  Ggores Member Username: Ggores Post Number: 566 Registered: 10-2007 |
I'd like to shoot a similar vid, except mine would be done on foot, not from a driving car. I'll get around to it some day. In the meantime... er, enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =QQCHJUOvbzU | ||
Urbanoutdoors Member Username: Urbanoutdoors Post Number: 1129 Registered: 11-2005 |
Although I love blaming Kwame for things as much as the next guy I must say this type of negative video neglects the positives that are happening in that area. Although in this economy it is hard to build and sales have slowed Northwest Detroit Neighborhood Development has built nearly 250 homes and have transformed parts of brightmoor... Not to say that if Kwame had followed through that they would be able to do more but although this area is burdened by extreme blight there are alot of things happening in this area... | ||
Gazhekwe Member Username: Gazhekwe Post Number: 2973 Registered: 08-2007 |
Well! Looks like he purposely avoided the new houses that have been built, and some of the viable businesses he could have caught while he was at it. Pix he took make it look like a 9th Ward contender. | ||
6nois Member Username: 6nois Post Number: 826 Registered: 11-2006 |
He didn't want to show anything viable because then the little tag at the end about risking their lives would make no sense. LOL. | ||
Gazhekwe Member Username: Gazhekwe Post Number: 2976 Registered: 08-2007 |
Yeah, funny it was safe enough for that little kid walking home from school. | ||
Hamtragedy Member Username: Hamtragedy Post Number: 391 Registered: 10-2007 |
"Dollarmo" Uh, Blightmoore is still a ninth ward contender. Those houses and have done little to improve more than just the blocks they are located on. The fire-bugs are finishing the work the scrappers started last spring. Fenkell looks the same. Evergreen is starting to look worse. The house that blew up right before X-mas on Evergreen 2 houses north of Midland is still there, even though the brick guys were there in January. Evergreen streetlights have been out since Novemeber. The light at Evergreen and Fenkell has been untimed since they put the left turn lane in 4 years ago. I've been to Neighborhood City Hall, called DPL and the County, even talked to the beat cops (who don't walk much past Kentfield) several times over the last four years. Even emergency vehicles have problems at that intersection. Honestly, has anything really noteworthy happened? | ||
Royce Member Username: Royce Post Number: 1677 Registered: 07-2004 |
Useless waste of time and energy. Really, where was the danger in the middle of a bright shiny day? Amateurish to the nth degree. | ||
Urbanoutdoors Member Username: Urbanoutdoors Post Number: 1130 Registered: 11-2005 |
For those who don't know the history of Brightmoor.... http://ndndhome.org/About%20Br ightmoor.htm | ||
Gsgeorge Member Username: Gsgeorge Post Number: 774 Registered: 08-2006 |
This video is disgusting. Driving around shooting out the windshield? Try taking a walk, talking to some of the neighbors about it maybe? But the neighborhood admittedly needs help. Not unlike the rest of the city... You could pick downtown and point a camera at just the abandoned buildings. Then edit it together, throw it on YouTube, and say, "Kwame promised to clean up downtown, but look at how much that's helped." And yet there have been improvements, not just cause of Kwame but because of the forces at work in the city & region. | ||
Gnome Member Username: Gnome Post Number: 2522 Registered: 08-2007 |
Great link Urbanoudoors, I didn't know the Brightmore Backstory. I don't blame those fools for not walking around. It is best policy to never assume you are safe in foreign territory. If you click on the video and check out his other vids, you'll find equally crappy camera work as well as other innane topics. It appears the guy lives in Northville in some trailer park. I didn't know there were trailer parks in Northville. He has another tour of Brightmore circa 1992. More driving around, shakey camera, needless zooming, etc. I watched them with the sound off, maybe he gives a riveting narration, but I don't think so. | ||
Sumas Member Username: Sumas Post Number: 827 Registered: 01-2008 |
Trailer Park is in Ypsilanti | ||
Ggores Member Username: Ggores Post Number: 567 Registered: 10-2007 |
I would like to be in more fervent agreement with those that state the positive developments in that area, but I just can't see it. There is not much editing required to make that place look just as it does in the linked video. There are spotches of new homes have been built, but they do very very little. As for the danger factor, Brightmoor is about as dangerous as walking through Farmington or Southfield. It's more like a three ring circus. | ||
Gazhekwe Member Username: Gazhekwe Post Number: 2980 Registered: 08-2007 |
Interesting history there. It doesn't talk about the area west of Evergreen to the Rouge River that was built up maybe post-WWII. There are older houses in that area, too, little crackerbox ones, and some bigger farmy ones. There was a horse stable on Fenkell near Bramell until the mid-50s. | ||
Tk65 Member Username: Tk65 Post Number: 115 Registered: 12-2007 |
Who gives a shit if there is new housing. Who would move to an area that looks like that? What he shows is a FACT. I play basketball at church in Brightmoor and drive thru that mess every Sunday. Ive seen the burned out houses, the abandoned Police precinct, the closed schools, etc. Its a friggin mess. | ||
