Crime

There are many approaches to handling and reducing crime. Many laws have been made as well as policies to help prevent crime or lower crime rates. For example the Law Enforcement Act of 1994 helped reduce crime in the 90's. Prisons also changed because their inmates started to get in programs to help make them better citizens. Other acts put into play such as the three strikes act in California has been a deterrent to help reduce crime. Police agencies have been more community oriented over the years. This has gotten the public a chance to understand police and their everyday jobs. When communities have high rates of crime, community neighborhood watch should be implemented to help reduce crime. Also, residents should have agreements with each other to share information that could result in a crime occurring. If a neighborhood has lots of violence, then the police department should have extra units to patrol that area. The recent proposals to have guns on campus I believe harms efforts to reduce crime. I honestly don't see how having guns on campus does any good at all, but instead allow students to have guns in and around the classrooms. Most people don't know how to use a gun therefore having thousands of students with them is not a good idea.

Economic Development Director

I'm assuming the role of an Economic Development Director of the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas, Nevada brings a lot to the table. First off, Vegas brings in millions of people each year for vacation due to the large amount of beautiful hotels, resorts, and casinos. There are many attractions in Vegas besides the main strip such as Red Rock, which is a family oriented set of hiking trails as well as many shows and night clubs to have a good time during the night. Vegas is a booming city the way it is, but there are always ways to draw more attention and people to a particular area. Vegas would bring growing businesses the chance to flourish due to the influx of new people all year long. For new businesses, Vegas is a great choice because there are always new people to the area so small businesses can quickly grow and develop. Some ways to improve cities and their prosperity would be to create more attractions. So in my case, as acting city development director, I would present the idea of building a baseball, basketball and football franchise to this city. This proposal to the city council, i believe would be greatly appreciated and looked upon as a great investment for this city. Vegas is already one of the largest cities and developing city in the U.S. however, this city is lacking major sports venues. I believe this would bolster the economy, create new jobs, and bring millions of dollars and revenue to the city of Las Vegas. This would be a major city advancement and I think the locals would love the idea of having sports team to represent their city.

I believe the Hope Vi grant program is a great idea for developing cities. This program can provide small cities with funds, and renovation to help restore and promote growth throughout the area. I would definitely consider applying for the grant for development if I felt my city was in need to additional funds for advancement. I believe this would have a positive impact on the homeless and the unemployed as well, because the nicer the city, the better everyone will be. Lower income residents would have the chance to get better jobs and provide growth to the city. Overall I think the community would benefit from this program.

extra credit

As far as high speed rail projects go, I think mainstream economists would support these ideas. The reason I feel this way is because they provide alternative ways of transportation as well as easier accessibility. I believe economists like the fact of having high speed rails because it will reduce pollution as well as provide less rush hour traffic. There will be fewer accidents and less fossil fuel being burned daily if more people were to take high speed rails. Economists are always thinking what’s better for the economy but fail to realize that people may not always agree. What may be easy for some people may not be easy for all people.

My stand on high speed rails is that I believe it’s a great idea. I think that these projects are costly and will affect many people when it comes to their taxes but I also believe that people will benefit in many ways. For one, it will provide people with a different way to get around town. It will provide ease of transportation and keep people from driving and using their cars at times. I believe this will help keep traffic jams to a minimum and will also provide people more direct route to and from their jobs. Rail projects will also provide cities with growth opportunities because people will be able to travel faster and easier. I am definitely for these projects.

Education by Nick

Everyone has always heard the saying "education is so important and a necessity in life to succeed". This is something all our parents have probably relayed to us at one time or another in our early lives. This is true to an extent. Back then, every child was told that they need to go get an education and go to college. So students had this goal and went about trying to achieve it. The problem today is that this push as we call it or thrive that is presented to our children or students does not have the strength it once did. The message is no longer strong enough to push students. I believe society itself has gotten lazy and that is why students today are not graduating and dropping out of college at rapid rates, simply because they are not influenced enough and not pushed hard enough anymore. Another major concern in education is the focus. Today, there are too many factors distracting kids from going to school and getting an education. Drugs, TV, Violence, video games, and excessive partying are causing students to be distracted which in turn causes lower test scores and lower graduation rates. If this continues, more and more students will fail college, drop out, and find other things to occupy their time which usually aren’t the best choices. We as a society need to find a way to distract students from the distractions and get them back on course with school. Another strong concern for education is the lack of funds and teachers to teach students. Today, more and more jobs in education are being terminated which means larger class sizes and less materials for students to use. This will result in less focus, less learned, and a higher dropout rate as well as failure in life. Unemployment the past few years has been the lowest in a very long time. If teachers don’t start getting paid what they should, as well as being hired by institutions, it’s our kids and grandkids that are going to struggle the most in life. We may struggle in life now without an education but if education continues to go downhill, society as a whole will fall into turmoil. I feel the videos view on education and alternatives to failure were a bit abstract. They weren’t really focused on one particular way to improve education. However, I feel that education is not simply going to be fixed by a single policy or law, but rather than a strong push by every member of society and government. No policy will fix something completely. It may help but the overall cause will not be affected.  Politics have always played into education as well. One individual voted in by the people may be strong on education where other politicians may not consider education a great concern. I think politicians over time have both positively affected education and vice versa. I believe it all depends on the politician. In my own opinion, I feel that a more centralized system of education would get kids on track. I feel that there are too many educational systems in the country that are failing because they don’t have the funds or teachers where other parts of the country have the best. I feel that id education is treated as the military, then test scores would increase in poor areas and the system of education would equal out throughout the country. Teachers should be assigned to schools just like soldiers are assigned to a particular base. This way, there is not once place lacking qualified people. It sounds a bit farfetched but if you think about it, wouldn’t poor areas of education seem to get better? I do believe that changing paradigms will benefit our society. I believe all students and members of society need a new focus and alternative in order to become more successful.

