Thursday, September 27, 2007

Making it right Brad Pitt, Common Ground and others making our city a better place to live


After the Saints lose several weeks in a row, my students have said they want to hang the season up. But for every reason we want to hang it up sometimes, there are 20 more to keep plugging away and make this city better. I woke up this morning to hear about a redevelopment in the lower ninth ward that is going to impact our community, for the better, in about 150 different ways.
http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/09/lower_9th_ward_project_to_buil.html
I was just in the ninth ward 2 days ago and took these pics:




For all of the neighborhoods you see coming back with aplomb, there are just as many struggling and suffering and the 9th ward is clearly suffering.
One thing I hope these developers keep in mind, is that this area suffers from a dearth of green space where familes can get exercise, ride bikes and enjoy nature.
When we were house hunting, we looked at several homes in the upper ninth ward but the biggest problem was that so many houses had no available green space nearby to bring our dog to or for us to ride our bikes or even take a long walk. The neighborhood is disected and bisected by wide swaths of mean streets and fast cars.
There are also no more corner stores. So thanks Brad Pitt, but let's also keep in mind that we need resources for wholistic living to sustain our community as well.

1 comment:

Mabs said...

That was a great idea Brad. I hope to see more development on that place. And see more of Brad on Brad Pitt bio.