Monday, January 28, 2008

Bursting the bubble

Last November, I wrote a series on the Chief's Corner highlighting a fragile area of Lincoln: The Southwest Team's A Beat: roughly, the northern-most part of the southwest quadrant of the city. The posts, Veterans Day on the Street, The Denizens of A Beat, and Outside the Bubble, generated a good deal of traffic and discussion.

This week, the Lincoln Journal Star is running a multi-part special report on this area, entitled The Core. Deena Winter, the lead reporter on this series, has been getting a lot of data and information from us for the past few months as she prepared for this series, and she's been on a few ride alongs with the Southwest Team. The resulting special report is an eye-opener for many people who are pretty much oblivious to the kinds of things going on in their own city. Greater awareness is a good thing. We need help, and lots of it. But the police cannot bring this neighborhood back from the brink by themselves--it's going to take a much broader effort. Perhaps this series will help jump start that effort, and provide some additional support to the people who have been trying hard to do so.

There are thousands of people in Lincoln (and a lot of community leaders) who need to have their own bubble burst. That's one of the things I've been trying to do in this blog and at every single public speaking engagement I've been at for the past few years. Hopefully, the Journal Star's larger readership will have a more pronounced effect.

As an aside, the online version of The Core is the most interactive content I have yet to see on the Journal Star's website. The multi-media interviews, back stories, and interactive maps are impressive indeed. I think you're seeing a glimpse of the future of newspapers.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good for people to see this kind of stuff and be more aware, because everyone is affected if the core of the city deteriorates. You guys just need a lot more officers generally, but this is one place where you wonder if the problem is alot more complicated than just arresting can fix.

Anonymous said...

My children used to attend the Montessori program at Everett Elementary when they were younger. I worked in the area and I would pick up the kids after school each day. It was awful the number of things I saw happening within one block of my kids school. The hookers and drug dealers didn’t seem to mind that they were near a school or that it was 2:55 in the afternoon.

I commend you on your on-going attempt to clean this area up. I hope the citizens of Lincoln will wake up and realize that this is “Lincoln” problem, not just a “neighborhood” problem.

JT said...

The journal star layout is pretty nice! I especially like the article about home ownership rates, I think it does a great job of pointing out what (if anything) city leadership has done to help the older neighborhoods of lincoln out.

Anonymous said...

Bursting the bubble

Now thats a good topic for today. I went and purchased a garmin 305. After using this watch for two exercise jog/walks I began to wonder what use this could have during a foot chase. Is this used in law enforcement. The link is http://www.motionbased.com/
I have a bubble to burst and its about 50 inches around. Gee it really sneaks up on one when you set in front of the TV and become idle. I ran 7 Lincoln Marathons in the 1990's so with the great support that is online I am going to attempt the task again. Conditioning sucks. If you have it dont lose it.
On another note. Thank you to the officer that gave my child a MIP Friday night at detox. Officer Maxwell happend upon us too and gave me that look. You have some sharp FTO'S and understudys. In fact the trainee even noticed that my son and I have the same Birthday...except the year and I had to point that out to her. For a moment I felt a teen again.bbrk

Tom Casady said...

I visited motionbased.com. Quite cool. Makes me want that Garmin Forerunner.