A worn-out script continues to circulate in these parts among men, white men to be exact, who rant the same lines about some of the people I write about. It includes variations on these lines: " ... a bunch of lazy bums who won't get up off their fat [you-know-whats]." "Boy, would I like to have half my mortgage paid," "How can I get a free apartment?" and "They shouldn't have all those kids if they can't support them."

Diana Nelson Jones is a Post-Gazette staff writers who covers neighborhoods (djones@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1626).

They are talking about people on welfare, or in subsidized housing, or first-time home buyers who get a deferred second mortgage, or people who are underemployed or unemployed, or single mothers.

In trying to present a look at peoples' lives and the doings in city neighborhoods, I spend a lot of time in meetings, in homes, on porches and on street corners to report on compelling issues, needs and activities. Some neighborhoods are dynamic; some nearly dystopian. I have met and spent time with possibly hundreds of people in the underclass, as both a neighbor and as a journalist, and everything in my experience convinces me that most are trying to improve their lot, most are working hard and most are exhausted dog-paddling in water filled with eddies.

A former neighbor with whom I would stoop-sit was a middle-aged high-school graduate who stopped working to raise two grandchildren. She baby-sat three children of other women who could not afford day care. One evening, sitting and chatting with me, she broke a lull in the conversation with a wistful declaration: "It's like we live on completely different planets."

It troubled me. We were neighbors and fond acquaintances. I worked hard at my job and wasn't saving money at the time and didn't feel all that comfortable. She worked harder and was far less comfortable, but the divide cut even deeper than that. I was white, and the mayor would call me back if I called.

Not that some people aren't lazy or unmotivated, or that generations of some families haven't hung out on welfare. But the bigger picture gets lost in mean-spirited rhetoric. It's easier to rail about people who are getting the help you're not getting than to push decision makers to repair decades of policies that have contributed to the loss of good jobs and urban residents. The losses have had a devastating effect on every aspect of city life, from housing to transportation to education.

On the other hand, the underclass tends to nurture broad-brush resentments, as well, believing that a wasteful and clumsy system of city, state and federal bureaucracies are really well-oiled, efficient conspirators working specifically against them.

I go to meetings in neighborhoods of every stripe and hear a lot of fearful and hysterical misinformation at all of them. No matter our race or incomes, few of us try to learn how other people actually live. We just want to have confirmed what we are comfortable believing.

Consider lazy bums. Maybe this category should include people who drive six blocks to pick up a loaf of bread instead of walking, who drive instead of taking the bus Downtown. Meanwhile, the roads are improved for them while the buses are removed from people who don't have the luxury of driving.

The truth is that many elected officials and those who influence them don't give a hoot about the needs of most people. I sense that those guys who leave hateful, anonymous diatribes in my inbox and on my voice mail are among those who feel taken advantage of and left behind. But they talk like thugs.

Some of them reacted to a story I wrote about groups trying to influence developers in their neighborhoods -- the Penguins in the Hill and the casino coming to the North Shore.

The groups, which comprise PittsburghUNITED, want a share of the jobs the developments will generate and they want the jobs to pay well enough to sustain a family. They want the projects to be environmentally sound and for the taxes they yield to come back to the neighborhood.

It defies logic to scorn people who expect these things. A mountain of millions are being spent, and will be earned, by the people behind these projects. In many cases, real estate developers with fortunes get tax dollars to encourage their investments and nobody calls that welfare.

Has the collective imagination, if there is such a thing, actually forgotten what it takes for the little guy to get his voice heard in the councils of government?

If neighborhoods were truly being served, the little guys in the neighborhood would get most of the subsidies to help start and nurture their businesses. Developers with fortunes could not compel elected officials to send in the bulldozers. And maybe my callers and e-mailers would have more worthy comments to offer, maybe even original scripts, that would advance instead of retard the human dialogue.