East Central - More Here Than Meets Eye
A Wichita newspaper editor named Buzz Merritt once likened public life to a marsh - a wonder of nature where on the water’s surface all seems calm but inches beneath your feet, microscopic life thrives unnoticed.
On Thursday evening, a roomful of residents from Spokane’s East Central Neighborhood gave some of The Spokesman-Review’s editors and writers a glimpse of what Merritt meant.
The superficial view of East Central, they said, is that it’s rundown, poor and crime-ridden. That’s the stereotype embraced by much of the broader Spokane community, but the truth, as usual, is more complex.
Crime? Sure, there’s crime. One person told of seeing children playing with what he thought were squirt guns, only to find they were discarded syringes the kids had found in a park.
Still, the actual rate of crime is higher in many other neighborhoods, residents pointed out. And Grant School, just a few blocks from the East Central Community Center where our gathering took place, is spinning heads with its rising math scores and enviable computer resources.
Older houses, neglected but rich in character, are affordable and restorable. The South Perry business district is revitalizing itself. People are involved in their schools, their community center, their kids, each other.
A month earlier, across town in Spokane’s West Central Community Center, we heard many of the same views. West Central folks also have positive tales to tell about life up and down their streets. Schools are better than the community knows. People are doing good works, looking out for their families and each other.
There’s more to West Central, folks at that neighborhood forum said, than poverty.
But one worry they did express, repeatedly, was the damage a neighborhood suffers when large numbers of house owners don’t live in them - or even in town. Absentee landlords, eager for their property investment to pay off, often rent to anyone with the cash, no matter how he or she got it. If it comes from drug dealing, the quality of life suffers profoundly - not for the landlords, of course, but for the neighbors. Kids, whole neighborhoods are less safe. Property is trashed. Everyone suffers, causing those who can to flee and those who can’t to hide behind locked doors and drawn curtains.
“Neighborhood,” you begin to realize, isn’t just a cluster of buildings inside an arbitrary boundary. Like “brotherhood” or “priesthood,” it’s a set of relationships and expectations and duties.
Neighborhoods aren’t built by absentee landlords, transient criminals or terrified and reclusive residents. Rather, they’re the work of people who choose to live in West Central, East Central and other Spokane neighborhoods, knowing they can help build something positive.
Beneath the surface, life is full and active and rich. You just have to stop and look for it.
For more, look on today’s Perspective Page where some of the people who attended the West Central forum have contributed short columns. Similar columns from East Central residents will appear in coming weeks.
The Spokesman-Review’s next neighborhood forum will be from 5:15 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 6, at the newspaper’s North Idaho building, 608 Northwest Blvd., Coeur d’Alene. People who want to attend can register by calling 509-744-5666 or 800-789-0029 (ext. 5666).