So, sorry, I won't be running away like you conservative white-flighter types who simply move away from problem areas
Oh do you and your child live in the inner city slums so you can be "close to the people" where you can
try to have an impact or are you just the typical liberal that talks the shit but lives in the middle class neighborhoods
near a Best Buy and a Starbucks?
Rich,
Here again you ask a question when you assume you already know the answer.
Right now, I absolutely DO live in an inner city neighborhood that over the last nearly five years I have lived has indeed gotten better but I won't go so far as to say it is only because I live in it. Though our neighborhood is not so much a slum, as you say, it is the buffer neighborhood between a sort of middle class neighborhood and, as you say, a slum.
When we moved here, there were gunshots in the neighborhood at least once a week but my mother had lived here once for several years and never had any trouble and so when she moved back and looked at houses here again, my wife and I decided it was time to become homeowners for the first time.
Two years ago, a couple of guys killed three hispanic fellas sitting in their front yard. The neighborhood was outraged and so people came together at the funeral that a lot of us attended. Hispanic, Black, White, Asian and though the neighborhood watch isn't run like clockwork, there is an understanding throughout that we are watching out for each other. Since that time, I have come to know my neighbors names at least and my kid plays with the neighbors' kid all the time.
Its not like we're saving the neighborhood ourselves but we at least invest and it has gotten better since there have only been a couple of times in the last year or so that I have wondered if that popping noise was gunshots or fireworks.
There is a brand new school that has been built since we moved here as well and the wife and I have been agonizing over whether or not to send our son there. Politically and ideologically, I want to support the school system and not be a white flighter. As a father though, I have not turned a blind eye to the fact that there have been two high school shootings in Memphis schools in the last three months. I have not turned a deaf ear to the former teachers I hear on the local conservative talk show who call in and tell horror stories of young kids intimidating female teachers. I really don't want to send my son to a gladiator school where he might not get an education in the three R's.
There is a Catholic school in our neighborhood who a friend of ours (who is a teacher at another more upscale Catholic school) has said we should check out. We probably will check it out but I'm not really that interested because I really don't want him to be indoctrinated and then have a rift between the two of us.
Unless our scheduled visits to all of the possible school selections prove to us that he will be safe and get a basic education, my wife has almost settled on a christian school that is very popular here because the kids all go on to college for the most part. They do teach religion (Baptist I think) and that is a real problem for me but we'll see.
But I digress.
Four new houses have been built in our neighborhood in the past two years and my understanding is three more are going to start in the next year. We're are looking at either doing a simple renovation on our small two-bedroom and then buying another in this same neighborhood OR adding another floor (or two if that is possible) to this house and staying. I love our little place because when we bought it, it was literally a dump. I had to totally tear out the kitchen countertop and old cast iron sink and replace them. The countertop that was there was literally rotten and curling. I quite certain there is plenty of equity now and am looking to schedule an appraisal after I make a few more changes in the coming warmer days.
But lastly, you should know, the closest Starbucks to my house is 1.7 miles away and the closest Best Buy (which is very close to where I work) is 12.81 miles away. Just FYI.