Thursday, July 28, 2005
'A little more bustling': OK, so some medium-sized Northeast cities like New Haven are making a small comeback. That's good news. Everyone should welcome it. But having more than a small family connection to New Haven, Hub Blog isn't about to let government or Yale University grab most of the credit for any marginal improvement. Heck, Pepe's Pizza did more to hold New Haven together than the local government or Yale during the city's half-century of decline. ... The fact is both government and Yale played key roles in New Haven's descent into armpit status. The former implemented just about every crackpot government do-good policy of the '50 and '60s -- mostly by razing neighborhoods for new highways or public housing projects. The latter is guilty of both moat-like neglect and allowing activist faculty members on the side to use New Haven as some sort of vast sociological laboratory, even to the point of encouraging students to become more "active" in the community, such as bringing lawsuits or political pressure to bear in order to economically "integrate" neighborhoods. Hell, Yale is still playing Sociology Scientist, if you read between the lines in the second link about its ongoing housing policies. ... FYI: It didn't take one murder to prompt Yale to finally take action. It was multiple, sustained attacks on students and faculty members who literally lived in outright fear of leaving the bunker campus. New Haven, the Frankenstein of Great Society government programs, was threatening to destroy Yale. ... What's turning the city around? Read between the lines and you'll notice that "private sector" solutions are being used more -- a complete reversal of past policies.
