Case Study in Domestic PNM Theory

I’ve previously written a great deal on PNM theory (though nowhere near as much as Dan) including its applicability to domestic issues in general, in relation to the recent French riots and to the British intervention in Egypt. In order to further apply Barnett’s theory, and more importantly to demonstrate the common sense nature of his suggestions on the international level (like intervention all over the world), I’d like to take my home town as an example.

It’s a medium sized whose population is around 130,000. It’s the second largest city in the state and has been developing rapidly over the past decade. Let’s look at some statistics first:

Demographics:

Crime has also been on the rise since 2004 with the city’s crime rate for murders, rapes, robberies, assaults and so forth all worse than the national average. I did some digging and visited my state’s bureau of investigation which had even better statistics. The ones listed are based on a crime index done in 2004 and for the entire state though still representative of my city (statistics for my city weren’t divided by age/race/sex).

So, with that information in mind, let’s look at my city’s core and gap:

Starting in the north, you notice an almost perfect rectangle of Core. This is the old city which starts at the river continuing a few blocks past the large park (under the “c” in core) where it immediately deteriorates. It should be noted that after the park there are still another couple blocks of historic houses, yet they are home to the poor and are almost all in terrible condition. On all sides of the downtown Core are ghetto. However, a few minutes more drives brings one back into the Core which consists of residential area and continues for quite a ways. Between the two Core blocks are the worst areas of town.

In my next post, I’ll look at what makes this area our Gap, the current Core/Gap dynamics, solutions and how this relates to PNM theory on a global scale showing that Barnett’s call for intervention throughout the Gap has nothing to do with any sort of neocon or imperialist conspiracy but rather plain common sense. Stay tuned.