We welcome your comments. Send them to themail@rochester-citynews.com, or post them on our website, rochestercitynewspaper.com, our Facebook page, or our Twitter feed, @roccitynews. Comments of fewer than 350 words have a greater chance of being published, and we do edit selections for publication in print. We don’t publish comments sent to other media.
What to do about poverty
What a fine editorial concerning the concentration of poverty in Rochester (Urban Journal, May 13). Despite the negative responses from many commenters, I believe that most fair-minded people will allow that there is more than 51 percent truth in the editorial’s position.
The very hard fact is that wealth and poverty are correlative. There is a finite amount of wealth on the earth at any moment in time, and it is all owned by someone. That is a very difficult truth to swallow. It means that unless I am willing to share more, the problem will remain.
What is most distressing to me is that both sides sincerely believe their version of the truth is absolutely and irrevocably correct. Just like the five blindfolded people touching a different part of the elephant, each of them is so absolutely sure of the truth.
JIM BLATT
Ms. Towler, you make my heart sink. “What can we do about high poverty rate[s]?” you ask. How about changing the culture? I say.
All of your solutions amount to one solution: more money — the eternal fail-safe liberal answer to every problem.
I am old enough to remember when throngs flocked downtown by bus. That’s where the shopping was: Sibley’s, McCurdy’s, Forman’s, Sears. That’s where the upscale restaurants were: Trebor’s, Eddie’s Chop House, Edward’s Pub. That’s where the movie theatres were. Nobody in those days felt the need for a bus terminal.
Now that bus riding has dwindled to a trickle of people, we have to have a bus terminal. It wasn’t hard to predict that concentrating all those students in one place was going to cause problems.
So, what to do about it? Subsidized housing, higher minimum wage, job programs, yada, yada, yada.
Liberal-inspired government programs have created a dreadful culture of dependency and low expectations. THAT is the problem we must address.
ITALO SAVELLA
Genesee Community’s charter
The State Education Department says that the enrollment of Genesee Community Charter School should reflect the population of the Rochester city school district.
GCCS offers a vibrant school community, diverse student body, and an outstanding education. Instead of seeking to change that successful formula, we should seek to replicate it in the Rochester city school district and statewide. Instead of asking GCCS to become less diverse, we should ask how we make the RCSD more diverse and more successful.
DAVE TYLER
If anything, this article and GCCS demonstrate that we need a regional school system so that all students can be part of school communities that are not more than 40 percent free-reduced lunch, and are thus more likely to do well.
BARB VAN KERKHOVE
I happen to believe GCCS delivers an exceptional education program in a city that is short on quality options. However, the school is in clear violation of the charter law and needs to be more accessible to ALL city students. Sometimes in the course of discussions such as this, it is easy to forget that there are outstanding charter schools here in Rochester that serve poor students almost exclusively and deliver tremendous results.
JSPOUNT
This article appears in May 20-26, 2015.
Just curious how, for example, thousands of city youths applying for a handful of Summer of Opportunity jobs ,who rely on RTS for transportation, could be characterized as culturally dependendent and dwindling? No wonder it’s difficult to tackle poverty when seemingly intelligent people spew ficiton to justify systematic oppression.
“There is a finite amount of wealth on the earth at any moment in time, and it is all owned by someone”-Jim Blatt
Hey Jim, look around you. You are surrounded by wealth that wasn’t here just a few years ago.. Think about it. 300 years ago there was virtually nothing. Where did it all come from? Wealth is created, not taken from someone else, as Jim and the left want you to believe.
Mr. Salvo, I doubt we have much in common, but one thing we do share is that same sinking feeling in our hearts. Yours of course caused by the comments of Ms. Towler…mine by yours. If you’re old enough to remember when throngs flocked downtown by bus, then you’re probably old enough to remember when many of the government programs that are in place today didn’t exist. And guess what…we still had poverty. Poverty existed 20 yrs. ago, 50 yrs. ago, and 100 yrs. ago. Poverty has always been with us. It didn’t appear with advent of government programs for the poor. You offer up “Liberal-inspired government programs” as the reason for poverty’s continuance, but little in the way of solutions. I would forgo all subsidized housing, increase to minimum wage, and job programs…yada, yada, yada, for any solutions you, or like minded conservatives have for ending poverty in our city. Absence of any real, tangible solutions, you can take away the so-called “culture of dependency”, and “low expectations”, and you know what you end up with? Independent poor people, with high expectations…living in poverty.
Randy McCloud