[speedgibson] Speed Gibson: My Kind of Town

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Posted by Speed Gibson:
My Kind of Town
http://speedgibson.powerblogs.com/posts/1228974043.shtml


   I see that my city of residence the past 18 years made one of the
   final pre-bankruptcy editions of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
   [1]Brooklyn Center is now about half white, half minority. The authors
   seem to think this is a problem, the reason why our average income is
   about 60 percent of the metro average.
   Sure, our neighborhood has changed, to about these ratios. We gained
   our first Hmong family a couple of years ago, and a Mexican family a
   couple of years before that. Our local schools are a true rainbow
   coalition, a great advantage we think in preparing our children for
   the real world out there.
   I grew up in St. Louis Park, which is also much less white than 30
   years ago, and also showing its age. Since then, I've lived several
   years each in Burnsville, Bloomington, and Robbinsdale before coming
   here in 1990. None of them engendered the feeling of "home" I enjoy
   here in Brooklyn Center.
   The city is very well run in my opinion. I've served many years on
   various volunteer advisory commissions, of late the Financial
   Commission. No matter what Jason Lewis says about local government in
   general, our budgets are tight and properly focused. We don't try to
   live in some trendy vision of the future like St. Louis Park does,
   getting scammed into buying solar powered Wi-Fi. We don't try to live
   in the past, like Robbinsdale.
   We border Minneapolis, which is both a blessing and a curse I suppose.
   We're close to most everything, which matters a lot when gas is $4 a
   gallon. We have great bus service and the mailman delivers right to
   the door. And so far for us at least, no crime trouble at all.
   We have four school districts, also a blessing and a curse. Open
   Enrollment is therefore quite viable even when you have to provide
   your own transportation. We have parks and trails and a very suitable
   Community Center.
   To each his own. Me, I love that there is comparatively so little
   pretense and preening here. Everyone's real. Can you imagine? We go to
   to Caribou to get coffee, not impress other customers with our
   knowledge of the subject.
   It's my kind of town.

References

   1. http://www.startribune.com/local/north/35778474.html?elr=KArksUUUU