Violent crime and drug abuse in Philadelphia as a whole is a major problem. The city’s violent crime rate is higher than the national average and other similarly sized metropolitan areas.1 Also alarming is Philadelphia’s drug overdose rate. The number of drug overdose deaths in the city increased by 50% from 2013 to 2015, with more than twice as many deaths from drug overdoses as deaths from homicides in 2015.2 A big part of Philadelphia’s problems stem from the crime rate and drug abuse in Kensington.
Because of the high number of drugs in Kensington, the neighborhood has a drug crime rate of 3.57, the third-highest rate by neighborhood in Philadelphia.3 Like a lot of the country, a big part of this issue is a result of the opioid epidemic. Opioid abuse has skyrocketed over the last two decades in the United States and Philadelphia is no exception. Along with having a high rate of drug overdose deaths, 80% percent of Philadelphia’s overdose deaths involved opioids2 and Kensington is a big contributor to this number. This Philly neighborhood is purportedly the largest open-air narcotics market for heroin on the East Coast with many neighboring residents flocking to the area for heroin and other opioids.4 With such a high number of drugs in Kensington, many state and local officials have zoned in on this area to try and tackle Philadelphia’s problem.
But don't worry folks, the City is "helping" (below video captured on August 19, 2021)...
Video above from Friday night Sept 3, 2021... within 2 weeks of "cleanup"
Looks like the taxpayer's return on their tax investments is a few hours of slightly cleaner streets followed by 364 1/2 days of misery denied by testimony of self-congratulatory backslapping elected officials dedicated to "solving the city's problems".
Follow the dai;ly saga of Philadelphia's Kensignton Avenue here.
Philly must be competing with San Francisco for tourism...
ReplyDeleteWow! Philly has really deteriorated since I was last there (1970s), and I wasn't favorably impressed even then.
ReplyDeleteThe opioid crises has hit the working classes pretty hard.
ReplyDeleteFJ,
ReplyDeleteOpioids and more. Booze counts too.
Republicans control the state legislature in PA.
ReplyDelete"Although Philadelphia voters approved a referendum that would have raised the minimum wage within the city limits to $15 an hour ... the state legislature has blocked the measure's implementation ... a majority of major U.S. cities have higher minimums than Philadelphia's, some substantially higher ... Philadelphia has the lowest minimum wage among large cities when adjusted for the local cost of living" (source).
btw, LBJ's Great Society was working. Why republicans had to shut it down.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia/The Great Society/The War On Poverty: The War on Poverty [began with] the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, which created the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) to oversee a variety of community-based antipoverty programs. ... The OEO was dismantled by the Nixon and Ford administrations, largely by transferring poverty programs to other government departments. Funding for many of these programs were further cut in President Ronald Reagan's first budget in 1981.
It's weird how the national debt is right about the same amount of dollars that have been spent on poverty since LBJ
ReplyDeleteIt sure worked, Dervy. Philly is the model...
ReplyDeleteTrash and syringes are part of the decor of many African cities. Instead of recoiling in horror, we should seek to understand these cultural imports.
ReplyDeleteThe Great Society programs worked when they were funded. republicans slashed funding. I noted this in my original comment. How did you graduate college and earn the degrees you SAY you did when you obviously have serious reading comprehension problems?
ReplyDeleteGreat Society program costs skyrocketed when the excess poor people stopped being incinerated in Vietnam
ReplyDeleteNo link. Just your usual racist/classist BS.
ReplyDeleteI didn't declare war on poverty
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe OEO was dismantled? Somebody musta forgot to tell them.
ReplyDeleteCommunity Action Agencies? Do they teach the Black Panthers how to rob liquor stores?
ReplyDeleteCommunity Action Agencies? Do they teach the Black Panthers how to rob liquor stores?
ReplyDeleteThey did in Oakland.
ReplyDeleteThe OEO was dismantled?
ReplyDeleteYes. "The OEO was dismantled by the Nixon and Ford administrations, largely by transferring poverty programs to other government departments".
The quote doesn't say completely dismantled/shut down.
Multiplying a single program into 10 or 100 new programs is dismantling? Who knew?
ReplyDeleteWhat programs that were transferred were multiplied into 10 or 100 new programs? Sounds expensive. Yet republicans are always for cutting the funding of such programs. What legislation increased funding for the multiplied programs? I say you're bullshitting.
ReplyDelete