Public (Ghetto) Housing and Diaspora Somalis?

[AussieHustler]

We still rely and are heavily dependent on public housing and some have settled permanently on these projects. Now, second generation diaspora are spending astronomical amounts on weddings and furniture just to live in a public housing. Do we value property ownerships? Other recently arrived migrants, it is important for them to own properties and away from the projects so their children could escape the temptations in these areas and be enrolled in better schools.

In Minnesota, a third of the public housing residents are Somalis.


"Approximately one-third of Minneapolis Public Housing residents are members of the East African community."

http://www.startribune.com/first-so...-public-housing-board/510076092/?refresh=true

In Stockholm, Toronto, different boroughs in London, Birmingham and elsewhere in England, massive neighbourhoods of projects are resided mostly by Somalis. Melbourne is the same. The ghettoes has destroyed many generations of African Americans, why do we shun home ownership and are addicted to the ghettoes? We have seen the violence, school dropouts and we are over-represented in the juvenile criminal justice system. What is the addiction to this poison of Ghetto housing when most of our social ills emanates from living in such areas? Should we demand tax-payers to subsidise multi-generational Somalis? Are we incapable of improving our lot and ditch the Ghetto areas? Are things changing in your area?

 

[AussieHustler]

Dixon, Toronto



Birmingham



Cedar Riverside, Minnesota



Rikenby Stockholm



Flemington, Melbourne

 

[Gojo Satoru]

It's sad how we've been stuck in the same government housing for over 30 years now. I don't know many homeowners who are Somali.

 

[Jaydaan]

In uk you can buy actually buy your public house after few years on the cheap. But a lot of somalis in uk dont take advantage of that. Economically its great to live in the so called ghettos in sweden and uk. So the area is not problem....we just dont put property ownership as a priority.

 

[The alchemist]

People generally live in places that represent their socioeconomic status, though merely being poor is not the only factor as to why social pathology occurs. We know that public housing does, sometimes, enable shitty behavior, but the issue is a complicated and not easy fix.

Urban policy today is driven primarily by conceptions of urban poverty that blame inner-city problems on the alleged social pathology of the poor. Adding an explicit geographic dimension to the debate, neoliberals and conservatives alike argue that social pathology of the inner-city ghetto is mostly the results of the spatial concentration of poverty.

I think that such ideas are based on a conceptually inadequate view of urban space, which leads to simple spatial solutions to what are complex social and spatial problems.

Peer-group contagion is claimed to be especially powerful in the ghetto because of the absence of the middle-class role models to help socialize youth and instill 'proper values.' It is also believed that poverty-stricken areas also create social isolation.

For example, in the US, social isolation of the poor is caused by spatial separation, which prevents low-income African-Americans from coming into contact with middle-class roles models. Spatially separated from the mainstream, ghetto residents are claimed to develop cultural norms that place them at odds with the mainstream of US society. The lack of cross-class interaction separates the ghetto poor from the rest of society and leads them into social pathology. Aforementioned has been in the debates for a long time, but it's what most people believe at the moment, though I think structural planning by governments also has a significant role in creating ghettos.

On the topic of public housing, here is how Singapore handled the issue successfully.