the black skirt initiative |
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since our perfect black skirts take no effort to wear and pull off more easily than a cheerleader's prom dress --
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The
Black Skirt
Initiative
sponsored by
Ideal Garment
coming soon
to a desolate
urban landscape
near you.
Dress the butt
you have
home + buy something
faqs & figures + testimonials
about + contact us
the black skirt initiative
ideal garment
bottle bidet
cooking as courtship
troost avenue
tulips on troost
contact us
ideal garment
4518 troost ave.
kcmo 64110
816-206-6837
idealgarment.com
theblackskirtinitiative.com
New Hoboken (facebook)
The Black Skirt Initiative is conceived as a way for people in neighborhoods to use their own labor to bootstrap a pot of gold to get a neighborhood back in the game. It is modeled after other, classic fund-raising tools, such as Girl Scout cookies. But unlike girl scout cookies, Black Skirt Initiative black skirts are not made in a factory, and do not add inches to your hips.
Aren't you happier earning your money and then spending it on things important to you, rather than having to explain to a bureaucrat why you want to do one thing or another? Won't it be better for neighborhoods to build their own wealth to spend as they will, rather than depending on the largess of largely incompetent and generally careless city governments and social agencies?
Backstory 1
Areas of a city or a town fall into disrepair, become centers for crime, and embark on a downward spiral which is difficult to reverse. Not impossible, though. Money and compassion for neighborhood can undo the damage, but it is still a trick. Money, though, is the first thing, absolutely required before anything can happen -- building materials cost money and money is the very thing that a neighborhood in deep disrepair finds almost impossible to obtain.
Neighborhoods that have fallen into serious blight of whatever variety are difficult to bring back to life. Sometimes the city around them experiences a revival which quickly or slowly makes property valuable as such, and people resuscitate the urban core in the natural course of events. That's nice, but also condemned by many as displacing of lower income residents and denigrated as "gentrification" by urban commentators.
That is a specious argument, as the very properties "lost" to gentrification would not have been lost if the residents had gotten into positions of ownership during the bleak period, (which is very easy if one is willing to do the hard work to resuscitate a building), and affected their own neighborhood improvement. I don't think anyone argues that it is best for neighborhoods to be left in a state of accelerating disrepair, that boarded-up and vacant buildings and houses are good for children, that drug dealing and prostitution are industries to be nurtured rather than rooted out. If the people who are there don't do it, eventually someone will.
If neighborhoods do not fix themselves, do not find the wherewithal and creativity to get the houses back on track, to get up early in the morning to revive small commercial areas for local, economic vibrance, eventually a outside developer will turn a greedy eye to the "deep hood" and have their way with it. Hello strip malls and Section 8 housing. Goodbye historic houses and local business.
Or the city might one day decide to plow everything down. The feared "gentrification", which is code for "white people" but really just means people of any color with legal, taxable income who can afford to replace a roof and repair the crumbling steps, and who possess an intolerance for crime, is way better than either of those other choices. But the best thing is for the neighborhood to get off its ass, fix itself up enough that others would want to live there, which increases property values and so personal net worth, gives people the opportunity to send children to college or help grandchildren get set up in business. People start wanting to live there, and a neighborhood thrives.
The time to start that process is when values are low, when the neighborhood is still grim and despised, when buying a house or a building is very easy, comparatively. Ownership inspires individual and personal investment and improvement. Things get better. But you do have to be open-minded about who might move onto your block. They might be an artist. Or someone who does not look like you. Intolerance from within can kill a neighborhood as fast as real estate profiteers from without.
Backstory 2
The urban landscape is in large part bleak and foresaken. It is easy for affluent people in the suburbs to explain this away, sure that the people in the urban core are to blame. That they have somehow not worked hard enough or been smart enough or what ever, and that is why they live in third-world urban squalor, sometimes just blocks away from tranquil and pristine historic neighborhoods.
But like all phenomena, this is not so simple. It turns out that the cycle of blight is a more nuanced and vile thing than the apparent poverty would suggest. Blight and urban desolation is never merely, or even at all, the result of lazy, careless people. It is invariably the result of some kind of bigotry, usually racism, that is exacerbated and even nurtured by moneyed interests who can and do profit from the destruction of urban communities.
In the most common case in the USA, real estate developers buy up inexpensive out-lying land, and then use racial scare tactics to convince people to ditch their perfectly fine homes in the city for these new suburbs which are safer, cleaner, whiter. The National Association of Realtors, and particularly one of its founders, J.C. Nichols, came up with this brilliant plan around 1920 to profit from racism and anti-semitism, right here in Kansas City, and such deplorable practices became the norm for the nation for the next thirty years, until the Supreme Court finally condemned the practice.
Kansas City generally ignored the 1948 ruling, and continued on its merry way for a few more decades, destroying its urban landscape and infrastructure to a degree which for the past thirty years has been considered irreparable. The devaluation of property in the despised and perceivedly black parts of town has been cruel and complete.
