Gentrification Redux

However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

Henry David Thoreau

Some time ago I asked whether or not gentrification was a good thing. Frankly, I think it’s a mixed bag. Our neighborhood is becoming more “foot-friendly” and there are more and more daily services moving into downtown Madison. Gentrification does have its pluses if it is done judiciously.

I recently visited Dr Aaron Abplanalp who has opened up shop at Life City in one of the Metropolitan Place retail spaces. He’s a fine addition to the neighborhood and since I need the services of a chiropractor frequently due to some serious injuries to my back, the convenience of having a good doctor within walking distance is a treasure.

At the same time this kind of rhetoric on the part of developers in the downtown area reported on in “The Isthmus Daily Page“ in late September just smacks classicism and possibly racism since many of these people are people of color:

Teen center eyed as homeless shelter

Developer calls for moving homeless men off the Square
Vikki Kratz on Wednesday 09/26/2007

Madison developer Cliff Fisher is bothered to see homeless men on the Capitol Square. He wishes they were somewhere else.

“People come here and all they see is people standing around, begging for money,” says Fisher, who owns more than a dozen downtown properties. “We have the most beautiful Capitol, and you see people panhandling.”

Granted it isn’t pleasant to be harassed by homeless people for money but I live in Mr Fisher’s neighborhood. I walk the streets past his developments and I interact with these homeless people. For the most part I don’t see them harassing anyone when they’re turned down politely.

What I HAVE seen are people who are publicly intoxicated or strung out on drugs harassing people. That is a different matter entirely. That is a law enforcement problem.

That they also happen to be homeless is incidental. Those people could be removed from the scene if the police were properly enforcing the law.  If people called and reported the fact that someone who was publicly intoxicated was being a public nuisance the police would have to go out there and do their jobs.  I doubt the Madison Police would have a problem doing that.

For the most part, the Police do take care of the public nuisances as they walk their beat in the downtown area but they can’t be everywhere at once and like naughty children the bad apples in the barrel will wait until the Police have their back turned to act out. When you are being harassed, call the police. Hang around in the vicinity until the cops arrive and point out the bad apple. Take the risk.

Moving the homeless shelters off the square and away from the ritzy condos isn’t going to solve the problem. Do you think these people are stupid? State Street and the Square are their bread and butter. They’ll just walk eight blocks or however far you push them out to get back up here where the cash and the foot traffic is.

Don’t be absurd and think you can get rid of a social problem by trying to hide it, Mr Fisher. Don’t be part of the problem; be part of the solution and help create jobs for these people so they have no need of shelters or begging on the streets of this beautiful city of ours. And don’t be so presumptuous that you forget it is their city too!

An the Goblins Will Get Ya If Ya Don’t Watch Out!

Little Orphan Annie’s come to my house to stay.
To wash the cups and saucers up and brush the crumbs away.
To shoo the chickens from the porch
and dust the hearth and sweep,
and make the fire and bake the bread
to earn her board and keep.
While all us other children, when the supper things is done,
we sit around the kitchen fire and has the mostest fun,
a listening to the witch tales that Annie tells about
and the goblins will get ya if ya don’t watch out!

“The Little Orphan Annie” by James Witcomb Riley

The big Halloween Party weekend has come and gone for another year. Freakfest was a huge success at least in terms of safety and lack of violence and property damage. According to “The Wisconsin State Journal” it only cost the city $500, 000! Somewhere in the neighborhood of 34,000 people attended and paid the $5.00 admission fee and only 175 of them got arrested.

It was pretty tame from my point of view except that the last band was really loud and one of the points of exit must have been close to home because there was a significant amount of boisterous foot traffic on my street which made my dog nervous. The light went out well before 3:00 am though.

Three years ago I listened and watched as the tension with at least twice as many people versus a much smaller police force came to a head and the riots began. Walking down State Street the next morning was almost like walking through a warzone Our Mayor and City Council deserve congratulations and Thanks for turning this annual gathering into a safe but fun party once again.

