The Ruins of Trenton

Quick point I would like to make about the responses that some people seem to make when confronted with people trying to make a difference in the horrible plight of American urban areas - stop attacking people who are trying to make a difference!

On this blog and on the NJ.com forum I've noticed many residents or others who attack anyone with a positive mindset living in Trenton. They attack them as posers or idealistic liberals who should just shut up and move back to the suburbs. The people who make these comments fail to realize that Trenton, and other cities fall into their current state when people with positive attitudes and money flee the city.

Businesses take notice of this, and withdraw, failing to build their offices and factories within the city limits, preferring to site them elsewhere near more skilled labor with more disposable income. The entire city begins sliding further and further into a self-fulfilling prophesy of poverty.

The only way the city is going to turn around is if business and residents with money begin to move back to within its limits, attracting more business and more people with middle class credentials along with them. Reacting to the vanguard of these people - namely the "daring" souls who move into the first islands of prosperity in the city (such as Mill Hill) - in a negative way is stupid...these people hold the key to the future of places like Trenton.

Although gentrification may have some negative effects, such as pushing longtime residents out of neighborhoods and areas they have inhabited for a long time, it can help bring these people up out of poverty as well.

In light of all of this, I think attacking people who are brave enough to leave the safety and prosperity of the suburbs to make their own stake in the dangerous urban frontier is a very stupid policy.