Amalgamation Desired

November 22nd, 2008; 10:23 AM

Current mood:hopeful

I went to the city of Santa Rosa's web site, where you can find all sorts of maps that are color coded with census information from 2005. There's one that breaks down income distribution within the city. And another that has racial distribution information.

I was surprised to see that the average household income in my neighborhood, and some neighborhoods that I thought were very nice, was actually much less than the average household income of some areas that could be aptly described as being "dodgy". This makes some sense to me. I do know that many of the people in the "poorer neighborhoods" are EXTREMELY hard working. Many of them work 2 jobs. So haha...they make more money put together than I, or my neighbors do. :-)

I then looked at a map that showed the city's annexations by decade, up to the present year. I remember a time, when part of my family's property was not *technically* a part of the city. This was a problem because whenever there was an issue of violence with our tenants, we couldn't call the police; we had to call the sheriff's department, which was massively understaffed, and could take a very long time to get there. It was a relief when the property was finally annexed into the city's limits. But taking a look at the current map, it's kind of funny. There's a big white space (that means it's considered the county...and not city) that is surrounded by color coded areas that were long ago annexed into the city limits. Much of this white space is Roseland. It is litterally surrounded on all sides, by areas that have predominantly been incorporated about a decade ago. Now why is this still county?? I have my thoughts. I think it comes down to the city not wanting to have to take responsibility for this area. It is a neglected part of our community, that many do not want to make an equal part of our community. I think about how this area wanted funds to impliment a library. They've worked very hard towards this for ages. They still don't have the library; they also don't have sidewalks in a lot of this area, which creates a dangerous situation, particularly for the school children who are forced to walk in the street. -It's simply not safe.

Race, economics, education, and how we percieve people (Meaning: Do we see them as equals? Or do we see them as "other/outsiders"? Do we even care about them? Or their happiness?) have so much to do with our world. We really are the creators. I hope we pick up the gauntlet, and create something good; and stop seeing the world and it's problems as things which we have no power over, or things which are outside of our concern.