 
Focusonthed
Member
Username: Focusonthed
Post Number: 1212
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 2:44 pm: |    |
Some people have this misplaced heartfelt desire to keep Detroit cheap for the poor. "Just think of the poor!!" So what do you get? A city that is nearly 100% poor. Oops.
Mixed-race, mixed-class, mixed-income cities are the only way to go. We've been living that way for millenia, minus the last 50 years or so. |
Margaret
Member
Username: Margaret
Post Number: 35
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 6:44 pm: | |
naww, let the Lakewood and Chalmers and Marlborough blocks go back to nature: then some enterprising Detroiters could buy some blocks of land, create a truck farm, and sell their produce at good old Eastern Market, right? I'm one of those whose beautifully maintained childhood home ended up trashed, destroyed, demolished...it is not only disgusting to me, it really hurts. I agree with sstashmoo, I think it was, who said...let people buy the lots if they want them, and then build their own places. see what happens... |
Danny
Member
Username: Danny
Post Number: 6327
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 8:43 pm: | |
Who do you think that will get those new homes in Fox Creek? It be mostly black folks who are middle income and fewer middle income whites.
Watching gentrification in action. |
Urbanize
Member
Username: Urbanize
Post Number: 2147
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 10:23 pm: | |
^^^Does it matter? |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3498
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 10:27 pm: | |
Margaret, nobody is forcing the developers to buy them, they're buying them. You have a vision of the lots being purchased piecemeal by individuals, with homes being built one by one. It rarely happens like that, and even back in the roaring 20s houses were built in tracts (just with much better quality and differentiation than those today).
In order to bring back this torn up neighborhood, something that changes the face of the area in a hurry must happen. Building 3000 decent housing units in an attempt to re-create what used to be there is a great way to go. |
Jt1
Member
Username: Jt1
Post Number: 9732
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 10:42 pm: | |
quote:naww, let the Lakewood and Chalmers and Marlborough blocks go back to nature: then some enterprising Detroiters could buy some blocks of land, create a truck farm, and sell their produce at good old Eastern Market, right?
Nice. Why she we hope for neighborhood improvements when we can just write off the area. Spoken like someone that has fled the city/state.
quote:I'm one of those whose beautifully maintained childhood home ended up trashed, destroyed, demolished...it is not only disgusting to me, it really hurts.
The best way to ensure that a neighborhood stays up to your standards is to stay there. I am disugusted with all of the people who left the city then have the gall to complain that it is not maintained to their standards. Maybe if you or your parents were willing to stay the neighborhood might me your standards. It is hard to meet your standards when 1MM plus have left.
quote:I agree with sstashmoo, I think it was, who said...let people buy the lots if they want them, and then build their own places. see what happens...
That is a very easy attitude to take when it is no longer your neighborhood. remember that people actually live there and this may benefit them and the city. I suppose those people don't count to you. |
Kathinozarks
Member
Username: Kathinozarks
Post Number: 777
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 10:53 pm: | |
Jt1, your above post is stupid. It really p'd me off.
You shouldn't have taken so much time and thread space just to be rude and mean to a fellow poster.
I don't like your attitude. |
Jt1
Member
Username: Jt1
Post Number: 9733
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 11:04 pm: | |
Kath - Why is it stupid. I find it insulting that Margaret takes such a flippant attitude towards the city and the residents while complaining that they have not maintained her ex block to her standard. The simple fact of the matter is that I think it is an insult to myslef and every other Detroiter when someone comes to the board with a "how dare you not maintain my old block" attitude. The city is in its current predicament because of population and economic flight, something that both Margaret and yourself have contributed to. The fact that she can comment that they should just bulldoze part of the city for farmland when people are working to make the area better pisses me off.
quote:You shouldn't have taken so much time and thread space just to be rude and mean to a fellow poster.
