AJC > Sandy Springs > Blog > Archives > 2008 > June > 02
Monday, June 2, 2008
Is “cleaning up” the neighborhood really bias?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Back when we were a new city there were a lot of folks wringing their hands about that part of town in the general vicinity of I-285 and Roswell Road, specifically to the south of that intersection.
As I recall the discussions, there was a lot of talk about the area needing to be “cleaned up” which is usually code words for tearing out older stores and apartments and replacing them with something fancier with rents that will discourage current residents from sticking around. And, setting aside the question of who should be making those decisions, I’m just curious as to whether it is still what we in the media like to call a “hot button” issue.
I drive through that section of town maybe once a month, as it really is not on my regular routine. I do not patronize the businesses there - an issue of convenience as opposed to any ill will about the place. It’s not the spiffiest neighborhood I have ever seen, but it far from the worst.
It does, I am told, get its fair share of attention from the police. Back when we became a city many alleged that area was a hot bed of drug trafficking and prostitution.
But is there also discomfort with the area because so many of the people living there are Hispanic? Is it possible that a portion of our desire to see that neighborhood cleaned up is because there are so many working-class folks to whom English is, at best, a second language?
Are we trying to ease out those who do not speak and look like us? (This is where the fussing usually surfaces about illegals in our town, but let us assume for the sake of this discussion that every foreign-born person living within our city limits is here legally.) Would that neighborhood still be an issue?
Wasn’t one of the things that made this country great was the fact that America is a melting pot? If so, what is it about an ethnic neighborhood in our confines that makes us so uneasy?
And is there a solution that does not have a subtle whiff of racism surrounding it?
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