Timothy Birdnow

Here is an article in American Thinker about the homeless problem in St. Louis, notably down around the South Grand district.

The South Grand district had been a strip of decaying old commercial buildings when a number of Asian enterpreneurs came in, cleaned up the buildings, and turned it into a Chinatown. That quickly morphed into a more general entertainment area with restaurants, coffee houses, and bars featuring all manner of different foods and styles. But then that was taken over by the homosexuals, who now inhabit the surrounding neighborhood (and infest Tower Grove Park, a huge park in St. Louis) and so the area has a strong gay character, with rainbow flags prominent. It ain't Trump country, rest assured! The surrounding neighborhood is full of wonderful old Victorian homes, some mansions, that had decayed but have been brought back in recent years by the gay pioneers.

So when a group of local businessmen circulated a petition to not feed or give water to vagrants it was guaranteed to set off fireworks.

The area is infested with vagrants and you trip over them. Years ago, when it was still primarily Asian, my wife and I would go to some of the restaurants and it was bad then, but it has gotten much worse. It's not a family friendly place. I imagine the businessmen are sick of chasing them away.

The author if this piece is wrong in the end; he assumes most of the protesters who picketed the businesses over this petition were from elsewhere. Maybe some, but a lot of them live right there. But as long as the vagrants stay out of the neighborhood they are fine with them. There is something in the mindset of these over-educated urbanites, and especially the gay ones, that likes "diversity" and by that I mean the sense of having criminals hanging about to give the neighborhood atmosphere.

It was on South Grand years ago that a gang of black teens killed an elderly Asian man who was minding his own business walking down the street. The punks were playing the "knockout game" and punched the old man as hard as they could, killing him. That is the kind of people who come down there and it's only gotten worse. The price of "diversity".

And in fact I used to work for a property management company and we had a building we managed down there and one of our tenants - a mental case if there ever was one - chased a guy down the street and murdered him. He went away to prison for it. But he was threatened by the guy first, so got a gun, chased the guy down, and killed him. Lovely neighborhood.

And in fact before I married my wife she lived not too far from there. She was thrilled to get out of that neighborhood; there was a shooting at the seven eleven near her apartment. I remember going in there; the blood was still visible on the parking lot.

The problem was and remains the fact the City has been controlled by Democrats since 1948 and they have always been soft on crime. The cops do what they can but they get no help from the city government.

St. Louis is an odd place. It is essentially a series of small towns within an metropolitan area and there are good neighborhoods and bad ones - and often right next to each-other. Where I live the neighborhood is good but cross Kingshighway and you are in the hood. They stay there and we stay on our side. It's interesting.

And one of the very safest neighborhoods around is The Hill aka Dago Hill (as it was originally called). Our little Italy is full of small, cheap frame homes and lots of excellent restaurants. You can walk around outside at three a.m. if you are a-mind with zero fear. The Mafia keeps that area perfectly safe. And the kids who grow up there stay there. Many of them are on waiting lists to buy houses as they come vacant. It's what you can do when you apply a little non-diversity. I'm not Italian and am welcome there as long as I don't cause any trouble, but in the end it is an Italian neighborhood and that is it's strength. It is much like the old America we used to know.

Diversity is not our strength, it is our weakness. The Left pushed the idea of diversity being a strength for decades but it's a falsehood. Different peoples occupying the same space become competitors, and in the end come to loath each-other. South Grand's problem is too much diversity. The Hill's strength is too little. I know which one I prefer.

And there is Dogtown, which is also full of dumpy little homes but is clean and has low crime. Why? Because it is predominantly Irish. The same held true for years of Dutchtown, a German neighborhood, but the Germans moved away and now the neighborhood is "diverse" and utterly crime-riddled. Ditto Bevo, which was a German community (The Busch beer baron family owned a restaurant down there, the former home of Augustus Sr. called The Bevo Mill and it still operates as a restaurant today although the current owners don't sell German food much anymore.)

Wherever diversity touches strife and crime and poverty follows.

At any rate this little incident on South Grand is one more example of what happens when you have a "diverse" neighborhood.

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