Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ It is well known that urban flight is caused by several major factors:
• Lack of safety. Our FBI crime statistics clearly demonstrate both violent and property crime are high in Salisbury, N.C.:
Even in one of the so-called safer parts of the Salisbury, our historic district is troubled by chronic break-ins. Our city suffers from murders, car jacks, bank holdups, muggings, burglaries, and last year a “train robbery”. Our gang challenges are major here. If people don’t feel safe they move away. Compounding Salisbury crime issues is the fact that our police department is understaffed, making it difficult for areas of the city to get the coverage they require.
Businesses and families looking to locate here look very closely at our crime statistics. Crime has led many middle and upper class blacks and whites to join in urban flight.
• Poor public education. Rowan-Salisbury’s low-rated public school system suffers from poor composite scores inside Salisbury’s boundaries on the N.C. READY report. Further Salisbury public schools are plagued by gangs, behavioral problems, and drug abuse. The READY Report gives pause to families moving here and impacts urban flight. Families want their children to go to schools in safe environments with excellent academic and vocational ratings. Public schools (K-12), inside of Salisbury’s city limits, possess poor composite scores on the State Education READY report. All are below the state and county scores:
http://www.rss.k12.nc.us/rssys/News/2011-12/12-13READYAccReportSummary.pdf
• Poverty is ever present in Salisbury where 28% of its populace dwells in poverty. This is a major factor in people moving elsewhere. Middle class blacks and whites move away when poverty, housing projects, section 8 housing, and decay gets too close in proximity. This has destabilized many neighborhoods. US Census Bureau stats for Salisbury verify that one fourth of the City’s population is living in poverty.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/37/3758860.html
Yahoo and MSN reprinted the Wall Street 24/7 report where Salisbury, N.C. is said to be the 5th ranked city in the entire U.S.A. suffering from “soaring poverty”.
http://homes.yahoo.com/news/cities-where-poverty-is-soaring-235610513.html
http://money.msn.com/investing/5-cities-where-poverty-is-soaring#image=2
• Breakdown in City Services. With the growing loss of city workers due to the debt incurred from the Fibrant debacle, serious manpower deficits are noted in the police and fire departments, and grounds keeping. Even Fibrant is said to be down to 3 employees. As a result city-owned properties, during the spring, summer, and fall, are overgrown with grass and weeds. Parts of Salisbury are being called little Amazonia. Trash collection crews appear scaled back as well, leading to later trash pickups. A photo safari of the meltdown of city services:
• Salisbury’s major problems with serious drug and alcohol abuse, lowing the quality of life here. A large number of drug and alcohol treatment facilities as well as Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are found within Salisbury proper. These treatment facilities and meetings testify to the city’s alcohol, meth, crack, and heroin challenges.
• Urban decay, abandoned buildings and houses, and many vacancies in all areas of Salisbury impact livability here. These visual elements of the city shout “poverty” and stimulate urban flight. A ride through decaying and vacancy-filled South Main Street underlines typical decay found in the city’s downtown area.
• Salisbury’s unemployment and lack of jobs. With high unemployment and a loss of businesses over the past decade, the city is unable to retain its middle and upper classes. The youth drain in Salisbury is noticeable. People are forced to move elsewhere for jobs and to pursue career dreams.
Urban Flight can only be halted by correcting all seven of the above listed challenges with the most pressing being crime, education, poverty, and jobs. Mercifully the inability to sell homes, due to the area’s poor real estate market, temporarily puts the brakes on urban flight here. The solutions and tradeoffs for correcting poverty’s contributing elements can be found throughout “The Rowan Free Press Plan to Lift Salisbury, N.C. Out of Poverty”. These corrections, if applied soon enough, may halt urban flight.
