I am my city. Nobody from my city wants to hear about my city.
My neighbors don't care that I'm an author. It's inherently ego-inhibiting.
No one is asking what happened to all the homeless. No one cares, because it's easier to get on the subway and not be accosted.
Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing.
There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.
Nothing means anything here. When they pull down an outstanding building, no one objects. Oh, maybe there's a wee protest from some collectors or something who take a picture of it before it vanishes.
It may be that we have become so feckless as a people that we no longer care how things do work, but only what kind of quick, easy outer impression they give. If so, there is little hope for our cities or probably for much else in our society. But I do not think this is so.
Black people don't own Harlem, so why should Black people care whether it burns down or not?
