"He's not helping"

Here is some email feedback I received in response to my column
"Don't all stampede at once." I'm not printing the name, but it
was a University faculty member in one of the more "hard
science" departments, as follows:
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I loved your column today. We reciently [sic]
considered buying a home in north Minneapolis.
We decided to drive through the area to get a
feel for it before we contacted a realtor. That
was enough for us. We laughed and laughed
as we read your column today. My wife kept
saying, "He's not helping!"
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This comment above brings me to a point about
"first impressions" and how problematic it is to
have young men standing on the corners, rather
obviously engaged in drug sales by--for example
--beckoning complete strangers in passing cars
by eye contact and jerks of the head.

If somebody decides to "give the North Side a
chance" and go there to look at houses...they
might not have a problem with empty, boarded
up houses (after all, those are the bargains some
are seeking) and they might even tolerate a little
bit of graffiti because, hey, it's just silly teens
expressing their silly teen angst. Slap
a little paint over it, and it's gone.

But one look at an "open air drug market," and
the tour is OVER and that person AIN'T COMING
BACK EVER.

First chance, first impression...gone. Blown.
Chalk up another potential North Side resident
who will never be a North Side resident.

And while most tagging is harmless, some
tagging is more menacing. On and around Penn
Ave. N., I keep seeing the tag "Kill Bill."

Tagging with the word "Kill" in it automatically
goes in a more serious and worrisome category.

It seems like persons who have lived in the
area see open air drug markets and tagging as
just warts and blights, something one gets
used to. Don't mess with the taggers or the
drug dealers, and they won't mess with
you, right?

It's such a city attitude: if you don't stick
your nose in the business of the criminals,
you won't get murdered. Denial is the
foundation of this attitude, and that's a
flimsy foundation. Tell it to the 70-year-old
woman who was stabbed to death in her
North Side home for her credit
cards. How did she stick her nose in
anybody's business and get murdered
as a result? She didn't.

The "defenders of the North Side" seem
unable to grasp what kind of impression
certain things make on the outsider
coming there for the first time. Always there
is the plea, the demand, to "look deeper,"
to "keep an open mind."

I remember the first time I saw Grand Forks,
North Dakota. It was "Gateway Drive" with
its junkyards and the industrial stench of
Simplot. And the first time I saw El Paso?

Don't even get me going. I was with my
then-spouse, and I remember how she
literally wept because our first views of
the city were so ugly. It was undiluted
ugly that assaulted the eyes.

Even Seattle, quite a beautiful city,
used to make a lousy first impression with
that awful, ugly Kingdome. Not that
I was in favor of tearing it down. I
figured it was possible to make it
look better by painting it to appear
like a giant cheeseburger and dubbing
the dome "Burger King Dome" or
"Hardees Dome" or (being it was
Seattle) "Boca Burger Dome."

So what is the "first impression" of the
North Side of Minneapolis?

Graffiti and young men
standing on corners, jerking their
heads at passing cars. "Come on,
let's do some business." Boarded
up buildings, and the first thing you
need to watch out for are homeless
squatters with drug problems, mental
health problems.

Until there is the political will to clean
up graffiti within 24 hours on the North
Side, goodbye first impression and
goodbye new residents.

Until there is the political will to arrest
drug dealers one time, two times, ten
times, a dozen times until they get
the freaking hint and stop doing business
on that corner, or any corner of the
North Side, goodbye first impression
and goodbye new residents.

You can't hide reality by writing cheery
columns. One could write the cheery
columns and--believing the hype--one
might go to the North Side seeking a
bargain on a house. But reality will
intrude upon hype every time. What's
needed is cold, hard dealing with
reality and not hope and hype.

Bust the open air drug markets. Paint
over the graffiti. Patrol the neighborhoods
so people aren't murdered in their homes
by roving packs of North Side teens.
The people you need to bring to the North
Side are the people who want to take
on this challenge, otherwise speculators
and slum lords will be the ones buying
the empty buildings, because they will
make their money on the North Side
but not have to live there.

And when massively-increased safety
and security exists for, say, a year or
two...in reality and in people's collective
sense of security, based on what they see
around them with their freaking open
eyes instead of singing "la-la-la love in
my heart"...then new residents MIGHT
begin to buy the vacant homes. MIGHT.

Let me emphasize "MIGHT."

I'm not helping? I think "helping" means to
deal with reality, not be another supporter of
hopeful hype that won't actually stand up to
first impressions when somebody takes
the leap of faith and makes a house hunting
visit to the North Side.

Yeah, I'm ready to buy a house on the North
Side...but I'm a different breed, cold and hard
inside. This is the only math which allows me
to have a place in the Twin Cities near my
precious son instead of throwing it all away
on rent.

So I can understand why those two faculty
members from the U turned around and ran.

Only the desire to live near my son keeps
ME from turning around and running.

(The images in this post are of an "open
air drug market" in another city. Though
the individuals in the pictures are being
especially brazen, these images are not
much different than what I have seen
on the North Side, and what continues
to be there every day)