Tuesday, July 24, 2012

50 ward, 50 weekdays: 21st Ward's turn...

Some good stuff out of the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood of the 21st Ward with Tracey Love Jones. Including mention of the Wal-Mart that I'm sure many people has visited since they opened last year:

“My neighborhood is going through changes,” she begins. “There’s some good changes and some bad.”

Let’s start with the good.

“We just received the new Wal-Mart, which is nice,” she says. “[I] go to the Wal-Mart and the other little shops over there.  [It’s] really nice to have something like that in our neighborhood instead of always having to travel to the suburbs or something like that to go to stores.”

Another good: Nearby Simeon High School, an “awesome school,” she says. Love Jones didn’t go there. She went to Catholic schools and grew up in the South Side’s Pullman area. But she’s clearly invested in Auburn Gresham.

“I don’t like the violence,” she says. “There’s a lot of gang violence, yes, and there’s a lot of stealing.”

“I’ve never been a victim of crime. You know, I have a pit bull, so my pit bull takes good care of me and I think that’s what makes me feel safe in this neighborhood. If I didn’t have my dog, I don’t know how I would quite feel about it.”

That pit bull, by the way, is reason #2 not to mess with Love Jones. So is that the answer to ending crime around Chicago? Pit bulls for everyone?

“I don’t think so, because I think you have to be responsible, you know?” she says. “I’m not having my dog fight. I’m not going to have my dog breeding so I can make extra money and all those negative things associated with dogs.”

But, if people take care of their pit pulls, get licenses and vaccines and such, “I think it’s better than getting a gun,” she says.
 It looks like there's one more ward left in WBEZ's 50 wards series! Click here to see them!

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