Royce Member Username: Royce Post Number: 1678 Registered: 07-2004 |
I appreciate the effort of those rebuilding and rehabbing homes in Brightmoor. The problem in Brightmoor, however, is the not so much the quality of homes but the economic status of the majority of people that live there. If 80-100 percent of the people are low-income, then not much is going to happen to improve Brightmoor's situation. The debate comes down to who you want to attract to the area. Do you want to keep the people who are currently living there in the area by building these low-income to moderately priced new homes or do you attempt gentrification, which for Brightmoor means starting from scratch and clearing out a large swath of land? I live very close to Brighmoor and often drive through the streets in the video after dropping off mail at the Brightmoor Post Office on Fenkell. The "feeling" I get when I'm driving through the area is that it is very un-urban or shall I say "country." The streets have many dips and hills. There is actually one street that is below Fenkell and Outer Drive. Also, the side streets don't have curbs, which makes it feel like the streetscape was not finished. Ironically, Fenkell Avenue, which is the main commercial strip in Brightmoor, has the potential to be very urban, but it only has a few viable businesses. Also, many of the buildings are spread out and are only one-story buildings. In addition, the sidewalks are very narrow. Fenkell reminds me of Mack Avenue between Gratiot and St. Jean. It also reminds me of Vernor Hwy in Southwest Detroit. Fenkell has the potential to be like Vernor but it needs entrepreneurs to open businesses, but Brightmoor needs people with middle class incomes to make it a reality. So in the end, you end up with the classic chicken and egg scenario, regarding Brightmoor. Which comes first, the businesses or the people with good incomes? | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 4315 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: It looks to me that nature and the local society has largely already cleared large swaths of land in Brightmoor. Regardless, how are you going to attract middle-class and upper incoming folks to such a neighborhood? You could put up mansions on the lots for days, it won't matter unless there are jobs and better transit. | ||
Royce Member Username: Royce Post Number: 1680 Registered: 07-2004 |
Eliza Howell Park is in Brightmoor located along Fenkell and along Schoolcraft/Jeffries Fwy I-96. I don't like the way that this park is designed. First it has only one entrance/exit. Second, it's not walkable, no sidewalks. Third, it's too isolated. If something was to happen to you there, no one might come to your rescue for hours, if not days. As mentioned above, the park has another side along Schoolcraft/Jeffries Fwy I-96, but it's not connected to the Fenkell side. Connecting these two sides with a road could improve the use of the park and make it less isolated because now people in cars or on foot could use it to get from Fenkell to Schoolcraft and vice versa. Personally, I think this is one of those parks that the city should sell to a private residential developer. This would be a great gated community. If you know the layout of the park, then building homes outside of the inner-ring road would be ideal. Some of the park could still be used for recreational activities - running, softball, soccer, football, and tennis. There is also a middle school near-by, Frank Murphy M.S. Although it is a DPS school, the prospect of a middle to upper middle class development, might force improvements to the school like converting it into an academy or charter school. This gated community would definitely improve Brightmoor. It would also turn an eye-sore of a park into a prime residential community with a better park. | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 1336 Registered: 04-2006 |
Gated communities, whatever else might be said for or against them, do absolutely nothing to improve the areas in which they are located. The whole point of a gated community is that you can live there without having to interact with your surroundings. The gated community itself might be decent enough (though I'd question how many people with means would want to live just off a 10-lane expressway in the middle of one of the city's most blighted neighborhoods, even if they were enclosed by a fence), but I can't see any benefit spilling out the sides. If fifty years of failed "urban renewal" schemes have taught us anything, it's that gentrifying one area will have little effect, except to move the poor people somewhere else. Until we escape this idea that everyone has to live in little isolated pods with a bunch of people exactly like them, there will always be neighborhoods like Brightmoor that lack educational and employment opportunities and positive role models. Changing which neighborhoods those are through small-scale "gentrification" won't do anything to address the underlying problems. | ||
Gazhekwe Member Username: Gazhekwe Post Number: 2993 Registered: 08-2007 |
I don't like the gated idea either, but I love the idea of developing around Eliza Howell. I can't remember when that place ever had much use. Our neighborhood around Lyndon and DaCosta would go to either Stoepel on Evergreen or Lola Valley rather than Eliza Howell. | ||
