Today in class we talked about how many cities are doing relatively well even in this economic climate. As I was reading the news today I came across this article (http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14303473#ixzz0ebfVXysx), which shows what other less fortunate cities are facing. In Colorado Springs, CO:
More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.
The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.
Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.
Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.
City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.
A post like this really makes me worry about the future safety of our towns and communities. With out all of those positions such as firefighters or police persons does that mean that crime will go up? In theory if there is less tax money for those positions then that means that there are less people paying the tax and therefore a smaller demand for such community positions and services...but I doubt if that is the whole story. There might be less funds due to unemployed people not paying taxes or from less support coming in from state and or national budgets.
ReplyDeleteYeah holy cow this is a lot to take in. It's quite depressing to hear about a situation like this and it really makes me worry about situations like this coming close to home. It's one thing to read about a tragic story such as this one, but I can't even imagine what it would be like if this was my home town. A
ReplyDeleteThis is extremely stressful to read. I am assuming that Colorado Springs receives most if not all its funding from the government. I am also assuming that there is a high unemployment rate which means that not much tax is collected.
ReplyDeleteThis is only one of the callapsing cities in the US (which is one of the two countries keeping the world from depression). Can you imagine what is happening in the rest of the world, esp. the poorer countries?
Things might get worse though. If this is already happening and the government has not yet implementes its spending freeze what do you think will happen when it does?
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ReplyDeleteI'm kind of worried that, if things continue like this, places like Colorado Springs are going to start turning to private contractors to do things like policing, at least for things like beat patrols. I can only see bad things coming from that. Of course, that idea came from absolutely no basis whatsoever, and I don't really know what I'm talking about, so whatever. A
ReplyDeleteWith the description and situation given of Colorado Springs; there is a lot of sadness and worried that the people might be feeling. To live in a city where each day it’s practically losing a bit of their surrounding must be devastating to many residents. The part that worried me the most was were dozens of police and fire positions are going to be unfilled; this means that the crime rate in this city is going to go up and that not enough help is going to be available when needed. A.E
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't understand is how some towns can be so naive to other city's conditions and situations. Colorado Springs is like many other cities trying to get by on what little money they have for public goods. Somehow, other cities don't acknowledge this. How can they be so selfish to deny other towns national financial help? E
ReplyDeleteIt's sad to read situaion like this, but I'm sure things can get worse in some other poorer areas. Maybe govenrment can take some measures such as subsidy to help those cities in need? A
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