I believe in the broken window theory. If you fail to maintain neighborhoods, you wake up one day and things are broken beyond repair.

I was raised in a different Utah. My community was like a village. You knew your neighbors. You had supervision. You had only one parent that worked. One income raised a family.

Once, Utahans didn’t education as elitist. Education was valued and those in your family who acquired degrees were even held in esteem. People read newspapers. No one turned to AM radio to communally commiserate their victimization. This is the age of the fairness doctrine and Gun Smoke.

Our fathers served in a war. They knew life wasn’t fair. Their faith and their parent’s enduring the Great Depression had taught to feel blessed for what you had.

We never locked a house or a car door. Life in a village, wasn’t has bad, has some have you believe.

Independence is admirable. We don’t live on islands. We share our lives with others. Our fate is tied to those we share our lives with. When you stop caring and feeling ownership to where you live, your community won’t care about you.

individuals and neighborhoods can't expect the police or the city to keep them safe from gangs. They can't always be where you are, wherever you go. You need to take responsibility for it yourself. The whole neighborhood needs to bind together and shoo off any gang members hanging around (even if they live in your house). Once they find a neighborhood that will tolerate their presense you have a problem.

Where is the Batman when you need him.

need to get involved to fight these gang thugs. Weed them out of our communities and neighborhoods. Do not tolerate them anymore. Neighborhood Watch should be doubled. Community rallies should be organized to show these gang thugs that we are not going to give in to their illegal stunts etc.

Let's do it People....

I have posted this previously, we did just that in my central Ogden neighborhood last summer - we got rid of a gang household.

One major problem is rental property, now I am not saying that all rentals are problems but ownership is a key element is making and keeping better neighborhoods. So, needless to say, landlords need to also step up and ensure their tenants are good citizens.

You can contact any bank or credit union with an address and find out who the mortgage holder is of that property, last year we contacted owners so that they knew what their sleazy tenants were up to - it helped. We called 911 constantly and the police we vigilant on citing tenants for each and every wrongdoing.