Urban Planning, Crime and the Dothan Wiregrass Mall

Father Aaron spokes with a local Dothan, Alabama resident Jimmy McCray, who has started a petition for the city of Dothan to intervene concerning the Dothan Wiregrass Mall. The shopping center has experienced, along with a trend of declining malls across the country, significant neglect over the previous years, with retail occupancy low and lackadaisical private security. Along with his associates Brianna and Gianna, Jimmy is seeking intervention from the city to use the tools available to them in urban planning to reinvigorate the mall since it currently serves as a potential nexus of misbehavior and crime. They discussed explanations for negative gathering spaces and different theories that point to solutions. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hello everyone. Today I had the opportunity to speak with Jimmy McCrae, who is a local resident here in Dothan, Alabama, who has noticed that over over time our local shopping mall has basically fallen into disuse. It still has some shops there, but really it's not frequented the way it used to be. And due to his per his view, from his view, due to the neglect of the current owners, it's fallen, it's become something of a nexus for crime and misbehaving individuals. As a result, he's started a petition for the city of Dothan to do something about this, to step in where they need, where they can. It's not obvious what can be done, but there are some solutions that he proposes, and that his petition is for the city of Dothan in its capacity for urban planning to uh strive to solve this problem. Anyway, with his associates uh Brianna and Gianna, we're the four of us were able to have a conversation about what is what role do cities play in urban planning, encouraging uh positive gathering spaces as opposed to becoming negative uh places that are a nexus for crime. And uh what are the, you know, I contend that the church focuses on you know what it is interior, but he wants to focus on the what the what are the exterior conditions and what can be done in order to create the best conditions for a community to thrive. Anyway, join us for this journey. Thank you for coming to talk to me. The goal in when we started the podcast here is really been to just be a place to create good conversations. Um, I think that any church in the community, if you're really trying to you know have a positive impact, you're trying to facilitate conversation between people. Um, you know, the old adage seek first to understand, then to be understood. And so that's just basically what we were trying to accomplish. So there are many, many, you know, last year our uh Mayor Sleva was our first guest. Okay, and that kind of helped launch it. And then after a while, I've gotten a chance to talk to other people around the community who like running various different ministries, uh, the Blood Bank, or even Kerry, who you know started the thirsty pig. Yeah, yeah. We were like, Oh, a priest talks to a bar owner. Yes, of course I do. But it was it wound up being, you know, all these conversations have really been interesting for how they kind of touch on one, you know, the person who's doing something locally and why the people got ought to care.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Right? So that's my perspective. Uh, if if nothing else, hopefully this is an opportunity for people to kind of just you tease out the conversation whereby you know people who you know are of goodwill, people are you know, in a Christian context, ought to think about what's going on in their world. You don't want to be so heavily minded that you're no earthly good.

SPEAKER_04 3:06

Yeah, right, right? Right.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

So I was intrigued when you, when we were both at the city commission meeting at the same time, and you brought up an issue that I had thought about many times, but had never articulated how you did. Because we lament the fact the death of malls and how it is that it seems. I mean, I came from one of the big cities I lived in was Houston, Texas. Uh-oh. And um, you did see, you know, Amazon kind of killed malls in some regard, but that's not the only reason for it. Exactly. Uh, gathering spaces are sometimes uh are are you know, some uh people have anxiety about like do I really want to go downtown where it's all everything's all together? Exactly. Well, it's several different malls in Houston, and they had like one that was right downtown, the Galleria. Right. That's the high-end mall. Right. And then there's like this mid-level mall that's up on the edge of you know the urban area, and then way on suburbia, they had a third one. You can kind of like see kind of you know the clientele and what they attracted and so forth. And I was always curious about that too, because it seems like these are gathering spaces for different cross-sections of society. That's right. And they're either and and it's possible for places to be a positive gathering space or a negative gathering space.

unknown 4:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

And and if you're not you have if you're not continually vigilant, it can go from one to the other. Easy.

unknown 4:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 4:34

And so and I lamented when I go to they say the mall, the mall here in Dothan, right? That just I'm like, obviously, this has had its heyday. Oh yeah. Previously had its heyday. Oh yeah. Uh, but I don't want to see it become go from like someplace that everybody loved to shop. Back, you know, you see these AI, AI um video shorts sometimes. I've seen these floating around my feed where it says AI has now generated your mall experience from the late 80s, early 90s during Christmas time. And you're walking through some things where you actually would want to be there, and you're like, that doesn't exist anymore.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Exactly. Exactly. What mall is that? I don't know where that, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

But the local Dothan mall here seems like because of either mismanagement or because I don't know. I there's a lot that I don't know. I'm amazingly ignorant about this, but it just doesn't, it seems like it's becoming something of a nexus for negative congregation.

unknown 5:29

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:30

And you brought that up in the city right commission meeting, and I really want to shut up and let you talk.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Well, that's fine with me because uh as I said and been saying, you know, the mall here in Dothan, which is called Wildgrass Coming Mall, was once considered the crown jewel of the city of Dothan. Okay. But not just the city of Dotham, but for the whole Wildgrass as a whole, hence the name Wildgrass Coming Mall. You know, so with that being said, you know, uh unfortunately in the last couple of years, we've had what, maybe three to four shootings, right? You know, and not to mention uh the robberies, the assaults, you know, that has occurred and uh what they call B and E's, you know, breaking the inner of uh motor vehicles. You know, all of that has uh pretty much cast a sad shadow over what used to be a happy place or a place of gathering for the common person here in the city of Dothan, you know, and with that being said, you know, we took it upon ourselves to take the fight back to the city to say, hey, listen, we want something nice again in this spot because this spot is uh prime real estate. You know, it's in a great location. It offers too much to just go to the wayside. And again, it can once again be the crown jewel of Dalton. Right. You know, we just need someone to care enough to say, hey, let's make this once again a nice safe place for our young people can come and gather and be safe.

