GHETTOES TODAY?
It can be said that today we no longer have ghettoes in our cities, at least
not in the formal, old-fashioned, historical sense.
No. Perhaps not, but we still hold fast to, foster and even nurture some of the ideas
which cause singular deprivations for the people who happen to live in a specific area;
profess a certain faith other than ours; are of a different color, and who are often
economically deprived largely because of their location, race , religion or educational
background.
Many such districts come about through simple neglect. If a section of the city
grows old and new suburbs develop the overly-used area starts of disintegrate rapidly,
property is not maintained and, eventually, all the stores and other business firms have
gone elsewhere.
Concerned persons can, in such cases, pretend for a time that things have not
really changed all that much and, for a few years they can dream of a future when the
big business firms will return. But, it doesn’t take them too long for them to realize that
such is not going to be the case. Even if they undertake “renewal programs” and do some
painting and gutter-fixing work they are returned rapidly to a the ruins of a culture which
has gone elsewhere. They find themselves unable to earn a decent living for themselves
and their families. Welfare-ism becomes a way for life and city, county, state, sectional,
federal aid gradually take over and it moves in as an oppressive reality - even with some
efforts by churches and civic-minded groups which come to see it as a religious or social
obligation, but they never seems to undertake such projects in sufficient numbers and
with long-term associations in mind from the start.
Take a moment in which to stand back and look at it.
How does it differ, really, from the ghettos, tenements, slums and of old save,
perhaps, in the element of overt military control and something akin to it in another
authority? There is no law, other than the rule of poverty, which says the people must
remain there. They can come and go as they like but they are not invited to stay
wherever they may choose to go. The barrio resident of the deep south becomes a
resident of the equivalent section of our larger cities up north. Or, it works the other way
around, as well. It is difficult to “escape.”
Obviously, the ghettoes or these areas, whatever we may call them, “slums” or
some fancy, old-time historical name, still need attention from the more affluent side of
town. Many cities use this historical-connective thread in an attempt to put the blame
for, at least a part of the dire conditions, on some by gone era...another time which, in
some devious manner, “caused” the present dire conditions. There seems to be
something on which they can blame part of it, at least... the dual standards, of Victorian
times, slavery, imigration, almost anything controversial in some by-gone era.
We can no longer depend on a beneficent Federal authority to do what they have
so clearly demonstrated they cannot do. Hugh, multi-floored buildings constructed years
ago as federal housing projects and deemed to be perfect cure for economic ailments of
the cities, exited many proponents. The problems they were built to solve have, actually
intensified and are yet to be solved. Those tall , red-brick structures stand now, many with
burned out units, as noisome shells in which humans live - “exist”, you might say - in
disgraceful conditions and think of themselves only as lost... complete failures. You can
walk through the smelly corridors of any such urban housing project and feel the
desolation pressing in on you from all sides.
Yes, the ghettoes, tenements, slums - are still with us in a slightly modified state, but
very real and still a prominent social problem with which we must come to terms ... and
soon.
A.L.M. September 26, 2002 [c668wds]
