Public Housing? NIMBY!Yeah, yeah, this is a local issue, you say. And you're right, but I wager that you can relate to the issues at hand regardless of where you live. We own a house in Oak Cliff, the old part of Dallas, south of the Trinity River and much maligned and disrespected by folks who have never visited there. Oak Cliff is a racially, culturally, and ethnically diverse neighborhood, which was a huge attractor for us when buying a home. North Dallas is Wonder White Bread. Now the first apparent difference between Oak Cliff and North Dallas would have to be the condition of the roads. In Oak Cliff two winters ago, there was a leaky watermain seeping water across the road for six months solid. Whenever the temperature would drop below freezing, you could count on a nice thick sheet of ice over the roadway. The roadway eventually crumbled into the neighboring creekbed, and they finally did something about it. Repave the entire road? of course not! No, they finally repaired the leaky water main, and just did a bit of asphalt patching to hold things together. One of the current debate issues in Dallas, however, really points out the insensitivity of the "haves" to the "have nots". As usual, "the projects" (subsidized housing) are situated in Oak Cliff. The city of Dallas actually had the audacity to purchase land and propose to build some subsidized housing tracts in gasp North Dallas. The uproar has been immense and long-running, the ultimate embodiment of NIMBY. North Dallas shrieks about their property values dropping -- as if the residents of other sections of town don't also care about their property values. North Dallas insists that these residents should "stay with their own kind" -- as if they've never known a white resident of subsidized housing! North Dallas thinks it's great to hire "those people" to work for them, but god forbid they should live down the street and shop at the same grocery! North Dallas, in short, thinks it should be someone else's problem, not theirs.
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