e7he ;New Work Elms April 28, 2013 The Urban Fire Next Time 1. 11111.1 MI A" 1111 By PATRICK SHARKEY are p a Y` ■ /". FOR the past several years all the ingredients have been in place for an urban crisis. Unemployment has hovered above 15 percent in many of our most distressed cities. High- poverty neighborhoods have spread beyond cities and into the suburbs. The housing collapse has left large sections of communities boarded up. And yet our cities have been relatively quiet. Crime remains at its lowest point since the early 1970s, public housing complexes have not fallen into disrepair, and large numbers of homeless people have not emerged on the streets. I don't mean to minimize the hardships faced by American families. But the downturn never made its way out of their homes and onto the streets. It has been labeled the Great Recession, but it could also be called the Private Recession. Compare the current conditions in urban America with those in the early I 980s, when the nation saw a less severe recession, yet neighborhoods were deteriorating and violent crime was much Page I 1 of 3 EFTA_R1_01956104 EFTA02674564