Southside Bethlehem

While waiting after work in Southside Bethlehem for the bus to come, and while looking out the window as the bus drives through the Southside, I often notice that I am the only white person around. This is interesting to me because there are white people that live and work in the Southside, but they are simply nowhere to be found. On the other hand, people of African or Hispanic or Native American or Middle Eastern origins are all around town, walking along the sidewalks, entering and exiting local businesses, gathering in small groups of neighbors to talk about the day’s events.

I begin to wonder if the white residents and workers of the Southside have purposely retreated into their own private worlds. This would be consistent with what has happened in other areas. White people tend to feel threatened and unsafe in areas of high concentrations of minorities… especially low-income minorities. Therefore, whites often abandon these areas for “safer” areas. I know I’m guilty of this. I am always a little nervous while waiting for the bus on the Southside, and I still have a fear of walking too far up and down 4th Street. Of course, anyone who has spent any time walking around the Southside knows that this fear is ridiculous. Everyone that I have come into contact with on the Southside is very friendly, which catches me off-guard a little bit. Why is that? Why do I have to assume that someone with a darker skin color than mine in a low-income neighborhood is out to get me? Logically, and from experience, I know this is not true, and it is especially not true in the lively and community-centered Southside. But I still feel threatened. Maybe it’s my own arrogance that makes me think that I am special enough for some stranger, even a menacing one, to take notice of. Maybe it is a reaction that I learned as a child. Maybe it’s a natural reaction, as some claim. Or maybe it is a consequence of the negative sensationalist leanings of our media (cliche, but true when you think about it). I’m really not sure which one it is, but it creates a unique and difficult to solve problem when it comes to walkability.

An area’s walkability is determined primarily by its amenities geared toward pedestrians. A neighborhood that contains finely-gridded, narrow streets with a variety of different kinds of destinations (shops, civic areas, parks, etc.) is much more walkable than one with wide streets that invariably end in cul-de-sacs and only contains an endless array of cookie-cutter houses. In other words, areas that are built to accommodate modes other than car-travel and that have interesting things to see are more walkable than areas that do not. But there is another side to walkability, and it is probably more obvious than what I’ve just described. A neighborhood can have very narrow, interconnected streets with wide sidewalks and a slew of very interesting places to visit, yet it could also be extremely unwalkable. Why? Because that neighborhood is unsafe (think central Allentown) or is perceived to be unsafe (such as some think of the Southside of Bethlehem). Safety is the key, and, unfortunately for the Southside, perception is everything. But the situation is more complicated with the Southside. Here’s why: white people don’t feel safe, so they don’t walk there but, instead, stay confined within the safety bubbles of their houses and cars (or university campus); people of color, on the other hand, feel completely safe and apparently feel no need to spend their free time anywhere but outdoors. This is the sign of a strong, vibrant, and sustainable community that the white residents, unfortunately, have (or want to have) little or no part in. This, however, is not an unusual occurrence. For those of you Salt Laker’s, this same dynamic is taking place on the west side in neighborhoods such as Rose Park (you know, the place often referred to as the “ghetto;” try walking its streets sometime, and you’ll be amazed!) where the neighbors of color are out and about being neighborly and the white folks have fenced off their yards. This is the future of American community, folks, and white people are largely missing out!

I won’t even pretend to know how to rectify this situation. It might be that the best thing to do is nothing, allowing white Southside residents to eventually see that their community is changing for the better without them. And it is changing for the better. The Southside seemingly gets a new locally-owned and operated business every week, and those businesses have, for the most part, been sustainable (compare that to just about anywhere else in the country right now!). The Southside also is having tens of thousands of dollars per year invested in building façade and weatherization (and other energy efficiency) improvements. And perhaps most importantly, a major bank (or any bank, for that matter) has finally committed to opening a branch on the Southside (translate: the powers that be think the Southside is worth investing in again).

I don’t mean to make this a racial issue, but what else can it be? And while most racial segregation issues (whether intended or not) have seemingly benefited the white community in the past, this is one instance in which they (or we, since I’m white) are, decidedly, at a disadvantage.