Hoping for gentrification

Fortunately it didn't happen. New York became one of the safest cities on earth.

Inequality and the City

"New York, New York, a helluva town. The rents are up, but the crime rate is down. The food is better than ever, and the cultural scene is vibrant. Truly, it’s a golden age for the town I recently moved to — if you can afford the housing. But more and more people can’t. 

And it’s not just New York. The days when dystopian images of urban decline were pervasive in popular culture — remember the movie “Escape from New York”? — are long past. The story for many of our iconic cities is, instead, one of gentrification, a process that’s obvious to the naked eye, and increasingly visible in the data. 

Specifically, urban America reached an inflection point around 15 years ago: after decades of decline, central cities began getting richer, more educated, and, yes, whiter. Today our urban cores are providing ever more amenities, but largely to a very affluent minority. 

But why is this happening? And is there any way to spread the benefits of our urban renaissance more widely? 

Let’s start by admitting that one important factor has surely been the dramatic decline in crime rates. For those of us who remember the 1970s, New York in 2015 is so safe it’s surreal. And the truth is that nobody really knows why that happened. 

But there have been other drivers of the change: above all, the national-level surge in inequality.” 

More at: 

New York Times 

Inequality and the City 

NOV. 30, 2015
Paul Krugman

Coatesville is one of the smallest municipalities in Chester County, but it doesn't need to stay small.

Coatesville is a 3rd class city. But don’t let the city part of City of Coatesville make you think that is anything other than a small village. 

Our population is about 13,000. Our water and sewer can support 20,000 people without modification.

There is no building height limit for the flats, the former steel company brownfeilds. 

Bart Blatstein proposed a 20 story office and condominium building for the flats. Mr. Blatstein proposed an upper level restaurant with a view of the rolling hills of Chester County.

The redevelopment of Coatesville is part of the plan to preserve those rolling hills of Chester County from suburban sprawl. See, Chester County Landscapes. Former Coatesville resident Pat Sellers and his John Birch Society think "Chester County Landscapes for developers, municipalities and others to promote sustainable living practices" is part of a United Nations Agenda 21 plot to take our guns away and put us in concentration camps, see: If you lived in Coatesville in the early 21st Century you are a casualty of the “war on environment” but that's another story.

The same kind of thing that happened in New York City would happen in Coatesville. 

Paul Krugman wrote that low crime rates contributed to New York City’s rebirth. I think the crime rates came down at the same time higher income people decided to live in New York.

People worry about gentrification in Coatesville. Gentrification worries in a small town surrounded by fox hunting billionaires, come on. 

We might not have billionaires moving to Coatesville as in New York, that is within the City limits. We already have a billionaire living in the Coatesville Area School District just outside of the city limits.

Finish the train station and bring SEPTA here along with Amtrak and many people living in Coatesville can work in Philadelphia or New York City. And not get in a car to get there.

Newcomer eyes on the street will and are reporting crimes here. 

The new people moving into Coatesville will most likely not have long time family members living in Coatesville. 

Our city is kind of unique compared to most municipalities in the United States. Many people living here, including my self, have family going back 100 years or more living in Coatesville. That's’ very nice. There is something near to 100 Pitcherella family members living in and near Coatesville, I lost count. But there is a downside. If a drug dealer here is murdered and the murderer knows where all your family members live, it’s easy for him to threaten you.

It’s not that long established people don’t report crimes, they do, but they take an extremely high risk. They don’t just risk their own life, they risk their family member’s lives, little Sicily. 

Coatesville’s Lincoln Highway Human Obstacle Course.

Here in Coatesville every day maybe, hundreds of times a day, people walk in front of moving traffic without ever looking. Sometimes they’re staring at a smart phone. Most of the time they looking straight ahead like they’re walking on farmland. 

It’s one thing to time traffic so you can cross. Not bothering to ever look at traffic when crossing the street is another thing. 

They have no “street smarts”. 

If they lived in Germantown or Mt. Airy in Philadelphia they wouldn’t last long. In Germantown and Mt. Airy speed limits are partly followed. In a 25 mph area the speeds could be anything from 25 to 70 mph. You really have to look at traffic and time your street crossing to survive. 

It’s safer to cross the street in downtown Philadelphia. There’s a kind of code between moving traffic and walkers. You give a little, they give a little. 

Here in Coatesville many people don’t bother looking. The only thing that saves them is that people mostly follow the speed limit and can stop quickly, or drive the obstacle course. 

