As others see us. The authors of the new book Place Matters: Metropolitics for the Twenty-first Century note that the massive public-housing developments just outside Paris often contain large concentrations of North African immigrants. “In recognition of their similarity to American ghettos, they have been called ‘Little Chicagos.’ Like concentrated poverty areas in the United States, they are associated with poverty, crime, and social disorganization. Living in a Little Chicago stigmatizes a person as a loser; employers shun such residents, and mothers even warn their daughters against going out with boys who live there.”
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The kids just think they’re all right. According to an October 15 press release on San Diego State psychologist Jean Twenge, coauthor of a research report being published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review, “College students’ self-esteem has increased substantially [from 1968 to 1994], but this happened at the same time that SAT scores declined and anxiety increased. Thus college students’ high self-esteem seems to be built on a foundation of sand.”
I’ve often wondered why there are no restaurants or hotels anywhere near 646 S. State. From a front-page story in the Near West/South Gazette (October 5) saying that Pacific Garden Mission, a homeless shelter and service center that’s more than 100 years old, will indeed be displaced by the expansion of its neighbor, Jones Academic Magnet High School: “Pacific Garden Mission needs to relocate to a more compatible site near restaurants and hotels, which offer mission residents job opportunities.”
