Sad stories

Talk about a way to ruin a sunny Saturday morning (1/12), a quick look the Local section.

Kyoung Lee murdered while desperately trying to earn enough money to get medical treatment for his 6-year-old son, treatment the boy should have received immediately.

Cynthia Larcom of the Homeless Coalition saying the new location of ReStart at 8th and Paseo “… is not that much farther of a walk” to Grace and Holy Trinity’s homeless lunch. Easy to say if you don’t have to do it. I see 13 extra blocks each way in a hostile environment.

Kansas City is not quite the “American Dream” of political rhetoric, is it?

Ann Straulman
Kansas City

Comments

[solomon]

So if Mike walks 12 block east to school and william walks 12 blocks west to school and Sally walks 12 blocks south to school, who walks the furthest?

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

The bottomline is that the 2nd Amendment was put in place to cure this type of crime.

[Engineer]

devin
The street grids in KC and the towns where I have worked are based on a block being 1/8 of a mile, at least they were in those locations where the matter came up. If you are dealing in land measurements and areas this is a consistent and workable measure. On this basis a square block contains 10 acres and there are 64 square blocks in a square mile. As there are 640 acres in a square mile this works out very neatly. It also is the only number of blocks per mile among those you quoted in which a square block contains only full acres.
With 12 blocks per mile a square block would contain 4.444+ acres. 13-3.78698+ acres. 16-2.5 acres. 20-1.6 acres. I suppose that because of the symmetry of the figures resulting from 8 blocks per mile and the fact that "square block' is not a figure commonly used in land titles, although 10 acres or 40 acres are, I never looked any more deeply into the matter. But you are correct in that a "block" is not a standard unit of land measurement I should have said "in local usage".

[devin]

Dang, engineer, I was just about to compliment you on educating me...but then I thought I'd check into that little factoid myself as I was under the impression a block was 1/12 of a mile. Using the query "How many blocks in a mile?" at ask.com gave a variety of useful results, but being a math geek I opted to visit the "Dr. Math" site first. There I learned that 8 blocks to a mile standard comes from the Chicago Transit Authority. However, NYC uses 10 blocks to a mile, Philadelphia uses 13 blocks to a mile, and a variety of other sources cite a block as being anything from from 1/20 to 1/8 of a mile.
So, technically, there's a lot of room to be right on this one. And if even good-ol', precise math leaves room for some gray area and multiple correct interpretations, then maybe there's a lesson about how we view the various socio-economic dilemmas that are often discussed on these boards. :-)

[Engineer]

devin
Technically a block is 660 feet or 1/8 of a mile. So 13 blocks would be 1 and 5/8s miles or 1.625 Miles. Of course City blocks defined by streets may, and often do, vary.

[devin]

yeah, I like it too :-)

Having traveled the world and spent time in areas with REAL crime problems, she's always amused by Kansas Citians when they talk about "bad areas". She's got an excellent sixth sense for areas that really do pose a danger to an outsider, and she just doesn't find many areas like that around here.

[solomon]

devin,

Very well put post. (and I like your wifes spunk)

[devin]

I see the stereotypical "lazy Americans" are out today...

13 blocks. That's barely over a mile. Actually, google maps it out to 1.7 miles, but we're still talking less than 2 miles. I live downtown and my wife and I have walked the 2 miles to Crown Center or First Fridays or Union Station on multiple occasions just because we'd rather walk than drive sometimes. I hardly see what the big deal is. Besides, I've heard multiple sources recommend people take 10,000 steps (i.e. about 4 miles) a day for good health. Given the high incidence of health problems among the poor, incorporating a 3-4 mile walk into the days of people staying at the ReStart shelter would probably be good for them.

Oh yeah, as for it being a "hostile environment", it only seems that way to someone not familiar with it. Again, my wife and I walk through downtown all the time, often at night, and never have any problems with the homeless people who hang out in the park there. Actually, I must confess once when I was walking home with my wife she showed me how prejudiced I still can be. I saw a group of a half-dozen homeless guys hanging out at the other end of the sidewalk we were heading toward and I suggested to my wife we cross the street. She laughed at me and said, "Are you serious? Those guys are friendly, I say hi to them all the time." Besides, aren't we taking about people who are already staying at the homeless shelter? Why would they be intimidated by walking around amidst a bunch of other homeless people?

[jack]

eng: Did I say it wasn't?

[Engineer]

jack
Alas, as Ann points out and you echo, the system isn't perfect. but it is much better and more successful tan any other that has ever been tried.

[T. Hanson]

To get from 8th and Paseo to 415 W. 13th KCMO...

Walk to 9th and Lydia, Take Route Bus 30 Westbound, to 11th and Grand. Transfer to Bus 25, Ride till you get to 12th and Broadway then walk to address: Total time per KCATA Website for transfers and walk. 13 minutes.

It might be rough, but it only cost $1.25 or $.60 if you quilify for the discounted rate.

[jack]

BTW: We all ready have the largest "transfer payment" program in the history of the world. It goes from the middle and upper-classes to the porrest areas of town. It is called "illegal drugs".

[jack]

Seems to me a couple of Republican presidents have proposed "enterprise zones", including tax abatements, to encourage companies to move into blighted areas. These efforts got shot down by "conservatives" who then support TIF financing for rich retailers to build stores convenient to themselves.

Seems kinda counter-productive to me.

[NoMoreMrNiceGuy]

WHile this is a sad story, pthe lefties will tell you that infusing money in the urban core, raising taxes on the working middle class, special priviledges for only certain Americans and blaming men will fix the problem.

[Stifled Freedom]

Even worse is the political priorities of the police and DAs who probably aren't going to spend much time investigating this. First he was Asian so few people will care from that point forward. Second, its murder. DAs and police priorities now are enforcing moral crimes, not real crimes. Its no fun to enforce murder because everyone agrees its wrong. Its fun to suceed in enforcing a moral crime because you get to shove your moral will onto others. This is all wrong in my opinion, but its the way it is.

This is why we have people in US prisons for months without bond for moral crimes while Osama Bin Laden hides in Pakistan for 7 years while the State Dept calls Pakistan "our ally" in the war on terror.