Introduction
The community chosen for the conduct of the current community assessment exercise is Crystal City, Missouri which is located in Jefferson County 27 miles to the south of the city of St. Louis. The major idea of founding this city was the production of glass because in the neighboring territories sand of perfect quality had been found. Thus, the first settlements in the area of the present-day Crystal City were founded in 1803, while the city itself appeared in the second half of the 19th century when The American Plate Glass Company and Crystal Plate Glass Company were united into Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company, and the name of the settlement was changed from New Detroit to Crystal City.
Nowadays, Crystal City is a small but developing town in Missouri that lies along the Mississippi River. Its population, according to the 2000 Census is 4, 247 citizens with 1,622 households, and 1,111 families, while the area amounts to 4, 1 square mile. The following paragraphs will reveal the social conditions of the community taking into consideration such significant elements as housing, transportation, commerce, race, politics, and some others (Crystal City, Missouri, 2008).
Housing and Zoning
Housing, as one of the most important aspects of every community, is not very varied in Crystal City. In other words, there is no distinct division of housing units according to their age, because the majority of houses and buildings in the area were built in the first half of the 20th century, while the average age of the housing unit in Crystal City is 47 years. According to the architectural style, it is also mainly uniform because all the houses of the old-style possess no specific distinctions and are similar t each other. Only those homes that were remodeled by their owners differ in style and design and are more likely to use modern materials like plastic, while the old ones use wood, stone, etc.
The placement of the housing units is standard neighborhood form with differences observed in property and décor of houses. Houses are detached with detached garages and a private parking area located off-street. On the whole, housing is in good condition, it keeps to the style of “little town” and is accessible for potential buyers – the average cost of buying a house in Crystal City amounts to $144,900 (Crystal City Real Estate, 2008).
Space Use
The use of space in Crystal City is rather adequate meaning that residential areas take the main part of space in this small town. Due to the fact, that Crystal City is small, there is a little number of commercial and financial institutions taking space in the city. The communication of people in Crystal City is close as the population is comparatively small and all people know each other unlike in large cities. As for the use of open space, it is mainly public in the town.
Crystal City possesses over 5,500,000 square feet of enclosed underground climate-controlled space. Another interesting feature of the open space in Crystal City is the presence of cobblestone in the open space in some areas of the town. There is one park in Crystal City that allows its residents to have rest and take care of their children. Thus, the use of open space is free and public which means that community members are in close contact with authorities and with each other (Crystal City Underground, 2008).
Boundaries
As far as the location of Crystal City is rather peculiar, it is considered the twin city of Festus. Together, these towns constitute the so-called “Twin Cities” which have much in common but certain boundaries between them can be observed. The major visible distinction between the two towns lies in the style of architecture and age of the housing units. Festus is a more modern settlement that is the home for sporting institutions and cultural facilities, while Crystal City is characterized by older architecture. Nevertheless, except for this feature, it would be difficult to differentiate between Crystal City and Festus.
Thus, only the political boundaries between the two towns allow people to know what town they are in, and no natural boundaries can be observed between the community and other areas. Consequently, the community members very often resort to using Twin Cities instead of differentiating between Crystal City and Festus (Twin City Area, 2008).
Common Areas
The common areas for gatherings of people in Crystal City are the restaurants that are few in the town, the Crystal City Tavern, the Bowling Alley, Andrew’s French Quarter, Chicken Charlie’s Fried Chicken which caters to all the age groups. There is no actual differentiation of common hangouts for Crystal City residents except one – Crystal City Tavern allows attending only to people of 21 and older. In other common areas, no differentiation according to age, sex, or any other criterion can be observed. The common areas are also characterized by their being open for residents of Crystal City, strangers, and newcomers to the town. The interesting thing about the common areas of hanging out is that they are all busy and crowded almost every day of a week (Crystal City, 2008).
Transportation
Transportation is one of the issues of Crystal City because there are no public transportation facilities available for the residents who need to get to the nearest towns for the purposes of work, health care, or rest. However, the majority of residents have adjusted to this condition and reach their destinations either by their own cars or using the carpool technique with their friends or colleagues. Another way out for Crystal City residents is to work at home which is rather popular in the area. Thus, 86% of residents reach their works by their own cars, 9% resort to carpool, while 5% have an option of working from home using the Internet.
Consequently, traffic is not rather lively and no signs of road accidents or traffic problems can be noticed in the community of Crystal City. The names of the streets in Crystal City bear no substantial information about some characteristics of the history of the area. Bailey Road, Mississippi Street, and others exist in Crystal City together with ordinarily numbered streets, streets bearing state names, etc. An interesting detail about the transportation facilities of Crystal City is the overall understanding attitude of the residents to the fact that no public transport is available and living in Crystal City is connected with numerous transportation issues. The residents are adjusted to it and have developed their own ways to solve these issues, like for example carpool (Crystal City, MO, 2008).
