Urban renewal programs never last long enough to be effective
Lewis DiuguidWhat a letdown.
Great government programs start up offering hope for urban renewal only to fizzle before they get the job done. Kansas City inner-city residents have seen it before.
Great Society programs begun under President Lyndon Johnson didn’t stay in place long enough to be effective in turning around deteriorating neighborhoods. City Hall in the past has tried to keep some of them going, but eventually many died, taking a lot of good housing and businesses with them.
The Green Impact Zone appears to be on that track, a story in The Kansas City Star reports. It was started in 2009 with great hopes for change, sinking millions of federal stimulus money into a designated area.
Sidewalks were added and homes were improved, making them more energy efficient in the long-neglected area from 39th to 51st streets and Troost to Prospect avenues. Hundreds of people were put to work.
But like the history of urban renewal, this money train is set to run out of track and will be forced to end next year. It is a tragedy that people living in the community will have to endure yet again.
Steven Fetter
66223
5 months, 1 week agoBy what metric has life improved in the green zone?
Have home values gone up? Have any new businesses opened? Has crime decreased? Is unemployment any better? Has there been any increase in the population of this area? Are school scores better?
I could lay sidewalk and calk homes much cheaper than the $200 that was spent on the improvements you noted.
Government programs die because they don’t work. The perpetrators are never punished, they just move on to the next boondoggle.
George Hunsucker
Northland
5 months, 1 week agoThat’s right lewis… the TRILLIONS we have spent on your great war on poverty is just not enough. You libs need more, more, more, more, more, don’t you???