Monday, October 25, 2004
Nice thing about ESL - 992
East St. Louis, IL SI Kozol St. Louis, Illinois "the most distressed small city in America." "Perhaps the most crime-ridden, downtrodden, and dangerous area in the entire USA." A first-time visitor suddenly deposited on its eerily empty streets, East St. Louis might suggest another world." The city, which is 98 percent black, has no obstetric services, no regular trash collection, and few jobs. Nearly a third of its families live on less than $7,500 a year; 75 percent of its population lives on welfare of some form.
Only three of the 13 buildings on Missouri Avenue, one of the city's major thoroughfares, are occupied. A 13-story office building, tallest in the city, has been boarded up. Out side, on the sidewalk, a pile of garbage fills a ten-foot crater.
It is, according to a teacher at the University of Southern Illinois, "a repository for a nonwhite population that is now regarded as expendable." The Post-Dispatch describes it as "America's Soweto."
The nice thing about ESL - there is a freeway (route 50/44) that enables one to bypass the city and go east and west at 70 miles per hour. Walked four miles today on the trail.
Only three of the 13 buildings on Missouri Avenue, one of the city's major thoroughfares, are occupied. A 13-story office building, tallest in the city, has been boarded up. Out side, on the sidewalk, a pile of garbage fills a ten-foot crater.
It is, according to a teacher at the University of Southern Illinois, "a repository for a nonwhite population that is now regarded as expendable." The Post-Dispatch describes it as "America's Soweto."
The nice thing about ESL - there is a freeway (route 50/44) that enables one to bypass the city and go east and west at 70 miles per hour. Walked four miles today on the trail.