Daddeeo Member Username: Daddeeo Post Number: 598 Registered: 09-2008 |
It's amazing driving along Fenkell how it changes from night to day when you cross Telegraph. You don't have to edit anything to see the change. | ||
Barnesfoto Member Username: Barnesfoto Post Number: 3590 Registered: 10-2003 |
it continues to amaze me that there are efforts to "revitialize" Brightmoor, a neighborhood that nobody aspired to live in half a century ago (when there were still plentiful jobs in Detroit) During the Johnson Admin, there was a surge of low-cost homes built on empty lots to "fill in" the neighborhood. Many of those homes ended up in foreclosure, then were bought up by slumlords, and briefly did the "section 8 rental" role, until that too, fizzled and each and every block sported abandoned shells | ||
Royce Member Username: Royce Post Number: 1684 Registered: 07-2004 |
One of the problems with some areas of the city is that they are not walkable. I have looked at the mile road system here in Detroit, and at least on the northwest side, the mile roads begining with Warren are about 8 blocks apart. They continue north with Joy, Plymouth, Schoolcraft, Fenkell, McNichols, Seven Mile, and Eight Mile. The half-mile streets are the fourth street out of the eight. They include Tireman, Chicago, Fullerton, Lyndon, Puritan, Curtis, and Pembroke. The mile roads on the northwest side are retail/ commercial corridors. Now, given the fact that the distance between these mile roads is eight blocks, it's difficult for residents to walk to these mile roads if they live closer to the half-mile streets. These half-mile streets, in most cases, lack retail/commerical businesses, except for most of Puritan. As a result, folks closer to the half-mile roads have to have a car to get around, especially for shopping. In Brightmoor, because of the Jeffries Freeway, the service drive is literally Schoolcraft. As a result, very little retail/commerical activity exists along Schoolcraft. The half-mile street to the north, Lyndon, is a residential street with little to no retail. The half-mile street, Puritan, which is north of Fenkell also lacks retail. The half-mile street, Fullerton, which is south of Schoolcraft is mostly train tracks or part of the Jeffries Freeway service drive. So, unless, you live near Fenkell or Plymouth (the mile road south of Schoolcraft), there's not much to walk to if you live in these areas of Brightmoor, so why live there? Also, a good part of Brightmoor is really an extention of Rouge Park and the Rouge River system. The Rouge River runs through many Brightmoor streets, with backyards backing into the river. In addition, there are an enormous number of trees in Brightmoor, giving it the appearance that you are in the country or woods. For some people, this is not a problem. For others, it might not be what they are looking for when they think of an urban setting. This isn't a deal breaker, but not being able to walk to commerical strips is. Brightmoor is an enigma for any urban planner. It's never really had a heyday so what do you return it to? Personally, I've always thought that it should be cleared out and developed with new and bigger homes designed to appeal to the people who live or want to live in Rosedale Park, who don't want to leave the city, but are looking for a bigger and newer house. Beyond that, all I can think of is clearing it out and just letting nature take over and treat the area like a huge inner-city nature park. (Message edited by royce on March 24, 2009) | ||
Gazhekwe Member Username: Gazhekwe Post Number: 3006 Registered: 08-2007 |
Brightmoor originally appealed to people who wanted to live in a country atmosphere. There were little houses with generous yards and lots of trees. It also was walkable way back when. People weren't so car dependent in the 50s and 60s. The buses were the transport of choice back then, and you would have to walk up to the main road to catch a bus, as well. The problem with it now is the lack of consolidated retail at the main street corners. Back then, the corners were the draw. At Lahser and Fenkell, and going a block or two each way down Fenkell, you had Otis Jones Drug Store, with doctors' offices upstairs, Sav-U Market, Scotty Simpson's, a Dime store, St. Christine's and more. Over at Schoolcraft and Telegraph, there was a shopping center with a big discount store, I forget which, Miracle Mart maybe. There was a fruit market at Schoolcraft and Outer Drive. We'd walk to those places all the time. Now, well, other than Scotty's, the church and that store on the corner, I am not sure what there is to walk to. People don't walk that much now anyway. | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 1342 Registered: 04-2006 |
quote:You are aware that there are people living there, aren't you? | ||
Detroitbred Member Username: Detroitbred Post Number: 278 Registered: 06-2008 |
My family lived in Brighemoor many years ago, when I was a child. I got nostalgic not long ago and drove thru to see the old house ( which my grandfather built, he was a brick mason ). I'm sad to say that much of what I saw was like that video ( video made me car sick!). It was a bit scary, saw numerous dogs running loose, many burned out houses, abandoned cars, etc. While that neighborhood was never a prosperous one, back when we lived there people did their best to maintain their property. It made me very sad for those people still living thre. | ||