Which led, naturally, to property being picked up at tax sales by bottom-feeding, profiteering speculating slumlords who know that centrally located urban property always regains its value. Eventually. Spoiler alert: The insistence of these white male speculators on getting the big profit from a national retailer needing the centrally located property, has kept the natural course of urban renewal cycles from occurring, has kept values low but prices high (I know... weird), and has barred individuals from acquiring property and making something of it. Hmmm.
Anyway. Nothing is irreparable. Houses in forsaken neighborhoods which are often abandoned and boarded-up, and which many people will tell you "must" be torn down, can in almost every case be brought back to life for a fraction of what it would cost to build even a piece-of-crap new house.
Which is mainly what gets built in the urban core. Mysterious! I know there are frugal, intelligent and contemporary ways to build houses, and rich people do it all the time on remote scraps of land to create this or that vacation retreat. But when it comes to building in the urban core, junk construction of mean-spirited conventional architecture is the standard. Seldom a porch, even though porches are the main key to having a healthy urban neighborhood. Materials which look shiny and new, but which dissolve in water, and so create a maintenance nightmare for the resident. Too-large mortgages which favor the developer and guarantee that he will head back to the suburbs with his pockets full of cash, but which too often lead to foreclosure for the buyer. And yes, they are always "he". And yes, this phenomenon is directly related to the current mortgage debacle.
The systems in place to repair the urban core are themselves broken beyond repair, while the historic, if mangled neighborhoods languish, suffering and sick, battered beyond recognition, but not terminally ill. Sick and sore, and in need of the time and resources to heal, but not at all dead. Yes, they need an injection of some kind, like a vitamin shot of funds for good building materials and some professional guidance and help. What they do not need are amputations and perversely inappropriate plastic surgery on their battered selves, and "doctors" to prance off with bags of money which can never be repaid except in the form of destroyed lives.
Our particular goals, here in New Hoboken
This first Black Skirt Initiative, sponsored by Ideal Garment and benefitting the New Hoboken Ladies Improvement Society, is aiming to create botanical gardens, tourist amenities and leasable space appropriate for and available to small businesses, in order to transform a most despised block of a city into a gorgeous jewel. It isn't such a big deal, as the property in question is very well located, adjacent to all the best parts of town, covered with historic buildings and connected to parks and green spaces. It will be a transcendent and long over-due transformation of what is really a very terrible, grim and shameful situation. You can learn all about our vision for our block, and hopefully soon about other visions for other neighborhoods at the Facebook Open Group, "New Hoboken".
Don't you just want to help? And wouldn't it be grand for you to wear your fabulous black skirt, knowing that your happy body is contributing to the happy healthfulness of the urban landscape? When people ask you where you got your fantastic skirt - and they will - you can tell them all about how much fun you are having looking and feeling marvelous and doing good besides. Honestly, we just can't imagine why you wouldn't buy a Black Skirt.
home + buy something + faqs & figures + the black skirt initiative + testimonials
ideal garment + bottle bidet + about + contact us
ideal garment + 4518 troost ave. + kcmo 64110 + 816-206-6837
idealgarment.com + theblackskirtinitiative.com + New Hoboken (facebook)
Neighborhoods that have fallen into serious blight of whatever variety are difficult to bring back to life. Sometimes the city around them experiences a revival which quickly or slowly makes property valuable as such, and people resuscitate the urban core in the natural course of events. That's nice, but also condemned by many as displacing of lower income residents and denigrated as "gentrification" by urban commentators.
That is a specious argument, as the very properties "lost" to gentrification would not have been lost if the residents had gotten into positions of ownership during the bleak period, (which is very easy if one is willing to do the hard work to resuscitate a building), and affected their own neighborhood improvement. I don't think anyone argues that it is best for neighborhoods to be left in a state of accelerating disrepair, that boarded-up and vacant buildings and houses are good for children, that drug dealing and prostitution are industries to be nurtured rather than rooted out. If the people who are there don't do it, eventually someone will.
If neighborhoods do not fix themselves, do not find the wherewithal and creativity to get the houses back on track, to get up early in the morning to revive small commercial areas for local, economic vibrance, eventually a outside developer will turn a greedy eye to the "deep hood" and have their way with it. Hello strip malls and Section 8 housing. Goodbye historic houses and local business.
Or the city might one day decide to plow everything down. The feared "gentrification", which is code for "white people" but really just means people of any color with legal, taxable income who can afford to replace a roof and repair the crumbling steps, and who possess an intolerance for crime, is way better than either of those other choices. But the best thing is for the neighborhood to get off its ass, fix itself up enough that others would want to live there, which increases property values and so personal net worth, gives people the opportunity to send children to college or help grandchildren get set up in business. People start wanting to live there, and a neighborhood thrives.
The time to start that process is when values are low, when the neighborhood is still grim and despised, when buying a house or a building is very easy, comparatively. Ownership inspires individual and personal investment and improvement. Things get better. But you do have to be open-minded about who might move onto your block. They might be an artist. Or someone who does not look like you. Intolerance from within can kill a neighborhood as fast as real estate profiteers from without.