SPEAKER_04 7:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

You know, well, let me back up a little bit because I don't want to leave out our uh mature crowd as well, because they used to go to the mall as well and you know, feel safe and walk around and exercise as well. But now, you know, they're afraid to go.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

So one of my many jobs was working in a um, you know, worked in retail jobs. Everyone's had like 12 jobs at the course they're like exactly. But one of the jobs I had early on was I worked in an art gallery in the mall, and they always talked about they say, Well, you want it when you get here in the morning, you want to get you need to get here before the mall walkers.

SPEAKER_04 7:36

Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:37

Yeah, what are the malls is that a science fiction film? What are the mall walkers? That is real. It's like it's this whole group that just needs that as their they need to walk their laps, right? You want that to be a safe space for them too.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Yes, yeah, yes, yes, you know. So uh, like I said, you know, it's just not only for young, young, uh young crowd, it's for our mature crowd as well. And you know, uh just for mothers with uh kids, single moms that just want to just get out and let their hair hang down.

SPEAKER_04 8:05

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

You know, so again, you know, it's not too many safe places here in Dothan for that to happen. And you know, that space is one of the few, and I think it's worth reserving, you know. So again, you know, with my crew, you know, uh we plan to take the fight as far as we can take it and as far as you know, God allow us allow us to take it.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

So what and let's kind of backtrack a little bit. How long you've been y'all been residents here in Dothan?

SPEAKER_00 8:32

All your life here. Um I'm originally from Chicago. Okay. Um I've been here 13 years. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

So I'm born and raised here, so I've seen it from um from the 80s to now. Uh I'm grass rooted here, so uh I have a true vested interest because this is home for me. Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

And I grew up here and I um I guess watched them all, you know. I I saw the glory days before the recession, before everything. And um then I moved away from college, came back, and I was like, Where'd them all go? You know? Oh yeah. So it's definitely hit close to home for me.

SPEAKER_03 9:08

Have you seen um oh gosh, you know, this is gonna date me here when my kids were little, we saw the movie Cars. Yeah. Yeah. And there's this tear-jerking moment where they talk about how you know Route 66 went through it and the interstate went past them. And so now it basically left their, you know, what used to be their town became the ghost town. That happened to my hometown way up in way up in northern California. Oh, I'm northern California. So we get very offended when people in San Francisco say that they're in northern California. No, you ain't. You're the northern tip of Southern California.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

So you'd have been now south, but I hear you talking about no, you ain't.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

So, no, no, we but that's what happened to Reading, where I grew up, right? Is that you know the downtown mall, that was where Santa Claus was, that's where all the shopping was. And then Interstate 5 and a new mall was formed over on this side. And basically downtown became a ghost town area, and it became kind of an attractant for um you know places where you didn't want people, you didn't want everything to happen. Right. And so I haven't been that in many years. There may have been some revitalization efforts, but the simple fact is that I mean, when's that when that management and all those stores and it just wasn't the commercial hub, uh, it seemed like it fell out of out of sight, out of mind.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 10:27

Right. And in terms of the security that the business owner was willing to pay for and the attention they received from everybody else, how quickly things were cleaned up and trash was collected and so forth. It just was an unfortunate thing. And um, so I know that that started me thinking about years ago. I'd heard this broken window theory. Right. If you're familiar with it, that sociological explanation for you know that we can't that. I think I really saw it talked about out of Detroit when Detroit realized that the more derelict buildings are left unattended, right, it becomes kind of an attractant for more misbehavior. It's it's basically an ambient symbols of chaos. Because you can be surrounded by symbols of order, which possibly can incite you to kind of be more orderly.

SPEAKER_04 11:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

Uh uh versus if you're surrounded by vestiges of chaos, case in point, um, you if you've traveled abroad, right? You know that garbage collection is one of the first indicators of the first world. You know, it means like we just we just have this expectation that someone's gonna come over and pick up our garbage. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 11:35

Right.

SPEAKER_03 11:35

And you go to some areas of the developing world, and that's no expectation at all. Everywhere. And so you yourself may be the most clean freak in the world. You may be very conscientious about always throwing away your gum wrappers and everything like this. Uh, but when you're there, do you have the same habit then? So I mean, you I mean, if you if you travel abroad, like I would never litter here, right? Because here I am in maybe a clean space where because when you litter, it stands out. And boy, I really feel like a horrible person. Right. I littered in a clean space. Right. But if I'm saying in Peru or Mexico or whatever, someplace in the developing world, and trash is everywhere. Am I gonna go looking for am I gonna be walking 100 yards to find a garbage can?

