http://www.democratandchronicle.com/...WS01/601080316
I saw this article on the front page of my local newspaper, which made me look it up online and see if they had it there. Well, the did, and I read through it. What it said surprised me. Not by how many killings there were, but by the fact the people in power in this city that is only 30 miles away from me have yet to truly begin to fix this problem. Over the past 20 years or so, this city has been among the top of the list of murders per (whatever unit of measuring they use, 100,000 people or something of the sort) in the country a number of times.
Quote: |
Originally Posted by Democrat and Cronicle After falling behind Buffalo for the first time in several years in 2004, Rochester ended 2005 with the state's highest homicide rate with 25.41 homicides per 100,000 people, compared with 19.79 in Buffalo, 13.27 in Syracuse and 0.66 in New York City. |
With the common misconception of the high crime rate in NYC, I must say, it's borne of ignorance. Numbers may be high, yes, but it is an extremely densely populated area, and so with far more people than the average city, there are far higher numbers of crimes than cities of a smaller population. The article details a bit of the problems in the city near here.
I must say, I am shocked they happen to be limiting the efforts to the city alone. Frankly, the city is a place for the out-lying towns drug-dealers to go and pick up drugs which come in through Canada. There is a large problem involved with people in the city being addicted to hard drugs, mostly crack, who are attacking and killing people in the middle of those drug deals, or afterwards, in order to get the money involved with them. Not only that, there is an alarming rate of young people being killed and a lot of this is over a struggle to prove themselves to their peers they won't be taken for fools. I know it sounds silly, but knowing how these kids think, and act in the city, and the people too...it's how the city is working.
There is simply too great a division of wealth here. Kodak, Xerox, Bausch and Lomb, Paychex, and a number of large companies were started in Rochester. There is a
lot of money tied up in these corporations, and many of them have been sending their work out of the area and over-seas for cheaper labor. This has been a series of lay-offs and firings the past 2 decades which has dropped many people into poverty. Many young people have gone to seeking out drugs not as a recreation, but for selling them as a job. Why? There are none to be had, and with many people wanting them, it is one of the most popular part time jobs in upstate NY for those under 25 to be involved with the business if I'm not terribly off.
Not only that, there is a large amount of conflict inside the schools. There is a lot of old money tied up in the city as well. Family's who came over from Italy in the past few generations mostly, who have obscene amounts of money and who have raised arrogant children who flaunt it. Not to mention, a large number of family's who have owned businesses in the area for generations and held a monopoly on their business of choice, and decided to sell their business and pull out of the market as newer businesses came in to compete with them. This group has their children in schools with the best of everything, and the other children with nothing feel the need to compete and best them on some level. Many times, it leads to fighting, and as they grow older, the poor resent the rich for many reasons.
Not only this, the area around Kodak has been spewing toxic chemicals into the surrounding area, leading to a spike in the numbers of cancer patients in that area for years. I see this city to be dying, and everyone in it now are the rich who have taken over the safe areas, and the poor who are forced to live in the areas where gangs hold the streets, or where it is simply dangerous to be because of toxi materials in the air. The others have move to the outlying towns, near me. These areas are becoming overpoluted and even a few years ago when I was in high school, the effects were showing. The school was far past the point of overcrowded and there were obscene amounts of violent behavior showing.
I have become curious, has anyone else noticed an effect of violent crimes showing up more frequently around them as places become more and more crowded? Lack of jobs which are able to properly support families, space to live and be safe has been IMHO the major factor in the number of crimes in my area. I know many places in the world are far worse off than my area and I've been wondering what is being done there to stop the violence.
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