Rough

Our associate, Colin, pointed this article out...


A bit of an insight into the city KVC and I live in.




Not saying we live near any of the places mentioned in the article, exactly...
But it wouldn't take me more than a short train ride or ten minute walk to get to more than a few of 'em, from where I sit.







If you are feeling too lazy to click a link and read the whole shebanger, here is a snipet-

Philadelphia is awash in the narcotics trade. And like all illicit economies, the drug trade begets a brutal gangsterism whose stock in trade is violence — violence on an industrial scale. The statistics are as astonishing as they are appalling. “We’ve had 16,000 shootings here in the last 10 years,” says Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Reed. “Sixteen thousand!” That averages out to four Philadelphians being shot every day, or one citizen every six hours. Since 2008, more Americans have been murdered in Philadelphia than killed in Iraq.

Ponder on that last line for a while...


Then, there is this-

In a city with an already overcrowded prison system, the police are working harder here on a purely statistical level than anywhere else. But a simple walk through the neighborhood reveals how little good that has done. These streets are veritable rivers of trash and graffiti, suggesting both City Hall and its residents have given up on even the idea of maintaining appearances. In summer, the stifling heat, the lack of job-generating businesses, the shuttered factory buildings, and the kids slinking this way and that, hustling dope and invariably strapped with guns, coalesce into a vast, depressing mosaic of hopelessness and despair in a city where 25 percent live under the poverty line and more than half read at a sixth-grade level or below.

So, if you have heard me joking about how rugged this city is...
Know that I wasn't quite kidding.
It is a bit rough.


I could make some comments about the American Dream, or ask what your latest political candidate is gonna do to fix this shit.
But that would be pointless...



Original article from www.phawker.com, written by Steve Volk.