I am hearing (unconfirmed) that the city of Greensboro has attained a lofty position in the world of entertainment. It seems that our fair city has become one of the top markets in the country with respect to offering hip-hop entertainment.
Of course, we saw all the disorder that accompanied Superjam at the coliseum last year, and institutional Greensboro uttered not a single peep-- even though there was a fatality.
Then we had the infamous incident that spilled out onto Elm Street outside Rocky Scarfone''s "N" Club; and the city's Melderec crowd instantaneously mobilized into action, floating a series of big government proposals under the sponsorship of Councilman Zack Matheny. There had been much celebration in certain circles regarding how the downtown club scene engineered by Joey Medaloni, Keith Holliday and others had resuscitated downtown; and certainly downtown property owners benefited. But now the clubs are less useful, and the downtown forces have decided they must be put on a leash.
We are therefore seeing one of these big-government proposals being advanced that would include licensing and security requirements.
As a general rule, it can be an effective strategy for political advancement to seek to represent the downtown area, and then ingratiate oneself with the downtown crowd. But if this political strategy extends to pushing ill-considered policy proposals, it is not necessarily good for the people of Greensboro.
The fact is that our new police chief, Ken Miller, is in the process of unveiling and implementing his new approach for crime-fighting. It includes some reorganization within the GPD; and the adoption of proactive methodologies. On balance, these appear to be very positive steps. The details can be found in this document. According to Fox 8:
(A)mong the most noticeable proposals is putting two 12-officer resource teams full-time downtown.
"We're trying to maintain the order downtown around the clubs and the nightlife and keep downtown safe," Miller said.
So we have a new approach to policing being implemented, and increased police coverage of downtown. The problem has been caused, for the most part, by a few bad actors from among the city's club scene; and is associated especially with one genre-- the hip-hop scene.
But instead of allowing the police to do their work and see the impact, the big-government crowd wants more. We could target and work with the small number of clubs creating most of the problems; but instead we are adopting an approach that will penalize everyone.
Perhaps it is some degree of reluctance or reticence to take on particular problem cases, or certain types of clubs, that has motivated some parties to advocate a more generalized approach.
More to follow.
How does a society pro-actively address the crime potential, and keep it to a minimum? Ensure that the populace is well educated, and that there are jobs for people to perform.
As part and parcel of becoming a service economy, we've become a dancing, acting, and singing entertainment society because we are inventing less, converting fewer inventions into business, and making fewer things, which means less jobs.
Folks have to do something when there are so few jobs, and it's generally not the most productive of pursuits. There are all sorts of problems which flow from a paucity of jobs.
And who creates them? Government or the private sector? I don't really care, but someone or something has to do it. For folks to argue about it doesn't get it done.
This has been at least 35 years in the making, at least locally. We could have anticipated it long ago.
What do we do about it now? Invest in science and creative pursuits, and a broad, general education for the future. Fewer problems in 35 years down the road.
The current group is "done fur." Just cap the damage, and move on.
Posted by: Reggie Greene / The Logistician | February 23, 2011 at 10:54 PM