The irony is that you don't see any thing rude towards residents of the city in he post. We have something that could be a monster boom to the city in progress and she thinks that we should just turn it to farmland. That is rude to citizens of the eastside, the developers involved, the city employees and non-profits like U-SNAP-BAC that have done an amazing job with this plan.Negating their efforts for 'turn it into farmland' is pretty rude if you ask me. If you can't see that then we obviously don;t see eye to eye.
quote:I don't like your attitude.
And I don't like attitudes that are dismissive of those that expect others to make Detroit into what they want while dismissing the hard work that is being done. |
Kathinozarks
Member
Username: Kathinozarks
Post Number: 779
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 11:12 pm: | |
naww, let the Lakewood and Chalmers and Marlborough blocks go back to nature: then some enterprising Detroiters could buy some blocks of land, create a truck farm, and sell their produce at good old Eastern Market, right? I'm one of those whose beautifully maintained childhood home ended up trashed, destroyed, demolished...it is not only disgusting to me, it really hurts. I agree with sstashmoo, I think it was, who said...let people buy the lots if they want them, and then build their own places. see what happens...
-----------------------
I don't see what is so wrong with this post. I guess I just thought it had as much merit as any other post. And she said nothing that you should have attacked (which you did).
Jt, you say, "something that both Margaret and yourself have contributed to."
You don't know me or my circumstances. If you can source your information about me contributing to the demise of the city I would appreciate it and I will apologize to you. Otherwise, you are full of shite. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3500
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 11:23 pm: | |
Well, if you left you kinda did...
The argument that we shouldn't go forth with this redevelopment because it's building on top of what was once a great neighborhood where some of you lived and have memories is outlandish. Furthermore, the proposed solution that we encourage farming or let the land lie around and be redevelopment lot by lot by individual speculators are equally outlandish.
I appreciate any and all outside input and perspective. But if you say something that doesn't make sense, more power to Jt1 or the next person who shoots you down. |
Jt1
Member
Username: Jt1
Post Number: 9736
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 11:25 pm: | |
quote:I don't see what is so wrong with this post. I guess I just thought it had as much merit as any other post. And she said nothing that you should have attacked (which you did).
And therein lies the problem.
I think that the Ozarks should be plowed under and used to store animal waste. Who cares about the people in the community or anything positive that is coming from the area. I certainly hope you find nothing offensive there as it is the same premise.
quote:You don't know me or my circumstances. If you can source your information about me contributing to the demise of the city I would appreciate it and I will apologize to you. Otherwise, you are full of shite.
The point is that you and/or your families have left Detroit and comtributed to the population and economic loss. Situations may have required that but the simple fact of the matter is that we seem to have 1MM people that left the city but long for the 'good days' of the city.
Do you not understand how frustrating that is to those of us that hear the rambling non-sense and dismissive attitudes of those that seem to have no appreciation of the hard work many are putting in to make the city better (like Margaret's attitude towards this project - I know that you don't see anything offenzive in her post but the dismissive attitude of this project is offensive to me).
Please let me know what I can do to make the city acceptable to you. I will disregard any concern for the citizens of the city and do exactly what you want.
I know, I am a big meanie and you might not come back to or visit the city because of people like me. 
All I ask is that some consideration be given to the work and the neighborhood before flippant comments and ideas are thrown out there. |
Urbanize
Member
Username: Urbanize
Post Number: 2152
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 11:35 pm: | |
^^^Well you can't blame the people for leaving. You have the most Dangerous City i nthe Country, The Poorest City In The Country, The Worst and Poorest School District In The Country, (possibly) some of the worst government in the country. deteriorating neighborhoods, a Poor Economy.
You just can't force of expect people to live here because of history or asthetics or whatever. People must be able to make decent lives for themselves as well.
I'm sorry if you're upset about it Jt1, but what can you do about it? You will always have critics in the world, but jumping back at them excusing the core reasons isn't making the cause any better.
Just rebuild the neighborhood and hope people will come. You'll never know what happens until you try. No sense of crying over spoiled milk |
Jt1
Member
Username: Jt1
Post Number: 9740
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Monday, August 06, 2007 - 11:50 pm: | |
Urbanize - I agree. I just get fed up with the armchair QBs telling us what we should do so that one day the city might be nice enough for them.