Royce Member Username: Royce Post Number: 1686 Registered: 07-2004 |
Bearinthebox, why don't you offer a suggestion on what to do with Brightmoor instead of criticizing my suggestions. You don't have to agree, but at least offer alternatives. | ||
Busterwmu Member Username: Busterwmu Post Number: 564 Registered: 09-2004 |
100 years ago it was a farm. We could bring it back to it's historic roots! | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 1343 Registered: 04-2006 |
quote:"What to do with Brightmoor" is not the question we should be asking. I'm not criticizing your suggestions in and of themselves, I'm criticizing your whole concept of what is wrong with Brightmoor. Given that, your last post makes no sense. | ||
Detroitbred Member Username: Detroitbred Post Number: 279 Registered: 06-2008 |
Gaz...my mother worked at Jones Drugs years ago ( where she met my dad ) and before they were maried, she lived about the Irving theater with her mother. Many roots/ connections to that neighborhood for me. | ||
Detroitbred Member Username: Detroitbred Post Number: 280 Registered: 06-2008 |
And oh yes, I went to high school with Harry who now owns Scotty's fish and chips.... | ||
Detroitbred Member Username: Detroitbred Post Number: 281 Registered: 06-2008 |
And oh yes, I went to high school with Harry who now owns Scotty's fish and chips....and Topps was the big store at Schoolcraft and Telegraph...used to spend my baby sitting money there. | ||
Royce Member Username: Royce Post Number: 1688 Registered: 07-2004 |
Well, Bearinbox, clearly from the video or from a simple drive through Brightmoor one can point out many negatives. What to do with Brightmoor? "IS" the question we should be asking. The focus of this forum is to talk about Detroit and how to improve things in Detroit, when improving is needed. Several people on here have explained the history of Brightmoor, which explains how it ended up being in the condition it is in today. We know Brightmoor's past. The question now is, "Is there a future?" At present, the future of Brightmoor doesn't seem to "bright" in its current incarnation. So, the question that appears obvious is, "How do you improve Brightmoor?" Through my suggestions I have attempted to answer that question. What I don't understand, Bearinabox, is what is it that you don't understand? Should Brightmoor remain as it is? Most people would say "no?" So, therefore, how do you go about improving Brightmoor? I have given some suggestions. Bearinabox, you have suggested nothing. (Message edited by royce on March 24, 2009) | ||
Daddeeo Member Username: Daddeeo Post Number: 603 Registered: 09-2008 |
Let's see, start cleaning up after yourselves, don't burn down houses in your neighborhood and don't drop out of school and get hooked on drugs. That's a beginning. | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 1346 Registered: 04-2006 |
quote:Oh, I understand you perfectly, I just think you're barking up the wrong tree here. Let me try to explain a bit better. Brightmoor is the way it is in large part because of the way our society deals with poverty. Those with means move as geographically far from poverty as possible, and the poor are left in places like Brightmoor with no jobs, no role models, no real educational opportunities, and no real way out of the lifestyle they were born into. So, in my opinion, the best way to fix Brightmoor is to fix that first. Encourage all different kinds of people to live with one another instead of living among their own kind. This sort of integration was actively discouraged for much of our region's history, and I think it would be beneficial for us to actively encourage it, and work at tearing down the perception that people should live in homogeneous enclaves. Failing that, there will always be hopelessly impoverished neighborhoods like Brightmoor, and no amount of 1950s-style urban renewal will do anything at all to change that. If you accept that there will always be hopelessly impoverished neighborhoods, where poor people are highly concentrated and separated from non-impoverished people, and where there is little opportunity for advancement or escape even for people who know to actively seek it out, then Brightmoor is as good a place as any to have that sort of a neighborhood. The people who live there have social networks, such as they are, and they are adapted to that environment. Tear down the neighborhood and force them out, and that structure will be destroyed, and their lives disrupted. And if you're going to gentrify an area, Brightmoor is not the place to do it, anyway. Start with a neighborhood that has a concentration of high-quality, unique, salvageable housing stock and a convenient location. The North End might be a good choice, for someone so inclined. Do a New Center Commons type thing. But again, all that will do is move the poor people somewhere else, and probably leave them worse off than before. I'm not saying that Brightmoor should be left exactly as it is, but efforts to improve the neighborhood should be aimed toward improving the lives of the people who live there, not pushing them out and replacing them with rich people. Rich people can fend for themselves, and if they want to gentrify an area, they will. That's how gentrification happens in functioning cities--rich people move in on their own, because there is something about the neighborhood they like. I hope that helped clarify my position. | ||
