Location-ing

Quality of life based on location. What does this mean? Simply, it means, if you live in a place where money is not an issue, typically with high- income and mid- high- income families, it tends to feel safer. The community has the money available for whatever necessities they have, and for whatever luxuries that they want to have. Children grow up highly protected, with just about all the things needed to be successful in life. Sadly, with lower-income families, that is not the case. They live in overpopulated areas where most of the population is in public housing. Most of these neighborhoods are usually, not only lacking resources to improve their conditions but also lack the ambience and safety needed to raise children and to help them develop a more productive mind-set. It is usually in these neighborhoods where the most danger and violence develops.

So this brings on the question, should neighborhoods be mix-income housing or should things be left as they are?

It’s a debatable subject. The ideal neighborhood is one where families of mixed- income are able to live fulfilled and happy lives with safety and good education for their children, and in a nice environment surrounding them. Would it work? I think the ability of such a complexly built community to exist depends on the open- mindedness of those living in such places. Mixed- income calls for more racial and ethnic diversity. It also makes the contrast between cultures more noticeable and present, which could be both a good thing and a bad thing, once again, depending on the open- mindedness of the people. For such communities to develop in the city of Chicago would call for a dramatic change. Whether we’d like to admit it or not, Chicago really is a very segregated city, and has been that way for many generations. Some of these are of course, self-created by mostly immigrants who wish to connect with others of similar believes, that’s why they also say Chicago is a very very diverse city. But back to the idea of mixed- income neighborhoods, I think it would have a positive effect in not just those who live inside them, but also those around them.

If high and low income neighborhoods ceased to exist, I think that  the inequality in the treatment of certain neighborhoods and those attending those surrounding schools, along with the contrast of each neighborhood’s quality, would also cease to exist or at least lessen by a great amount. I disagree that mixing these two would only impoverish those that are already poor but that live in a place where it’s mostly wealthy people, because through mixed- income, that wouldn’t happen, they’d be just about balanced out and the public education would be more beneficiary and we would be rid of the problem of some schools being better than others because of the location of them. So yes, mix- income is ideal and would be much better, but the only way for it to work is for people to be willing to help improve their own and other’s lives.