News Day

CRIME: “As of Dec. 13, violent crime year-to-date has dropped 5.2 percent compared to 2009, which had among the lowest levels in more than 25 years,” says a press release from the city. Mayor R.T. Rybak and Police Chief Tim Dolan will elaborate at a press conference today. What about all the murders at the beginning of the year? “While the number of homicides is up since last year, 2008, 2009, and 2010 to-date have the three lowest homicide levels in 25 years (2009 was the lowest in more than 30 years).”

HOUSING: Good news for landlords may be tied to bad news for homeowners, with rental vacancies down and foreclosures continuing high, according to the latest report from the Minnesota Housing Partnership:

• As unemployment remained high, vacancies in the Twin Cities rental market fell sharply to a two-year low of 4.2%, down from 5% last quarter.

• Over 7,200 Minnesota homes foreclosed during the third quarter, the second highest number for any quarter.

• For the third quarter of 2010, family homelessness declined by 3% compared to the third quarter of 2009, but this reflects a 62% increase over 2006.

• 30% of homes for sale were foreclosures or short sales, while the average number of jobs in residential housing construction continued its low ebb at 9,500 jobs per month, the lowest since 1993 for the quarter.

CHIPOTLE: The Grinch targeted Latino workers at Chipotle restaurants, with “dozens” or “at least 80” workers fired, according to Patch Richfield and City Pages. An ICE audit triggered the terminations. City Pages reports:

At another local Chipotle branch, Latino workers have been asked to train in a recent batch of non-immigrant new hires, and fear that they will be fired as soon as their replacements are ready.

“Many of these are people who have been with the company for years,” Sigal said. “The firings come a couple of weeks before Christmas, which means they won’t be getting the usual Christmas bonuses. There’s a real Scrooge element here.”

SNOW: As snow heads our way again, a few reminders:

• Minneapolis has its winter parking ban in full force, with parking banned on the EVEN side of non-Snow Emergency routes until April. That’s every day, whether it’s snowing or not.
• For special snow events, Minneapolis has info on its snow emergency hotline – (612) 348-SNOW – and on its snow website, where you can also sign up for a phone alert.
• Across the river, St. Paul also has a snow website, a snow hotline (651) 266-PLOW (7569), email alerts, and a Twitter link.
• The St. Paul Fire Department asked all of us to dig out our local fire hydrants, down to the ground, at least a foot around the hydrant and out to the street. Even with crusty, piled-up snow, I dug out the corner hydrant in about 15 minutes yesterday. Check yours – the life you save could be your own.

NPR’s Long Goodbye for Infamous Public Housing Project caught my ear this morning. Cabrini Green is in the news again, as the city of Chicago prepares to move the last two families out and tear down the last standing high-rise.

I lived in Cabrini Green for a while during my college years, learning at least as much from Cabrini Green and friends I made there as I did from the University of Chicago, at the other end of my hour-long bus-and-subway commute.

Like many of the people in the high-rises, I came to Chicago straight off the farm. Drinking coffee and whiskey and dancing were all new experiences for me. Singing in a gospel choir on Sunday morning was different from my country Catholic upbringing. I learned to be wary of cops and Cobra Stones. I went door to door, precinct organizing for one unsuccessful grassroots independent political campaign after another. I got robbed a few times. I  learned about rat traps and steel wool and rat poison, and the futility of all three.

My time in Cabrini was more than 30 years ago, and people in Cabrini were already predicting that they would be removed from what was then and is now some of Chicago’s most valuable real estate, walking distance from the Gold Coast and the Loop. The only real surprise is that it took this long.

I understand the logical arguments, and even agree with them. High-rises are not good places for families with small children, Cabrini Green (and other high-rise housing projects) were warehouses (at best) or concentration camps (at worst) for poor, black families. They were segregated, isolated, and often permeated by violence, gangs and drug dealers.

But that’s not the whole story, as the residents interviewed by NPR point out. Cabrini Green was also a place of community, where people raised families and supported one another. The row houses where Miz Thornton and Miz Hendley lived had front stoops and tiny yards where people could sit and visit. The high-rises were tougher, but even in this rocky ground, human relationships grew.

I spent only a few years in Cabrini. Kenneth Hammond, who was interviewed by NPR, lived their his whole life. Living there for 41 years, he says he felt the community was “like one big family.”

People in a family take care of each other. Moving people out of their community takes away their support systems.

Roosevelt University professor D. Bradford Hunt told NPR:

“I would say that some residents are better off. … They’ve moved into these new mixed-income communities. We know that they feel safer. We know that their housing conditions are better.”