Royce Member Username: Royce Post Number: 1689 Registered: 07-2004 |
Bearinabox, I understand your position. We simply have a different philosophy on how societies should treat the poor. In yours, people having different levels of income can live in harmony. I find that to be a very utopian viewpoint that simply will not work. Those with money will inevitably be robbed, attacked, or killed by some of those in that utopian community who do not want to work hard in order to achieve what those with the money have achieved. In the U.S. the clearest sign of an individuals success is where he or she lives. They can "afford" to live where they live because either they have worked hard to get the education necessary to get a good, high-paying job, or they have worked hard and have learned skills needed to be successful in their field, or they have worked hard and have taken risks as an entrepreneur to be successful at their business. In each instance the individual has worked hard and has made sacrificies to "afford" where he or she wants to live. Has the individual living in Brightmoor done the same things as the person mentioned above? Obviously if they are living in Brightmoor, then they probably haven't done the things necesary to become successful. If that was the case then they could "afford" to live somewhere else, if they desired to do so. Isn't one of the great things about this country the idea that anyone can come from humble beginnings and become successful? Aren't their immigrants who come from other countries who find success here? So what is it that's keeping people in Brightmoor from becoming successful? Bearinabox, you don't have to answer these questions because you and I both know the answers. The complexities of being poor have been documented. My argument that people of different incomes living in the same area doesn't work is based on the idea that as human being we have to be motivated to do those things that are necessary to become successful. People don't apprecitate things if they're just handed to them. People have to be motivated to get out of that "shack" of a house or that terrible neighborhood. They can't let those things that can side-track their success, side-track their success. It's not easy for any of us, but we have to work hard and make sacrifices if we want success. I know it's a simple maxim, but if folks in Brightmoor followed it, then they'd either no longer live in Brightmoor or Brightmoor would be a more desirable place to live. | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 4323 Registered: 10-2003 |
It's not some utopian ideal, though. There are successful mixed-income communities all across this country, and most public housing is now-mixed with market rate housing, even within Detroit (i.e. Woodbridge, Herman Gardens redo if it ever gets started, etc...). In Chicago, they often require that in the same building a developer also include so many subsidized and/or age-restricted units in their market-rate buildings. I just had to correct the idea that mixed-income doesn't exist or doesn't work where it does. Personally, barring a significant increase in employers in the neighborhood, it'd probably be best for the city to plan a controlled shrinkage, but on the general idea of mixed-income neighborhoods, they are not some fuzzy novelty. In many places, they are a reality. | ||
Royce Member Username: Royce Post Number: 1691 Registered: 07-2004 |
Lmichigan, there are requirements in these mixed-use public housing developments that those who live in these developments have to have verifiable employment, unless they are senior citizens. It is a much better situation than what public housing used to be. The question to ask yourself, Lmichigan, is, "Can this mixed-use living situation exists outside of a public housing development?" | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 4324 Registered: 10-2003 |
Actually, that is what public housing use to be (i.e. for the working poor). And, yes, it can. It does everyday is most every city. I think where we're splitting is that maybe you're talking about chronic welfare recipients living next door to bank branch managers, and I'm talking about the general reality that the vast majority of neighborhoods in most normal cities are generally a mix of incomes. So, yes, mixed-income hoods aren't always socially engineered. In a healthy city, they just happen. | ||
Royce Member Username: Royce Post Number: 1693 Registered: 07-2004 |
Detroitbred, was the old house you lived in still there? | ||
Detroitbred Member Username: Detroitbred Post Number: 283 Registered: 06-2008 |
Royce, it indeed was. It wasn't in great shape, but looked like someone was trying to work on it. A number of years ago, before he died, my father had gone by and was sad to see the house had a fire. I'm happy the old girl is still standing. I imagine it helped that it was brick construction. Even after we moved from that house, ( didn't go far, north of Schoolcraft, behind the monastery ) we went back to the neighborhood to visit our friends. Lots of great childhood and teenage memories for me there. | ||
Detroitbred Member Username: Detroitbred Post Number: 284 Registered: 06-2008 |
S'cuse me...we were south of Schoolcraft! |
