Crust & Crumbles - Our City, Our Story : Rockford, Illinois
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- Опубліковано 21 жов 2024
- When Jojo G. needed a job, she took a chance to call the Rockford City Market to pitch a booth. She bluffed her way into a path that has now become her career. See how this passionate mother and entrepreneur has become a model for what happens when you create opportunity.
Wow..amazing passion!
Congratulations on you hard work and success. I lived in Rockford as a kid and have many memories, mostly good. However for the last two hours I've been viewing UA-cam vids posted of the city and they are 90 % stark, run down, views of a city in the last stage of its demise. What gives? Your video, in contrast is bright and bespeaks a good place for business. Which one is the predominant picture of Rockford?
Rockford is a lot like many "rust belt" cities, worldwide. There are really two cities- the one shown in this video that is moving ahead, and another, the one that is not well. It's one of the greatest challenges facing our society today..... how to bring up the economic status of poor people to a level approaching that of the wealthier ones (by the way, there are many poor folks in RFD of all skin shades, as in most cities).
One reason RFD has a crime problem, why every urban place does more or less, is the "war on narcotics". It targets poor people. The elites don't get busted for weed, etc. If street drugs were legalized, taxed, and regulated, we would not have all the problems with gangs, homelessness, run-down unsafe areas. And that's not just Rockford, that's everywhere.
There's one other factor locally which has driven poverty up- the City of Chicago, a mere 90 miles away, basically emptied and demolished it's high rise public housing in the 90's, and gave housing vouchers to many thousands, to essentially, leave Chicago. Some wound up in RFD, Peoria, Springfield, and a hundred other towns. This helped to destabilize the status quo in many places.
It's up to us- all of us- to "re-right the ship". That will take time, money, policy changes, and willpower from all parties. Not just in RFD, but all across the country- and the world.