The most vocal on the boards seem to have left during the 'good old days.'
I am fine with identifying the issues but I don't find the humor in making seemingly flippant remaarks about true progress that is coming from a lot of hard work. |
Newport1128
Member
Username: Newport1128
Post Number: 90
Registered: 05-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 07, 2007 - 10:45 pm: | |
Does the criticism directed at whites who left the city in the 60's, 70's and 80's also apply to the blacks who are moving out of Detroit into Harper Woods, St. Clair Shores, Warren, etc.? |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3517
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 07, 2007 - 11:02 pm: | |
It should.
It's not neccessarily criticism for leaving. We all have the liberty to go where we want. But if you leave and then blame others for the downfall, and throw out crazy ideas while criticizing the way redevelopment is being handled, then you could be criticized, especially by the people who are holding out in Detroit. |
Meaghansdad
Member
Username: Meaghansdad
Post Number: 43
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 07, 2007 - 11:51 pm: | |
I left, and in leaving place blame at the horrific parenting. Having been the victim of several quality of life crimes in a three year period, I think its obscene that on top the aforementioned offenses, as a hard working, honest citizen, I would have to pick up weed bags, beer bottles, used condoms, potato chip bags, have my children awaken at the sound of those stupid ass loud over-invested hoopties, etc.
I love the city of Detroit, will continue to maintain my connections (property, friendships, volunteer work), but my family is going to continue to head North and East. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3518
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 12:43 am: | |
I'm in no position to judge, as I haven't slept a night in my life in Detroit (although 20 years spent about 250 feet from the city limit may count for a small something), but if someone has the means to leave a bad Detroit neighborhood for a suburb, would not they also have the means to upgrade their position within the city, especially if they love the city? It's a huge city. One neighborhood can be a mess, and your neighbors can be pains in the ass, but somewhere else there has to be greener pastures, in the city. Let's say you were a homeowner in the Detroit portion of Windmill Point, below Jefferson, east of Dickerson, and you got sick of drug houses and property crime. It would seem your only option would not just be to cross Alter or 8-mile. What about East English Village or portions of Morningside, where, by and large, the homeowners are very conscientious, blight is at a minimum, and property crime is present but much more rare. You also don't have drug houses there.
I'm just saying that you can improve your lot in life while staying in the city. My theory for the massive population loss in Detroit, after racism, is that people attribute problems in a given neighborhood to the city as a whole, and they did not consider other neighbors before fleeing the city limits. |
Royce
Member
Username: Royce
Post Number: 2343
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 3:57 am: | |
Mackinaw, there are two reasons why when people leave Detroit they move to the suburbs instead of another area of Detroit. One is a fear that if you move from one Detroit neighborhood to a better Detroit neighborhood that the "better" neighborhood is going to eventually become like the neighborhood that you moved away from. Why put down stakes and make that investment in a house in the better neighborhood when you're going to feel pressured to move again if that neighborhood starts to have problems?
The second reason that people leave Detroit instead of moving to another neighborhood in Detroit deals with Detroit's public schools. Families that have children are looking for a better education for their children and they believe that there are better schools in the suburbs. For the most part that is a true assumption. Newer buildings, well-maintained buildings, plenty of school supplies, plenty of extracurricular activities, and fewer incidences of bullying and fighting are reasons Detroit families, even those without a lot of income are moving out of Detroit.
So the immediate suburbs are where they go. That's why Detroit families are moving to Grosse Pointe Park, East Pointe, Roseville, Harper Woods, Warren, Ferndale, Southfield, Oak Park, Redford, and Farmington/Farmington Hills. Unfortunately, "white flight" from these suburbs starts and the same problems that occurred in Detroit when "white flight" happened, start to happen in these suburban school districts as well.
What some of these families leaving Detroit will find out is that the grass is not always greener on the other side of 8 Mile. They have to realize that the problems that they have as a "family unit" will not all be solved by leaving Detroit. They'll bring with them the same problems that they had when they were in Detroit, and then they'll be looking to get out of that suburb when enough families with similar problems move in and send their kids to the same public schools.