SPEAKER_01 12:22

Because it's it's acceptable.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

So you have these, you know, and these conditions of chaos that I'm sorry, I don't want to interrupt you.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

No, no, I was just gonna add on to what you were saying, you know, because again, you know, we don't want people to think that it's just us against them all, because it's us against really the whole uh atmosphere of violence here in the city of Dalton. And to speak on the climate, the climate of what you're talking about, you know, when you drive around the city of Dalton, you see that some parts of it is what just what you said, you know, full of trash and just look deserted and like, oh my god, do people really live here? Right. And I've always been a strong proponent of if you treat them and they live like, and then I'm not calling anybody any kind of names, but if you treat them like rats, what do you expect them to act like? Right, you know, because a desperate person would do desperate things, you know, and it's about uh not giving nobody anything because people always say, oh, you just want to give people no, I don't want to give people nothing, okay? I always believe in earning what you get, okay? But I also believe in giving you a first shot at being able to earn it. So it's about giving the opportunity, you know, and and showing folks the better part of life, yeah, you know, because if all you see is negative, that becomes your norm. And what's normal to you may not be normal to the rest of society. So when you step into the other part of society with your norm, people kind of looking at you like, what did this person come from? Like, wow, who, what, you know, but again, to that person, he looking at the other people and going, Why y'all acting like that? Again, that ain't that ain't normal. So you got two words colliding, and it's all because a misunderstanding, or somebody was left out.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

You know, I I had a friend, I had a friend back in um California. Um, he was a he was a good friend of mine. Right. He grew up in different scenarios, different systems, but uh but he used to you say he'd say, Aaron, you are so white. What do you mean? Like, and I am not talking about your tan. I'm talking about you just go into areas now, and every near thinking about the fact that you stand out like a sore thumb. Right, yeah, and just like you know, so just tap that down a little bit if you could. Yeah. Try to like, you know, just be at least a little self-aware of this. I understand, I get you. But you know, it's a but you're right though, in that the sense of there there is a res there is when we talk about misbehavior in our area, there is a sense in which that is um response to conditions. That's right. Um, like like I said, am I the same clean freak here in the in the developing world that I am here? Right. You know. Um, but how much of that there's so there's an exterior condition side of that. How much there is an interior side of that too? Um, I think that there's this place for the church because we're our target, you know, people sociologists, anthropologists, government officials, they're always trying to deal with the exterior factors. In the church, we're our target is always the interior.

SPEAKER_04 15:35

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03 15:36

We're laser focused on the heart. Yeah. And our view is, and I and this is I come from this perspective. You've you're heard you're familiar with the shopping cart theory. Okay. Uh, shopping cart theory is you know, it's the best indicator of people's self-governance. Right. Because you go across you go across the shop, you know, the parking lot of publics, and the person who returns their shopping cart is the person who's more likely to be self-governing because there's no reward for returning your shopping cart, and there's no penalty for not doing it. They're just doing it because they have this sense of wanting order in the world, right? That's self-discipline. And so they're self-ordered in a sense. So that's a heart issue. Yeah, there's no you're not being fined at Walmart Republics because you didn't return your company.

SPEAKER_04 16:24

Right.

SPEAKER_03 16:25

Okay, Aldi won't give you your your quarterback, but but but but at other stores, you're not penalized for not returning your cart, you're not rewarded for getting it. So there's no incentive, there's no exterior incentive. Yeah, it's all internal, internal drives, uh apart from maybe not wanting it to bang your own car. There's all internal drives to return your shopping cart. So shopping cart theory has to broken paint theory is the exterior factor, shopping cart theory is it's internal. And so so how so we're we gotta kind of like how do we come at it from both ends? I don't think it's the government's job to try to reach hearts. I think that's the church's job.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

So before I comment on that, because I've been told I talk too much and I kind of take over a lot, I'm gonna let one of them address it first, and then I'm gonna definitely have something to say on it. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

Sure. Um, so before going into anything, I would say to go back to what you started off with um about uh Amazon killing the convenience of malls. Um so to start there, that is just such a common misconception. It's just not true with our generation. It has been statistically shown by sociologists that um my generation, I'm in my 20s. Um, so Gen Z and um millennials, they're they're yearning for the malls. Um they yearn for a third location um outside of home, outside of work, outside of church. Um, since a lot of that's been lost. You know, there's not a third place for our generation to go anymore, to come to congregate anything. Um the camaraderie's lost. And so on top of that, plus um online shopping, uh, like against all statistics of how much Amazon makes every year and everyone else online makes, it's just not what my generation's looking for, you know. Um, so that's already like affecting people's everyday lives, you know, the people want to go and spend Saturday with their kids or want to go spend Saturdays shopping around them all and being able to put their hands on a tangible item, you know? And so it's already starting a little, a little piece of something starting in everybody, you know? Um, and it's being able to bring together how all of us feel. You know, we were all we all miss them all. Yeah. And now um because we all unitedly miss them all, is okay, it's a little start in somebody's heart. And now it's being able to get everyone's heart together on it. So, like you said, going back to the church 100%, um, the church being able to get to a mass amount of people's hearts is mainly our goal with it as well, being able to hit the masses.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

I'd really like to echo what you're said there because all of our research suggests that the third place, I think it was well, I mean, sociologists have described the first place as home, second place as work, and the third place is your voluntary association. And so our, you know, for us, uh, we felt as though somewhere along the line the church lost their role as the third place. Yeah, yeah. Um, and to be the hangout space. Yeah. Uh I I don't want to speak to any specific information, but there is a contingent of people that got used to just showing up, going to the production and leaning. Yeah. And and um, for us, we tried to reclaim the third place here where we can. We even call it the third service. It goes Sunday school mass porch. And so it was just like out there where no one wants to leave right away. And so, uh, and that was one of my favorite papers I did in grad school because I said, you know, I I made the case that under the Walmart model, under the Starbucks model, the church conquered the greatest empire the world has never known. And the Starbucks model is uh specific size on every corner, all trying to be the third place basically. Under the Walmart model, it's been that you know, Christianity's been in decline in the West. Yeah. Uh because people just can't be the family of God after after a certain size.

