house hunting..or why i am becoming an alcoholic. a rant...

[haerbob3]

funny thing around Detroit. Crack houses one side of the road other side the cheap houses start at a million. Funny how to some people that all of MI is Detroit. Funny too that burn out husk of a city has some of the fastest rising realty prices

[zorak1066]

I did 35 years in Detroit.. watched it go from a booming melting pot of Czech, pole, german, Yugoslavian - where you could sleep with your door unlocked and screens in the windows.... (prior to coleman young).. where kids could stay out past curfew and not worry about getting abducted.... and ppl took pride in their neighborhoods and homes... .to the vile bankrupt cess pool of ruin and crime and corruption that began with the coleman young era and continues to this day.

when we finally got the hell out of dodge in 88, we had a crack house on one corner and a dope den on the other. houses started burning down and being left in ruin. the cops were totally useless. ppl started stealing aluminum siding and air conditioning units. there were shootings in my neighborhood. one guy got stabbed multiple times... I googled my old house only to find it in ruin, surrounded by burnt out shells. I swear Detroit looks like Dresden after the firebombing in ww2!

after the '67 riots, Detroiters put their differences aside and rebuilt. you could still see pride in ones neighborhood... and then the 80s happened.

[mashani]

Mashani... sounds like you live near Detroit.

I believe you are quite off the mark .

Well, I could hop in a boat and get there. Or drive there if I really wanted to. But I try to avoid Detroit, as I don't consider it "Michigan" at all but some foreign country that is stuck in Michigan. if I was going to Michigan I'd rather go to Traverse City. Or any place with dunes. Or the UP. I'm a fan of the UP. Except for the black flies, they suck. Or bite. Whatever the do it hurts LOL.

watched it go from a booming melting pot of Czech, pole, german, Yugoslavian - where you could sleep with your door unlocked and screens in the windows.... (prior to coleman young).. where kids could stay out past curfew and not worry about getting abducted.... and ppl took pride in their neighborhoods and homes...

Well that was true here back in the day too. What used to be our old Slavic neighborhood back then is also a total mess these days. Same for many other former European ethnic neighborhoods. Ultimately it was a combination of building freeways which allowed folks to bypass the neighboorhoods and their shops, and block busting by realtors that did those neighborhoods in here, not the actual people that lived there or those that were "moving in" because to move in you had to have a real job/income then. But once a "certain type" moved in the realtors started the FUD machine and block busting and when the freeways were built and nobody went to the shops anymore on the way to or after work it just destroyed the rest of the hard working folks who stuck it out. The combo made realtors a lot of money but destroyed entire neighborhoods.

I've posted pictures of a lake I cycle around in the summer pics thread. They wanted to build a freeway there too (because it's nothing but "useless wetlands"). It would have destroyed that area. There was basically a hippy revolt there and the hippy revolt saved it, and their entire neighborhood. That area still remains decent and safe and never succumbed to block busting because of them where literally a few miles away you can find crack houses and bombed out buildings. Sometimes a hippy revolt is a good thing believe it or not.

[haerbob3]

I am with Mashani on this one. I do not consider Detroit a part of Michigan anymore. Good Ole Young took care of that. It used be a great place to work & play. My grandparents & an aunt + uncle lived on Elgin St. Us kids could go anywhere with out worry. We just told to stay out of Outer Drive and French Road.

I love the area we live at. A lake across the street 6 more in walking or biking distance. Feels like up north yet I am close to the things I need to be.