Unfortunately I had developed a fine case of insomnia but the city was calm and quiet by 3:30. There weren’t even any house parties with loud music disturbing the peace nearby. No screams and cries for help like I heard this past summer when one of the rapes took place nearby. No arguments from domestic disturbances. Pretty tame for a Saturday night. Gosh, it’s good to have the students back in town!

B

Jesus Is NOT My Personal Savior and NO, Dammit, He Doesn’t Live In My Heart!

The Old Testament is responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief-call it what you will-than any book ever written; it has emptied more churches than all the counterattractions of cinema, motor bicycle and golf course.

A.A. Milne (1882-1956)

In October the Freedom From Religion Foundation is holding their annual convention. It’s going to be at the Concourse. Yes, that’s right, the city will be bulging with atheists between October 12-14. Not that it isn’t already. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is based right here in Madison with offices at the corner of Henry and West Washington.

I found this tidbit out from a recent article in The Wisconsin State Journal: “Atheist Christopher Hitchens will speak in city” by Doug Erickson on Monday, July 23rd. Hitchens’ book “God Is Not Great,” holds the No. 2 spot on The New York Times best-sellers list. That’s quite a coup for a relatively small town like Madison. Christophr Hitchens is one of THE men of the hour when it comes to promoting atheistic thinking.

Then on the the 24th there was an article in the Journal by Kim Vo from the San Jose Mercurey News: “Atheism gaining more acceptance, say the godless.” Atheism is getting a lot of press in Madison all of a sudden. The article in the San Jose Mercury mentioned some thing Vo called the ‘fundametalsit atheist.’ But what IS a fundamentalist atheist? It wasn’t clear from Vo’s article.

She mentioned a man haranguing a young woman, his niece, with questions about her theistic beliefs. He wanted her to be sure that what she believed was the truth and it was obvious he believed his lack belief were the truth. That’s not fundamentalism in the strictest sense of the word, in my opinion. That’s evangelicalism or proselytizing.

All atheists are fundamentalist atheists in that we adhere to the core fundamental atheist premise: we lack belief in a gods or goddesses. That’s it. That ‘s the only thing that binds all theists together. Loosely. Very loosely.

Atheists have no other beliefs or lack of beliefs in common. We have no codified creed. We don’t gather together in meeting houses specially built for the purpose of discussing the atheistic creed because there isn’t one.

My friend MerlinsDad and I were talking about the problems that fundamentalist religion had wrought upon our world in recent years and our own descent into non-believing heresy. We were joking about what fundamentalist atheism would look like and I asked what fundamentalist atheists would sing when they congregated. He thought that was hilarious but I’m sure the younger generation would have no problem coming up with something. I don’t remember the names of the songs but my son has had me listen to some decidedly atheistic music.

Vo’s article made it a point to say that amongst the younger generation it is more acceptable to be an atheist and the numbers grow the younger the age set. Only 6% of the elderly define themselves as atheists but 19% of the 18-22 year olds do. That’s good to hear but as those young people age I wonder whether their beliefs will change or at least whether they will succumb to the pressure to be more circumspect about their lack of belief.

There is a great deal of pressure in the United States to conform to the norm and hold some kind of belief in the supernatural, particularly the Christian supernatural. The chances are pretty great that they will marry someone who is a believer who will want to have that marriage sanctified by the church. The emotional persuasive tactics used by true believers determined to win a convert can be overwhelming to someone who is not prepared for them.

Proselytizing is pervasive amongst the Christians. They are adjured to “go forth and spread the good news” by their holy book and it seems as though they are willing to use any means possible to obtain this goal. Some sects believe that until every man woman and child on the face of the earth has heard “the good news” of Jesus birth and sacrifice for mankind the return of Christ to reign on Earth cannot take place.

But what about the proselytizing atheist? I would say that Annie Laurie Gaylor from The Freedom From Religion Foundation who has won fame for tirelessly fighting for separation of church and state and Christopher Hitchens amongst others are evangelical atheists in some ways. I don’t say this disparagingly. Perhaps in writing about atheism I have become one in a small way. But how often do you hear about atheists coming up and asking you if you believe in God and then arguing with you about all the reasons you shouldn’t?

