What Is Wrong with Cully, Oregon - 1201 Words

The first occasion by which I heard about Cully, was not a good one. It was mentioned as being a troubled area that needed a lot of help. In my mind, a lot of neighborhoods need help; what makes Cully so special? Everyone keeps talking about it, but I don’t see what the big deal is. As time went on, I began to hear more about Cully, and it began to spark my interest. I began to read articles and stories from and about this neighborhood; they all mentioned the same thing: Cully is Oregon’s most diverse neighborhood (Cusack). According to Jane Jacobs, diversity is one of the five major building blocks of successful neighborhoods, so Cully’s diversity is a good thing! Yet, if this is true, why do most people believe it needs â€Å"a lot of help†? On our FYLC field trip to multiple neighborhoods, Cully was on the list. I was excited to see it because I wanted to know if it looked as troubled as some make it seem. When we finally arrived, we weren’t able to get out of the vans and talk about what we see (like we did at every other neighborhood we visited), but we simply drove through it while someone pointed out little details along the way. From what I saw, Cully didn’t look too bad; it looked really quiet. The houses we saw all looked the same, and it looked relatively ‘boring’. I wasn’t able to see how diverse it is because no one was really outside. Is this the same area all those newspapers and articles were writing about? If one were to simply walk down the streets of Cully,