Monday, May 14, 2007

STL Rising Welcomes Your Anonymous, Unfiltered Comments

In the last thread, "STL Rising: In Search of the $100,000 Neighborhoods", I nearly succumbed to the temptation of deleting an anonymous comment. Someone anonymously suggested that the reason for affordability in a neighborhood is crime, by making a link to an STL Today article from this weekend which told the story of a 90 year-old South City man mugged in his alley back in March.

If you read the article, you probably felt sorry for the man, but also might have been scratching your head as well. We don't see too many personalized news stories about crime victims, written weeks after the incident, with a major angle of the story connecting the crime to the neighborhood. So, I nearly deleted it.

However, given that the story was front-paged in the Post Dispatch, and widely available online, what would be the point of deleting it here? The link remains, as do all of your uncensored, anonymous, non "blog-owner approved" comments.

At STL Rising, we welcome your unfiltered comments. If they should be challenged, challenge away! Anonymous or not, it's up to you.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Where's my comment then?

It's pretty poor form to say you welcome anonymous, unfiltered comments and then filter them.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm, well that one showed up. My first comment from two days ago must have gotten lost in the intertubes.

I'm still curious as to why you don't think it's a valid argument to say that certain areas of the city might have lower property values due to higher crime rates. Just seems logical to me.

But if you're looking to buy cheap you'll need to put up with a certain amount of poverty and crime around you until the area is cleaned up.

I'm not knocking the city, mind you. More power to the folks like you that are working hard to bring it back. I think most areas are heading in the right direction. Some faster than others. My sister had to move to Crestwood recently due to thugs in her old Bevo neighborhood.

A certain amount of gentrification is a good thing. As long as it's not homogenization.

Anonymous said...

"My sister had to move to Crestwood recently due to thugs in her..."

And she just became part of the problem and not the solution. Those who allow others to intimidate them without fighting back and doing something about it should get the hell out of STL. Crestwood needs more like your sister. Those that choose flight over fight are rampant in the suburbs. Folks like this are the reason STL went from ~800,000 citizen to ~350,000 now. She may be running West again in a couple years when Crestwood "thugs" start encroaching. She obviously didn't give a damn about STL or she would have stayed and fought for herself, her block, her neighborhood and her city. Maybe someone more prepared for making STL a better place will move into her Bevo home. Then we'll have a stronger neighborhood and city.

Anonymous said...

So my single sister should have "stood up" to thugs. Thugs who's father threatened the life of the lady next door who kept calling police on his sons, the troublemakers?

Easy for you to say.