Blog 2...Middle Income Family of Four!

            I am assuming the role of a hard working citizen whose income places me in the middle class. I also have a family of four. Picking a home or a place to move to can be very difficult, especially when you are trying to consider many different factors. There are all different types of aspects to consider such as commuting time to work, how good the schools are, and how much is the cost of living. It is not easy for a household of four to find the right place to live because of so many factors to consider. My wife and I make decent money which places us in the middle class. We are able to deal with a mortgage and have a strict budget when it comes to open spending. We would like to have our kids go to good school district so the quality of the schools is very important to us and high on your priority list. We would also like to be able to commute to our jobs in less than 20 minutes. Saving gas and not having to wake up super early is very important to us. Also, there must be stores relatively close to avoid having to travel far distances for groceries and clothing.

            With the help of some models we learned in class, I would most likely chose Las Vegas, Nevada to move to with my family.  There are many reasons for my decision and with the help of different models we learned in class, we feel like this is the proper city to settle down in. What made me chose this particular area for one was the Urban Indicators. This helped me break down my decision. The Urban Indicators include housing, education, transportation, crime rate, and many others. The housing market in Las Vegas these days is very affordable. I can get a lot of property for my money and also be able to afford the mortgage. Education in Las Vegas is on the rise due to the influx of people from other cities. Las Vegas is one of the fastest growing cities in the country, so I know my kids will receive a good education. With Las Vegas becoming as big as it is, transportation is abundant with lots of public transportation and major highways for traveling. Crime is somewhat high in some areas but every city has its good and bad areas. The Concentric Zone Model was also much help in my decision. We would most likely end up in zone 4 of this model. My wife and I are college educated and want to have nice things, including a nice house. We wouldn’t want to be too far from work so zone 4 seems about right. Zone 5 would be out of the question because we want to keep our commute time down. Overall, this city seems to be the perfect place for my family of four. Most of our needs are available here and all our priorities seem to be completed.

First Blog by Nick Leiman

Hey guys, my name is Nick. This is the first time Im doing this blog thing so bare with me. Im a senior here at ASU and I also live in Avondale AZ. Ive lived here for two years now and Im orinally from New York, where I graduated HS and grew up. Yes that means I love the Yankees, Giants and Knicks, so hopefully ill meet some other fans in the class as well. My major is Criminal Justice and Im taking this class because it is a class that falls under related areas for my major. It seemed interesting enough and I also liked the fact that its a quick class this semester. Im 22, full time student, and also work full time for T-Mobile. A lot of my family members are high ranking officials in law enforcement therefore Im looking forward to following in their footsteps. I should graduate by the end of this year.

As for the first class, I was quite pleased with how it went. To be honest, I wasnt quite sure what the class was about but by the end of it, I had a clear understanding of what we are going to learn this semester. I learned a few new things so far such as the real meaning of what a policy is and how it is incorporated into our society and everyday lives. No one really thinks much about how much work goes into policy making and when I learned about the policy cycle today, it made me think about the details and steps that must be taken to create a policy. The fact that people must first identify the problem, formulate solutions, adopt, implement and evaluate a policy really truly defines policy making. The other thing I really enjoyed learning about today in class was about the different types of policies. I always for one, thought that a policy is a policy. I never quite understood that there are many policies such as distributive, regulatory, self-regulatory and redistributive. Just like anything else in this world, there are always issues with something. When it comes to policy making, the 5 critical issues is something that really came to me clearly during our first lecture. Overall I enjoyed class and look forward to our next lecture.