The problems in Schenectady, like Albany and Troy, are complex and multifaceted. You can't simply wave a wand and have them all change. I think first and foremost, the real issue facing this community is the utter breakdown of the family unit. Look up half the people being sentenced to hard time these days...many of them between the age of 17 and 25...a lot of them already have two and three kids. Those are suddenly single-parent kids. And most of the time, that single parent isn't one making very much money. Or any money. Unskilled, under-educated and trying to care for several kids. And if it's a single mother of a boy, simple psychology has it that he'll one day look for a male role model. Where's he going to find that role model in the city's ghettos? With the jacked thug pushing junk on the corner...wearing the bling...driving the nice car...hanging with the pretty ladies and throwing around his weight like a capo. Eventually, that boy is going to join that gang. And when he does, the cycle starts all over again.
The solution? Well, there really is none. I think a good start is to re-instate the walking beat cop. Community policing is always the most effective. But the police union will never stand for dedicating a walking duo in the troubled neighborhoods....and even if they did, the tax payers wouldn't stand for it...it'd cost too much.
So then there's the other solution: Throw a veneer on the city...take areas where the gangstas DON'T want to hang and erect monuments to the affluent...Expensive hotels. Boutique businesses. Slowly wall-off the problem areas and create an economic engine that slowly radiates outward, incorporating more dilapidated areas gradually until suddenly it's pressed up against the ghetto...let the ghetto chew itself to pieces....and let's be honest: That's what it's doing in Schenectady...and then bulldoze it for more expensive hotels and boutique businesses. For those unfamiliar with what I'm talking about here, it's called gentrification. Unfortunately for Schenectady, this is a painfully slow process that takes a lot of money and is no guaranteed success. In fact, with a dearth of high-paying jobs and a perfectly safe neighborhoods immediately to the north and east, it's more or less a doomed proposition.
Anyway, that's life. Schenectady is better than it was during the 1990s...but not by much. The few gains its made are what I'd call a Pyrrhic victory...battles won, but all for a losing cause.
Excellent observations Hack! As far as the beat cops and veneer, you're absolutely on point.
The veneer won't work because the only people actually moving into the City are the welfare-collectors. They are the only people willing to live with high crime and horrible schools as long as they are living off the governments handouts. The Schenectady County social services department refuses to do audits, refuses no one and is the only entity bringing people into the City.
You can't push out what you're filling up with. It will never happen. The veneer will never work.
They are the only people willing to live with high crime and horrible schools as long as they are living off the governments handouts
Rachel maybe i'm reading it or not understanding this statement.
I live in Hamiton Hill. We own our home and pay the same rate of taxes as every other homeowner in the city. We have lived here 28 years next month.
The house next door to me sold for $4000 plus back taxes, two other homes comparabe to ours are for sale on our street for under $15,000. Many houses have been on the market a year or more some much longer.
I am not on welfare, no food stamps and even though with my health issues I am repeateldy asked to apply for medicaid I refuse. In fact my neurologist office just asked me that two days ago
I am not willing to live with the crime. I have been trying for 27 years to try and help stop it, have made numerous calls to police, council members, state police etc etc.
When we purchased our home the interest rate was 15 percent. So by the time we paid off the mortgage we have put over $80.000 into paying it off . Then add the high taxes.
Just last night a group of teens/young adults started a small fire near the pavillion in JB park. I am sick of calling police, I am sick of not being able to sleep.
Yesterday I spoke to a "higher up" in the police dept who said they are aware of the problems at night in the park.
So I ask what does it take for a police car to just drive by the park a couple of times after nine pm when the park is closed and if anyone is there, which there is always a group and cars, then tell them the park is CLOSED and to leave.
My relatives have been telling me to move, but who is going to want to pay what my house is worth? NO ONE With no savings I can't just leave, and why should I have to.
Alot of this goes back to lack of parental supervision. Alot of this goes back to its hamilton hill so who gives a dam.
Rachel maybe i'm reading it or not understanding this statement.
I live in Hamiton Hill. We own our home and pay the same rate of taxes as every other homeowner in the city. We have lived here 28 years next month.
The house next door to me sold for $4000 plus back taxes, two other homes comparabe to ours are for sale on our street for under $15,000. Many houses have been on the market a year or more some much longer.
I am not on welfare, no food stamps and even though with my health issues I am repeateldy asked to apply for medicaid I refuse. In fact my neurologist office just asked me that two days ago
I am not willing to live with the crime. I have been trying for 27 years to try and help stop it, have made numerous calls to police, council members, state police etc etc.
You and I are the taxpayers. You and I are the exception nowadays. You and I are the people the City needs to keep here, yet we are ignored, mistreated and taken advantage of time and time again.
My point is to the people the City is courting - the ones who are getting the handouts, the bribes to come to this City - from the social service regulars to the Galesis/Mallozis/Morris'. They are greeted with open arms, are given free police protection for Proctors shows and the burden for paying comes to you and I.
You are the type of person the City should be proud of for staying and raising a family here, but honestly, you are treated as an ATM for the waste the City has produced.
Not a slam to the Hill, a slam to the corruption the City has become.
Only a man with a paper as*hole with say that we are better off than we were in the nineties. This is someone who never left the confines of downtown.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
I post because a few come up with interesting points of discussion on this board.
Its 6:56 what are you doing posting at work
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
No idiots. He commented about my eralier post - I was being sarcastic
eralier? If you are going to call people idiots make sure you spell check that post
"In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
libertarian - you might want to look at the assault reports - people getting attacked in the city is generally done by people from the same neighborhood, same household, same race
Same victims of targeted enforcement. It stands to reason people being targeted will turn on each other.
You teach them violence and guns are the tools for problem solving, then blame them for violent behavior.
You targeted them for forced education. You planted the ideas with your contamination.
You brought the violent seeds and planted them in the targeted areas.
You cause violence to breed.
You are in utter denial.
You created the war zone and expect people to just sit quietly by as you decimate their neighborhoods and families.
You, and your actions are the cause of Schenectady being the crime capital of New York.
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