If it’s something we all agree is a problem, why is it so hard to get fixed?
Piles to go: Garbage in New Albany;Trash in alleys frustrates neighborhood groups, by Eric Scott Campbell (News and Tribune).
“If they don’t do something about absentee landlords, they’ll never get this cleaned up,” said Greg Roberts as he stared at a pile of tires, mattresses and rugs in the New Albany alley between Spring, Market, E. 9th and E. 10th streets.
As Greg correctly perceives, not everyone does agree that our fouled collective urban nest is a problem, and this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has ever attempted to fathom the woebegone precepts behind New Albany’s famously self-defeating refusal to enforce its own codes, and to concurrently accept a lowest-common-denominator “slumlord protection program” as the epitome of human aspiration.
A more comfortable habitat for absentee landlords is difficult to imagine … and yet if they’re absent, why is discernable political will on the topic of compliance harder to find than Steve Price’s nickel-and-dime laden, cement pond Eldorado?
On June 24, the Tribune ran an informative piece on neighborhood watch programs:
Not In My Backyard; Residents, police: Neighborhood watch programs can decrease crime, by Jennifer Rigg (News and Tribune).
Potential criminals in New Albany’s Silver Grove neighborhood may be more afraid of Varie Munford than they are of patrolling police officers.
As the coordinator for the Silver Grove Association’s neighborhood watch program, she and several others patrol the neighborhood at least twice a week either on bicycles, in cars or on foot looking for suspicious activity to report to police.
For fifty years, we’ve been intent on avidly pursuing the wrong target demographic, and in any case, shame as a reliable mechanism of self-enforcement has been bred out of the American gene pool for so long that living memories of it are confined to our most elderly citizenry, so we must concede that without active resident participation in the process of patrolling neighborhoods, little is going to be accomplished in the way of clean-up.
Of course, it doesn’t help that some would-be pillars of the community see fit to ignore certain community norms that clash with their preconceived notions, and by doing so, set a less than stellar example for those who’re actually paying attention.
I’m thinking here of the abject refusal of the city council to observe the law requiring periodic redistricting.
But as incurable optimists, we continue to look for the good, as in these two recent Tribune stories:
A legacy, renovated: New Albany's Cardinal Ritter house.
Cold-beverage warehouse takes hot bath.
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4 comments:
Thanks much to who took the time and effort to remove the recently digarded mattress and box springs from the road surface of Spring Street Hill.
I think a scheduled approach a la the dilapidated Spring Street property might be in order. It's not healthy or fun to have to resort to such an organized campaign but, given the lack of progress and advocacy on the issue, it seems prudent as the only methodology that's proven somewhat succesful thus far.
Responses from city officials (or lack thereof) should be documented and made as public as possible.
The alley behind my house has two abandoned cars in it...a nice yellow cat seems to live in one. I've often imagined how much nicer it would be to have flowers along there, as opposed to rusty hulks. I'm afraid if I just go up and ask the neighbors whose cars these are to move them - they'll spit tobacco in my face or tell me to go take down my old garage sitting next to them...
I think yesterdays Tribune article in addition to blog posts of late and the conversations that have taken place within various neighborhood meetings as well as on street corners, light has finally been shed on this issue that is no longer deniable.
What we must do now is keep up the pressure and get others to join in the chorus!
United,consistent, persistence is a force that will not be denied!
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