city, this isn’t because my daddy told me not to.
The whole reason I responded to this thread in the first place was because I felt that you were justifying your “superior” choice by saying the suburbs were depressing a soulless. Both places have their strengths and weaknesses and denying either just isn’t realistic.
geez. I remember when Lancaster Ave. was a shopping hub. Concord pike has gotten so dense. And yes we did hang out at Fairfax Shopping Center, and brought home the loaf of bread and pound of ground chuck your mother needed for dinner. Lots of shopping/hanging out was done there during the week as we would never think to go “all the way up to the mall” after school.
I live in West Center City too, and certainly have never seen all of this human shit all over the sidewalks. And once I get home I walk lots of places.
I work in west center city, cassandra. I once witnessed a large woman taking a dump in the middle of Wollaston St. at 5:30 PM. She was less than 100 feet from Connections “drop-in center” (the old church @ 8th & Washington) where she could have relieved herself in private. People have also shit on and around our building. It’s disgusting.
“and CR’s is where it’s at. save your bombs for women’s health clinics, teabag.” -socialistic ben
And here we were having an interesting discussion on an all-important issue (how we settle this rock called Earth) where mutual agreement can cross ideological boundaries.
Cadet Ben, your phaser doesn’t always have to be set to ‘kill’…sometimes its ok to let the guard down.
-QP
I’ll admit to not walking much on Wollaston St. But in the 10 years or so I’ve lived over there, the worst I’ve ever seen has been lots of dog poop in the 800 block of Washington. I’ll also admit that Connections and other service agencies’ clients have presented a special burden to WCC, one that these agencies don’t do much to address, IMO.
Excuse me?? I work in the Connections Homeless Cafe for a companion agency, before you accuse Connections of NOT addressing the issue come walk a mile in my shoes…. Connections, Ministry of Caring, Friendship House and others do not create homelessness and addiction In West Center city or the city at large, they in fact address it with Very limited resources. Without these agencies there would be Zero services and many more people on the street. To blame the very organizations working to deal with the population is pardon the expression, Crap.
And since I didn’t accuse Connections or anyone else of creating homelessness or addition or anything else, you can take your manufactured outrage someplace else.
Connections and other service agencies’ clients have presented a special burden to WCC, one that these agencies don’t do much to address, IMO.””
There is what you said, What is that if not an accusation that they are responsible for the woes of West Center City…. You said it, own it.
What that does say is pretty plain — that these agencies (and their amazing density in WCC) have created a special burden to WCC. There is no way to translate that to an accusation that they’ve caused homelessness or addiction (your Strawman Number 1) or that they are responsible for the woes of WCC (your Strawman Number 2).
So let’s see how many of these you can create today, shall we?
In your initial comment , where is the discussion of density? Revision #1.
What is your answer to “one that these agencies don’t do much to address, IMO.” Am I missing it? How do they fail to address it? Do you have a specific case or pattern of practice to cite? what are your sources for the comment?
Where would you have organizations that deal with homelessness locate?
If you indicate a “special burden” then say the agencies fail to address the burden, how exactly is one to interpret your words?
Finally my post states a fact that the agencies do not cause the problem, the fact is not an accusation but rather a fact.
So if you wanted to know what I meant by my comment, then you would have asked me about it first, rather than going through your faux outrage BS:
What is your answer to “one that these agencies don’t do much to address, IMO.” Am I missing it? How do they fail to address it? Do you have a specific case or pattern of practice to cite? what are your sources for the comment?
See how easy that is?
WCC has one of the highest, if not the highest concentration of service agencies in the City of Wilmington. And I know this because I’ve mapped it. Personally. Which means that I was able to plot what I could find out, which means that there are likely even more. That currently stands at more than 40 agencies in an 8 by 8 block area. The vast majority of them import their clients — they don’t actually serve many people who live in WCC. That concentration of service agencies adds to the problems of WCC — especially for those organizations who don’t see themselves as needing to be a positive part of the neighborhoods. So we have agencies bringing in their clients and letting them roam WCC to do whatever they want to do, which usually doesn’t include better behavior.
