What do we owe as a community to our marginalized, historic neighborhoods in a community built around a university? What do we owe to students from a university on which our communities thrive? Should we view students moving into existing residential neighborhoods as a threat or should we expect this change and manage for it?

The neighborhoods closest to the university are the most impacted by students as they move in. Impacts include more noise, foot and car traffic and sometimes more trash. They also result in co-learning, resource sharing and greater vibrancy. The challenge is that many of those neighborhoods are historically African American neighborhoods that have already faced cumulative impacts of systemic racism, dis-investment and gentrification.

I've seen online comments like this one on the CHALT blog:

"Only 20% of registered voters actually voted. There are nearly 106,000 registered voters in Orange County. For this primary, fewer than 20,000 voted. Less than 20%! Surely more than 20% care about our schools, law enforcement, and the county budget."

While it's surely true that 20% is a disappointing primary turnout, let's compare off-year (non-presidential) primary turnout, and remember that 2018 was the first primary since 1958 where there was NO state-wide race or state-wide referendum on the ballot to drive turnout -- and it turns out that 2018 had an unusually HIGH Democratic primary turnout.