Health/Crime

I think that health is a personal responsibility not a government issue. The government promotes healthy living, which is a good thing, but with obesity rates on the rise we need to work harder towards a healthier society. Unfortunately government is not helping to diminish the growing obesity problem. First Lady Michelle Obama has taken on a noble effort to fight childhood obesity rates but it will not work. As someone who has spent time focusing on a healthy life style it takes education. Through out my life and up to high school I was relatively healthy and at a healthy weight. After I graduated though I gained an enormous amount of weight and finally after a few years decided to change it. I spent the time learning what foods and food groups were good for me. I took the initiative to get healthy and fight obesity. I fought cheap, unhealthy foods and changed my life. Unfortunately this does not happen often and I blame lack of education. The government is the main source of misinformation when it comes to food. They teach through the food pyramid/food plate that we need to maintain a higher balance of carbohydrates and lower balance of protein than what our bodies really need. This information is passed onto school-aged kids who learn improper eating techniques from a young age. School foods, while they are improving, still have a high amount of sugar and carbohydrates. Proper eating techniques must be taught at a young age but to do this we need to fight the misinformation machine that is the government and big food. It’s easy to eat healthy and cheap but it is time consuming, but with education on how to be healthy, eat healthy and live healthy many people will change their lives for the better. The Affordable Health Care Act has some provisions in it that are beneficial to all American’s. The need for health insurance in this country is high because our current medical system is expensive. However, forcing people to buy health care is not the right solution. Americans always have been and always will be of a “free” mind sight. Forcing them to anything makes them feel like they are losing their fundamental right and American’s will never fully accept a government run national healthcare system. I think rather than forcing people to buy healthcare the government should focus on regulations that protect citizens from harmful policies.

         Crime is an issue that affects all of us and we must work together to stop it. Unfortunately I think some policemen can make crime situations worse because of their actions. Firefighters put their lives on the line every day, same as cops, and never show boat the way cops do. I have had more than one cop say something to me along the lines of “I am the law” and this is dangerous. People are leery of cops because of this, we are a nation of laws and for a few people to think that they are above it is dangerous. If we had police that we could respect that fought crime and weren’t corrupted, our nation would be in a much better place. I also think recent legislation in Arizona to put guns on campuses is more harmful than anything. If somebody were able to make it on to ASU’s campus with a gun and start shooting you would have students that would try to be a hero’s. This would make it harder for campus police to determine whom the true suspect was and could lead to more innocent life lost. I feel that we have a right to have guns in this country but prohibiting guns in certain places does not take away any freedoms. 

Development

Looking at economic development and decisions an economic development director may make I am going to look at the Town of Gilbert. Gilbert is a very unique “city” in the fact that its not a city at all, rather a town. It has only one major freeway and only one rail line running through it. Gilbert also faced a major hurdle in its economic development from 2001-2011 and that was its general plan. A general plan is required every 10 years from municipalities and it sets out land use guidelines. From 2001-2011 Gilbert's voter approved general plan had almost ninety percent of its land zoned to residential. During the time only ten percent of the land in gilbert could be used for a mix of commercial, industrial, offices and parks. As an economic development director it would be hard to get a business to relocate in a town that might not be able to support future development. This case is evident in Chandler with Intel. Intel has a few campuses in Chandler because they have more areas designated to light, medium and heavy industrial. Gilbert voters approved a more “business” friendly general plan in 2011. The new general plan shrunk residential land use to almost seventy percent which allowed for a nearly twenty percent increase in commercial and industrial. Now as an economic development director in Gilbert with a more business friendly land use map I would encourage the town council to consider reducing development rates in certain areas. I would look at a few places in town starting near the only freeway to create growth districts. Encouraging the council to consider rates less than local municipalities would help drive industry into the town. Also looking at the areas surrounding the train tracks to ensure that companies have easy access to good. Gilbert has a very strong core of residents. Its crime rate is very low and the median income is relatively high but people have to travel for work. Encouraging growth will mean people will live and work in the same community. To keep the median income up in Gilbert and still encouraging people to live and work in Gilbert I would work to entice higher skilled manufacturing and business jobs. 

Looking now to Hope VI funds and programs I would recommend to stay far away from those programs. Sure any community may need some areas that offer section 8 housing or areas that qualify for Hope VI funds but I would not recommend adding those areas. It would only serve to bring in crime and lower skilled workers which in a way would have tremendous effects on our towns attempts to bring in business. Instead I would focus on any areas the town currently has that are section 8 or Hope VI qualified and see what we could do to revitalize the area. Gilbert has many great civic groups such as the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce and the Gilbert Small Business Alliance. I would work in a partnership with these organizations in an attempt to help teach advanced skills to the lower wage earners in the town. Hopefully we would be able to create a larger more skilled work force that would help improve our town. 

Poverty and Education.

            Poverty and education are very much connected and not for the reasons that many people suspect. In poorer areas you may tend to see more broken homes and single mothers working numerous jobs to support their families. Many people tend to think that this can be a cause as to why students suffer in school. There are many stereotypes that exist as to why children do not succeed in poorer areas. Excuses range from there are not two parents to support the children or the parents are absent from the home and don’t care how their child does in school or even that poverty breeds uneducated people. All of these may be true but I do not necessarily believe that is the case.

