Club Nats - Omaha is Hotter the Hell

Omaha and its surrounding area does not have a much of a club scene. However considering how many strong clubs there are in the San Francisco Bay Area, the club committee must have done an inept job of promoting this meet if it was so poorly attended. As for the meet in New York, when I was there I did not see the prestigious NYAC at New York's Club Nationals.Hosting the meet in New York is giving metaphoric medicine to treat a symptom. Fix the root problem if you care about the sport; don't run away from it and hoard the meet in New York City or no one else will care.The best suggestion on here was to move the meet back to May when people actively seek opportunities to run track meets.

gardens wrote:

They shouldn't be courting ANY midwestern teams.

Looking at results from 2010 (SF), 2011 (NYC), and 2012 (Omaha), the meet should VERY clearly be held in NYC every year.

Rotating it is a nice idea in theory, but practically it isn't in the best interests of the club community. No one attended in SF and Omaha, but NYC had a HUGE turn out.

If you're gonna do it, do it right.

I'm going to pull rank and close this thread down. Here is the summary;

1. The Club system is pretty much broken. Post-Collegiate runners could need an opportunity to keep running and the clubs are dwindling.

2. Club Nats is a joke. Some all-comers meets are more competive. Hosting it at a high school track in Omaha in July isn't helping the cause.

3. Omaha sucks.

4. The USATF sucks even more.

5. This Lindegren fella has a bizarre blog and needs to try some race other than the marathon.

6. People from Omaha are defensive.

End of thread.

You can't just "pull rank" and end a thread.

The Smartest Let's Run Poster wrote:

I'm going to pull rank and close this thread down. Here is the summary;

1. The Club system is pretty much broken. Post-Collegiate runners could need an opportunity to keep running and the clubs are dwindling.

2. Club Nats is a joke. Some all-comers meets are more competive. Hosting it at a high school track in Omaha in July isn't helping the cause.

3. Omaha sucks.

4. The USATF sucks even more.

5. This Lindegren fella has a bizarre blog and needs to try some race other than the marathon.

6. People from Omaha are defensive.

End of thread.

I am going to pull a higher rank and conclude you are a douche.

It's not as if there is a law restricting blacks to one part of town and latinos to another part, and whites to yet another. If any segregation exists it is primarily due to economics.

Statements like this show the absolute ignorance (and I don't mean that pejoratively, I just mean lacking information) of "color-blind" conservatives. There are indeed laws that enforce defacto segregation - that are called zoning laws the prohibit the type and quantity of housing that can be be built as well as rules regarding city/county merger and school districts. I assume most conservatives who believe this are well-meaning and just don't know what legal incentives and nudges have created the built landscape and its demographic after effects. How easy is it to get a building permit to build the kind of housing working class people can afford in Millard? Imagine a hardworking but poor black family that wanted to move to Millard. What are their housing options? Transportation options?

Can anyone guess, for example, why inner-city Atlanta is such a hole and Charlotte isn't and why Charlotte is both less segregated and has much better educational outcomes for its black citizens and an integrated school system? It is all about annexation laws and a fair school desegregation ruling (that was recently ended).

A good book on the topic is Matt Lassiter's The Silent Majority - Suburban Politics in the Sunbelt South - but the argument extend to many other towns as well.

Lassiter claims de facto segregation had its roots in ‘government programs that simultaneously developed the post-war metropolis and contained the inner city ghettoes.’ (3) The programs included ‘federally funded highways’, ‘federally guaranteed low interest mortgages’ and ‘generous tax deductions for homeowners’ as well as ‘federally bankrolled urban renewal policies.’ (1) that tended to concentrate the poor and black inside the city and allowed white middle class families to move to the suburbs. Thus there was a ‘fusion of class segregation and racial discrimination embodied in the urban-suburban divide.’

blah, blah blah,

so remind me again how this is racial segregation and not economic segregation...poor whites can't afford to live in Millard anyomore than poor blacks

thanks for trying (and ps I'm definitely far from conservative)

It is posts like this that show the absolute ignorance (and I do mean that pejoratively) of "color-blind" liberals. Wealthy people have an absolute right to live in neighborhoods of similarly situated people who live in similar houses, who pay higher property taxes for better schools and police protection, and who don't want projects erected a block away from where they live. The idea that poor minorities have an absolute right also to live in these nicer neighborhoods is pure poppycock. Now if people in these neighborhoods affirmatively discriminate against minorities to block them from moving nearby, then we have a serious civil rights issue. Is that what you are alleging here?

