Like An ATM For Lowlives*

A few years back, they put in a Starbucks at College Ave. and Fall Creek Parkway. It's a hardscrabble kind of neighborhood, caught between gentrification a couple blocks South side of Fall Creek and the slow, inexorable growth of Broad Ripple (Actually, SoBro, the Southern boundary of Broad Ripple being either Kessler or 54th St., depending on who you ask).

Fine, fine, there was a lot of blather about revitalization, nobody forced Starbucks to open up at that location, there's plenty of traffic and it's got a drive-through so commuting yuppies can feel all nice about helpin' the poooor without having to so much as set foot on the ground. Good for them and no bother to me, since I won't drink Starbucks brew. (I drink coffee, not bizarre concoctions frothed up in a machine, flavored with heaven-only-knows and served hot enough to parboil a mouse).

As inevitably happens when you go to a tough neighborhood and put up a nice shiny whatever patronized by yuppies and other outsiders, the place got robbed last night. Local television news is expressing great outrage of the "how dare they" sort, cloaked in a thin veil of suburban we-tried-to-help-them amazement.

...Grow up, vid-kids. Most of the people in that neighborhood are nice, law-abiding folks; perhaps reticent with outsiders but having lived in like areas, I know it's not without reason: the suit'n'tie on a Lexus is like as not to be shoppin' for dope or what is politely referred to (listen up, politicians) as a "date," quotes and all.

Most people everywhere are good and decent. And some are not. When a nice, shiny business shows up amidst the downtrodden, not everyone there will react to the opportunity thus offered in quite the same way; not everyone will welcome it with open arms and some few will look on it in the same manner that a small boy looks at a cookie jar. And with the same end result.

What's surprising is that this surprises anyone.

Update:
Thanks for linky-love! ...Seems a blog about "neighborliness" (as defined, established and policed by large committees in our metropoli, well-known havens of the open hand, friendly smile and cheerful lending of a cup'a sugar) has cited the media coverage as an example of reactionary badness. Initially I took umbrage, thinkin' my (snarky) take was being looked down upon; the blog's owner says au contraire, 'twas not the case. Okay; thanks for taking the time to explain.
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* Tam's title. I offered to not use it but she threatened to cry have the cats throttle me in my sleep. Gonna hafta get her to take her own temperature -- I fear she's come over all altruistic or somethin'.