In the latest federal budget, our fair President made the decision to cut one of the most beneficial programs to come out of HUD, HOPE VI. The purpose of the program was to take the most distressed public housing projects in the nation, raze them, and build new mixed-income housing projects. Though there were some complaints that the program displaced many public housing residents, the program has made great strides in fixing a big problem: concentrated and isolated pockets of poverty in America’s inner cities.

Why place the focus on dispersing poverty? The theory is that when this happens poverty, crime, and social disorder all decrease while public school performance increases. This theory comes at least partly from a book by William Julius Wilson that documents what happens when poverty is concentrated and isolated in the inner cities.

After nearly a decade of HOPE VI and other means-tested government program reforms, it’s worth taking a look to see whether poverty is dispersing. A new report from the Brookings Institution shows that the 1990’s saw an incredible reversal in the trend of increasingly concentrated poverty that occured through the 1970’s and 80’s.

The number of people living in high-poverty neighborhoodsÑwhere the poverty rate is 40 percent or higherÑdeclined by a dramatic 24 percent, or 2.5 million people, in the 1990s. Concentrated povertyÑthe share of the poor living in high-poverty neighborhoodsÑdeclined among all racial and ethnic groups, especially African Americans. The number of high-poverty neighborhoods declined in rural areas and central cities, but suburbs experienced almost no change.

And so on. Check out the report and think about this: if we shouldn’t try solutions that have been tried before and don’t work, shouldn’t we give new solutions a chance especially when they show promising results?

Greg seems to think that it would be cool to have an Atlanta-based group news blog. Who else would get on that bandwagon? I would.

Sylvia:

And so, more and more, literally the only beacons I still have in my life, my only north and south and east and west, are my emotions. And Ted’s right on top of that, he thinks our culture attaches too much importance to feelings, he says it’s out of control, it’s not computers that are making everything virtual, it’s mental health. Everyone’s trying to correct their thoughts and improve their feelings and work on their relationships and parenting skills instead of just getting married and raising children like they used to, is what Ted says. We’ve bumped up to the next level of abstraction because we have too much time and money, is what he says, and he refuses to be a part of it. He wants to eat ‘real’ food and go to ‘real’ places and talk about ‘real’ things like business and science. So he and I don’t really agree at all anymore on what’s important in life.

Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections, Page 309

This past Wednesday evening I went to a Swing Night over at the Dunwoody Marriott in, of all places, fashionable Dunwoody. How did I end up there?

It all started when I joined some friends of mine at Northlake Mall for a Swing Night over there. I happened to be sitting next to a tall, attractive young lady by the name of Sarah, who asked if I could dance. After putting up some resistance (and I insisted that I do not dance), I agreed to dance and actually have a good time. This happened, of course, right in front of several friends of mine who were more than a little amused by the whole situation. Robert was so amused by the situation that he took pictures.

Yeah, she’s cute. And I got her phone number and email address. And she invited me to Wednesday’s Swing Night in fashionable Dunwoody. And yeah, she’s cute.

This brings me back to Wednesday night. I’ve come straight from school, still wearing my Birkenstocks which I should mention are not very good dancing shoes. Now this time several of her friends of her are there, one of whom is a total swing dancing king. Just to watch some of these people is absolutely intimidating until I realize that some of them got started here at the Marriott in fashionable Dunwoody. I got to dance a couple of times with Sarah, and at one point she even pulled me outside to teach me a few dance steps. But most of the time I was there, I simply watched other people dance and interact.

At the same time, I couldn’t get some of that day’s events at the office out of my mind. Nothing bad, just an unfinished conversation about budgeting issues. So I was kind of tense, and that’s no way to dance.

In any case, I still enjoyed myself even if I sat in my chair because there was almost always someone there to talk to, usually one of Sarah’s friends. They all seemed to be cool interesting people, which is a good sign. If nothing else I could contrast this experience against my experiences at the Masquerade. My opinion of just about any night I’ve had at 80’s night in the Masquerade at this point is less than favorable. It’s just a meatmarket club scene where I just can’t enjoy myself all that much, really. I just can’t do it. I can’t lie about that anymore.

As far as swing night goes, I can’t say I’m incredibly optimistic on my future with swing night. For one thing, I’m just too self-conscious to be much of a good dancer, but that’s something I can work on. For another thing, I know nobody there. Now, it’s one thing if I’m introducing myself to a new group and getting to know a few people at a time. At swing night, I’m trying to get to know a whole bunch of people all at once. Then again, from what I can gather, not all of them even know each other very well, so in that respect I seem to be in good company. Where the story gets interesting is that it turns out that Sarah seems to have a boyfriend. Whoever he is, he wasn’t at Swing Night in fashionable Dunwoody. He also wasn’t at Swing Night at Northlake.

