CD in the Times

I was surprised when I opened up the paper today to the Pacific NW Magazine (Paul Dorpat's Now & Then is usually my first Sunday morning stop) and saw a couple of faces I recognized on the front page.  Turns out they have a big feature on our little neighborhood., including a lot of shots from Chef Brenda Lee's summer block party on 20th Ave.

They include some interesting stats on how things have changed around here in the last 10 years:

The census numbers say it all. Between 2000 and 2007, the number of children under age 5 in the neighborhood rose by more than 15 percent — about double the increase citywide. In roughly the same period, the number of all family households in the CD grew by 13.6 percent — more than three times the rate in Seattle at large. Along the way, something else changed significantly. Whites became the largest racial group — more than 40 percent — in a community where blacks had outnumbered them by more than 2-to-1 in 1990.

They also include a passing mention of an unnamed "community blog".  Unfortunately they didn't include a link that we could add to our blogroll....

Also today: Madrona resident Danny Westneat has a column that asks "Who could have saved Quincy Coleman". He gives some of the story of Quincy's family and how they tried to keep him on the right track. There's also a good quote from East Precinct alum John Hayes about the kind of personalized intervention that should be happening with at-risk kids like Quincy:

When he was 13, Quincy bought a gun from a 15-year-old for $100. Police say that moment ought to have clanged alarm bells throughout the system.

"When did anyone come together after that report — a 13-year-old buying a gun — to say: What are we going to do to get this kid back on track?" says John Hayes, director of community relations for the Seattle police. "I'm including my own department in that. Did we have an officer visit the home? That's the level of work we all need to be doing here."