Questions for Americans

[Pekka]

Yes tell me about your country. I can say I know quite a bit and I've been there for almost half a year if I combine all my visits, however few things are still in the air for me..

Like why do you give crappy places good names? As in, the better the street name sounds, the worse the neighbourhood is? Doesn't make sense, it's like giving a medal for a hard worker instead of a raise. I mean, it can't bring the property values up, a name that is. So why?

[SlowwHand]

You want it named ****hole Avenue?

[Stuie]

Usually the name pre-dates the crappiness.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
You want it named ****hole Avenue?

[Pekka]

So they pre-date it? Well, is it just a.. miracle, that every street has a prestigious name is actually .. not?

Sloww, YES!

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Stuie
Usually the name pre-dates the crappiness.

Yep.

[Vesayen]

On the whole? No. We use place names of those who were there before us, individuals associated with the first settlement of the region, famous individuals of the region, or distinctive features of what used to be there.

Not really any effort to give good names to ****ty places.

[Dinner]

One rule is constent though. If the street is named Martin Luther King Blvd then you want to avoid it like the plague.

[chequita guevara]

Except in Tallahasee, FL, where it runs through a middle class white neighborhood. Yes, I was shocked.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Except in Tallahasee, FL, where it runs through a middle class white neighborhood. Yes, I was shocked.

Are the neighborhoods so divided that you can still classify a neighborhood as "white' ??

[Dr Strangelove]

Often the street with the classy name was in a high class neighborhood in the 19th or early 20th century, but as the city grew the more well to do moved towards the periphery of town or even to the suburbs, leaving the older neighborhoods to be settled by the less well to do. Older houses tend to lack the modern conveniences such as air conditioning that we Americans have come to expect, and streets in the older parts of town can't accomodate that second or third family car.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Flubber


Are the neighborhoods so divided that you can still classify a neighborhood as "white' ??

Oh my yes. In fact one of the greastest factors in the decline of American cities was school desegregation. By the mid-1960s it became evident that merely forbidding localities from establishing seperate schools for blacks wasn't enough to ensure that black kids got the same education as white kids. The US Supreme Court ordered that municipalities bus students from district to district in order to spread out the ratio of blacks to whites in city schools. Whites raced for the city - county line in droves.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Except in Tallahasee, FL, where it runs through a middle class white neighborhood. Yes, I was shocked.

Give it time, give it time

[Grandpa Troll]

If anyone ever saw the movie Boyz in da Hood, Lawrence Fishburne stated it so well, you dont see Liquor Stores and gunshops in upper class white neighborhoods, and thus by providing quick access to these two you help contribute to a social enigma, keeping the Brother down, because he may not be strong enough to rise above temptation

That is of course, One school of thought

[:) Smiley]

What sort of names do you consider classy anyway?