Please oh please

OK
I live in a racially diverse (for Peoria) neighborhood where many of the families are renters in low-income jobs. Many of the houses on our block are proud old homes that were built in the 30's when the neighborhood was one of the nicer places to live. Carson and I are not into gentrification. Just to make it clear at the get go. We were sure that we would have a nice time in our neighborhood as we restored the house we had bought, but it wasn't too long into our stay here that we began to notice ...things.
First to arrive on our attention was the excessive amount of garbage that seems omni-present. Now some of this can be laid at the feet of the garbage removal service the handles the route in the neighborhood, but not nearly all. Let me start at the beginning. Because of some questionable choices made by previous owners of our house and quirks of geography, our front and back yards appeared to be collecting trash as it blew in from other yards. Which would be bad enough, but no what was actually happening was worse. People were actually throwing trash into our yard. Pedistrians as they passed --if they finished with whatever they were eating, drinking, smoking, reading would just toss the refuse into our front yard. Our neighbors on either side who weekly seem to amass mountains of trash. And somebody, and I'd like to think it isn't our neighbors made a habit of throwing trash into our back yard. We have a high energy dog who needs lots of room to run, so we fenced in the back yard with a 6 foot tall privacy fence. I was sure this would be the end of it. People walking by would see the improvement we had made to the property and would stop with the garbage already, and blown-in garbage would also cease. Yeah, clearly I'm delusional. I want to say, "Listen people, and listen well...please oh please stop throwing trash into yards --yours or other people's; it's a part of what makes this neighborhood run down."
Moving on in my rant. Car horns. In many neighborhoods like ours honking is associated with drug dealing, and I know that it's a problem in our neighborhood, but the honking. Seriously it goes on day and night. Even the school bus as it drops kids off in the afternoon honks. People who carpool honk, families passing kids back and forth in visitation honk, people just driving down the block honk. Here's what I think -- if you would feel like you shouldn't honk on Grandview Dr. don't honk in our neighborhood. Get out of your car and knock on the door of the house you are interested in, that or be patient. I wish people would have a little more "pride-of place."
This neighborhood isn't run down because people are poor. This neighborhood is run down because the people who live here clearly don't want to do the things that makes a neighborhood nice. Short grocery list of other things that tick me off: dogs (barking excessively, chained up, too many in too small a pen), music (blasting, blaring, frequently after midnight), and truancy (kids should be in school every day it is in session for the whole day). Now to be fair I have to fess up that I am not a fan of some of the landlords in the area and would be happier if more people owned the homes they lived in. I feel this way in part because I think home ownership is a part of that "pride of place" thing I was talking about above. Maybe there's a part of my idealism that's in intensive care, but I'm beginning to think that it wouldn't change much for some of the people in our neighborhood.
You may say, well just move you haters--don't be hatin' on people who choose to live that way. To which I say this neighborhood can be a nice one, it has the potential...and no child, no senior, no anybody should have to live in a neighborhood where people don't take these basic steps.