The violence generally is among people who know each other. Which means that it's not logical for people to avoid our neighborhoods thinking they're going to get shot, which then leads to businesses not doing as well, which means vacant storefronts and unmaintained buildings, which means a neighborhood starts to look like no one cares about it, which gives people the idea that it's an OK place to solve problems with violence.

On the other hand, and you definitely allude to this in terms of treatment programs and CORI reform, we can't just say that since most violence occurs among known individuals, that we don't need to worry about it as a society. During our neighborhood meetings, our neighborhood cop will go through the list of violent crimes in the neighborhood, and he'll look at the date and location and will tell us that the individuals involved in a sexual assault or a&b "were people who knew each other, so it isn't something the community needs to worry about." OK, so he's probably right in terms of domestic violence not being a priority for the neighborhood association, but the community absolutely needs to worry about these things. On the simplest level, having doors slam and cop cars pull up all the time at a house on your block doesn't exactly give you a feeling of safety. Just like abandoned storefronts, it gives people the feeling that their neighborhood is sketchy, no one cares about it, so why bother trying to solve problems constuctively or respect other members of the community? And we all know that domestic violence leads to and results from other issues that do affect the community very directly. This is why our community funds domestic violence programs.

So yeah, I think a balance is necessary between realizing that fear of randomly being shot is really unfounded but also realizing that we can't decide not to act in response to violence just because it doesn't directly threaten us.

http://1smootshort.blogspot.com

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ok - so cross tremont st and columbus av, and you have the newest gentrified part of boston. i was up there the other day and was amazed at how different it is. fort hill has always been one of the nicest parts of boston. i suppose that if things say the sam, we will be seeing starbucks and "re-defeat bush" stickers in grove hall in 10 years. i guess yuppies are better than gangsters and drug dealers.