For many people, paradise can be right outside their window, but they've got to work at making it happen. It's not going to come looking for them. Hard work and sacrifice is a constant if someone wants to be successful. The problem with trying to keep people in Detroit is that there doesn't appear to be enough people who are willing to work hard enough and make the necessary sacrifices. Those who do work hard and make sacrifices get frustrated and leave to live with those who get the concepts of hard work and sacrifice as they do. Until more people in Detroit get the concepts of hard work and sacrifice, people will continue to leave.
(Message edited by royce on August 08, 2007)
(Message edited by royce on August 08, 2007) |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3522
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 9:25 am: | |
Good post. Yes the schools are a trump card. |
Sstashmoo
Member
Username: Sstashmoo
Post Number: 218
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 9:50 am: | |
Quote: "The problem with trying to keep people in Detroit is that there doesn't appear to be enough people who are willing to work hard enough and make the necessary sacrifices."
I would think the frustration and ultimate decision to leave stems from lack of city support and cooperation for any effort put forth. If crack dealers move in next door and you call the police and they don't show up or disregard it, then what? If you see someone breaking into your car and dial 911 and no one shows up.. It goes on and on. In most areas during a snow storm, they don't even plow the streets. My buddy lived down there and one year we had a major storm, they never touched his street. One of the main reasons he moved. The other reason was he bought a new car and came out for work on the second day he owned it and it was setting on blocks, no wheels and tires. Much of the crime is happening because it is a very low risk venture. And if they do get caught, no big deal.
Until the city reciprocates, regrowth on any considerable scale is never going to happen. It could even be speculated that the regrowth is directly proportionate to the amount of city cooperation. Folks moving back into the city in not a new phenomenon, they were doing it back in the 70's. Thirty years later and still no major numbers. |
Margaret
Member
Username: Margaret
Post Number: 39
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 5:24 pm: | |
and once again I agree with Sstashmoo...although at this point, Sstashmoo, perhaps my agreeing with you will not be welcome, since I am apparently "flippant," "dismissive," "crazy," and let's see, what else? armchair QB, etc. etc. ad nauseum. good lord, Jt and Mackinaw, get a grip. don't you know what a truck farm is? it's just a great big garden, where produce is grown. big friggin deal. having seen photos of what the old neighborhood looks like right now (specifically Lakewood, between Kercheval and Jefferson), it occurred to me, hey why not keep some of that open space? that's kind of nice, don't you think? I never said anything about plowing houses under...hell, no need to, they've already been long gone, long razed, long dead, long bulldozed. keep some of the nice land, use it to raise food...what's so terrible and crazy about that idea? I think it's one hell of an idea. there's nothing flippant or dismissive or armchair about it, Jt, so get over yourself. perhaps your own negativity and nastiness is at the heart of why people get the hell out of that city, so take a good look at yourself.
oh, was our family supposed to stay there past the late 70s, and let my mother get mugged AGAIN AND AGAIN, for God's sake? were we supposed to put our lives on the line for...for what? for what? that is the real question here.
Jt and Mackinaw, you will never have an inkling of an understanding how much I care about Detroit and that good old east side neighborhood. just because I choose to not live there, have chosen a wonderful place in the West to live my life, does not mean I don't care. gee gosh, "some of my best friends are Detroiters." LMAO!!
Jt, I guess I'm not "qualified" in your pea brain to post on here, because I left? maybe you should just start your own, private website for those "long suffering, sacrificing" types...
and leave the rest of us alone.
thanks, Kathinozarks and Newport, for trying to reason with these... whatever you call 'ems.
maybe if they and other Detroiters open their minds to some new, creative ways of doing things, and quit jumping on other people, something will actually happen in the Motor City.
maybe if you guys use this forum to actually brainstorm on solutions, things will change. just another "crazy," "flippant," "dismissive" idea from
ex-eastsider who will NEVER come back |
Margaret
Member
Username: Margaret
Post Number: 40
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 5:33 pm: | |
p.s. jt and Mackinaw, I hope you both go back to my original post and read what I actually said, not the misinterpretations you both took from it.