Many Christians do this all the time. Every chance they get. Complete strangers will walk up to me on State Street at least once or twice a month and hand me a pamphlet asking me if Jesus is my savior. If I’m in the mood for the philosophical debate I might say no and then we will butt heads for half an hour or so while a crowd gathers to watch the show.

Have you ever seen atheists standing on the Library Mall declaiming that god does not exist and all who believe in him are fools of the worst order? I haven’t. Someday I’d like to do that, just to see what would happen. I’m afraid I’d probably get stoned. With real stones.

I’ve sure seen Crazed Christian Evangelists out there screaming that homosexuals are going to hell because of their perverted ways and that the wages of sin is death practically every day the weather is decent enough to stand outside. No one really pays any attention to them so they’re really wasting their time but still, think of the noise pollution.

B

Well, IS Gentrification Good?

The folks over at the Isthmus Daily Page picked up on that question in my last entry so I thought I’d explore it a little. First of all, what IS gentrification really? This link is a pretty good over view by Tom Wetzel.

Madison can’t be said to have any real inner city blight. Not yet anyway.

There are what I would call slumlords who have taken some once lovely properties, cut them up any old which way into student housing and used them up. Apparently without doing even routine maintenance over the years. Now even the poorest of the poor students won’t live there. I wish I had a digital camera so I could go take some pictures of these places. (Who is going to sue me? I don’t have anything to take away! It would cost more than it’s worth. heee!) Ugh… Just Ugh.

But that’s sporadic and not likely to spread very far. Or is it? Is this a grand conspiracy to get more space for 16 story whole block condos that run right up against the sidwalk?

I would go so far as to say we don’t really have an inner city perse. We have two unique and saving graces here in Madison. Because our downtown area is so close to the University we have students who are willing to rent the older homes near the University as soon as they can possibly get out of the dorms which means we have landlords who view these properties anywhere near the University and downtown as investments and are generally willing to keep the older homes in semi-reasonable repair so they can charge students exhorbitant rents.

Plus we have the Isthmus. The Isthmus keeps the territory that could become the inner city small and contained. Real Estate has been and is always going to be relatively expensive on the Isthmus so it’s unlikely that we will ever see anything close to to the inner city blight places like Chicago and Detroit have experienced.

Nevertheless, within the last 10 years or so we have been experiencing a boom in real estate development of what I would call the gentrification of downtown Madison. Our aging boomer population wants to live downtown. So do some of our young and upwardly mobile. And they have the money to be able to afford to do it. So here come the developers with their condos. The rich are moving into the downtown area. As close to the Capitol Square as they can get. Right on the Square.

And why not? I love living downtown. This building was built in the early 80’s. I remember bringing my kiddies downtown to watch the skyscapers being built in Madison. So cool. Cheap thrills.

But how many more Condos can we possibly need in the Downtown area before we hit the saturation point? And why aren’t these nice older homes being restored? I walk through these older neighborhoods where the students live and think it would be great if they were returned to their former grandeur.

Wouldn’t it be nice if people who cared about keeping them alive would buy them and rehabilitate them? Return them to the way they were when they were originally built. Return them to single family homes. But then I love older homes and feel sad when they are neglected and mistreated.

I can see the day coming when these houses that have YARDS will become the focus of the gentrification movement. The young and upwardly mobile will start having families and they’ll want a bit of property for swingsets and the family dog. Landlords would be able to charge more rents for rehabbed homes.

But then comes the question of what will happen to the students who currently live here when that happens? Surely they will they be forced off the Isthmus if gentrification starts happening in the student housing areas? Where will they go? Will low cost claptrap highrise apartments go up to house them? Where? Do we really want that?

This article in USA today suggests that some students would stay and pay the higher rents. They’d find a way to make it work out. A group of older students with good references, sharing a rehabbed home, three or four to a bedroom signing a years lease. Why not?

