Clay Changes

Tonight at the Stanton Center on Washington Street there is going to be a town hall discussion about changing the traffic patterns on Clay Street. The goal of the meeting is to talk about the pros and cons of making what are currently two way streets into one way streets, this further promotes the idea that the low lying drug dealers need to be removed, to make way for the white people!

I am saying this with a tongue in cheek of course, but I have to tell you how funny it was last Thursday afternoon when there was a knock at my door and low and behold there were two white people at my door, smiling! I viewed them from my second story window but, before I could get to them they were gone! Wisped away in the daylight hours (more often then not unless you are a purchaser of the fine neighborhood goods white people don’t come back at night). Upon a little further investigation I discovered that they were passing out flyers announcing the meeting for what is now tonight. As I glanced down towards Washington Street from my back door I noticed 5 white people accompanied by 4 on duty police! They looked like guards!

Herein lies two problems that when put together create quite a conundrum. The first is that the neighborhood is still fucked up to a degree, it’s not the worst section of town but, it does have its moments. For example, last night we had a car horn beeping at 4am and some yelling about a love gone wrong, lets be honest THIS HAPPENS EVERYWHERE from time to time. The real problem is there are 4 generations, 4 generations; I wanted to repeat that to let it sink in just a second, 4 generations of people living in the public housing back here. Now that’s your Great-Grandma, your Grandma, your Mom, and your sister, who’s 17, pregnant, and running down to the social services office making sure when she turns 18 that she gets a voucher for housing. Please don’t try to tell me that this is okay, I don’t want to hear it from either side of the fence.

So, on one hand you have the impoverished community that is sitting on pretty impressive land, waterfront land. People the world over go ape shit to look at water. There is a certain stripe that is earned when you have a home on the water. The local municipality loves them benefits with a home on the water comes higher home values and higher property taxes which means more money for programs! Now I must confess when it gets to the inner workings of how local government works I am a novice, so what those programs are or how that money is spent I can’t comment. So, the other hand is the desirous waterfront land holder and they have the money.

This brings us to our conundrum. The community is a mess, there are no leaders back here without agendas, and the only way to make the neighborhood nice again is to remove those that are directly contributing to causing the despair. The concern is that usually when it comes to removal there is a pretty big broom that does the sweeping and the problem roots aren’t the only ones pulled up.

What we will more than likely see, since there is some incredible pressure being placed on this neighborhood to change, is a displacement of the people currently living and reconstruction boom for these city blocks. It’ll mean more tax dollars, more jobs, lower crime in the downtown area, and last bit will further stimulate more growth in the downtown. Live, Work, Play! This is a sociological phenomenon and not a new one, for centuries people have been moving from the country to the city, to the suburbs, to the country again, then repeat. Check your local directory of castles for more info.

Now the displacement is the part that concerns me and that’s why I make light and made the white people comments earlier. Nothing against white people really, I’m white myself. It’s just that we are not solving a problem here. We have 4 generations of ‘American people’ (like G Dub says it) that are completely misguided and it’s not going to get better just displacing. Trail of tears anyone? The Native American isn’t doing that sweet, that’s the last group that we swept under the rug. I don’t believe you should just discontinue with the current “programs” but, you need to develop a way to get people involved. We need to ladder out of them over a protracted period of time, starting NOW. Get them out of the rat trap and into the rat race.

The question that needs to be answered and discussed in my mind is how do you gather the collective energies that are present in these neighborhoods and put them to work? What are the respective qualifications that are present within the people that live here? What resources are available, structures existing that can be utilized, and how do you create a sustainable business? Capitalism baby. Hate it or love it, it’s an answer definitely worth trying.

Somehow though, I think changing the traffic patterns from two ways to one way is very metaphorical for what will become of Clay Street and its residents.