24-hour curfew in bad Arkansas neighborhood

[protege]

Now, I don't think this curfew was the best idea, but something extreme is going to have to happen to solve this problem. And one of the first things that needs to happen is for Governer Beebe to live up to his promise to equalize things in the state and to bring a major manufacturer to the area so there will be more jobs.

I hear ya. Pittsburgh once had a similar problem. During the early 1990s, the gang wars were in full swing. It seemed that someone was getting shot every damn night, and nearly *all* of it was in the low-income, mostly-black neighborhoods. I remember driving through there on the way back from the museum, the hospital where my mother worked, etc. and hearing gunshots at night, or watching drug busts go down. Truly somewhere you *didn't* want to be, especially at night. Got so bad one year, that the city set all the lights along the main street (Second Avenue in Hazelwood) to green...simply so late-night commuters wouldn't have to stop.

What really sucks about that area, is it used to be an OK neighborhood. Not Beverly Hills, but not South Central either. First the mill closed, then the drugs and other problems came. 10-15 years on, things have seriously quieted down.

About the mill...a few years back, the city wanted to knock that down, and redevelop the area. As soon as the words "light industrial" were printed in the newspaper, the people living there bitched about it. IIRC, there weren't any major factories planned, mostly things like machine shops, better housing, and just cleaning up the remains of the mill. No matter what the city tried to do, it got shot down. Now the very same people living there....are now bitching about how there aren't any jobs

Needless to say, another mill site (Homestead), which isn't far away...had the same thing done to it. Now, there are lots of retail shops, condos, a few warehouses, etc. ...all of which are booming. And yes, the people in Hazelwood are still pissed--they had their chance, and blew it.