But Hunt says some Chicago public housing residents are in new communities, just as high crime and high poverty as the one they left, and without the friends, family and community network of support they had in Cabrini.

And that’s the crux of the problem: destroying high-rises leaves lots of people out in the cold. Replacement housing in mixed-income communities never has enough room to accommodate all of the  public housing residents displaced by the urban renewal/people removal projects. Tearing down buildings is easier than building up communities.

The Gallup survey is done, the Knight Foundation Soul of the Community report is written, and the verdict is that we St. Paul-ites love our city. And that’s important, according to the researchers, because of a strong correlation between good feelings and growing economies.

Why do people like the cities they live in, and why do we like St. Paul? Some of the more obvious reasons—strong economy, good jobs, public safety—turn out not to be anywhere near the top of the list. The survey, which covered 26 communities where the Knight Foundation works, found that the strongest factors are

Social offerings — Places for people to meet each other and the feeling that people in the community care about each other

• Vibrant nightlife
• Good place to meet people
• Other people care about each other
• Availability of arts and cultural opportunities
• Availability of social community events

Aesthetics — The physical beauty of the community including the availability of parks and green spaces

• Availability of parks, playgrounds, and trails
• Beauty or physical setting

Openness — How welcoming the community is to different types of people, including families with young children, minorities, and talented college graduates

• Good place for older people
• Good place for racial and ethnic minorities
• Good place for families with young children
• Good place for gays and lesbians
• Good place for young, talented college graduates looking for work
• Good place for immigrants
• Good place for young adults without children

And how do we do? Again, the report has a few surprises. You might think that St. Paul ranks high on openness and being a welcoming community, but we don’t get really high rankings. Maybe St. Paul-ites have higher expectations, and so rank our city lower in comparison to those expectations?

According to the report:

In the St. Paul area, social offerings (entertainment infrastructure, places to meet people, community events), aesthetics (an area’s physical beauty and green spaces) and openness (how welcoming the place is) are the most important factors emotionally connecting residents to where they live.

Aesthetics was perceived as a community strength, particularly the area’s parks, playgrounds and trails. All aspects of aesthetics were rated significantly higher in 2010.

Social offering and openness need improvement to further attach residents to the area, however both were rated significantly higher in 2010.  Nightlife was rated significantly higher. Gays and lesbians are seen as significantly more welcome in 2010 – all positive momentum that helped to improve these challenge areas for the community.

People in St. Paul were less enthralled by our economy and by community leadership—but neither of those factors ranks high in determining how attached people are to their communities. Is that a slam at St. Paul pols? Probably not, Knight Foundation’s Polly Talen told MinnPost: leadership was ranked low in every community.

Want to read the full report? You can download the PDF here.

Last year’s TC Media Alliance forum had low attendance because of sun—such nice weather that people stayed home to enjoy it. Today, it’s snow, falling quietly but persistently, slushing up the roads, skidding cars, making it easy to say, “I think I’ll stay home today.”

For those who ventured out to the Minneapolis Central Library, the energy is great. Lisa Williams, founder of Placeblogger, is asking people in the audience about blogs, and turning up fascinating stories from:

Meet the Neighbors, with Peter Shea telling video stories of people from Southwestern Minnesota.

Oromo Pride, began as a business venture by two UMD students, and now serves “as a media outlet that seeks to empower Oromo communities around the world to tell their stories and add perspective to the news that come out of Ethiopia”

Kenyaimagine, which is maintained by Julia Nekessa Opoti, a TC Daily Planet writer.

Shamelessagitator.org, also known as Random Stuff from Sheldon.

Among Lisa’s insights on blogging-in-place:

“Ask yourself, ‘If I can know what the stock price of Apple is every minute of every day,” then why can’t I know about my neighbor who is getting foreclosed on?'” Who does it serve that it’s easy to get news about Apple stock prices and hard to get news about what’s happening to your neighbors, in your town?

Blogging is a way to tell your story today. Lisa asks “How will people know 100 years ago what it is like to live today?” and exhorts, “Please, please, please, somebody think of the graduate students!”

For people who want to blog and get a wider audience, take a look at the TC Daily Planet blog page.

Big Brother Bob Fletcher is watching you and he wants you to watch your neighbors, too. He has just rolled out a spy site on the web, where would-be watchers can choose one of ten cameras to watch. They’re pretty boring, but some criminal someday may be stupid enough to do something unlawful while you are watching. This is all part of the continuing RNC security saga, which funded more than a hundred spy cams for the Twin Cities. If you remember, the St. Paul police had lots of cameras, but no one watching – Lights, cameras — but no action for St. Paul police. Fletcher has been planning his web cop project since at least January. Continue reading →