SPEAKER_04 20:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:15

And so, but I hear what you're saying about the third place, because I do think that that, especially as our devices have made us more as uh really disconnected, yeah, the yearning for connectivity is grown even more.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Insanely because as social media rises, sure, that's connection, you know, in quotations, connection, right, right. But people are losing the actual serotonin of meeting somebody, you know, the dopamine rush they get when they are shaking hands. That's the thing.

SPEAKER_04 20:40

Yes, oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

And being around people just in general, it allows you to feel something, you know. Um, you know, even if it's irritated, people who are um totally isolated and don't know they're not people person, whatever, um, they still still feel an emotion when around people, and we're losing that.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

In our tradition, we would refer to that as sacramental human contact. Yeah, you know, that thing that that that the the that aspect of human contact that cannot be transmitted through the internet. Simply can't. And so I I think that we're both kind of talking almost on the same thing this way. Yeah. Sorry, we haven't gotten a chance to give you an opportunity at all.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Well, um, so I feel like yes, the we have gotten away from the coming together as a society and coming in when it comes to the mall, it is a place where everybody knows. Because as we're out here on this campaign trail, we're we're talking to people, and people are saying, you know, man, I remember what it used to be. I I love going to the mall. I mean, from all ages, they do miss it. They want that socialization, that place they can go to just hang out with their kids and their families and meet. Meet people, the young people, meeting other people and congregating together and having fun and just relaxing, just chilling, you know, on a Saturday or a Sunday or a Friday. You know, so I feel like they say, oh, people don't shop in in public places anymore. That's not true. Because they are shopping in public places. We see if you go to Atlanta and some of the major cities, the malls are flourishing. The numbers have declined because people are afraid of the violence that does occur sometimes, the shootings and stuff. But people do go out and shop. You go to any mall of the, it's people are shopping. They're going inside the malls, you know, and and not as a mass number that it used to be, but it's still a good number of people. And I believe here, if we were to get our mall back in shape and revitalize our mall, I know the people are going to be there. Women and men, I've heard the testimonies, I've heard the stories, I've heard, you know, the appeal to say, hey, we do want our mall back. We want to go back there. I would love to go back if they were put the stores back in the mall and revitalize the mall. I will shop there. I I loved it, what it used to be. So to say, you know, people have gotten away from it or people don't want to, that is not true. It's just what the I feel the management, mismanagement, and ownership has done and allowed the mall to succumb succumb to, you know, because had if they really invest into the mall, people will come. Right. It will be a flourishing place to be once again.

SPEAKER_03 23:53

I I agree with you. And just from an entirely selfish perspective, yeah. I really like be able to just be again in that place where you can take the time. And for again, this I'm trying to have to speak from the perspective of a guy for a second. When you're trying to shop for your wife, there you go. You need to be able to just walk mindlessly laps around this facility until the idea hits you. There you go. Because you may not know what it is when you first get there. Yes. Right? I speak for I feel for more men than just resolve on that.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

I have to agree to that. Yes. You know, but for me, you know, I I look at it as, you know, uh, it goes back to the saying, uh, it takes a village, you know, and everybody's included in that village, you know. And for me, uh, if you leave one section out, it affects all. You know, so if one secedes, it all succeeds, you know. So again, the the camaraderie, you know, the gathering, the being safe, and and and just the fat of uh that dopamine feeling, as she said, you know, that's all real, you know, and I think that technology has really replaced a lot of uh human interaction. And with when that happens, as me and her was talking earlier this morning, you know, you start to lose that uh person-to-person feeling that you have for somebody. Because if you if we interact on a regular basis, I look more to you as now as a human or more to as myself, okay, versus me using my phone to talk to you a lot.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

If I'm using my phone, it's just, hey, this is just the object. But if I'm face to face, I see you as a human and a real person. So I have I have to now, you know, respect how you feel and how and where you're coming from and all of that. Right. But on a phone or technology is just, okay, well, it's good when it works, and when it don't work, it ain't good. So if our connection is good on this technology, okay, we can match. But if it's not, then you know, everything falls apart.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

I I you we all know the difference, well big difference between correlation and correlation and causation. But I always do find correlations curious sometimes. And various different trends in violence and dehumanizing behavior toward one another seems to correlate with the rise of our devices. And just where you now, what uh you know, genuine sacramental flesh-to-flesh human interaction is supplanted with strain time. And so there's a two-dimensional interaction with supposedly other humans that on the one hand doesn't have the all the same consequences of talking to someone face to face, seeing it in their eyes, what their reaction is. Exactly. As a result, that in some cases induces responses to them that you would not say to their face. That's right. That's right. I mean, I you spend any time online, you realize, oh, that's why the doctrine of hell is still alive and well. Because you go, there's you because somehow, if in many according in some interpretations, the an interpretation of hell is being forced to sit there while all your tweets are read aloud in front of your mom.

SPEAKER_04 27:21

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:24

You know, you have to suffer the embarrassment of that. Right. You're like, well, I didn't think it was, yeah, you were talking to an actual person who did that, and your politeness dropped sharply, and theirs did too. And it dehumanized us all of that. That's right. So again, I don't want to try to make causation assertions, but a lot of um correlations are curious. That's right. And that's why, in many cases, when you talk to uh you know people dealing with early childhood education, um, one of the first things I for a short time I worked um with a classical Christian school. Okay. And when students were being interviewed for to be part of the school, the first things we asked is how much stream time did they get? And and for a long time, parents that were using their tablets as babysitters for their kids would argue over what were the best apps for them to use, was it more educational, whatever? And no one ever stopped to think, going, that's like saying, you know, you know, is this is or you're playing with this alligator, your child's playing with an alligator. How well did you decorate it? Right. Like they're all alligators, right? There was all this the danger, actually, was the fact that they were staring at a screen all that time. And it was it was rewiring their their mind to you know, in a dehumanizing fashion. I don't know. I'm I'm I'm a little biased that way because I'm old and ruppy.

