Last week I wrote a column about my personal experiences on the South Side of Chicago.  My purpose was to frame the issues in terms of sequestration: when a region or area is overwhelmingly of one socioeconomic or racial class, it gets cordoned off – literally and figuratively.  Other classes know little about it in experience and understanding.   Stereotypes predominate.  Economic and cultural gaps persist, even widen.

This is a two-way street.  An obvious example is the gap in understanding between people who have lived all their lives in hyper-urban areas – say East 55^th Street in Cleveland – and people who have lived exclusively in very rural areas – say farm country near the Ohio River.  When the only experience of another way of life is popular media, the lack of understanding can be fractious indeed; witness the current divisions in American politics. » Continue Reading.

About a month ago I crafted a little poll for readers to take.  The purpose of the poll was to test a hunch: that of all the issues affecting the future of the Adirondack region, the one I happen to think is most important goes all but unrecognized.  So I wrote descriptions of the ten issues I had selected, trying not to tip my hand or show bias, and released the poll.  The results, while interesting in their own rite, validated my hunch even more than I had expected.

Here is your ranking, the aggregate of more than 150 responses (some of you may notice that the results are different than published by me three weeks ago – additional responses broke the three-way tie for third place) :

» Continue Reading.