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Their Public Housing at the End of Its Life, Residents Ask: What Now? (Cairo, IL)
New York Times ^ | 17 May 2017 | Monica Davey

Posted on 05/19/2017 6:34:54 PM PDT by Lorianne

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To: Chickensoup

Nina, check with Barney Sanders. I hear he has three houses and a big heart. I’m sure he will welcome you and your kids.


21 posted on 05/19/2017 8:10:19 PM PDT by Vehmgericht
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To: Exit148

Aren’t husbands those people who go to work everyday to support their families so that they don’t have to live in public housing and the taxpayers don’t have to pay other people’s rent?


22 posted on 05/19/2017 8:12:35 PM PDT by cradle of freedom
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To: piasa

My wife’s first husband’s family were big deals in the Cairo of old. The lumber business sold wood for Sear’s catalogue houses. There was a lot of wealth there back in the day.

A few months ago we went to give some materials for the local historical society. We met at the local library—a tiny but beautiful building. I saw a school bus parked out front and expected it to be filled with kids. But no, it was just the bus drive taking his break between routes. He, we and the librarian were the only ones in the place. I doubt if many of the locals are readers.

Virtually everything is derelict. Across from the library was a big building—an AME church and even it looked more or less abandoned. At one time, blacks in Cairo were able to erect a respectable looking brick church. Now, like the rest of the town, it is starting to crumble.


23 posted on 05/19/2017 8:14:16 PM PDT by hanamizu
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To: Chickensoup

IIRC, Obama said that people should become ‘urbanized’ again. Living in the cities lends itself to people using public transportation, so less use of cars and gas.......he is quietly remaking America (still) in his image of what it should be.....more European, less freedom.


24 posted on 05/19/2017 8:41:42 PM PDT by originalbuckeye ("In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell)
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To: originalbuckeye

I remember that too. He is also the one who had his HUD people change laws so every zip code will be diverse. By force if needed.


25 posted on 05/19/2017 8:43:38 PM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftists today are speaking as if they plan to commence to commit genocide against conservatives.)
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To: cradle of freedom

If one can get rent AND utilities for $50.00 a month, why get a job? Rents based on income encourages slothfulness ( I just made that word up, it’s so appropriate). I did not see the reasons these women weren’t working.


26 posted on 05/19/2017 8:59:16 PM PDT by blu (If you don't read the story at the link, don't comment. Your ignorance will be on display-except Laz)
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To: publius911
What's missing from this entire article? Anyone?

History of Cairo

I believe that the end of the Town of Cairo, Illinois began not too long after the Civil War.
The history text itself gives clear clues of its inevitable death, albeit over 150 years in the process.

The beginning was definitely NOT the mid-1960s...

27 posted on 05/19/2017 9:08:24 PM PDT by publius911 (I SUPPORT MY PRESIDENT?)
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To: hanamizu; piasa

I’d agree with most of that, and paisa’s comments too, except that I’d go further, based on some familiarity with the area myself: Most of the people trapped in Cairo have little in the way of skills, and IMO never got the guidance or education, much less the “push”, to get any. The city leadership is an oxymoron - I don’t think any of them have had a moment of innovation or entrepreneurial spirit or ideas for at least 2 generations. It is a great example of where welfare states tend to end up, barring overriding (think: Germany) cultural factors.

Further to the north, the decline of the coal industry has hit hard, Carbondale (college town - SIU) is hurting because of IL’s financial woes / cuts at SIU), and though tourism could be more of an attraction, IDNR (Illinois Dept. Of Natural Resources) appears to be clueless on how to run or attract people to what should be profitable attractions such as the “World Shooting and Recreational Complex” (near Sparta, IL) or the nearly 20,000 acre “Pyramid State Park”. (I “found” that Pyramid State Park was so large on Google: Several weeks later my wife and I drove around [exploring] it one Sunday afternoon during a gorgeous Labor Day Weekend with unusually nice [not ghastly hot and humid] weather — and we did not see 10 people the entire afternoon. These places are an hour’s drive from the St. Louis area. The Shawnee National Forest occupies much of deep Southern Illinois too, and is nearly as poorly managed, from the standpoint of economic / tourism development. Sure, there are a couple popular spots like “Garden of the Gods” and “Giant City” Park, but they are mainly frequented by locals. I know no one in the region who has EVER seen any state promotion of these areas on TV, Radio, or Internet to folks in Chicago, much less other regional cities like St. Louis, Nashville, Indianapolis, etc. (This is very nice for locals who like the mostly underutilized campgrounds and such, but disastrous for the region, economically, as a whole.)

This of course does not mean that there is NO entrepreneurial activity in the area: Some of the orchards still do well, some towns are not so bad off (Marion, for example, is doing ok, lead by its redoubtable & crusty old Mayor, Robert L. Butler, since 1963(!), and, there is a spirited (literally) industry of many small vineyards and wineries, some of which are excellent. But, that is not enough to support the region, with disasters like Cairo also in the mix.