In any case, Sarah’s a great swing dancer and a really sweet person in general. And she’s cute. And she has a boyfriend.

So what will I be doing this coming Wednesday? I’ll just bring Holly along and let her be my dance partner. And we can be that awkward beginning dance couple together. And I won’t have to worry about having to meet so many people with no backup. The plot thickens.

Now, I know what you’re asking. Who’s Holly? She’s just a friend of a friend. That’s all you need to know for now.

Yesterday I went to a used bookstore just to look around. Out front, they had a couple of bins of deeply discounted books, many of which appeared to be older than me. Among them, I found a book called Why Civilizations Self Destruct. I thought to myself, “Hmm, how interesting. I wonder how much that book costs. Oh! It’s 99 cents. Could it possibly be worth even that much?” I turned to the inside cover. It read,

Giant intellects like Gibbon, Spengler and Toynbee have given us complex and tortuous reasons for the decline of civilizations. Dr. Pendell presents us with a simple one. Civilizations fall because the less capable slice of the population regularly outbreeds the more capable.

I’ll buy that for a dollar.

Our wise and fair Lt. Governor, Mark Taylor, was quoted in the AJC as saying one of the most stupid things I’ve heard come from him. The AJC article pointed out that tuition for Georgia’s higher education institutions will be rising over the coming year. Apparently, Taylor was among those who had something to say about that.

Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, who helped push the legislation creating HOPE through the Senate in the early 1990s, called the proposed tuition increases “an outrage.” Taylor said the University System should cut administrative costs further before raising tuition.

“I don’t feel the regents need to make ends meet on the backs of the families and students of Georgia,” Taylor said. “I am very concerned about the impact this will have on HOPE.”

Over the past couple of years, I’ve been watching Georgia State go through a whole series of budget cutbacks for the sake of maintaining a balanced state budget. Contrary to Taylor’s statements, GSU and other institutions have already been cutting back on administrative costs to the point that in some cases, the students have been hurt. Does Mark Taylor really think he, the Governor, and the Legislature can keep cutting state funds to USG without expecting a subsequent tuition increase? To me, that logic doesn’t add up.

Here’s an interesting article recently published from the World Health Organization. According to the article, the leading cause of death from injuries in the world comes from “road traffic injuries.” That’s more than suicide, homicide, war, drowning, falls, fires, and poisoning. Here’s some perspective:

Every day around the world, almost 16,000 people die from injuries. For every person that dies, several thousands more are injured, many of them with permanent sequelae of injuries. Injuries occur in all regions and countries, and affect people in all age and income groups. The magnitude of the problem however varies considerably by age, sex, region and income group. For example, in the low- and middle-income countries in the Western Pacific the leading injury-related causes of death are road traffic injuries, drowning and suicide, while in Africa they are war, interpersonal violence and traffic injuries. In the high-income countries of the Americas, the leading injury-related cause of death among people aged 15 to 44 years is traffic injuries, while in the low- and middle-income countries of the Americas it is interpersonal violence.

Overall, road traffic injuries represent the tenth leading cause of death in the world. Most of these deaths are young adults who are at their prime. This means that there are real consequences to road traffic deaths, both economic and social.

Now just imagine if more of us walked, instead. Then, we could focus on the next leading cause of death due to injury: suicide! Then again, it might stand to reason that if more of us walked, more of us would be happy, which would hopefully cut down on suicide and homicide.

Well, with my brother getting ready to move to California to work for his father-in-law’s business, he wants to sell his car, and he offered to sell it to me. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to because the car I have now, even though it’s old, has been incredibly reliable. Today my parents convinced me to accept my brother’s offer. So 11 years and more than 170 thousand miles into my old car, it’s time for me to sell it off to the next lucky owner and say goodbye to 11 years worth of memories and crazy seatbelts.

Well, the other week, I wrote my last article of the year for Rampway. Check it out!

For those who have not yet heard, I will be the new Rampway Director for the coming academic year! Yay!

According to the What Drink Are You quiz, I’m a White Russian. That means I’m milky, cloudy, and gross. I’m a horrible drink. Who got me to try it anyway? Vodka = kudos. Kaluhua = kudos. Milk = I’m a damn fool.

According to the IMaddict quiz, I’m the . No Comment.

According to the political compass, I lean 2.38 points to the left and 5.74 points libertarian. I’m assuming that’s on a 10 point scale.