SPEAKER_04 28:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:47

But now for yourself, and so I don't know what that has to do or how that what there are the ramifications with what you're talking about with the city, possibly if it's your petition is for the city to take ownership of the mall.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Well well, it's not it's not to take ownership, that's not the only part. So uh it's three components in it. And and uh the first one is we asked that the city force the mall to hire well-armed train security for the entire property of the mall. Okay, and the reason for that is because if you have security just on the inside, well, what about the outside? Right, that's what the gathering space is. Exactly. Things do happen, right? And then if you have it on the west side, but on east side or north and uh east, excuse me, west side, well, you just got a blind eye.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

It defeats the purpose. So we we request that they have it for the entire mall. Okay. The next part of it is that we ask that they hold the mall accountable for anybody that's injured while on a property due to any acts of violence because the the lack of security. Okay you know, now let me just make this clear. We do know that nothing is absolute, okay? Meaning sometimes things will happen, okay? So we do know that if you have uh security that's well armed and well trained and highly capable of handling situations, that it is a great deterrent. Okay. It meaning less likely that somebody will come on there and say, hey, let's go shoot up the mall, or hey, this is a good place for us to fight or rob somebody because they understand that the justice is swift and it's immediate. Okay, it's no delay.

SPEAKER_04 30:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

You know, and again, I'm not picking on uh Dalton Police Department because I used to be a police officer. But I do know that they can't do nothing until they get a phone call.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

Yeah, we don't we also don't really want an omnipotent, an omnipresent police force either. Well, we want people more people that are putting their own shopping carts away.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Exactly. Exactly, exactly, exactly. So so I say that to say, you know, though those two things are what we're really asking for. And also, if the mall say, well, we're not gonna do any of that, you know, we're just gonna let it keep doing what it does, which is rot, and hey, that's y'all's problem. So then we ask the city to step up and do what they did to other private businesses that has been labeled a nuisance to the city, okay, which is pull a uh license. Therefore, they can't do business in the city of Delta, and possibly at that point go through the courts, because of eventually we know it has to go to the courts for uh the city to actually take ownership. So we asked that they take that and those steps because once again, if the city does that, then the city can turn around and say, okay, now that we have this space once again in our custody or in our ownership, right? Let's ask our citizens on what they want to see here instead of us saying, hey, well, we're just gonna put whatever we want here.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Because it's the citizens that have to patronize the whatever they put there. Okay. So let them be included in what goes there. You know, therefore, as she said and she said, you know, the gap, it could once again be a gathering space for the city of Dalton. I know that. I'm sorry, you're gonna say yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 32:16

Uh I'd like to put it on a huge macro level, you know, at a state level, Alabama Alabama, um, it's Alabama the beautiful. We've heard that in talk our entire lives. It's been our state logo, slogan forever. Um, and you drive past a million signs every day, keep Alabama beautiful, you know, make Alabama beautiful again. And if we're not doing it on our city level, the church itself, every church does its own for the community, you know, raises money however they can, helps with different projects, everything they can. The city is doing a lot, adding the parks, you know, the new Porter Park, stuff like that, making the libraries a better place. Why are we not making the largest place in the city, you know, um, commercial real estate-wise, um, a better place again for the community? Um, bringing in the jobs, bringing in the businesses, um, allowing, you know, high schoolers to have their first job at the mall again, you know, being able to work at the pretzel stand, you know, that's uh losing uh an art almost, you know. Um like you said, everyone has 12 jobs in their life, uh in their lifetime. We all have. We all need that retail job really straight straightens us out. And um, so to put that on the biggest level, the transparency that we're not receiving from the company uh is making us and have such a huge disconnect, you know. The um the disconnect between the city and what the people are asking for is hurting, you know. Right. Um it's just a huge disconnect of transparency. And um why you we should know how much they're paying in taxes, you know. For example, if if they're the biggest commercial residential or sorry, commercial um estate in the city, where's that money going? Is it going to the roads? Is it going to the education for the school system, which we all need, we really need. So it's stuff like that where we need more transparency. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:56

My um before I did this, I was an archaeologist. Yeah. And my research was focused on um ancient urban planning. And so um because I would look at basically the urban layout of an ancient city and what they had dedicated and to what. And what I'm finding is that you know, America, uh in the United States, our culture, the what a lot of the assumptions we have is that property rights are absolute. Right. Right. So you man's woman's castle, or someone owns a property, you know, everybody needs to just stay, let they can do with what they want. However, um, it is also consistent across centuries that urban planning gets to be decided based upon the social contract of everyone living in this the same space. You know, yeah, I mean being able to be within close proximity to a market, being within close proximity to ritual spaces, have the benefits of those, um the all the different types of uh wastewater runoff and gathering spaces that you have within Arabic planning. I did this in ancient, I looked at a lot of uh urbanist places of ancient Mexico. And so cities in part of the urban prerogative is you get to decide whether something is a positive nexus of activity or a negative nexus of activity. And so there's something of a dance there between those types of urban choices and the sacrality of property rights that we have in our in in the West. Uh, I don't want to diminish that at all. People are like, you communist, why are you doing? No, no, no, no. I'm not I'm not diminishing the importance of property rights, right? However, part of our benefits of being within an urban city setting and having the police fire, roads, water, and all those other benefits of the that a city's supposed to provide is part of that urban planning prerogative of seeing is this the right you know type of nexus or locus of activity that we want overall. And so I'm I'm not exactly sure what the solution is on that, but I do know that that the people don't do have a say. Yep, yep. And for that very reason, they ought to be able to have a petition and be able to come to the and say to the city, fix this, because you're part of part of my research was looking at sacred spaces. Yeah. Uh particularly in ancient, you know, like cities of ancient Mexico. Right. And sacred spaces are areas where people gather for ritual spaces. And once those, if those spaces were no longer available to them, did that man did that actually contribute to societal collapse in some ways? Yeah. So that's part of what anthropologists and archaeologists like are interested in, the social change. But I looked as you know, once the once the urban planning was say this is a our our gathering space of sacred space, that would they're basically creating a positive nexus for people to gather for cultural cohesion. Right. If that's not available to them, there can be cultural disintegration because of it. But if you don't provide the positive gathering space, right, what are you doing? You're not actually facilitating that close-knit community, and you're going to have possible cultural volatility and collapse.

