18 October 2007

Social Engineering



I checked last night on my walk. No one has cleaned up the death scene at the little camp at the bottom of the wall. I have not checked this morning to see if it has been re-occupied.

I don't know who to call about it in the County Government, nor even which department might be responsible for expunging unpleasant scenes from the public view.

It must be the same ones who take down the flags on the overpasses, and pull up the little crosses that mark auto accidents.

I wondered if I should take personal responsibility for cleaning up the malt liquor bottles and the tattered mattress, but the thought passed as I trudged up the long upgrade of Lubber Run park. The stream was running more briskly than it had for several days, and when I came to the concrete culvert that crosses the little river, water was running over the top.

I stepped carefully through it, wondering why the water level had risen as the drought enters its second month.

Did the stream originate from the Carlin Springs, which is now under the shopping mall in Ballston? Had some anonymous organization in the County government turned a valve somewhere, dumping something into the narrow course of the stream far underground?

The sun was down behind the trees as I reached the top of the bluff and the light was low. I walked through the neighborhood of the little boxy houses, built circa 1941. About half have been significantly modified and half are just as they were, awaiting the death of their occupants and renewal.

The two dogs who bark frantically at me each day welcomed me with menace, first on one side of the fenced back yard, then race behind the house to crash into the fence on the other, loudly proclaiming my presence on the public street.

My usual route takes me to the end of the street where it crosses Pershing and turns into an alley along one side of the garden apartment complex that dates back to the Roosevelt Administration.

I do not normally walk up the alley. The complex is down at the heels, and there are groups of Hispanic men who hang out on the dry and dusty grounds, and the age of the vehicles parked along the cracked concrete has left it slick with engine oil, mixed with trash from picnic meals.

There are many more people living there than the original designers had intended, and that is a cause for some concern by the residents of Big Pink.

I normally walk through the Culpepper Gardens assisted living complex, since the grounds are landscaped and the fence around it is new. Now there is no choice. A chain link fence surrounds half the complex, blocking the alley on the end nearest to the parkland around my building.

I cannot tell if they are going to rip the complex down, as they did with the buildings across George Mason Drive. New town homes are going up there, with a cheery sign that advertises the completed units as “going from the low $700,000s.”

Watching the Hispanic workers putting them up, I noted that modern materials have transformed what we consider a home to be. By contrast to the flimsy wood framing, Big Pink hulks like a towering concrete bunker faced by cheery pastel brick.

Even with the housing bust, there is no location like this, and the talk around the pool was that the transformation of the neighborhood would pivot on the development, pushing the Hispanics out. The upscale construction would be good for property values, just as the switch from apartment to condominium had transformed the garden apartments north of the building a few years ago from crowded group living to young mostly white professionals.

North of those, the County apparently entered into a contract to upgrade the Buckingham complex that wraps around the strip mall where the drug store anchors the corner. The units are spare but clean. There was a day-labor operation next to the Hispanic market on the other corner, and the intersection bustles with life.

Or at least it did. There are other people on the corner now.

I asked Sashy, the office assistance about it. Her sister runs a cleaning service that I use. Her girls do not speak English, and work with frantic dedication. She has her papers, but I suspect her workers do not. I should be concerned, but I am not running for office and there is no way to beat the price.

Sashy said that the County intended for the area to be of mixed use, which is to say that some of the refurbished complexes would be reserved for low-income Arlingtonians, as part of the replacement of the subsidized housing projects being overwhelmed south of Route 50 by development.

From Sashy's view, this was not a good thing, since to qualify for the subsidized dwellings, certain documents of identity were required to be submitted along with the rental application. She thinks it is unfair, and it is hurting the people who actually do the work around here, save their money, send it home and try to better themselves.

“Now,” she said “the police are always there with their blue lights flashing.”

I crossed Pershing, and walked up to look at the buildings behind the fence. The windows have been punched out, but there is not indication yet of whether the solid brick is going to be bulldozed, or the buildings gutted and refurbished.

They are historic structures, in their way, the first of the planned developments in the nation.

I lit up a smoke to celebrate the end of my exercise. A plastic bag blew down the empty parking lot in front of the eyeless building.

I wondered what was coming across the street from where I live. A row of places starting from the low $700,000s? Or something else? Either way it will change the nature of the people who used to live there, and it is right across the street from Big Pink.

The County has a plan, someplace, and it occurred to me that I ought to go find out what it is.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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