Man killed after being shot multiple times while sitting in vehicle (Baton Rouge)

The white people put guns in NBR to increase violence. Dey killin us outchea!

It's Big Chief Toilet Paper, he got the biggest roll of em all.

Swan Street. I'm not sure exactly where that is. Ya think Gravy can tell me?

We have to get rid of that Columbus statue downtown.

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I drove to Tony's for the first time in about 10 years a few weeks ago. It was Friday afternoon so I cut down N 22nd from Government to avoid the interstate. Good God driving down Plank is like being in the middle east or something. What a shite hole.

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Most on this board who make fun of NBR don't really know how bad it is. They give it too much credit.

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Don't laugh. It's only a matter of time before the Chauna Banks/Denise Marcelle braintrust uses this as an excuse.

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There's a local black activist in Jackson, MS that always rants at city council meetings. The guy is pretty much insane. Anyway, one week he said that the only reason there was so much violence in the city was because the klan was sent in by white people to distribute guns so blacks would kill each other.

So, in a nutshell, he said that when black people get guns, they can't help but kill each other as if they are powerless against inanimate objects.

It's gotten a lot worse than I remember it. I'm old enough to remember when parts of Plank weren't that bad. My paw paw used to take me to the Piccadilly in Delmont Village all of the time. I rarely cross Florida Blvd now unless I'm on the interstate or the Central Through way

Any word on how the mayor is going to blame whitey for this one?

My theory is that much of it goes back to the tenet/landlord relationship and Section 8.

See, regular property owners have an incentive to keep up their property. Good looking property increases property values, meaning they can charge more rent. If they're a homeowner, then that increases their net worth. They own the improvements and would reap the profits if the property is sold. If there's something broken that's an eye sore or the grass is high in the median because the city never comes out to cut it, it's in the owner's best interest to fix it.

For renters, improving the property doesn't help them at all. In fact, making property look good would increase its value, increasing their rent! Besides, most leases say repairs are the landlord's responsibility. It's not their problem. The grass doesn't grow higher or faster in the ghetto, nor is it cut less often by the city. The difference is that the local people don't go out and cut it when it starts making their property look bad.

But if regular property owners have an incentive to make their properties desirable to attract higher rent, why do the landlords allow their properties to become run down slums? The answer is Section 8. Section 8 vouchers give landlords consistent income. The government doesn't care about the condition of the house either as long as it meets some unfathomable minimum so as not to get condemned, but they almost never check. The property owner gets paid whether they take care of the property or not. Since its difficult to evict the tenets and they're only paying a tiny share of the rent, they have no qualms about trashing their unit. Upkeep isn't their problem, so they don't do it. Since they have no other choices in housing other than section 8, they don't care if the place is trashed and falling apart.

Basically, because the government pays the landlords regardless and the tenets have no where else to go, Section 8 properties are allowed to deteriorate until they are completely unlivable and condemned. Once vacant, however, they are no longer grandfathered into the building codes that have inevitably become much stricter since those properties were built. Many buildings simply weren't designed to be compatible with modern fire, electrical, and ADA codes. So, the property basically becomes worthless because it would have to be torn down in order to be used. However, it often cannot be torn down because it was built with asbestos. Blight simply accumulates.

We need to overhaul section 8 and our urban building and zoning codes if we want to take a serious approach at fixing our blight issues.