On Lincoln Highway in Coatesville the obstacle course isn’t marked by traffic cones. The obstacle course here is moving pedestrians. It’s really disturbing when the obstacle course is children crossing with their mothers into moving traffic. 

We put bump outs at crosswalks to shorten the crossing distance and crossing time for pedestrians. 

The traffic signals are state of the art camera controlled signals. The signals actually count the number of cars waiting at a red light and change long enough for those cars to move. Most of the signals are camera controlled. A few are timer controlled. 

The timer controlled intersections are at 1st Avenue, 3rd Avenue and 8th Avenue. I’m not sure if Strode Avenue is timer or camera controlled. 

Stopping traffic makes breaks in traffic along Lincoln Highway so that pedestrians can cross. Otherwise on very heavy traffic times there would be an unbroken line of vehicular traffic from one end of Coatesville to the other. 

The entire traffic signal system can be controlled remotely if necessary. 

When the firetrucks and ambulances activate the traffic signals they don’t turn all signals to red.  It depends on which direction the emergency vehicles are headed, how fast and where they are.  State of the art. It helps keep the under 10 minutes response time. 

When traffic is very light you can drive through Coatesville from bridge to bridge and maybe stop at 1 or 3 traffic signals. That’s 17 intersections. 

It’s not like New York, NY. The “Walk” buttons really do work and you don’t have to wait long for traffic to stop.

But many people don’t bother crossing at cross walks. 

Many people walk between traffic moving both ways anywhere along Lincoln Highway in Coatesville and don’t bother looking. This is on a roadway designed to favor pedestrians and not automobile traffic. But the pedestrians need to show some good sense for it all to work.

ALSO SEE:

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2015

Coatesville, Caln & Downingtown have 48 strand fiber optic cable under Lincoln Highway.

FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE:

Since Prohibition Chester County organized crime has been Republican. It could change to Democrat

Since Prohibition times organized crime in Coatesville and in Chester County has been Republican Party based. 

Chester County is slowly changing to a Democratic County. Organized crime will change along with the politics. 

Don't misunderstand, Chester County organized crime won’t ever go completely over to the Democratic side. Philadelphia is a Democratic County but organized crime is mixed between mostly Republican organized crime in South Philly, Northwest Philly and North East Philly and mostly Democratic organized crime in Center City, North Philly and West Philly. Philly began changing to Democratic in 1949.

Up until very recently organized crime, the drug business part, has been entirely Republican in Chester County. If organized crime needed help from public officials Democrats couldn’t help. The Republican Party controlled everything. But politics is slowly becoming more Democratic in Chester County. 

I think that in Coatesville a small change in organized crime politics, in the drug business, is beginning. The CCDC, the Chester County Democratic Committee needs to be cognizant of this.

The wild card in all of this is legalization of marijuana and possible legalization of all drugs now on the narcotics list. If that happens it will destroy organized crime as it now exists. Legalization will also take money out of West Chester, PA and the Chester County Courts system.  See:

The Wire-Omar testifies against Bird-“I got the shotgun. You got the briefcase. It’s all in the game yo.”

I think there have been changes in illegal drug distribution in preparation for legalization of marijuana. Mexican drug entrepreneurs are switching to Mexican processed very high grade heroin and they're delivering it almost like Amazon does. From Mexico to your doorstep. That kind of delivery system doesn’t need motorcycle gangs in South East PA and street slingers in Coatesville. Maybe some of the drug business in Coatesville dried up because of the new Mexican Smack. Maybe that’s the reason we see more armed robberies here. I don’t know yet. 

I published this: 

MONDAY, JULY 6, 2009

There are two political entities in Coatesville; hint it’s not Democrats and Republicans

The two basic political entities are those who are go along with the drug traffickers and those who are working against the drug traffickers. It does not matter whether they are Democrats or Republicans; the big differences in politicians here is whether they go along with the drug scene or not. One caveat to keep in mind is that there are many naïves who do not understand how things work here.

There is a separate underground economy that operates on trickle down money from drug trafficking in Coatesville. When the undercover ATF and DEA people were here because of the arson, much of the drug trafficking stopped. The legitimate local business here suffered; some people did not have the cash to their pay bills.

There is no long standing drug trafficking business anywhere that does not have support from public officials. Read; Police Politics Corruption “The mixture dangerous to freedom and justice” by Colonel Frank McKetta Retired Pennsylvania State Police.

