7/2/13

Updateed; An email I sent last night in response to the violence etc... Saturday night in Greensboro

Saw the [WGHP] report at 10.

Quite the mess.

Funny to see Mike Carter want the club crowd without the teen problem.

Ate at Nico's about a month ago and saw the park shut down at 11.

Good crowd of kids on the corner while we ate, and I can see how some would be intimidated trying to enter the establishment.

So we revamped a downtown on the cusp of the poorest part of Greensboro without foreseeing the unintended consequences, and now we have to tell the other side of town they aren't welcome to hang out where we put a civil rights museum.

FUBAR this is.

http://hartzman.blogspot.com/2013/06/children-below-poverty-level-and-black.html

Have their been other cities with downtown revitalization programs right next to such poverty, and how was it dealt with?

Is it more of a summer thing when the colleges are out?

If I knew then what I knew now, and I was young in that crowd...

Egypt, Syria, Brazil, Turkey etc...

I wonder how much/little the kids are paying attention.

Probably not much.

There may be some kind of line created between sides of town on this.

There are still going to be African Americans waiting to get into bars down the street at 11:30pm that are going to keep the condos from selling, even with the noise ordinance and a curfew.

If too much or too little, downtown dies again.

If enough people move downtown to make it kind of an island unto itself within, it survives.

Either way we are going into a global recession, and the poverty rate in the area is going to increase.
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"We/they" created a cool place for these kids to go, and now we don't want them there, without offering up a viable alternative.

Their neighborhoods are more dangerous than downtown.

Is there an all night basketball/sports place within walking distance of where most of these kids live?

4 comments:

Billy Jones said...

It's too late, Roy and Robbie have already killed downtown.

Unknown said...

I'm fine with teens being downtown, just not fine with those under 18 being out after 11:00. I do want the "club crowd", and on Fridays and Saturdays, the club/bar crowd is 21+ downtown as you'll find at nearly every bar. Even one of the biggest restaurants downtown, Natty Greene's, turns away anyone under 21 by 11:00. Selling alcohol is how we make money, and if teens being out at night (with no parental supervision) fighting and causing trouble is a detractor keeping our clientele from coming downtown, then I will certainly fight for that. But more importantly, this topic is about getting parents to be parents no matter where this happened! And I 100% agree with you that with this apparent shortage of concerned parents at home, the city needs to also address somewhere safe for these kids to go.

Unknown said...

Mr. Carter please don't tell people how to raise their children. Our freedoms are 24/7 and that includes people under 21. Americans die every day to secure these rights for all of us not just club patrons. Also statistically downtown is very safe.

Unknown said...

Mr. Seymour, First, I would like to point out that I'm not telling parents HOW to raise their children. I'm merely expressing my view that "when I was your age.../where I come from..." that my parents would always make me tell them where I'm going, call when I get there safely, and be home at a decent hour. Second, I find it ironic that your retort on my alleged "disdain for soldiers dying for our freedoms" telling me that I SHOULD NOT tell parents how to show general concern for their childs' well-being, is clearly stating that I should not have my 24/7 freedom protected by the first amendment in the Bill of Rights. And yes, I do agree that downtown is safe statistically-speaking, one of the safest places in Greensboro, but when it turns into citizens' tax dollars going towards more GPD having to be staffed every weekend to act as baby-sitters for those not even old enough to drive downtown, I have a problem with it.