Service Centers
The issue of service centers is rather important for the proper and effective existence and operation of every community from which Crystal City is not an exception. As for the educational facilities, Crystal City has one elementary school and one high school which both cover the needs of education of such a small community as Crystal City. There is a public hospital in Crystal City that covers the needs of health security for its residents and for the citizens of neighboring communities like example Festus and other communities. The signs of activity of the above-mentioned educational and health service centers can be noticed easily.
Schools are busy with the education of the children from Crystal City and the neighboring territories, while on weekends they are closed and no signs of their activities are present. The hospital works through the whole weak without any days off to ensure the proper level of health care for Crystal City residents. Citizens of other communities, including Festus and others, also use the services of the hospital and it is busy every day of the week. As for the offices of health practitioners, dentists, spiritualists, and others, there are no such facilities in Crystal City. Also, there is no library in Crystal City and no kindergarten which means problems for parents with young children who have to drive them to Festus or remoter communities to have them cared about (Crystal City, MO, 2008).
Commerce
Being a small town, Crystal City has no large stores or shopping giants on its territory. The major place for shopping that all the population of Crystal City uses is the Kmart and trade lots in the specialized areas. Due to the small area of the town, there is no need for its residents to make use of special means of reaching the places of shopping. Everything is close to the shopping center of the town and the residents can reach it walking or driving either a bicycle or a moped. For those who want to go shopping in a large store, like Walmart for instance, there is an opportunity to take a 15-minute drive to Festus community where the nearest store of this company is located.
As for the financial or social differences between the residents of various neighborhoods in the community, no such phenomena can be observed in Crystal City. In other words, the residents of Crystal City are pretty equal in the levels of their income and therefore they display no visible differences in their shopping tastes and opportunities. Among the whole variety of possible goods for sale in such small towns as Crystal City, grocery takes the dominant role. No large chains of groceries are, however, available to the residents of this community, and this fact makes them travel to Festus rather often. Food is cheaper than the average US level (Crystal City, 2008).
Street Scene
There are no homeless people in the street because Crystal City is characterized by a medium but stable level of income of its residents and there are no people who live beyond the line of poverty. Usually, few people can be seen in the streets of this town, and those whom one can see are mainly children playing calmly and riding their bicycles, or grown-up people who like to walk peacefully along the Bowling Alley or other streets of Crystal City.
The style of dressing is rather casual for the majority of people that can be met in the streets of this town. The only exceptions are people who are going to churches on Sundays or on some holiday occasions. These people are usually dressed up, and this is also what one can expect from the resident of a small town. Stray animals can not be observed in the streets of Crystal City. The only animals one can see are the pets of the town’s residents. On the whole, the picture in the streets of Crystal City is what one can expect from a calm small town (Crystal City, MO, 2008).
Community Growth
Crystal City community is growing from day to day due to the construction projects that are launched in the town for the purpose of building a modern and convenient neighborhood to attract new residents and investments to the town. However, at the moment these projects are put on hold and wait for the local authorities and investors to decide all the issues concerning them. Simultaneously, sporting arenas and indoor facilities including a stadium and an underground sports complex are planned for construction by The Crystal City Planning Task Force. Local newspapers and public talks discuss the necessity of adding new attractions to the city and developing its business infrastructure. Thus, all signs of community growth are present in the town (American FactFinder, 2008).
Race, Ethnicity, Religion
Racial discrimination is not observed in Crystal City due to its multiracial population. There are 91,53% of people of the white race, 4,8% of African Americans, 0,6% of Asians, 0,29% of Native Americans, and 2,08% of those who do not refer themselves to any of the above categories. Among these people, only 0,59% claim their Hispanic origin, while 99,41% of the population are non-Hispanic. Information in the town is presented in English which is the native language of the majority of the population.
There are no private schools for different racial groups, and the only piece of evidence for the multiculturalism of the town is the presence of catholic, protestant, and congregational churches. Thus, religion is not uniform in Crystal City either. There are 40,65% of religious people on the whole among whom over 15% are Catholics, 21% are protestants, and the rest of the population exercises some other religion. The only religion which is not represented in Crystal City is Jewish (American FactFinder, 2008).
Politics
The situation with politics is rather calm in Crystal City meaning that local residents are not much in politics. The major interests of these people are work, family, and recreation, while politics takes a peripheral place in their outlook of the world. However, political posters, exclusively those connected with the current presidential election campaign, can be observed in the town. Their number is not large, but the majority of those posters promote Obama for president.
