heartbreaking...I can hear the pain in his voice...

I used to run a convenience store on the outskirts of the hood. This isn't shocking, it is everyday life in every city where the government has made it easier to collect a check than get a job and improve yourself. It is the only way most of the people know. Thanks, LBJ. Nice job.

Looks live videos of NYC I've seen, without the overflowing garbage cans lining the sidewalks.

That totally wasted 4 minutes of my life.

Thanks, LBJ. So true. Too many forget that LBJ's "War on Poverty" began the whole sorry descent to where we are now.

Eric Hoffer always said that to understand the health of a community or society to look first at the maintenance of the infrastructure. Filthy gum spattered sidewalks, litter, and overflowing garbage cans speak volumes.

I grew up poor. My two brothers and I had only our mother as a parent. Thank God she did not think of herself as poor or lacking self respect. "We may not have much, but we can always keep ourselves and our living quarters clean," was her mantra. She worked like a Trojan to put a roof overhead and food on the table. Her example of self reliance and hope for the future was the greatest gift I ever received. RIP, Mom.

Hi Gerard,

I was surprised at this video. Despite the voice-over from the smartphone-videographing narrator, it didn't look that bad to me. It looked like the empty streets of any mid-day city.

I didn't see the dope-taking, dope-selling, about-lazing fellows he was ranting about.

Am I missing something?

Punditarian,

The narrator lives there. You don't.

I'm assuming he paid an extra $2.50 to access that cash from a third party ATM. Right there an example of lack of investment in that blighted ghetto. The big banks don't invest in the hood unless "progressives" hold a gun to there heads.

Thank you, Mr. De Witt. You make a valid point. I don't have any reason to disbelieve the narration, or the sincerity of the narrator's convictions and emotions. However, the narrator's video images do not support the story that he is telling. The streets looked pretty empty to me, and nobody appeared to be doing anything bad.

I've seen lots of places in Latin American cities that infrastructure-wise, looked much worse: cracked up sidewalks, potholed streets, rich odors, people everywhere, some bustling, some loitering, some hustling to earn a peso. Sometimes the nicer neighborhoods too. When everybody is jamming into the cities because that's where the better opportunities are, it's hard to keep things up.

A better tell is the empty streets. Most of those big Latin American cities have cars everywhere. North Philly looks like a rural town that's hollowing out. There may be cars about, but they've got nowhere to go and no reason to get there.

It's not the physical landscape that counts. It's the cultural.

In Philly, guys like this refer to themselves--always employed as clerks, cooks, security guards, or whatever jobs that go begging--as "clean people". They never associate with what they call the "dirty people", or in this clip, "dirty niggers"' When they hang together, there is never any dope. Their jobs test for dope. They always get out of bed and go to work. They never have issues with police, or fear of them. They despise dirty niggers and that life. We hear absolutely nothing about them, ever. We hear about the dirty people being described as victims.

In Philly, guys like this refer to themselves--always employed, as clerks, cooks, security guards, or whatever jobs that go begging--as "clean people". They never associate with what they call the "dirty people", or in this clip, "dirty niggers"' When they hang together, there is never any dope. Their jobs test for dope. They always get out of bed and go to work. They never have issues with police, or fear of them. They despise dirty niggers and that life. We hear absolutely nothing about them, ever. We hear instead about the dirty people being described as victims.