I'm sorry, Glenn, but you did miss my point.
I owe nothing to Penn. You owe your millions to Penn.
You do have a '60s ideology and so do I. But your '60s ideology is
buried in the past and wastes everybody's reading time. Your
"gentrification" analysis is 30 years out of date and doesn't help any
of us understand the challenges of 2008. My '60s ideology is about
retaining sensitivity to the voices of change. In other words: the music
didn't die, so listen to it now! Think like a festival coordinator.
The real question before University City is what kind of economic change
is likeliest to improve urban education. You have shown the major
difference between Philadelphia education and suburban education is
economic: more suburban taxpayers are prosperous, so they can afford to
spend more, so they buy better schools for their kids and everyone else's.
You've published the best argument for gentrification I've read in 30
years. Inner-city school systems, you say, are suffering because they
lack higher-income taxpayers. It's a top priority, then, for
Philadelphians who care about the education of their poor pupils to
tempt more prosperous residents to Philadelphia. There aren't enough of
them now to help the poor kids, so we need to entice more of them to
move into town and help this terribly important project. How should we
go about this?
Some UC-list people have written it would be very bad for any prosperous
people to move into West Philadelphia ever, because their mere presence
constitutes a permanent, terrible wound to poor people. Supposedly the
poor suffer agonies because of a change in local housing prices if, over
a 15-year period, they wind up shifting from 36th & Chestnut to 36th &
Haverford, less than a mile away.
As I see it, this is no big deal. The Black Bottom may or may not have
been justly handled, but it was a far cry from Darfur.
New York City does have major gentrification issues right now which I
take seriously. Philadelphia's worst gentrification woes are to New
York's, as a pimple is to skin cancer. We can't take any of these
UC-list gentrification ruminations seriously until the ruminators get a
perspective on urban life ... which is always about change. Then the
community at large, including all of us, can have a real, useful
discussion about class and education and neighborhood and how it all
works out Until then.....
I don't think prosperity has been as big a threat to the local poor as
you say it is. Those I talk to do complain about it at times; but their
larger gripe is with poverty itself, rather than with non-poverty. Most
of the truly poor don't want to kill any goose that might lay a golden
egg to get them out of poverty. They like the idea of economic
development, because they really and truly want to get developed. They
just don't want to get left out.
-- Tony West
Glenn wrote:
For the rest ... I read tedious, pompous opinions by childless
experts, wannabee-teacher experts and Penn-is-bad experts. The usual
suspects.
West, am I getting your point correctly? "Shut up, shut up, shut up!
I'm ready to defend my master's backroom dealings with my usual tactics!"
Melani and I posted the link to the research driven opinion of the
president of the teacher's union. Is he a wannabee wanker with a
sixities ideology like me?
Also, do Ms Nachmias and Ms Goldman know that you are using their
names to support your listserv bullying?
West, the tactics you used as leader of the Fiends of Clark Park gang
don't work as well on a public list. People can read your efforts to
silence, mislead, and bully. They can read the opinioins and
questions posted by your targets.
As ruler of FOCP and servant of UCD, you had a free pass to silence
and bully anyone you wished. It must burn you up to know that people
increasingly realize the truth!
After years of attacking my character, you failed to shut me up. Now,
when people say, "I didn't believe Glenn's stories about the FOCP
because I heard all about his bad character. But now it seems that
the wanker tells the truth and the leaders at FOCP and SHCA really do
conduct themselves shamefully."
This must make you furious! I won't condone your conduct, but West,
you have my pity.
The wanker
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