Backstory 2
The urban landscape is in large part bleak and foresaken. It is easy for affluent people in the suburbs to explain this away, sure that the people in the urban core are to blame. That they have somehow not worked hard enough or been smart enough or what ever, and that is why they live in third-world urban squalor, sometimes just blocks away from tranquil and pristine historic neighborhoods.
But like all phenomena, this is not so simple. It turns out that the cycle of blight is a more nuanced and vile thing than the apparent poverty would suggest. Blight and urban desolation is never merely, or even at all, the result of lazy, careless people. It is invariably the result of some kind of bigotry, usually racism, that is exacerbated and even nurtured by moneyed interests who can and do profit from the destruction of urban communities.
In the most common case in the USA, real estate developers buy up inexpensive out-lying land, and then use racial scare tactics to convince people to ditch their perfectly fine homes in the city for these new suburbs which are safer, cleaner, whiter. The National Association of Realtors, and particularly one of its founders, J.C. Nichols, came up with this brilliant plan around 1920 to profit from racism and anti-semitism, right here in Kansas City, and such deplorable practices became the norm for the nation for the next thirty years, until the Supreme Court finally condemned the practice.
Kansas City generally ignored the 1948 ruling, and continued on its merry way for a few more decades, destroying its urban landscape and infrastructure to a degree which for the past thirty years has been considered irreparable. The devaluation of property in the despised and perceivedly black parts of town has been cruel and complete.
Which led, naturally, to property being picked up at tax sales by bottom-feeding, profiteering speculating slumlords who know that centrally located urban property always regains its value. Eventually. Spoiler alert: The insistence of these white male speculators on getting the big profit from a national retailer needing the centrally located property, has kept the natural course of urban renewal cycles from occurring, has kept values low but prices high (I know... weird), and has barred individuals from acquiring property and making something of it. Hmmm.
Anyway. Nothing is irreparable. Houses in forsaken neighborhoods which are often abandoned and boarded-up, and which many people will tell you "must" be torn down, can in almost every case be brought back to life for a fraction of what it would cost to build even a piece-of-crap new house.
Which is mainly what gets built in the urban core. Mysterious! I know there are frugal, intelligent and contemporary ways to build houses, and rich people do it all the time on remote scraps of land to create this or that vacation retreat. But when it comes to building in the urban core, junk construction of mean-spirited conventional architecture is the standard. Seldom a porch, even though porches are the main key to having a healthy urban neighborhood. Materials which look shiny and new, but which dissolve in water, and so create a maintenance nightmare for the resident. Too-large mortgages which favor the developer and guarantee that he will head back to the suburbs with his pockets full of cash, but which too often lead to foreclosure for the buyer. And yes, they are always "he". And yes, this phenomenon is directly related to the current mortgage debacle.
The systems in place to repair the urban core are themselves broken beyond repair, while the historic, if mangled neighborhoods languish, suffering and sick, battered beyond recognition, but not terminally ill. Sick and sore, and in need of the time and resources to heal, but not at all dead. Yes, they need an injection of some kind, like a vitamin shot of funds for good building materials and some professional guidance and help. What they do not need are amputations and perversely inappropriate plastic surgery on their battered selves, and "doctors" to prance off with bags of money which can never be repaid except in the form of destroyed lives.
Our particular goals, here in New Hoboken
This first Black Skirt Initiative, sponsored by Ideal Garment and benefitting the New Hoboken Ladies Improvement Society, is aiming to create botanical gardens, tourist amenities and leasable space appropriate for and available to small businesses, in order to transform a most despised block of a city into a gorgeous jewel. It isn't such a big deal, as the property in question is very well located, adjacent to all the best parts of town, covered with historic buildings and connected to parks and green spaces. It will be a transcendent and long over-due transformation of what is really a very terrible, grim and shameful situation. You can learn all about our vision for our block, and hopefully soon about other visions for other neighborhoods at the Facebook Open Group, "New Hoboken".
Don't you just want to help? And wouldn't it be grand for you to wear your fabulous black skirt, knowing that your happy body is contributing to the happy healthfulness of the urban landscape? When people ask you where you got your fantastic skirt - and they will - you can tell them all about how much fun you are having looking and feeling marvelous and doing good besides. Honestly, we just can't imagine why you wouldn't buy a Black Skirt.
home + buy something + faqs & figures + the black skirt initiative + testimonials
ideal garment + bottle bidet + about + contact us
ideal garment + 4518 troost ave. + kcmo 64110 + 816-206-6837
idealgarment.com + theblackskirtinitiative.com + New Hoboken (facebook)
Don't you just want to help? And wouldn't it be grand for you to wear your fabulous black skirt, knowing that your happy body is contributing to the happy healthfulness of the urban landscape? When people ask you where you got your fantastic skirt - and they will - you can tell them all about how much fun you are having looking and feeling marvelous and doing good besides. Honestly, we just can't imagine why you wouldn't buy a Black Skirt.
home + buy something + faqs & figures + the black skirt initiative + testimonials
ideal garment + bottle bidet + about + contact us
ideal garment + 4518 troost ave. + kcmo 64110 + 816-206-6837
idealgarment.com + theblackskirtinitiative.com + New Hoboken (facebook)