And as for where organizations should locate who deal with the homeless — they should locate where their services are needed. Which would include every neighborhood in the city, not just WCC. Which is a mix of neighborhoods, but dominated by the working poor. Not the homeless.
and cassandra 2 points for the recovery! I have to agree w/ jp, the read is such as services provided equated to the problem. but then you nicely rebounded, and I concur they do bring clients in. i know because the halfway folks i deal with all seem to have to run a life around a bus schedule to get to where their clinic, methadone, counseling, services are provided densely populating an area away from New castle, Elsmere or Delaware City. If in recovery, or half way house they get lots of props from me on just keeping the schedule straight. But it does result in hanging out time often in the city.
Look at the title of this post: James Howard Kunstler: The Tragedy of Suburbia
Now look at how it’s veered off into “The evils of a city” debate. Why is that? I think it has to do with what I’ve dealt with all my life as a city resident – years spent justifying (sometimes almost apologizing) where I live to people who don’t live here, don’t socialize here and yet suddenly know every bad thing about a city. And what these people know comes from the News Journal (which has always focused on city crime over suburban crime) or from the walk from their car to their city office, or from a lot of urban myth.
I became a vocal city defender after I had my children, when my suburban friends assumed that I’d now finally be moving to the suburbs. When I said I wouldn’t be moving the comments subtly (and not so subtly) questioning my parenting were shocking and uninformed… and freely given, because, hey, it’s okay to trash the city. And it’s been that way for years. And when city supporters push back we are being mean or irrational or picking on people. Never mind the endless criticism we’ve endured for years. It’s like we’re supposed to simply accept the superiority of suburban life while apologizing for city life.
Consider this… which comment generates outrage: “I’d never live in the city” or “I’d never live in the suburbs.” If you answered honestly, you’ll begin to understand where the push back from city supporters is coming from. And I get why people like suburbia, just like a I get why people like the city. Yet again, this wasn’t a post about the city. It was a post about “The Tragedy of Suburbia.” That was the topic on the table.
I accept the nature of a city. I accept that we house services – services that would never be permitted in suburban communities, even though suburbanites use these services a great deal. I’ve pointed out before how the city takes your grandmom when she can’t afford a pricey nursing home; how we take little Johnny whose drug problem has spun out of control. I accept this.
But when we point out that suburban architecture is soulless, well that’s going too far, that crossed a line. And soon that sacred cow is off the table and it’s back to city bashing. Which is convenient, but it doesn’t make Concord Pike/Kirkwood Highway less ugly.
i apologize that i angered the city-dwelling monkey that has lived on your back your whole life apparently pandora. i won’t talk bad about our gleaming urban jewel again.
When you want to discuss the actual topic of the post let me know. And at least I admitted my issues.
you started with an insult, I responded. congrats to you.
it goes against my better judgement to get in the middle of this, BUT…… Pandora, you know full well that there are “nice” parts of the city and “not nice parts” of the city… Wilmington, for example….. the 40 acres, Trolley area, as well as Baynard Blvd (north side especially…. i LOVE those houses with the rotundas) and the Triangle are very nice parts of the city… that’s where i grew up and i always felt safe and a sense of community…. now, you get out toward parts of North market, or Adams street… maybe maryland ave… no offense to anyone who lives there… but i dont like driving through it in broad daylight.
Just like how there are close knit vibrant suburban communities, (fairfax and claymont come to mind) there is also (for example) Talley Gardens (which i think only has like 7 residents)…. Gigantic cheaply made houses on major roads with no yard. gag me!
And you know full well that Pandora’s topic was actually this video she posted. Have you seen it?
And you know full well that Pandora isn’t claiming that there aren’t not nice parts of the city. Just because she won’t join you in your city-bashing doesn’t mean that she doesn’t see it all pretty clearly. Probably more clearly than you since she actually lives in said city.
That’s off topic SB. Let’s just stick to 202’s ugliness and inefficiency, please.
who are you talking to now? the person who spent the first 20 years of their life in 19802? People who generally agree are fighting, im telling them they are both right and wrong. Back off.
