As a general rule of thumb, when we find ourselves at a point of contentious disagreement (like on about everything nowadays), it’s time to back up a little, to zoom out.
Abandoning a narrow perspective, taking a wider one, we often find things we agree on, sometimes enthusiastically. There are times when we’re spinning in our own little mental circles, all the while just a few short measurements from others spinning in theirs, with much mutual agreement no one has bothered to unearth for all the darn spinning.
I think our Founding Fathers’ opus – our Constitution – is just such a wider view, a plumb line in this country. . . left, right, whatever. That’s part of why The Village Square will pay attention to those old dead guys with quill pens. In our time, we are charged with stretching to answer the questions raised in the conversation they started.
In part, our mutual reverence for the Constitution is a bit of a Rorschach test – we see in it what we want or expect to see. So perhaps our agreement is somewhat illusory, but isn’t that still a miracle? Isn’t that nearly the best we can hope for, where the consent of the governed keeps hanging on, 230 years after?
“A Republic, if you can keep it” in the words of Founding Father Franklin.
But beyond the Rorschach test-ness of it, part of the beauty of what they built is in the very tightrope they walked in the building. Their agreement was tenuous, as is ours, as it will likely always be. And yet, still today this unlikely mix of people moves forward together. Ugly and uncivil sometimes, yep. But still together.
Tightrope walking is pretty tense, but we’d better get back on it.
Link to a video from August 16 Hardball debate.
(Related to our Economic Segregation conversation and the recent Supreme Court decisions rolling back Brown v. Board of Education.)
Click here to read the Quinnipiac poll that suggests Americans overwhelmingly support the decision:
August 16, 2007 – Voters Back Supreme Court Limit On School Deseg 3 – 1
It’s official. We’ve begun sticking our toe in the waters of civil debate.
Our first Local Roundtable has met. In our first meeting on Economic Segregation, we heard from our invited expert, Dr. Charles Connerly, Chair of FSU Department of Urban and Regional Planning (also North American Editor, Housing Studies) and Village Square Founder Dr. Jim Croteau, President and CEO of Elder Care Services, Inc. and former Leon County School Superintendent.
Both experts pointed us to foundational studies in this field that outline the issue nationally.
The problem? Concentrated poverty.
Research has linked living in high-poverty areas (independent of individual characteristics) with such negative outcomes as dropping out of school early, teen pregnancy, unwed births, unemployment, and crime victimization.
Nationally, according to a Brookings Study, we’re increasingly geographically separated by income:
From 1970 to 2000, % middle class in American cities & suburbs decreased 7%, but middle class neighborhoods decreased 17%. Why? Speculation that middle class neighborhoods are tipping either to richer or poorer neighborhoods.
“No city in America has gotten more integrated by income in the last 30 years.”
In Tallahassee, with less data available, it’s harder to figure it out. While we clearly have less segregation by income than many more urbanized cities, both the most recent census data and free and reduced price lunch rates suggest that our city tracks the national trends.
We’ll be looking more closely at data and discussing whether we think there’s a problem or not, and if there is one, whether it matters, and if we can (or should) do anything about it.
We’ll keep you in the loop.