From this, the conclusion could be made that Crystal City is a democratic town that has affiliations with this party, but the absence of any other evidence of this does not provide any grounds for such conclusions, especially taking into consideration that 49.38% of the people in Crystal City, MO are registered as Democrats, 49.99% are registered Republican, and others who claim to be independent amount to the share 0.63% of the total population of Crystal City (American FactFinder, 2008).
Media
Media is a rather difficult issue for Crystal City, as there is no local television station and to watch TV one has to possess a satellite antenna or a cable TV. There are also no computer centers and using the internet becomes difficult in the area as no covering of the worldwide web is observed in Crystal City. However, there are numerous radio stations, like for example KTBJ (89.3 FM; FESTUS, MO; Owner: CSN INTERNATIONAL) or WIL-FM (92.3 FM; ST. LOUIS, MO; Owner: BONNEVILLE HOLDING COMPANY) that broadcast their programs for the town residents and people in the towns they are located in (Festus, St. Louis, etc.). There is also a newspaper titled “Leader” which is published and distributed for free every Thursday. Newspaper is, consequently, the most accessible and important medium for the local community (Crystal City, 2008).
Community Personality
The feeling that the community of Crystal City brings is a peaceful and calm one. There is no chaos typical of a large city like New York or Los Angeles, and harmony among people can be observed. On the whole, this is a good community where it would be pleasant to live for every person. The reasons for such attitude towards this community are as follows:
- typical small-town atmosphere;
- harmony and friendly relations between residents;
the community’s being open for strangers and newcomers;
- natural beauty and welcoming air of the town.
Analysis of Data
Thus, from the information obtained from the soft and hard data about the community of Crystal City, the following conclusions can be made. Crystal City is a small but rather specific town due to its location and inner peculiarities. This is a calm town with a little number of residents but with numerous opportunities for those who either own or rent a house in it. Nevertheless, this town, as well as any other settlement, has its own issues in the sphere of public health and respective attitudes of the community towards those issues, whether they are current or only potential. The most significant issues for public health in Crystal City are as follows:
- the remoteness of the town from the big cities and respectively from the modern means of health care;
This issue is of special significance because there is no opportunity to reach a large hospital with modern facilities within a short period of time. In case of serious illnesses or emergency situations, like tornados, earthquakes, etc., considerable problems can be connected with it.
- comparatively high crime levels;
This issue is not of primary importance because the rate of crime is measured by a 10-point scale in which 1 is the lowest level, and Crystal City has 3 points according to this scale meaning the medium level of violent crime. Nevertheless, public health is considered endangered by such rates of crime.
- road accidents and technological disasters;
This issue seems to be rather irrelevant in the area with no private transport and rather weak traffic on the whole. Nevertheless, on the scope of such a small town, the statistics of victims of road accidents are rather troublesome. Each year 1 person is killed in road accidents in Crystal City, and about 2 or 3 people are seriously injured.
- natural disasters;
The possibility of natural disasters in Crystal City and Missouri, on the whole, is 98% higher than average in the USA. For example, Tornados of 1959 and 1981 killed over 20 people and caused damage equivalent to $50,000,000.
- environmental conditions;
Air quality in Crystal City is much worse than in the USA on the whole, while the quality of water is slightly better only due to the fact that the number of industrial facilities in the area is limited to glass-producing factories. Thus, it is a dangerous situation for public health, and the Crystal City community has to deal with it.
- social security;
The levels of social security, especially in respect of super funding, pension schemes, and health insurance, are in bad conditions because for example, the super funding reaches only 20 points on the 100-point scale while the average USA level is 71 points. Thus, these issues should also be dealt with, for instance by means of reforming the local bodies of authority and reconsidering their social policies at a higher level, at least at the county or state level.
- anti-sanitary in places of public use including the famous issue of tattoo saloons.
This issue is of huge importance because it attracts much public attention as the cause of high rates of cancer in the community. The anti-sanitary in such places causes social protest and issuing legislative ordinances regulating the supervision of working conditions of tattoo saloons. On the whole, the situation with public health is rather problematic in Crystal City due to the above-considered issues, but there are means, also discussed above, by which the community can solve them.
References
American Fact Finder. (2008). Crystal City, Missouri. Crystal City, Missouri. Web.
Crystal City. (2008). Crystal City, Missouri. The Power of Place. Web.
Crystal City, MO. (2008). City Overview. Sperling’s Best Places. Web.
Crystal City, Missouri. (2008). City of Crystal City. Missouri. Web.
Crystal City Real Estate. (2008). Crystal City Homes and Real Estate Listings. Web.
Crystal City Underground. (2008). Project Overview. Web.
Heldi, M. (2008). Press release. Health dept wants to oversee tattoo, piercing shops. Jefferson County Leader. News: Crystal City.
Twin City Area. (2008). Crystal City, Missouri. Web.