Excuse me?? I work in the Connections Homeless Cafe for a companion agency, before you accuse Connections of NOT addressing the issue come walk a mile in my shoes…. Connections, Ministry of Caring, Friendship House and others do not create homelessness and addiction In West Center city or the city at large, they in fact address it with Very limited resources.–JP Connor Jr.
Connections is not responsible for homelessness or addiction, but they are certainly responsible for the intense concentration of addicted & homeless people in West Center City. 5 years ago, Connections had one building at 10th & Washington and a few group homes/transitional housing scattered about WCC. Connections now owns (and has spent boatloads of cash rehabbing) a large building at 9th & Washington and TWO buildings on the NW & SW corner of 8th & Washington, plus yet another building in the 400 block of 8th St. and another just around the corner on West St. Where are they getting the money to purchase and fully remodel so many properties if their resources are “very limited” as you claim?
WCC was one of those neighborhoods that could be described as either on the brink of a revival or headed towards becoming another city slum. The concentration of homeless, mentally ill & drug addicted people that Connections attracts to the neighborhood isn’t helping w/ the revival. Connections’ “clients” roam the streets all day, drink in public, urinate in public, litter, trespass, panhandle, etc. Most of these “clients” don’t even live in WCC…they simply contaminate the neighborhood for 12 or so hours a day.
Yeah, pandora, I think city living is an entirely appropriate topic for this thread, because you can’t have suburbia without cities.
Me, I don’t get suburbia, either – soulless cardboard cut-out houses and tiny yards dropped onto what used to be beautiful farmland. Nor do I understand the appeal of cities – asphalt everywhere, cruddy, dirty narrow streets with window-barred buildings blocking out the sun and breeze. If suburbia is Purgatory, cities are Hell.
Give me a nice little main street in a small town, or a few acres in the country with the smell of chicken manure in the air, and I’m happy.
As far as Wilmington goes – I also don’t understand how a place with just 7.8 percent of the state’s population can command so much power and suck in so much money. The city leadership isn’t trustworthy, the business community is led by whores (MBNA, the law firms) or dreamers (the idiots who want the hotel and IMAX theatre on the Riverfront) and crime is out of control. It’s a self-perpetuating cycle of crud.
Well said, anon40, well said.
44 years ago this week a neighborhood known as “The Valley” was in flames after the death of Martin King, Jr. It was home to poorest and most disenfranchised members of our community. That area is now called West Center City and still hosts the least advantaged among us. The people “contaminating” “your” neighborhood were here first. I submit that were it not for Connections more people would be walking the street. How do you know a Connections client do they wear a sign around their neck? Over 150 connections clients are part of “connect to work” employed at business’s that Connectiions operate like A&G Sub shop and catering, a cleaning service, moving company and other enterprises. In addition Connections employees close to 100 staff in the city who pay wage tax and support local business. All of the property you complain about is back on the tax roles and provided work for skilled tradesmen in their renovation. Yor disdain for those gwho have mental illness addiction or simple poverty is breathtaking on this”progressive” blog. I am not particularly religious but in this Easter week you might want to consider what a guyy a long while back said about caring for “the least among us”
“As far as Wilmington goes – I also don’t understand how a place with just 7.8 percent of the state’s population can command so much power and suck in so much money.”
Because it’s home to the court system, which is home to half the Fortune 500. Dover is the state capital in name only. The only important place to anyone outside Delaware is Wilmington.
Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense.
Sorry, Geezer – what you describe doesn’t make sense. I do understand why it’s like that, thanks to quirks of history, but it’s not logical in the least.
JPC Jr.-
“The people “contaminating” “your” neighborhood were here first.”
Nonsense, for 2 reasons. 1) It’s not MY neighborhood. I simply work there. 2) These Connections clients didn’t live in the neighborhood in 2007, let alone 1968.
I submit that were it not for Connections more people would be walking the street.
And you base this on WHAT, exactly?
How do you know a Connections client do they wear a sign around their neck?
They’re easy to spot. Connections gives away Styrofoam cups of cold water on very hot summer days. Their “clients” leave the old church & toss the cups in the street when they’re done.
ver 150 connections clients are part of “connect to work” employed at business’s that Connectiions operate like A&G Sub shop and catering, a cleaning service, moving company and other enterprises. In addition Connections employees close to 100 staff in the city who pay wage tax and support local business. All of the property you complain about is back on the tax roles and provided work for skilled tradesmen in their renovation.
