{"id":1661,"date":"2009-04-21T12:22:11","date_gmt":"2009-04-21T17:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/?p=1661"},"modified":"2009-04-21T12:22:44","modified_gmt":"2009-04-21T17:22:44","slug":"graffiti-panic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/2009\/04\/21\/graffiti-panic\/","title":{"rendered":"Graffiti Panic"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a letter to the editor that I just submitted in response to an editorial in today’s H-T, Graffiti not art; it is vandalism<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n

I was disappointed by today’s editorial condemning graffiti.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than fostering a nuanced and frank dialog about complicated issues like the state of public and private spaces in Bloomington, the editorial’s intention seemed only to attempt to induce panic.\u00c2\u00a0 Why even mention the specter of gang violence when the police department confirms that graffiti in Bloomington has no relation to such violence?\u00c2\u00a0 Furthermore, I am disappointed by the brief mention of the “broken windows theory”\u00c2\u00a0 and other studies outside of the context of a broader body of research.\u00c2\u00a0 This theory, like many sociological theories, is still being widely debated.\u00c2\u00a0 For instance, one study by researchers Robert J. Sampson of Harvard University and Stephen W. Raudenbush of the University of Michigan suggests that rather than being inherently problematic to the well-being of a neighborhood, graffiti (among other things) invokes deep-rooted anxieties and prejudices that people have about changing class and race dynamics of a community.\u00c2\u00a0 Ultimately, I am far more concerned about the high costs of renting spaces, barriers to starting businesses, and difficulty finding employment in Bloomington.\u00c2\u00a0 If we do not address these factors, graffiti may be the only way that many can participate in Bloomington’s downtown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a letter to the editor that I just submitted in response to an editorial in today’s H-T, Graffiti not art; it is vandalism: I was disappointed by today’s editorial condemning graffiti.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than fostering a nuanced and frank dialog about complicated issues like the state of public and private spaces in Bloomington, the… Continue reading Graffiti Panic<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[21289,31,725,546,726,248,680],"class_list":["post-1661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloomington","tag-bloomington","tag-class","tag-commons","tag-graffiti","tag-panic","tag-race","tag-tweetit","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4wnIz-qN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1661"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1663,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661\/revisions\/1663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.terrorware.com\/geoff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}