I hope you come back here, someday, and read this: I find it amusing that you’d talk of other’s simplistic views, then offer your own to compete.

Yes, white flight has taken much of the money out of the city core. But people like you act as if the fear that leads to flight is unfounded. Property values do suffer, crime does go up, schools do perform worse. What would you have people do, stay put because the neighborhood used to be good? White people don’t leave because they’re scared, they leave because they want their kids to grow up in a good environment, and they don’t want to lose equity in their homes. Let me tell you a secret: black people want out of black nieghborhoods, too. Badly.

If your statement about poverty and its connection to blight and crime was correct, then rural Missouri would have the same problems as urban Missouri does. Appalachia would be the most dangerous place in the country. The statement is silly and ill-informed.

City fathers don’t maintain buildings, in general. Private businesses do, and they only do so as long as there’s a valid business reason to. When all you have is section 8 houses and crack dens around you, and the only people left with money are gang bangers, there isn’t much of a business case to be made for rebuilding old buildings.

Wal-Mart and similar stores drive down prices, which increases real incomes. By railing against Wal-Mart, and like stores, you’re basically arguing that poor people should be forced to buy less (because their stores offend you).

Out-door, in-door, it really means nothing. I hate over-priced development based shopping. But, if it makes you happy, go for it.

1. White flight. As long as white people are scared of black people ruining their property values, they will run to far flung suburbs, use precious infrastructure dollars to pay for new amenities like they were used to at their old place, stop going to the old places, and let them die for lack of cash.

2. Poverty. Simply put, if we don’t try to take care through education, not incarceration, of our poor, our poor will steal, get in trouble, be on drugs, etc. because they are uneducated and fixated on forgetting their troubles. This goes as much for white trash in the country or city as it does poor minorities.

3. We have to have city fathers who care enough about our older developments to keep them viable. They don’t–they’re caught up in “new” building. That causes the old to deteriorate. If we valued our history a lot of older buildings and businesses would still be around.

4. The Wal Marting of America. Everything’s the same, so when there are two Macy’s five miles apart, one will be closed. I bet when Lee’s Summit gets their Macy’s one of the closer ones in town will close.

5. The move away from boxy indoor malls. I predicted this to my wife ten years ago and she thought I was nuts. Who’d want to Christmas shop in cold weather having to go outside every few minutes? I WOULD! IT’s called fresh air. The old mall concept also didn’t advertise well for big national chain stores or restaurants–you couldn’t see their signs from the street.

So–stop blaming blacks. It’s poverty, the inability of our town to stop running from itself, and the fact we don’t appreciate our older resources that causes things like Bannister. A 28 year old building built to last a hundred years or more is closed due to a lot of factors. I was a Bannister kid. 1986–Annie’s Santa Fe, the smell of christmas inside the mall, my girlfriend and I wandering around looking for fun….ah the difference between 18 and 40.