Therefore Connections is great & the neighborhood should just suck it up, right? Please. Connections may do some good work, but their enormous presence in WCC has had a negative impact on the neighborhood. Talk to some WCC residents and business owners, or simply step outside your building @ lunchtime & OBSERVE for yourself.
Yor disdain for those gwho have mental illness addiction or simple poverty is breathtaking on this”progressive” blog.
Save your Holier Than Thou bullshit for someone else. My “disdain” is not for the mentally ill or the poor. My disdain is for those who concentrate these people in WCC and expect the neighbors to deal w/ the problems these people bring to the neighborhood.
I feel sorry for you.
I really don’t care how you feel. Tell me what you THINK, and please address the issues that have been put forth.
I did and I feel sorry for you, have a nice day.
This largely means that JPC has run out of the Connections spin that hasn’t been doing them a bit of good either in the neighborhood or down at French St recently. I want to comment on this:
The people “contaminating” “your” neighborhood were here first.
Connections likes to think of themselves AS the neighborhood. The people who were here first were the working poor — which is why Connections thinks it can ignore the neighborhood. After all, this community is too busy trying to survive to notice one more institutional burden placed on them. The pervasive homeless community that is now roaming West Center City did not exist here — certainly not in this concentration — before West Presbyterian gave up their church.
Connections probably does good work, but they are spectacularly bad neighbors.
anon: It’s not logical? That’s rich. What you call “the quirks of history,” not logic, have left most American cities, particularly in the northern states, with a disproportionate number of America’s poor. Outside of Columbia, Md., very few “logical” cities exist in this country or the world.
JP: If you’re looking for progressive thought, Cassandra’s not your gal. This is of a piece with her call for having cops search everyone who drives into her neighborhood, Fourth Amendment be damned.
That’s pretty rich, Mr. Taxation Without Representation Is Perfectly Fine If You Live In Wilmington.
And as far as progressive thought goes — perhaps you’d like to get in touch with Connections to invite them to your neighborhood?
ugh, the report of how much WCC has been ‘contaminated’ by Connections is bad news but not surprising. They hold a most-favored status in the circles of higher powers (check out who sits on the Criminal Justice Council (CJC) – the folks who largely choose which non-profits are awarded the human service pass-through dollars in Delaware).
When I was still on the Board of People’s Settlement, we saw that a tiny handful of well-connected mega non-profits were the favored recipients of humongous grant dollars coming into the state – (Connections and Ministry of Caring are two of the Big Three). Sure, they dun good but they also somehow sucked up all of the dough.
We formed a coalition of existing Wilmington community centers and tried to augment a more fair distribution of services being funded by the big federal grants allocated by the Criminal Justice Council. Also aligned with us were smaller traditional (many of them black-owned) city non-profits who hadn’t had a shot in hell of getting this funding but not for the lack of trying.
Most of the expectation at the time for some new opportunities for funding revolved around Markell’s campaign promise to make reentry a priority for his new administration.
Well, no matter, the funding continued to be passed on to the ever-growing big boys on the block. Although to his credit, Matt Denn, who took over the CJC chair from John Carney by 2010, instigated a program were smaller organizations could vie for some of the money – but most all of it still goes to the same old ‘players’.
Connections: too big too fail and too big for their britches?
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As for another topic in this thread, there was some good DKos blogging yesterday —“Fun with Highways DC and MD” [also see: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/30/1077841/-Multi-use-urban-development-instead-of-freeways- ]
…..which got me comparing Wilmington’s riverfront with the Baltimore Inner Harbor and coming up with our major flaw: Delaware’s developer’s disease regarding aethetics…..we get some pretty fugly construction around here. On the riverfront, BPG has put up some of the ugliest fricking buildings evah.
There is a term in engineering for when, after a plan is wrought, it is next stripped of all possible attributes with a purpose of saving money in construction.
The result: extreme ugliness in the name of profit – which appears to be BPG’s MO IMO.