SPEAKER_04 37:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 37:14

Well, if if there can be a positive gathering space, sacred space in a sense, not to over-spiritualize this, but if you can have sacred space, you can have the negative medieval space. Where it becomes, you know, not any, not some sort of yoda, or the that place is strong with the dark side of the forest. Right. Not something like that. But it's just like you've created possible broken panes. You've created gathering negative gathering spaces where you are in you actually are encouraging greater misbehavior because you've facilitated that very well. And um you and you're not vigilant about that. You have uh we see this throughout different cultures or different species, even. So you have the social sensor. And you see uh India found this with elephants a lot, where it's like the major, the main elephant stopped hunting the big elephants because they were the keeping all the younger elephants in check. Right. And so the social sentinel is the one in front of whom the re everyone else won't misbehave as much. Right. A lot of cases, a lot of cases, that's secure the security guard.

SPEAKER_04 38:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:24

I'm one of the again, one of the many jobs I had in college was working the city, being the security guard in uniform, standing in front of a store. Right. With absolutely no authority to do anything at all. None. Right. And I used to wonder, what am I doing here? I don't I got a radio, that's all I got. What do you I don't why do they even give me a uniform? Well, visually, you are someone sees you, and you are a symbol of order, of authority. There's less misbehavior in front of you. Yes. That's the social sentinel. Right. Um, I think that the social sentinel happens at every aspect, every every level of our society. Typically starts with the dad in the home. Right. I agree. Dad is the first social sentinel the child interacts with. I agree. Because they're the first one, you know, that mom single moms will try to make up for some of that. Typically, that's you see, you'll see them with a lot of shoes coming off the front. Um but typically it's the dad where the dad just kind of gives them a look and they're done. Yeah. I used to be able to discipline my children without saying a word from the front of the church. Yeah. I could just give them like baseball signals. Yeah. And I was just like hooked up my ear or whatever, and they're like, stop what they were doing.

SPEAKER_04 39:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:30

Your dad's giving the signal. Right. Um, but then this next social sentence sentinel is going to be maybe a teacher at school, or maybe, and hopefully they've heated all those so that they never actually need law enforcement as a school sentinel. Even at that level, you're driving around the circle, and up along beside you comes Doth and PD, and suddenly what do you do? Yeah, check your speed speedometer.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 39:54

You you know, it's not it's not necessarily I don't want a ticket. It's oh, they reminded you of your behavior. Right. So uh so in the mall space, in that type of negative gathering space, if we're denying them social sentinels, if we're creating them a space of chaos, these are all things that the urban planner should kind of look and go, oh, that's that's something we can do. We can actually have a role there.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Well, we actually did it for downtown. You know, yeah, that's true. That's it. I mean, you know, a lot of people like to pick at and and poke holes at downtown, but uh somebody decided to say, hey, this is worth saving. This is worth uh drawing the people here and keeping them safe. So why we can't do the same thing for another crown jewel of the city of Dolphin.

SPEAKER_03 40:41

Yeah, you know, when I first warned when I first moved here, people warned me about walking around downtown. I don't experience any of that. I think I think they're describing a previous downtown.

SPEAKER_04 40:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 40:49

Prior, yep. You know, but not the downtown.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

I don't experience not the downtown that you know now. Right, right, exactly right. Now, maybe uh I'm gonna say maybe what, 10, 15 years ago, maybe? You know, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

Yeah, when that when that all went down, and we're like, okay, no more downtown, you know, no more businesses, no more restaurants, and now we're seeing the revitalization of all of that. We're seeing the new cool restaurants come in, the bookstores, the everything, you know, allowing people to go downtown. So if we have a huge space bigger than downtown, you know, S2 blocks put together, why should even if it's not for retail, you know, even if it's not for anything, we can at least repurpose it into something else good for the greater good of the people. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

That's right. That's right. So you've started a petition. Yes. Okay, and what uh uh what's that process like?

