Columbia Not All It's Cracked Up to Be... Take It
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9/17/2012
Columbia Maryland isnt a bad place to live. It has its fair share of negatives though. But I'll start with the positives first. Columbia offers alot as a child. When I first moved to Columbia in middle school I enjoyed playing at the basketball courts and playgrounds after school. It was fun being able to walk on the paths to the village centers. As I got older though, the facade of perfect paridise began to fade away.I am now 14 and see a very different side to Columbia. First I want to talk about the terms "safe" and "low crime" that are frequently associated with columbia. Columbia is only "safe" to some. The people that Columbia is "safe" for are the middle class adults who own cars and drive every where. The adults who live in the nice houses on cal de sacs with big yards and make 100,000+ a year. But for the people and teens who live in the section 8 portions of Columbia (yes there are ACTUALLY several small low income developments scatterd throughout western columbia), and for even me, as a teenage african american boy in Columbia it certainly isnt "safe", as I have experienced time and time again. I know kids who have been robbed while walking the paths. There our fights and jumpings where again the victims (as well as the perpetrators) are the minority teens who walk every where. I live in Wilde Lake, and once saw a fight between fellow teens where one kid pulled out a knife. No one was hurt, but still. As far as "low crime" that isnt necessarily true either. Columbia isnt ghetto and the crime that does occur isnt seen by the public for the most part and isnt so blatant that it effects citizens quality of life... but there IS crime that occurs on a daily basis. The main crime that I witness is drugs. Im in highschool and honestly I could find weed and pills so easily here its not even funny. Alot of teens here smoke weed, and I know several people who sell it. I know kids who rob people. The kids that I know in my school are mixed. I know good and bad kids alike. One positive that I can say is that the schools are very good compared to others. So yeah, Im not saying Columbia is the hood or anything like that, but if you are a minority teen living here, you are more likely to be a victim of crime, and there is a fair amount of dirt that gets swept under the rug here.
John | Delaplane, VA