The town had an elected government, regular elections, and an abundance of offices. Nor did Kent's settlers like democratic dissent. When the land ran out in the 1780s, Kent's economy remained agrarian, and much of the younger generation had to leave or face poverty. Kent's founders were also 'versatile and ambitious men' (53), willing and able to invest their capital in mines and mills and land speculation. Traditional sources of economic inequality thus rarely made their appearance in the community. Some of the locals had borrowed a lot of money, but usually they owed their debts to their neighbors, to whom they periodically loaned money in their turn - Grant describes the town as 'a vast tangle of debts' (68). The few absentees were generally the relatives of local settlers, not their overlords. Kent's most important resource, its land, belonged almost entirely to the actual settlers (Barnums, Comstocks, Fullers, et alia) who pioneered the town in 1740. His pathbreaking 1961 study of the town of Kent (Connecticut) used careful analysis of local records to tell a different story, of a socially united frontier community that remained stable for half a century. Charles Grant, a historian from the 'consensus era' (1945-65) of American scholarship, did not agree. It also comes at a fraught time for Johnson, who on Wednesday is looking to pass a relatively uncontroversial budget while navigating deep tensions in City Council over migrant spending.Frederick Jackson Turner and Lois Mathews, two pioneering historians of the American frontier, argued that the borderlands of white settlement could become sites of class conflict, as for instance between farmers and absentee proprietors in early New England.

Ramirez-Rosa has denied the threats but stepped down as floor leader and Zoning Committee chairman in the face of criticism from colleagues. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, who was accused of threatening developments in the wards of three aldermen if they didn’t take the mayor’s guidance on specific issues. The conflict between Conway and Lee follows a recent controversy involving Johnson City Council floor leader Ald. City officials disputed that there were final plans in place. He missed a vote on the subminimum wage - he said he was sick - and voted against Johnson’s plan for a transfer tax hike.Ĭonway had been working with City Hall departments, including Streets and Sanitation and Family and Support Services, to address the homeless camps under the viaducts but said he recently learned plans to remove tents were canceled by the mayor’s office in October. In the end, Conway voted for neither Johnson initiative. “That is not the way to go about connecting people to services,” Simmons said. But Ali Simmons, a senior case and street outreach worker at the organization, said they oppose all encampment sweeps. Officials with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless did not directly address questions about the discussions between Conway and Lee.

“There was never any notion that we would not continue to support efforts to secure public safety to the extent possible in these encampments. Conway is new so I’m not sure what his frame of reference is,” Lee said. Conway demonstrating his commitment to progressive values, including eliminating the subminimum wage but most importantly Bring Chicago Home, is helpful to neutralize some of the criticism he might face in pursuing that.”Īsked about Conway not wanting to negotiate with public safety, Lee said police would continue responding to issues with the encampments. Conway is that … there’s a perception that doing something like removing encampments is not necessarily in line with progressive values and that it could be perceived as a callous act disconnected from the realities of what the unhoused and other vulnerable populations are going through,” Lee said.

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