Also, you should note that whenever you use terms like "hardworking but poor black family" you lose any credibility. What does "hardworking" have to do with anything? Someone could be a complete dolt but have enough money to afford to move to a nice neighborhood and that's the end of the story whether he/she is white, black or green. Do you think that just because someone works hard he/she has a right to move to wherever he/she so desires even though he/she cannot afford it?

Discussion on this thread about Omaha indicates that there is somewhere for everyone.

Having lived in the midwest for over a decade, and been around the world and lived other places, I feel qualified to offer an external perspective on the type of person who finds the midwest appealing.

That person is either an uninteresting, uninspired, beige milquetoast, or a religious zealot--sometimes both.

Fair enough, there's room in the world for everybody.

The midwest is often viewed as "safe", especially for kids. What this means in practice is that it is not challenging in any way, especially socially, culturally, and religiously, not to mention gastronomically, artistically, etc.. IMHO, if it weren't for the gays, Hispanics, and Somalis in Minneapolis, the only thing here of any interest would be the lakes and the proximity to the undeveloped lands of Canada.

People here are very easily threatened, and most often manifest some sort of passive-aggressive complex. There is an insularity about it, the depth of which you have to live here to appreciate.

Even my wife, who grew up here (and in France) feels alienated, because she has had the benefit of a broader perspective, which people find foreign and therefore threatening. There is a growing community of transplants here, who integrate with each other, but it's growing only slowly.

Our days here are numbered. Soon, after the completion of some major projects, we will be leaving, unless some absurd opportunity presents itself.

There is something for everyone, but the Midwest is certainly not for anyone who cognates. We will keep our property here because it can be a great place to decompress, like a non-threatening country club. because it is so devoid of outside influences.

One final thing: having lived on both US coasts, social and cultural trends take a minimum of 10 years to penetrate into the Midwest. Seriously. This is a place stuck in time.

what an absurdly pompous post. just because you're unhappy doesn't mean you have to project that onto everyone else along with your ridiculous conceptions about what this place is or is not like...

I'm from a coast and have family on both and have traveled abroad as well. I find it frustrating that presumably or self-avowed educated and open-minded people are willing to make such sweeping generalizations.

It's not pompous, it's true.

Live and let live.

There are good reasons this is called "flyover country".

My opinions are based on facts observed over a 13-year period as an adult resident of the Midwest, combined with knowledge and experience gained living elsewhere, not just in the USA, but in Canada and Europe.

Of course we're talking generalizations here. Of course there are always specific exceptions.

But it remains flyover country.

You shouldn't find it frustrating that somebody's opinion doesn't accord with your own.

again, I'm not frustrated that someone's opinion would be different just that you are willing to pain a whole region with one sweeping generalization

and you do come off as quite pompous

sorry, that should be "paint"

The point is, of course, their "right" is subsidized with tax dollars and discriminatory housing laws. But nobody ever calls the kind of welfare that helps the middle class welfare. Build an 8 lane highway to make it easy for middle class people to live in the suburbs? That ain't welfare. A mortgage interest deduction that punishes renters? Not welfare either. Zoning laws that don't permit affordable housing in "good" school districts? Perfectly fair. Suburbanites should be taxed more because they use city services but escape paying for them. How about city/county annexation laws that annex any suburbs that reach a certain density (as Charlotte does)?

And they don't pay higher property taxes for better schools. They pay the same or lower. A lower mil rate raises alot more money in a rich area that a higher one does in a poor area.

The idea that poor minorities have an absolute right also to live in these nicer neighborhoods is pure poppycock.

This is fine and good, seriously, but please end the rhetoric of equal opportunity then and admit that some people have to work hard as hell for little and others get to coast by. A lazyass kid from the suburbs will coast into college and a decent job while any mistake to the poor kid is lethal. So let's stop saying that the virtuous rich are the target of resentment from the lazy poor. I can totally appreciate a tragic acceptance of unfairness. The keyword here being tragic.

