Dickey,

None, but most have at least closed the gap between the haves and have-nots... That is the challenge for the US... There has never been such a wide divide...

As for the apartment "up around Rock Creek Park", it's way the heck up... I mean, almost to the beltway... That area is a notoriously slummy area... I know, I drive that way every August for the DC Blues Society's Festival... Let's put it this way,k it's so bad that you wouldn't last 24 hours there without becoming a statistic... Have you been there??? Would you want to riase a family there... Would you as a qworking mother who has to catch the 6:15 Metro bus every mornin' want to stand at a bus stop in that area???

I mean, lets get real here, Dickey... This is the projects without the Section 8 money...

When I use the twerm average it means just that... That figure was printed in the Washington Post several months ago... Average means that you take all the available housing in an area, add up all the monthly rentsa nd then divided by the number of apartments that were available... Yeah, it factors in the Capitol Heights neighborhoods and the Adams Morgan neighborhoods and the posh Georgetown neighborhoods but it also factors in "up around Rock Creek's and lots of neighborhoods in NE, where BTW, I have gone to play blues going back many, many years at Archie Edwards Barber Shop... I know DC, Dickey... I grew up 'round DC so pleeeeze don't gettin' all righteous about where folks can live fairly safely in that town...

My largest hope for you, my friend, is that one mornin' you will wake up as a 40 year old balck woman making $8.00 an hour, no husband, three kids and trying to make yer way thru life in the DC area... Yeah, that is my hope... If you had to be this woman fir just one day, you'd get it...

But that won't happen and you know it won't happen and that is why you feel all smug and comfy in yer safe little world...

That's one thing about poverty... Rich folks and their shills just don't get it...

Bobert