While I respect Dr. Thorp as Chancellor, I was very frustrated listening to his interview regarding the Northside community, a traditional African-American part of Chapel Hill. He seemed to be on the side of the African Americans whose have lived there for generations but made no effort to defend their right to stay there, whereas Jim Heavner was promoting the area as a less-expensive rental market for students. I am horrified the way that area is being made inaccessible to the people who have called Northside home and are being pushed out if it.

Where are they to go? Many work for the university at not very high wages, and can’t afford transportation and time if they have to live further out, whereas the students have more living opportunities provided by the university, apartment complexes and investors with rental properties. How must the African American community be feeling at the destruction of their community?

Greenbriar is a disgrace, a true blot on the landscape, and now they are being invaded by short-term students who don’t give a hoot about their neighbors, and trash the area. We all, including Dr. Thorp and Jim Heavner, should be ashamed of the way these people are being and have been treated (as well as those in the Rogers Road community), just for the sake of some careless students, who have a life ahead of them undreamed of by many of the African-American community.  Life is not all about money, but about people.
 
Jane Salemson