SPEAKER_01 41:40

So the process is uh it's online as well. So if you if we can't get to you, you can't get to us, you can definitely do it online. You know, you can go to my Facebook page or Brianna Facebook page, but we offer well, we are about to centralize it. So it stands alone on it, on on uh excuse me, on its own. You know, um if if you see me or Brianna out walking in the neighborhood, you can say, hey, I want to sign it. No questions asked. You know.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

It's on change.org.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Okay, it's on change.org as well. Uh if you want to read it before you sign it, trust me, we have a copy. We'll give you a copy. We we you know, so basically, we just need the citizens of Dothan and the Wiregrass. Because we keep saying the citizens of Dothan.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

But we said Wiregrass the whole area.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

So when we when let me just say this. When we say Alabama back. So when we say the city, city, citizens of Dothan, it's because Dothan is the biggest city in the Wiregrass, but it encompassed all the whole entire wire grass. So it's just not limited to just Dothan. So I just want to make that clear. You know, so if you see me in Enterprise, please sign it. If you see me in Ozark, sign it. You see me uh uh what parts of Georgia, sign it.

SPEAKER_03 42:59

Was there a specific catalyst that kind of launched you into this? I mean, at that you know uh that event where you thought I'm gonna do something now.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

What launched me into this is the fact that I stand on order and discipline. And I hate to see something that is nice go to waste when we can save it, you know. So I hate to uh continue to see uh the acts of violence that occur at our mall when I know something can be done and should be done. You know, so a lot of people like to stay in the closet and just point fingers and say, oh da da. Well, because this young lady that's sitting beside me on my left here, you know, she kind of kicked me in my butt and said, Hey, your mouth is big, your shoulders are broad, get out there and do it. So, with that being said, you know, these two young ladies got together with me and we decided to do this, you know, and hey. We're here, you know, and we're not going anywhere. We dug in and we're ready for the long fight. You know, we asked that the city join in with us and help us push this along. But if the city decides to continue to sit on the sideline, we are ready to do this as the citizens of Dalton. Because as I tell everybody, it's we the people that has the power. Okay. Even though we elected city officials to do a certain job, if they refuse to do the job, we the people have to do the job because we the people are the ones that are mostly affected.

SPEAKER_03 44:32

Right. I mean, the inertia of politics is such that uh nothing changes unless people demand it. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right. So no, I appreciate you bringing this up because that's that's a good example of you know the people taking charge of their areas and not sitting back and putting fingers and just going, I gee, sure, sure wish someone would do something about this. Yeah, how about you? Yeah. So that's it.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

That's it. You know, and that's where it came from. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

You know, because somebody needs to do some.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Uh yeah, you're right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 45:06

Let's go. Uh it's a great line from the old movie, uh you know, Aliens, if you're familiar with it. Yeah, yeah. Or Sir Gourney Weaver walks up to the sergeant and says, I don't feel like a third wheel run here. Can I can I is there anything I could do? He goes, I don't know. Is there anything you could do? Yeah. Uh you mean yes, you can get to work right away. Yeah, I do that to people all the time. They're like, is anyone doing this at the church? I said, I'm looking forward to your ideas.

unknown 45:30

What?

SPEAKER_01 45:31

Yeah. That's right. So, so if if anyone wants to help, you know, we welcome. Yeah, you know, just understand that it's not gonna be a short fight, it's a long fight.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

It's a long fight, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:44

So uh if you're not ready for the long fight, you know, just either sign a petition and say, hey, y'all got my support, you know, and hey, whatever y'all do, great. But these two ladies and myself, we we are dug in for the long fight, you know, and uh we do have other people that's uh jumping on, you know, they just haven't joined us today, but they they will be here in the near future. So uh again, you know, we we we come to the city, we ask as a partner, as a friend, you know, hey, do what's right. Right. Do what's right.

SPEAKER_03 46:19

And fulfill your role. Yes, again, we are not trying to encourage city to be overbearing and you know, right, eminent domain and taking people to people's property and all that's right. No, but there is a role of cities in urban planning. That's right. Yes, for the way in which you you know arrange your spaces to have the best outcome. That's right. Um, there is a role for that. I mean, right. How much is that role? I mean, I have that's that's a point of debate. That's right. I do think archaeologically I can argue that there is a role for them to play. That's right. So anyway.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

We've seen them do it, you know. They have done it, they have played the role, and they have, you know, when other venues, um, other establishment became a nuisance to the city of Dalton, then they pulled the licensing. So we know it can happen. We know what the Dalton can do. Yeah, it's what they're not doing. And and that's what we're digging into. Why are you not doing something? Because we know you can do something. So, um, and if they're not doing anything, that's what we're prepared to do, do something. You know, we're not gonna sit back because we ask questions uh I as we are here um getting a petition signed, and we ask the people and hey, what if you had to vote, what would you want to see the mall become? And they light up because they want to feel included. So they they light up. I mean, young, old, everyone. They light up and like, man, I would, I would love to see this, this, this, and this. And what if we turned it into this? And and then you have some that say, uh, oh, she just shut it down, just shut it out. But you you don't care, like, you know, a lot of people do, but for those that care, they light up and they're they're ecstatic about seeing it become what it used to be before, you know, when you can go and hang out. So, you know, our project is really to revitalize, turn this thing around so we all can get back to what it used to be. And I mean, I mean, we really, really, really want to see it become something. And the look on people's faces is so rewarding knowing somebody is standing up and saying something and doing something. Right. And um, they're excited about the people are excited about it because this again, like he said, it's not about us. It's we the people, and we want our maw back. Right. Well, you want to say something?

SPEAKER_02 48:55

Yeah, sorry, not to interrupt. Um, the last thing I'd like to say. Um everyone who we ran into, which there's been very few um that have not cared, you know, could care less. They don't live here, they don't have any interest in signing a petition, whatever the case may be. I always like to remind them of the poem, um, the fur uh first they came poem. Right. Um at the end of it, um by the time they came for me, there was no one left to speak for me. Right, right. You know, this is such a minuscule issue on the grand scale of things, you know. Um because it's just it it just doesn't in quotations, you know, um, but it goes so much deeper. So if we can start something small, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, catch something while it's starting and uh before it goes too far gone, you know. That's the main thing I'd like to tell people, you know.