I hope you are aware that this post makes absolutely no sense. At least your prior post made enough sense that I could tell it was wrong. This one is a pure abomination of the notion that you are supposed to write coherent statements for others to understand what you are trying to convey. I will say that there is nothing unfair regarding the fact that wealthy people don't want poor people living near them. Deal with it.

I cannot believe that the Omaha cheerleaders are so ignorant of the history of the city they love so much. There are plenty of primary sources housed in UNO's archive that describe de facto segregation in Omaha. Having reviewed many of these sources, I can tell you that you are straight up incorrect about the tremendous impact of racial politics on Omaha. It has had deleterious effects on the local economy, schools, social mobility, etc. Chew on that the next time you get jacked near Creighton U.

The housing stock in Omaha is horrible and here's why: The historical homes in Dundee, Aksarben, etc., are mostly in bad shape. Yes, cosmetically they look fine, BUT they have a lot of structural problems, mold, etc., that can be attributed to neglect, owner turnover, and the vagaries of the weather. Newer homes are mostly built by two local building companies that create a shoddy product. People are seduced by the low prices per square footage and do not know any better--that is until the siding falls off and the yard turns out to be a giant sinkhole.

Now, about those schools in West Omaha. They are nothing special. Most of your teachers there went to an open enrollment college and do not even have a master's degree. "Good schools" is really code for "white". In other words, there is nothing special about them.

Sprintgeezer nailed it. And Omaha is WAY worse than Mlps-St. Paul.

This one is a pure abomination of the notion that you are supposed to write coherent statements for others to understand what you are trying to convey. I will say that there is nothing unfair regarding the fact that wealthy people don't want poor people living near them. Deal with it.

And again, I will say the unfair part is the way government and tax dollars and local legal policies subsidize and incentivize those "choices" which are not made in a vacuum.

And, let me reiterate, of course, that wealthy suburbs tend to pay lower, not higher, property tax rates that the cities on which they are parasitic(and avoid all responsibility for the upkeep of urban areas in which they commute and work, but don't reside). You can charge a lower mill rate but raise more absolute revenue in wealthier districts. The process operates thusly:

While many Omaha residents headed westward from the inner city, others dodged integration without moving. Five separate school districts lie at least partially within the city lines. One of those, known as Westside, sits, like Vatican City inside Rome, entirely within the bounds of Omaha and OPS. Westside, which has some of the city's most expensive homes, became a distinct district just before Brown v. Board of Education (1954). As in many other high-income communities, Westside's schools are a selling point. According to Prudential Real Estate's Web page on houses in the district, "Westside's class of 2009 has set a new school record on both the reading and math portions of the SAT -- furthering Westside's reputation as one of the best school districts in the United States." The area's healthy home prices allow for the taxes that keep its schools well funded.

Unfortunately, the self-perpetuating real-estate value/school-quality feedback loop works in the other direction as well: Poor schools lower real-estate value and diminish the taxes available to improve or just operate them, in turn depressing home prices. The property value per student in OPS is nearly a third of that in some of the wealthier districts within the Learning Community. As a result, OPS is left with both more impoverished children, who are more expensive to educate, and far less money with which to do it. Of the 11 districts within the Learning Community, OPS has by far the most poor kids, with 67 percent qualifying for free or reduced lunch. (The actual number of poor children is probably higher since, in Omaha and elsewhere, some would rather go hungry than get in a lunch line that makes their financial predicament plain.)

We should fund public schools at the state or, godforbid, federal level to get rid of these defacto private schools where that tuition is inflated housing prices.

meh, Dundee and Aksarben don't seem that amazing to me, I was thinking more of memorial park, UNO, and some parts of benson just off Blondo.

If you have the means you can live wherever you choose in Omaha. I certainly don't deny the existence of bigots here, but then that's not particularly unique to Omaha, or the midwest. No shortage of rich white people on the east or west coast who want to keep their neighborhoods rich and white.

I wouldn't consider myself a cheerleader either, I just hate it when people try to mischaracterize a place. I'm just trying to give a more balanced perspective, and one from somebody who is not from here. It's not surprising to me that people who have lived here a long time are reflexively defensive about the place when it seems so popular for outsiders to continue to purvey negative stereotypes.