Consistent change

After first read of Chapter 5 my first thoughts were what two cities are those outliers on page 109? There are two cities, maybe a third, that had dramatic change from 1990 to 2000 regarding their public assistance/welfare. Maybe those should be the cities examined or studied instead of a non-unique city like Chicago. I also thought that his statement about the rich got richer and the poor stayed poor (not an exact quote) was interesting. I like both approaches because I feel that study/research is important to truly understand the full situation. My understanding is that Sampson also visited the city but maybe he didn't attempt to activate any type of plan. Therefore, I feel that overall J.R.'s approach would be more effective. I feel J.R.'s approach is more effective because he seems to actually want change. The only way to make change is action. I feel that Sampson (maybe I will find out differently late in his book) only conducted research and compiled results. I haven't noticed any type of action plan from Sampson yet. I feel a more effective approach, which Sampson may have done, would be to conduct research, formulate a plan, and act upon the plan. For example, in Chicago relative to the foreclosure increase J.R. came up with the anti-eviction plan. I feel that does not satisfy the overall problem but it is a plan.

I recall the neighborhood I moved here from 5 years ago. Central Oregon was a "booming" town, along with the rest of the country, where construction was on the rise and home loans were being handed out like candy. As soon as the economy took a downward turn a lot of the construction companies left the area which forced closures of many lumber yards, parts stored, supply stores and other construction related businesses. I revisited the town after about 3 years away and it had turned into a "slum" looking town with many people taking on drug use, theft or other illegal means of income. Surprisingly enough, downtown was desolate but the "outskirts" were still nice looking neighborhoods with people waking up early for their morning jogs then going to work. I think the major problem of the area was the ease of income during the "boom" then lack of income opportunities once they left. I think it gave a false sense of "easy money" and lowered the standard of work ethics in the area. A research approach I would use would be to study education levels attained, average financial debt, workplace commutes, and local job opportunities. I would correlate all findings with criminal activity as well.

That ties back to another item I wanted to address regarding the reading from Sampson. The chart on page 110 reflects crime rate in the 90's compared to crime rate in the 2000's. Sampson states that crime dramatically "declined nearly 50 percent" so I am either reading the chart wrong or he is mistaken. I see many of the bubbles indicating crime logs in close to the same location for both sets of years. I have also taken some criminal justice courses which have discussed the ease of which people can manipulate results to favor their hypothesis so that is a question I would ask of Sampson.