Low-income High-Crime Area --> Low-Income Low-Crime Gated Neighborhood: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?

[Boojatta]

This kind of gated community would be created by renovating an existing low-income high-crime community. It would not be created by evicting everybody and building a new construction development on land that has been emptied of people.

Various policy options would have to be identified. Would the gatekeepers be paid and commanded by an organization like a school board? Would they be controlled by an organization like the one that manages an occupied condominium on behalf of the unit holders? What infractions would be sufficient for someone who lives in the community to be evicted from the community? What security measures of the gatekeeper would ensure that outside troublemakers are kept out of the gated community without creating excessive inconvenience to people who live in the gated community and who have frequent visitors?

Once there are plans for how a gated low-income community would function, there could be government funding for elections to see which plans get what levels of support in various communities. From among various communities, the one community that votes the highest level of support for at least one specific plan would get federal funding for gating to proceed. A high level of support means not just a high average support rating from voters who rated that particular plan, but also that a high percentage of eligible voters did actually vote to give an approval rating to at least one plan.

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. There's a word for such a community.

Walled ghetto.

Real big in Europe a few decades ago.

[ret5hd]

3. All it takes to turn a gated community into a prison is one lock and a guard.

[Boojatta]

6. The walls would keep people out, not in.

I apologize if I didn't make myself clear.

There could be an inner perimeter and an outer perimeter. Nobody would ever be prevented from leaving the inner perimeter. There might be an occasional emergency situation between the perimeters that requires police to keep people from entering the region between the two perimeters for their own protection.

However, there could be some corridors that provide well-guarded direct routes from within the inner perimeter to outside the outer perimeter. Thus, nobody would ever be prevented from walking, driving, or otherwise exiting the inner perimeter.

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. Double row of chain fence topped with razor wire works real well

for that.

That way the patrol dogs can run free between the two sets of wire.

[Boojatta]

12. If crime in a high-crime neighborhood doesn't come from

people who live outside the neighborhood and who ought to be kept out and if it doesn't come from people who live within the neighborhood who ought to be thrown out, then where does it come from?

[RaleighNCDUer]

14. You tell me - you seem to have all the answers. nt

[Boojatta]

15. Are you sure you don't have me confused with another DUer?

I tend to have lots of questions and an occasional proposal, but very few answers. In fact, some DUers have actually berated me for taking the "easy, foolish path" of asking questions.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

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[Boojatta]

4. Do you also consider wealthy gated communities in America to be ghettos?

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. No, those are castles. It all depends on who controls the keys

and in this world the poor NEVER control the keys.

[Boojatta]

7. Are volunteers for Habitat for Humanity wasting time and effort?

The owner of a home built through Habitat for Humanity does control the keys of the home. The poor never control the keys. Therefore, no home built through Habitat for Humanity is owned by a poor person.

Is there a flaw in the above reasoning that you can help me identify?

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. That's apples and lug nuts.

Habitat housing is not "gated communities for the poor". The idea of such communities has been tried here, with many of the high-rise low-income housing projects built in the 50s and 60s. Put hundreds of poor families into one area, attempt to control who gets the housing and who doesn't through private groups or through city government, and the result was that within a decade or so you had a crime infested ghetto. It was big news when those projects were finally demolished across the country - though some still survive.

Habitat builds single family housing, which is controlled by the people who live there, not some bureaucratic committee. A gated community is controlled by the people who live there (who voluntarily surrender some part of their freedom for security, imo); a poor gated community is controlled by people who don't live there - the government officials who make decisions for the residents. A poor ungated community is also controlled by people who don't live there, for the most part - landlords and corporate property owners.

As another poster put it, it only takes one lock and one guard to change a gated community into a prison. Every attempt at walling off a poor community has resulted in that community going into a steep decline economically with a concurrent steep rise in the crime rate.

Habitat builds houses, not walls.

[bobbolink]

23. Habitat is very flawed.

[GSanon]

25. 'affordable' housing - Yes, that's the big catch...

The programs tend to make sure you can afford your housing, but also make sure you can afford nothing else. For example, get a 2nd job and rent is automatically hiked up to where you would have been better off not to take it. Also, what about situations like this one? (more)

[nebenaube]

2. tell me ...

Will they send Snake in to rescue anybody? That is the stupidist idea I have heard here yet.

[Boojatta]

8. Are you challenging me to find a "stupider idea" somewhere in

the active threads or archives of the DU Poverty forum?

[nebenaube]

13. no I'm not..

rather I would like to point out that such communities have been created before. Funny thing is their existence did not solve the "problem". Eventually a "Final Solution" was devised and implemented. We are already 3/4 of the way down that path.

As far as the other thread that you pointed out to me is concerned, Herme's Rod sure resembles a schematic for a linear particle accelerator.

As far as I'm concerned, this is not the first time mankind has reached it's current level of technical and intellectual sophistication.

[Boojatta]

10. I gave only the first part of the story line.

Part One (slightly revised title): Low-Income High Crime Community (not just a neighborhood, but a community of people)--> Low-Income Low-Crime Gated Community

Part Two: Low-Income Low-Crime Gated Community --> Medium-Income Low-Crime Gated Community

Part Three: Medium-Income Low-Crime Gated Community --> Medium-Income Low-Crime Community (No Gates)

[bobbolink]

17. This idea may have some merit. Like in Santa Fe, for instance.

I'm sorry you are getting so many attacks. For some of us poor folk, actually DISCUSSING problem-solving ideas is a good idea!

First, though, it's important to have MORE low-income housing! The shortage is acute.

Please call/write about HR 2895!

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:HR02895:@@@P

H.R.2895
Title: To establish the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund in the Treasury of the United States to provide for the construction, rehabilitation, and preservation of decent, safe, and affordable housing for low-income families.
Sponsor: Rep Frank, Barney (introduced 6/28/2007) Cosponsors (67)
Latest Major Action: 7/31/2007 House committee/subcommittee actions. Status: Ordered to be Reported (Amended) by Voice Vote.

[Boojatta]

18. Thank you. I acknowledge that perhaps the proposal in

the Original Post of this thread has no merit. Perhaps I should have said that in the Original Post to provoke responses less harsh than some of the responses that the Original Post elicited.

[Gormy Cuss]

19. I think ithat it's almost been tried with some public housing developments.

I'm trying to remember where I've seen fenced-in, large scale developments (Memphis may have been one place) but there was no gated entry, just limited access by driving or walking through the main entrances. I don't recall all of the security features but I do remember being told that the tenant's group had requested the fence as a way to cut crime.

And yes, you're right. We need MORE affordable housing, period.

[DeadEyeDyck]

21. what a dismal view of the world n/t

[Boojatta]

20. Kick

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

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[Boojatta]

24. Kick

[Glassunion]

26. Too scary...

Maybe we should make the residents of said community wear patches on their clothing as well. Just so we know who they are.

Are you basically saying that you want to wall off a certain class of people and give the government the keys?

[SunnySong]

27. China must read DU they adopted your idea...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4464622

[Glassunion]

28. Brilliant!

I'm sure it would never work that way here in the US... No, never...

:sarcasm:

[Riftaxe]

29. Been done before

but without the force of exterminating those who are not willing....then again, even the marxist's killed Kirov Perhaps we just doomed to repeat.