On the surface Coatesville seems like an ordinary Pennsylvania town. But a drive down any main street on a Friday or Saturday night will tell you that this is a huge drug trafficking town. It is a beautiful town with great potential and wonderful people but one that is held hostage by long time drug traffickers with political connections. I call it “Little Sicily”.

If a shooting occurs in front of several people in Coatesville right now; chances are “nobody saw it”. Much of the tips that law enforcement does get in Coatesville comes from new residents. Coatesville is a city of about 12,000 residents with the infrastructure for 20,000 residents. New residents without long time family connections in Coatesville cannot be easily intimidated by drug traffickers. The USDoJ is well aware that a redevelopment of Coatesville that brings in new people may be the end of the drug trafficking and the terror hold that it has over Coatesville. The drug traffickers are also aware of that fact.

Election of people not connected to the drug trafficking political establishment here will help but what I think Coatesville and Chester County really needs is a full investigation of the city by the USDoJ. Until that happens we will continue to see articles like this one in the Daily Local News:

The Daily Local (dailylocal.com), Serving Chester County, PA

'How do you sleep at night?'

Along with most other older Daily Local articles this one is difficult to find. But the same article appears in the DelCo Times:

One year last, double-slayings in Chesco continues to haunt families, police

Monday, July 6, 2009
By JENNIFER MILLER
One year ago, two Chester County families were destroyed and a community was sent into a state of shock.

Anti-government militias & white supremacy has been mainstream Republican for some time.

Muslim databases and 'rabid dogs': Trump, Carson and GOP in explosion of rhetoric over Syrians 

The race for the Republican nomination for the White House took a new turn in the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks on Thursday as the front-runner, Donald Trump, called for a database to track Muslims living in the United States, while his closest rival, Ben Carson, suggested refugees of the Syrian conflict should be screened as they might be “rabid dogs”.

This is not a “new turn”. 

The white supremacy rhetoric coming from main stream Republicans took political journalists by surprise. But those of us who monitor right wing terrorists knew it was coming. We could see right wing extremism in the local Republican Party. We could see right wing extremism in Pennsylvania Republican Party politics. It’s been coming for at least a decade. 

Many people don't want to accept that the GOP has become white supremacist anti-government militia political party.

Does Ronny Suber think these Kevin Dougherty posters will let him work as a Constable?

Will Ronny bring a “companion reader” with him to take the tests for Pennsylvania State Constable?

Will Ronny ask the PA Supreme Court for an exemption from the test?

Constables' Education and Training Board

2015 Constables' Training Schedule

Why did the Pennsylvania State Police deny Suber’s request for a liquor license for his bar at Lincoln Highway and Strode Avenue?

Will Ronny ever serve in any capacity in the election he won in Coatesville’s Fifth Ward?  

Will someone read all this for Ronny?

Hiring Veterans

When I worked in a dental laboratory a German company designed and furnished our workspace. 

We used German dental equipment. 

The cost of the benches & equipment was much higher but the primary expense of dental laboratories is their employees. 

It all allowed us to make a superior product in less time and in the long run for less expense and, not incidentally, a higher salary for me, our owner and the other 3 employees. 

The German companies were looking for U.S. citizens to work in their U.S. affiliates. They hired U.S. veterans, especially U.S. veterans who served in Germany. 

What the German companies got were employees who had excellent leadership abilities and people who could think on their feet. 

Hire a veteran. 

Hummelstown, PA-PD Officer Tasered & shot and killed unarmed man for expired inspection sticker. She wants her job back.

.

"Donna Trostle, who works in downtown Hummelstown, said Thursday that some people wouldn't feel safe if Mearkle returned. Rita Russ, a 74-year-old woman who lives just outside the borough, said she would lose faith in the police department."...

"On Feb. 2, Kassick, 59 of South Hanover Township, fled from Mearkle, 37, as she attempted to pull him over for an expired inspection sticker. Mearkle, who shocked Kassick with a Taser then shot him twice, said she acted in self-defense. Kassick was later found to be unarmed."

MORE AT:

PennLive.com

Thousands support petition to dismiss Lisa Mearkle from Hummelstown Police Department

By Julianne Mattera | jmattera@pennlive.com 

on November 09, 2015 at 1:45 PM, updated November 09, 2015 at 2:00 PM

ALSO SEE:

PennLive.com

Police Officer Lisa Mearkle's Taser video: Do you agree with the jury?