            Arizona tends to have the lowest per pupil spending per year. This money is added to federal funds and funds collected through property taxes. The most important of the funding in our examination is the property tax. If you live in an impoverished neighborhood the amount collected in property taxes is going to be lower than a middle to upper middle class neighborhood. To help explain this we can have district X and district Y both are in the State of Arizona and both receive the standard amount Arizona pays per pupil of $5000. They have the same number of students and receive the same amount of federal dollars. District X is in an older area with home values averaging $50,000 per single family home while district Y has home values averaging $200,000. They both collect 5% of the value of the home per year to help pay for the school district. That means that for every home in district X $2,500 is collected in taxes while $10,000 is collected for every home in district Y. These examples show how a poor area can collect less in revenue for their educational system. Property taxes are an important revenue generator for most school districts. When areas become rundown education suffers because of the decrease in home values.

            Solutions to this problem are not necessarily in government. More money does not always mean better schools. Allowing students the option to take part in private schooling would really measure the lengths of parental interest in their students. Many people have talked about a voucher system that would allow parents to take the amount spent per student and invest that into tuition prices at a private school. This would allow students in an impoverished neighborhood to attend a private school that has a more credible curriculum. The down side to this program is if you live in an impoverished area you might not have access to a highly ranked private school that is across town. This system has its flaws but it helps remove students from failing public schools. 

My search for a home. Assignment Jan. 17, 2012

Hello again and thank you for reading another one of my exciting blogs! Last week I mentioned that I was in the process of finding myself a home and I am happy to say, my search has ended.  For the sake of the classroom assignment I will take the perspective of a childless couple, which is in fact, what my true perspective is. When searching for a home one of my first priorities was location. I wanted to be downtown/central and able to ride my bike to class and areas of my interest. My partner and I wanted to be in a place that was generally safe and had a neighborhood with good mix of people. The area where we found our home is just north of the Phoenix Country Club so it provides for a secure area as well as easy access to school and freeways to get to work. 

When looking for a home in the downtown area we did not want to be in condo like home or an apartment home. We wanted to be able to have a yard, even if small, for our dog. We could of afforded something in the suburbs of the valley that may have been bigger, but we wanted to be in the center. We wanted to get the most for our money and did. With no children and no real concerns, location and price was the only real choosing factors.

Using the models discussed in class, we wanted a home in the Central Business District (CBD).  The CBD, being part of the Concentric Zone Model, is the core of the model. The Concentric Zone Model is a spherical representation of the different levels of land and social structures, which is illustrated in layers. When looking for a home I did notice the bid rent theory. As we looked for a home further away from the core, they were less expensive than those closer to the core. A home in the CBD area can be sought after for many reasons, one being convenience. In a CBD area there isn’t much land left to develop so these areas tend to be higher in price and denser. However, staying true to the Concentric Zone Model there was those low-income home areas that are near the city center. Those low-income areas however have their character and have taken new forms through gentrification.

When looking for a home we looked at a few homes that were in areas of gentrification. In the Coronado and Los Olivos areas of phoenix, a lot of the homes in this area were homes that are very old and being remodeled and cleaned up. They were bought for cheap, turned around and sold for a higher price. Some people find gentrification a form of displacing low-income families. Although this may be a valid point, it also helps the area draw in middle-income families who have more disposable income which lead to more business in the area. More business in the area means more cash flow for public funding. Nice areas of downtown will also draw more tourism. Gentrification may be more of a pro than a con. In our text “Toward a Theory of Gentrification” it shows graphs and tables summarizing data of people in cities returning from the suburbs to the city. The gentrification of cities can draw in and retain families.  Again, thank you for reading my blog and I hope to see you all in class. 

About Me

Hello fellow classmates,

My name is Luis Martinez but I go by Louie, and this is my first blog EVER! I am pursuing my bachelors in biological science as well as a minor is sustainability. With this degree I plan on applying to medical school and pursuing a career as a orthopedic surgeon!

A little about myself; I am 25 and a junior here at ASU. I am a Arizona native, I was born in Tucson and lived there for most of my life. I moved here from Tucson in may of 2011 when I transferred to ASU. I work in a emergency room in Scottsdale as an EMT/ER Tech. I have worked in hospitals for 4 years now. Initially I was planning on attending nursing school but realized I wanted to do more.

Jan. 10 2012 blog
I decided to take this class because it satisfied my major and I enjoy urban areas of cities, from architecture to the activities they offer. Everything about urban areas of cities I enjoy. I am currently looking for a home in the downtown central area because I want to be in the heart of it all. I am extremely interested in the gentrification of urban areas that may have been overlooked because of the appearance or it's crime rate. From first lecture I appreciated the diversity of everyone's opinions on different policy subjects. One thing that resonated for me in lecture was a city hollowing out. In my opinion that could be one of the worst things that could happen. An urban area of the city is where it began. There is history in the buildings, homes and people who still live in those areas. When reading "Urban Policy Reconsidered", the subject of metropolitan revitalization came up and how urban policies can be developed to help keep people it the city. An example was education, the attraction of good schools attract individuals to the suburbs, but if urban public schooling was comparable or better that would keep the urban areas populated. As I said before, home development is another way of attracting people to urban areas. Not new developments, but the gentrification of those areas can increase the retention of residents. Policies can be developed to help in those goals.