I am surely not the most political person but when the neighborhoods I grew up in and hoped one day to raise my family in, start to look like a the neighborhood we werent allowed nor would want to be in...Im not gonna shut my mouth...I work at a bar in Tacony and after closing time the streets of tacony look worse and worse...i feel like im walking out onto a street in the ghetto! Walking up Vandike and several others...trash all over the place...now we can sit here and bitch(iam one who does it) about how the people in office arent doing anything to further our developement or beautify our neighborhood...we people get off ur butts and get a broom stop waiting for someone else to do it for you...this is your neighborhood and we as a community are letting it go...whatever happened to neighborly acts...street clean ups...yea your real quick to have a block party and start fights and drinking ramps...but god forbid you sweep the street in front of your house...its laziness and its annoying...as long as you kno who is our state rep...and as u can see is hardly helping, or driving one of those street sweeps, so stop being so lazy people...no one is coming to knock at ur door and offer to do it for u...and if ur neighbor is lazy clean out front of their house to it wont kill u to be neighborly....i promise!!!!!!!!

This is true.

I'm guilty of the ciggie butt thing.

You are correct. It seems the dirtier we see a street the easier it is to just toss debris, trash, and butts.

The clean up thing is true also. I grab the neighbors if they are too busy, and I have the time. Might as well clean a few fronts while you're doing your own.

I used to live on Marple near Cottage, and on Cottage near Robbins, and we NEVER had a trash/litter problem in EITHER neighborhood...
Then again, we ALL pitched in, keeping things looking nice. AND...people respected YOUR property.

Here in Fort Wayne...WHOLE other story. First off, we have single house properties, and they're a lot larger than rowhouses, so it's a chore JUST to keep YOUR place looking nice.
Add to that, we have a CORNER property...and well, the problems with OTHER people just escalates out of control! We are the local "recycling drop-off" point!
If "you" are the one person busting your hump trying to keep things litter-free....YOU become the target of those who LOVE to litter...I swear they do it JUST so they can laugh at you picking it up.
Hell, one time, I saw a kid toss a styrofoam plate on the lawn, so I go out and ASK him to please remove it. After a few racial remarks, he pulls out a chrome handgun from under his saggy waistband. He didn't fire luckily, but imagine my surprise to be MET with THIS kind of crap. I now own a gun too.
THIS is what normal people have to "deal with"...or move, as so many others love to remark. And we shouldn't HAVE to move because OTHERS are dumber than a bag of rocks.

I'm all for laws that work, and since every city has litter laws, the question becomes "Why aren't they enforced"? Well, officers have to SEE things like this happen. Same goes for NOISE. It's getting ridiculous anymore. Cops are more politicians than law-enforcement...and are solely complaint-driven agencies. No proactivity being done.

It becomes evident that NO law will stop these "people"...

The only thing that might work is going back to teaching ETHICS to people. And start it EARLY on, because heaven KNOWS they're NOT learning a damn thing AT HOME. Maybe is these morons had it DRUMMED into their thick skulls that what they do affects EVERYONE to some degree, they might start getting the message.

My neighborhood has slipped into "Ghettodom" over the past nine years, and I'm getting tired of trying to keep these barbarians from the gate. Sad thing is that is being repeated all over the nation in most any normal middle-class neighborhood.

What's worth getting is worth keeping, and what's worth keeping is worth taking care of. That's just common sense & good stewardship...no more, no less. And that's what MY MOM & DAD used to tell me all the time. I espouse that truth.

But that's just my 2 cents, because...I just give a damn, period.

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We're ALL in the same boat...just at DIFFERENT oars!

Bob G.