SPEAKER_03 49:39

No, I totally agree with you. I and I think that in in talking about like the I I contend that there's two way, you know, there's two approaches to come at this. That it's not just all exterior factors. Um, that while it does take a village, right? It also takes a village full of people whose hearts are being self-governed by Christ. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

That's it.

SPEAKER_03 50:01

You can have a village full, you can have a village full of you know heathens and you know, who are all just out looking for themselves and couldn't care less about their neighbors, right? Or you can have a village full of people that who are be who are being self-governed by God who to look out for their neighbors. That's right. So it's not always obvious what kind of village you're gonna get. Uh you want them to be you want it to be populated with people who are intergoverned in internally as well. And so I so I agree with you. I think that's just like we're looking at two sides of the same coin.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 50:31

You know, I agree with you in terms of the the city has a place in terms of urban planning, do what they what they can within their ability to do in order to ensure that you have not negative gathering spaces, but positive gathering spaces, especially when it's that much remote real sake for the city. We continue to kind of have our side of the coin that is that um, you know, you could have a great looking mall that is still populated by people who aren't self-governing. You're that's not gonna work either. And so we still want to target, you know, kind of change hearts as much as we can one person at a time. So that's why I rode once with the Dothan Police Department, one shift so far. But uh but I was it was a pleasure, and I was kind of learn the community. I was right I everywhere I go to a town, I always ride with law enforcement, just kind of lets me learn the community from their perspective. That's right. And so we're he was driving through, you know, driving through areas, and he he says, Dothan isn't a place that has just one bad or good side of part of town. It really varies from street to street sometimes. And so I said, Well, okay, but those areas where it seems like you have the greater activity, or whether you're area where you know, where it seems like you you're there's fewer social sentinels, father's there's you know seeming like there's more misbehavior, right? Point those out to me, please. Right. I really want to go there. Right. And because that's where I want to go make friends, and that's why I want to go sit out, sit out with uh my pipe and just kind of like start conversations if we can. Right. Because the church has always got to be focused on hearts as well. That's right. So thank you so much. Yeah, I really appreciate you coming and talking about it. I want to hear this whole perspective because again, hearing it in the city commission meeting, right? That's gonna be an interesting conversation. You know, I really wish you all the success. And you know, in terms of you know, I mean, city governments and city council, city commissions, uh commissioners, these are people, people who have limited you whose whose whose mental real estate is not unlimited. That's right. And so there are certain things they cannot, they may be focused on this and not think about they need to focus on ABC, but not think about XYZ. No one is pointed out to them saying, hey, hey, hey, hey, this is something you can do, right? And then now that draws it, they you know draws their attention. Yeah, so thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

Hey, we we thank you for allowing us to come and share the story because again, you know, uh it's been far too many shootings at that mall, right? You know, and again, it's not limited to just the mall, okay? This is something that's citywide, but we're starting at the mall because again, the mall is such a focal point, right? Right for the whole city. So, again, on behalf of these young ladies, we want to say thank you for letting us come and share our story, you know. Absolutely, and you know, hopefully we'll be back later to tell you the success of it. Yeah, you know, progress about that.

SPEAKER_03 53:24

I'd love to have a conversation again about how that went.

SPEAKER_01 53:26

Definitely.

SPEAKER_03 53:27

And and I mean, and in a future conversation, let's talk about if we could, um, you know, how why is it that you we have kind of that type of violence in Dothan? Is it is has it always been so? Were there changes over time? Um again, I rode with law enforcement in Dallas, Houston, Orlando, and then here. Right. And I somehow it took moving to Dothan, Alabama to finally see the action. Yeah. Because nothing ever happened. We had Dallas PD or Amazon. Nothing ever happened, and then all of a sudden I ride with Dothan, and finally we we finally had a guest who was who we had a gentleman that we needed to taxi to the Dothan jail, and I met all those personnel there, you know, met people at the at the Houston County jail. Right, right. And uh but how is it you know so it's like what's is Dothan experiencing your culture change? Yeah, all this are very interesting culture change. Yeah, and so I mean was it is experiencing culture change? Was it always like this? Are these are the numbers steady? What's the difference between public perception and say because I think I saw something on the news about is it Chief Benny?

SPEAKER_01 54:41

But yeah, Chief Benny.

SPEAKER_03 54:43

You know, his assertion was that statistically crime is considerably down 22%, right? But but of course, the perception of others is uh that's that's the difference that's different perception. Yeah, is that social media thing or is that just the statistics that he pulled at the time? Yeah, I don't know. I have to I have to admit everything I don't know about that, right? But I am curious because you know, if if we're going through some sort of change, yes, and here we are right you know in the midst of that, yes. What I want to know strategically if we're able to have a good impact. Yes, we're trying in the midst of all that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

So again, you know, uh it's gonna take everybody. Right, you know, it's not just us, it's the church, schools, city officials, citizens, it's all of us. It takes a village, yeah, you know, a village for all the people self-governing. There it is, you know. I mean, it does. You know, you can't have one set section not pulling their part or pulling their weight. Everybody has to pull, buy in and pull together to make this happen. That's true, you know. So, with that being said, you know, we know that uh with God leading the way and we trust Him in everything that we do, we know that this will be successful. Thank you very much. This was a pleasure.

SPEAKER_04 56:03

Yeah, I really appreciate it a lot. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 56:07

Thank you so much.