Jt, having been out here in the glorious Rocky Mountain West for a long, long, long time, which is where our family roots are in the first place, there is not a chance in hell that Motown could ever tempt me back, so fear not, this crazy idiotic flippant poster is no threat to your empire. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3526
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 5:38 pm: | |
Nope, there's nothing nice about unkept open space across the middle of a city.
If people in that neighborhood want to purchase that land and have neighorhood vegetable gardens like they have done in the SW side and Brightmoor, then okay, but the idea of commercial farming-- instead of the current redevelopment plan which builds affordable housing-- is just silly.
I'm not going to bash you for leaving. That's beside the point, plus you had your reasons as you said. But sitting on the outside and basically saying that its too bad these developers are coming along to build houses in an attempt to revive this neighborhood-- because it just won't be the same as the glory days when you lived there-- is condemnable. All you had to say was "great news!" and then add your thoughts about the glory days. It is great news, right? |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3527
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 5:40 pm: | |
Your original post implied that you disliked the idea of this major development, and explicitly stated that the land should either be used for farming or piecemeal home building. I will continue to decry those ideas. |
Meaghansdad
Member
Username: Meaghansdad
Post Number: 47
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 5:50 pm: | |
"Until more people in Detroit get the concepts of hard work and sacrifice, people will continue to leave."
Royce,
Its nice to read your insufferable judgements, Thanks.
I did work hard, and I have sacrificed, but I'm a parent, and I wont have me children raised around drugs, guns going off in the middle of the night, the home that they play in being broken into, weed baggies on my front lawn, AND I LIVED IN A MIDDLE CLASS NEIGHBORHOOD FULL OF BRICK HOMES, SOME MANICURED LAWNS!
Like most of the intellectuals that post on here, I worked hard and sacrificed in classes on nights, weekends, mornings, etc, so that I wouldnt have to raise my children in this nonsense. The honest truth is that the majority of the families(honest, hard working) that remain, only do so because of a current lack of mobility.
I love the neighborhood I was raised in, but I have afforded myself the mobility to not raise my children in said neighborhood. Thats HARD WORK AND SACRIFICE, Sir! |
Margaret
Member
Username: Margaret
Post Number: 41
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 6:12 pm: | |
Mackinaw, you still don't get it, do you? who said anything about "unkept" open space? you've probably never even seen a truck farm.
whether or not it's great news depends entirely on the developers: are they just in it to make money with their speculation, as are most developers? hmmmmm in the long run, only time can really answer these questions. you, Mackinaw, cannot answer these questions, even though you think you can.
Meaghansdad, good for you! congratulations on achieving the mobility needed to raise your children where you choose to raise them.
onward and upward! |
Margaret
Member
Username: Margaret
Post Number: 42
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 6:21 pm: | |
I'm one of those whose beautifully maintained childhood home ended up trashed, destroyed, demolished...it is not only disgusting to me, it really hurts.
here's the real point: how long will it take for this 3,000-house development to turn into yet another ghetto mess? God knows it didn't take long for the original neighborhood to turn into one and stay one for all this time. get to the core of the problem, and perhaps you will come up with a real solution. |
Sstashmoo
Member
Username: Sstashmoo
Post Number: 231
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 7:12 pm: | |
Quote: "how long will it take for this 3,000-house development to turn into yet another ghetto mess?"
Good question and I doubt anyone has an answer. And if so, what safeguards are in place to prevent this cycle from repeating?
Margaret, for folks like you that lost your family residence to blight, it must be doubly frustrating to feel as though you were essentially ran out, probably took peanuts for the property if anything. And now there is this grandiose plan to refurbish with $300k houses.
I think the truck-patch growing idea is great. It would be a wonderful accent to the vista to see some agriculture mixed in with the redevelopment. It's ecologically responsible and a good way to make use of this otherwise devoid land immediately. |
Newport1128
Member
Username: Newport1128
Post Number: 92
Registered: 05-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 7:33 pm: | |
First, let me say that I sincerely hope the Far Eastside Project succeeds. It would be wonderful to see that area become a living, breathing neighborhood again.