Is gentrification good? IMO, when it gets to rehabbing the older buildings yes. It saves valuable historical architecture. But tearing down stuff so developers build shiny new stuff. Not particularly.

Metropolitan Place is a lovely building but it took away a small bit of green space and some older trees on Mifflin Street. Having that building come flush up to the sidewalk with no terrace betwen the sidewalk and the street is overwhelming. It seems rude. Maybe I’ll get used to it but right now I just miss that grass and the trees.

All of this building is supposed to be revitalizing downtown but I don’t see that happening. Not yet anyway. Seems to me State Street is slowly turning into another upscale Mall. If that ‘s revitalization, whooopee.

B

Give us this day our Daily Page

The Isthmus has been a weekly staple in my life for many many years. Madison has a rich print news life but The Isthmus is truly deserving of the many awards it has won over the years. I’m pleased to report that I have once again been quoted by them on their website The Daily Page and very honered. I think even my Daddy would be proud. Even though he was a republican, had conniption fits when I voted for Carter, and The Isthmus stands for everything he was against.

In the first place, it’s free unless you have it mailed to your door (circulation 61, 000). Every Thursday, I just stop by one of their little newstands in a restaurant or store and pick up the latest edition. In the second place they have a definite liberal bias. Finally they are advant garde. They report on the news no one else is reporting. They take a story and explore it in minute detail down to the finest implication. This is what reporting the news should be like. Who, what, when, where, how and why. In depth, precise, and cognizant.

But most people also value and keep The Isthmus around the house from one week to the next because it is the source of everything going on in MadTwon and the surrounding area in the Arts, Music, Theater, Comedy, Movies and other forms of entertainment. It’s also where you can find out what’s on the agenda at the City/County Building and what our lawmakers are up to in the halls of legislature in the Capitol Building. Want to know where to find a free meal if you are broke? Look in the Isthmus. You name it and I’d probably tell you to look in the Isthmus to find out.

Personal ads? Isthmus. Kinky sex ads. Isthmus. Luxury Apartments. Isthmus. Free fish? Isthmus. “The Straight Dope”? the Isthmus. Gays in the news? The Isthmus. Nude beaches? The Istthmus. The Amish? The Isthmus. They’ve done it all and more.

So now they have The Daily Page which I didn’t know about until they quoted me. I said getting quoted by Dane101 sas almost as good as getting quoted by The Isthmus which would be the epitome of my dreams in one of my Blogs and then it happened. Now it’s happened TWICE! Holy Cow… My phone bills to Nebraska are going to be awfully high this month. I called my brother this time. I really believe I’m a WRITER.

The best thing I have found out about Madison that I did not know by browsing through “The Daily Page” and absolutely MUST take my Gr-son to see is the Geology Museum at the Universtiy of Wsisconsin. I took Geology when I was in college because I was dating a Geology professor. I didn’t take his classes, that would have been unethical but it was his mentoring that helped me “earn” the A I got. He actually tutored me through some of the labs. I’m afraid my mind isn’t very scientific.

But I love rocks and this article brought back a lot of memories of those days rocking with my professor and my kids. Particularly the day I held up a rock and asked him what kidn it was and he told me it was a “Gneiss rock.” I retorted I know it’s a nice rock but what kind is it?” “Gneiss!” and so on until I finally asked him to spell “Gneiss” It was a who’s on first conversation for a good ten minutes. He was a first class smart ass.  <heh>

Yup, gotta take my Gr-son to the Geology Museum.His Mama was with that Professor when she broke her pretty brand new two front teeth off rollerskating.  I was studying for a Geology exam.

B

Aloha Kakou! (imagine a little tent over a in kakou)

The property management of the Three Threes and The Madison Senior Center went halvsies on a luau for all of us and threw a feast worthy of King Kamehameha (I dare you to say that guys namewithout cracking a smile) out in the courtyard. The Wisconsin State Journal even showed up to cover the event!

