Posted on 08/11/2014 6:56:48 AM PDT by MNDude
Trader Joe’s was going to open a store in what is supposedly a historically black neighborhood in Portland OR. The black community “leaders” opposed the store because they said it was too white and would lead to the gentrification of the area. A Trader Joe’s would be great for a “Food Desert.” They have reasonable prices on mostly healthy foods.
First, let's understand the geography. St. Louis is a city, that, in 1885, **separated** itself from the surrounding county by decree of the city "fathers". This netted out to, "We don't want to associate with those hicks in the "county".
So, there are today the "County of the City of St. Louis" and "Saint Louis County". Politically, they are as day to night, although white flight from St. Louis County is changing that dynamic. The current chief executive of St. Louis County is a fairly typical gimmedat welfare leftist...as it happens, a black guy named Charlie Dooley.
Now, St. Louis County comprises 92 (at last count) **separate** municipalities, some of which are as small geographically as Vatican City. Ferguson is one of these, a fairly large one as things go in the County. Ferguson is also "privileged" to have several East-West thoroughfares running through it or adjacent to it. When miscreants want to miscreate IN Ferguson, it's very easy to get to; when miscreants want to miscreate outside but close to Ferguson, it is equally easy to go there. OK, so far?
Almost every municipality in St. Louis County has its own police force. Some are excellent (Webster Groves, for instance). Some have been atrocious for years, perhaps decades (Maplewood, for instance, not to mention Wellston). Some munis share police. Ferguson, because that is the muni in the discussion, has had by my reading, a dep't that I should rate as "barely satisfactory".
As a side note to your comment, the city of Ferguson is some miles away from the old (now torn down) Pruitt-Igoe horror. It is now mostly, as you say, unused land in the CITY of St. Louis, and therefore not really relevant in this situation. You can take my word for it that political concerns about X piece of property in the City are of practically no concern in the County, and vice versa, and that this has been the case generally since the 1960s.
Now, as a matter of pure fact without opinion added, Ferguson has been trending downward for a couple of decades, flight of businesses and homeowners being the principal cause. My old clients in that city have all moved elsewhere.
Without commenting about the current incident, or whether the Ferguson policeman involved had a "good shoot" or not, I will only cite Damon Runyon's remark: "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong...but that's the way to bet."
Got it?
St. Louis City and St. Louis County are VERY different places, and any commentary that, even inadvertently, conflates these two areas is, at best, incompetent. If such an incident as we saw this past weekend had not occurred (no matter who may have been at fault) in Ferguson, there are 40 other munis in St. Louis County in which such an incident ultimately would or will occur. And, candidly, I should expect more such incidents, either in St. Louis "proper", or in one or another of the northern County municipalities.
Hope this little essay is of some use to you in analyzing the incident, and FReegards!
Thanks for the 411. I did a Google map flyover of St. Louis and surrounding area using the satellite view. Ferguson looks quite nice from that view. The housing isn’t as dense as the city proper, far more trees per lot with newer looking buildings.
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