I spent the first 20 years of my life living on Newport between Jefferson and Kercheval. Margaret was one of my classmates in school. Our parents loved their houses, and spent thousands of dollars and probably as many hours of sweat equity making and keeping them nice. I think they all planned to spend the rest of their lives there.
I invite Jt1 and Mackinaw to take a drive along Newport and Lakewood. To see this once attractive and lively middle-class neighborhood as it is now is sickening. On Newport, where there were once probably 100 houses, there are now only a handful. The area is reverting to prairie, so I can see why Margaret says let it become farmland; it wouldn't take much. Even letting it become farmland would be better than letting it remain as it is. It looks a lot like the photos you see of Berlin following WWII. For the first 50 or 60 years, those homes were well maintained; what the hell happened since then? What happened to all the stores that used to line Jefferson and Kercheval? So it is with a mixed sense of sadness and anger that I see my old neighborhood today. Whom should I be angry with? My parents and the other "white folks" who left? Or with those who allowed things to deteriorate to the state they are in today? Certainly, the City of Detroit is partly to blame, but it's at least as much the fault of those who came after us. Previous generations built that neighborhood, and those who came after destroyed it.
Jt1 and Mackinaw, I don't know if you've ever experienced anything like Margaret and I have, seeing a place you lived in and loved be destroyed; I hope you never do. The closest example I can imagine is coming home from a trip to find your home in ashes after vandals have torched it. It tears your heart out.
My parents left Newport in 1971 because the rising tide of crime and neighborhood deterioration was coming closer block by block. Should they have stayed and "hung tough" while all their neighbors were leaving? That would have been like asking them to be the last evacuees from the Titanic. Actually, they moved (at age 60) to another area of Detroit, hoping they would be safe for the rest of their lives.
Why, in spite of all my bad feelings, do I want the Far Eastside Project to succeed? Well,my old house is one of the few left standing on Newport. I would like nothing better than to see it restored to its former self, and be surrounded once again by family homes. And I don't care what color the people are who occupy those new and renovated homes, so long as they care for them and for their neighborhood. That would be the best tribute I can think of to my parents and to the rest of the middle class working people who originally built that neighborhood, |
Jasoncw
Member
Username: Jasoncw
Post Number: 414
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 08, 2007 - 7:34 pm: | |
Margaret, go into your car, and actually go to the area where this development is going. I don't know this could be seen as anything but a good thing.
I don't think a farm there is practical. That would mean that a few individuals would have to buy all of the property, get the money to clean up the site, set up whatever is needed, and then spend the time to work on it. If the people who are already in the neighborhood had the money to do that, they probably wouldn't be living in the neighborhood in the first place. But either way, it is ultimately an investment and a business, just like the development that is going up. And I think rebuilding the houses will be more profitable, and be more important to the neighborhood.
Yes, the developers want to make money. What they are doing is their job. Just like teachers and nurses also want to make money.
Also, I think this neighborhood will last for a while after it is built. It's close to Grosse Pointe, Chandler Park, some marinas, and while the area of Detroit that it borders isn't quite Indian Village, it still isn't bombed out. And there's also a lot of infill going on (and even a big condo project) South of Jefferson there, so I think that overall that area will be desirable enough to survive for a while. You can ask the same question ("how long will it take to turn into another ghetto") to just about any new neighborhood in the region (Canton, etc.), and I think that this area has longterm things like good design and architecture, a good location, history and character, and other things. The bad thing about how it is now, is that there is crime, but if you have 3,000 new homes with enthusiastic new residents, with some wealthier people and some other things thrown in there, I think that crime will not be a big issue there.
Margaret, ultimately, you are to blame for your what happened to your old home. You had your reasons for leaving, and that's up to you, but when you did leave, you let open the possibility of your house getting messed up. You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's just the way that it is. |
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