We had hula dancers and everything. Well no poi. I was disappointed there was no poi. I have heard that poi can glue your mouth shut for six months. That might have come in handy. I would have taken home all the left overs for future reference.

Those of us who weren’t intimidated by a little fresh air had a lovely time. Those of us who like to complain found something to complain about. They always do. Bitch, bitch, bitch… If it had been inside there would have been too many people there and it would have been too crowded.

They must be related to Goldilocks but haven’t found the bowl of porridge that is just right yet. Or the chair, or the bed, and time is getting short for a lot of them. It’s a quarter to twelve and the clock is striking. Like Cinderella, their time is running out and these Senior Citizens are running away from the ball leaving behind their glass slippers errr… false teeth.

I suppose I shouldn’t poke fun but damn, I’ve lived here almost four years and I am so damn sick of listening to these people bitch about every damn thing that is done for them. It’s not just the Seniors who have these entitlement issue either. There are plenty of the younger people who live here who bitch about the services here.

C’mon PEOPLE, this is HUD housing and a non-profit agency–part of the South Madison Coalition of the Elderly These things are done for you pretty much gratis by the staff. With a smile. They work hard planning and putting together these parties and you turn up your nose and criticize whatever you can find to criticize.

When Colleen was the activities director of the Three Threes she worked her behind off putting together pot luck dinners and often worked long hours past what she was paid to work. How many of you thought to even say thank you? You wonder why she left? Listen to yourselves sometime!

Gina, our new activity director and office staff, and Erica, our new building manager, work just as hard to see to it that our building has fun activities going on. They listen when we make suggestions and if enough interest is shown, they will act on those suggestions.

So you aren’t taken gambling 4 times a month. People on social security shouldn’t be taken gambling by employees of federal housing projects, IMO and I’m glad that has stopped. There are buses that provide transportation every week from the square. Maybe twice a week. Call your favorite Ho Chunk Casino–they’ll give you the skinny. Walk up to the square or take a taxi. Better yet get a life and spend that money you’d throw away leading it.

OK, maybe that’s a little sanctimonious but damn, there was more time spent going gambling than any other recreational activity in this building. What’s with that? I’m an atheist and I’d much rather see the activity director dragging people to her very own “little brown church in the vale” (that’s a quote from a song for those who don’t know the reference which most of you probably don’t. Want me to sing it? I’ll just hum a few bars…).

OK that’s my Madison mixed review for tonight.

Oh, I did go to The Community Pharmacy and pick up the rest of my meds. I got to see Richard the head Pharmacist who I just adore because he’s so goood at what he does and looks out for me so well. He always has such a big smile and “Hello Barbara, how are you today?” every time I walk in the door and you just know he really wants to know whether you’re OK or not. I took his picture tonight and one of the pharmacy itself so as soon as I get that role developed, I’ll be able to show you what The Community Pharmacy looks like. It’s one of my favoritie places in the neighborhood.

They got a Health Advocacy Award in April. It was reported in The Daily Cardinal, a University of Wisconsin-Madison paper but not in the mainstream local newspapers. I want to know why not since what they are doing is keeping our community Healthy. I’m going back tomorrow and taking notes. Had to rush home for the luau tonight.

B

oh my… I’ve been quoted and linked back to by Dane101. This is like the biggest honor! I am so thrilled that this happened. They liked my Mallards baseball bit. Isn’t that the schnizzle?For those of you (like me) who don’t know, “Dane101 is an online publication for Madison and Dane County. Written by contributors from and familiar with life here, Dane101 is about the persons, events, and issues that shape the region.” (quoted from their about page).

Well I sort of knew they were around and had been to their site before but I wasn’t all that aware of who and what they are. They’ve been around since at least 2005 according to their about page and they’re a “collabrative blog” which means they go in search of blogs like mine to get their news. How interesting and what an honor to be pegged to plug the Mallards!

This is almost as good as getting picked up by the Isthmus. Almost. I should check my email and see if the Dane101 wants to hire me because I’m such a good wiriter. <heeee!> I better send them a Thank you note at least. wowowowow!  Who can I call?

B