28 posted on 05/19/2017 9:14:14 PM PDT by Paul R.
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To: Lorianne
In an age when mixed-income and scattered, voucher-based housing has long overtaken the old model of large public complexes,

This is the policy (Section 8 housing, etc.) that destroyed neighborhoods and communities. "Integration" has done a lot to destroy America.

29 posted on 05/19/2017 9:36:32 PM PDT by Cowboy Bob
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To: Paul R.
This is very nice for locals who like the mostly underutilized campgrounds and such

Yes and we very much like to keep it that way. We want the "city types" to stay away and leave us alone.

We don't give a Tinkers damn about Cairo.
30 posted on 05/19/2017 10:38:52 PM PDT by 98ZJ USMC
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To: Lorianne

There is a great documentary about Pruitt Igoe. One of the diverse residents is interviewed and she says when she was a kid she would vandalize the place. When the city didn’t repair the damage they would ruin more stuff in protest of all the broken stuff. I have zero sympathy for these people. None. Throw them on the streets for all I care. Decades of freeloading and they made zero effort to improve their situation.


31 posted on 05/19/2017 11:43:48 PM PDT by Organic Panic (Flinging poo is not a valid argument)
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To: VRWCarea51

My house is going on 90. With proper care it will easily make it another 100.


32 posted on 05/19/2017 11:45:26 PM PDT by Organic Panic (Flinging poo is not a valid argument)
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To: hanamizu

Many small areas are equally in that same place.....it just goes with the facts of how our nation is now. Decaying communities are really not that uncommon....

I live in Pa. and we have them throughout the state....smaller communities are a dying breed.....


33 posted on 05/19/2017 11:53:06 PM PDT by caww
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To: Lorianne

Easy just move them to public housing in another state.
The Affirmatively Futhering Fair Housing Act passed by Obama and funded by Congress is already law.
Just find one of a plethora of racist neighborhoods,designated so by the census,and move them in


34 posted on 05/20/2017 5:02:26 AM PDT by ballplayer (hvexx NKK c bmytit II iyijjhihhiyyiyiyi it iyiiy II i hi jiihi ty yhiiyihiijhijjyjiyjiiijyuiiijihyii)
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To: Paul R.

Bkmk


35 posted on 05/20/2017 5:22:31 AM PDT by kelly4c
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To: caww

Yes, Cairo is a small town that is dying and that’s not an uncommon thing. But Cairo, because of racial strife in the 60s-70s kind of killed itself. In that, it is different than say some town that’s been dwindling since the shoe factory shut down. (A common thing in these parts).


36 posted on 05/20/2017 6:58:28 AM PDT by hanamizu
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To: Lorianne

lots of apts in ames iowa being filled up with public housing voucher transplants. A hold up outside the hyvee foodstore just two blocks from me yesterday...........


37 posted on 05/20/2017 7:05:34 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: ballplayer

Last Feb., I emailed President Obama and a few congressmen, and I asked them to propose a bill that would eliminate the Depts. of HUD, HHS, and Education and eliminate federal grants to state and city governments. I said that spending disobeys the 10th Amendment. I said that, since the federal government would need less money, the same bill should cut income tax rates for all federal income taxpayers. When that happens, some state and city governments will change their tax rates, to ensure that they can help their residents. No one replied to my letters.


38 posted on 05/21/2017 5:22:39 PM PDT by PhilCollins
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To: blu

Today the Dems were belly aching about how children would STARVE!!! if the food stamp budget was cut back. Look at some of those virtuous welfare mothers weighing over 200 pounds. Why don’t they cut back on some of their junk foods and give healthy food to their children if their children are going hungry.

Today I just read about the Dems complaining of food stamps being taken from illegal aliens. I thought illegal aliens were not supposed to get foods stamps or at least that is what the Dems used to say. Now they are admitting that they have been giving food stamps to illegals all along. And what about all of the food stamp fraud that is going on? They are trading food stamps for money so they can buy booze or drugs. Dishonest stores are trading food stamps for federal money. Even immigrants are using their extra food stamp to buy food for their relatives in foreign countries. They have been doing this for years all with the Democrats knowledge. The Democrats LOVE to steal and waste our money to reward THEIR voters. They probably bribe them to vote with food stamps. Do not put it past them.

In many cities that have been controlled by Democrats for generations, the city employees are all Democrats so they form an army that assist the Dems in cheating their way to victory. It is like the Soviet Union—it didn’t matter who cast the votes but who COUNTED the votes. And every hand that counted the votes was a Democrat hand.

They have the voting list complete with names of people who died years ago or who moved months or years ago. They pick up people on busses and they drive them around to vote for Democrats.


39 posted on 05/25/2017 1:51:36 PM PDT by cradle of freedom
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