Originally Posted by
Hamtragedy
Please stop trying to defend yourself. The OP asked what Detroit neighborhoods were like in the 70's and at what times and where did certain downward trends occur. Giving generalizations on no specific demographic or geography only leads to general speculation of what happened with no insight other than to have read it on the inner-tube or in a book lacking the real mindset of what actually happened.
As someone who was there, not just in Grandmont, but at Bewick and Jefferson and Mack and Chalmers, I can contradict nearly all of your generalizations. Did you know that the all- black congregation at Charlevoix and St. Jean was totally opposed to the Black Panthers holding breakfasts to feed hungry children, even though HUD provided the funding, and the white minister had to convince them that feeding hungry children was a good thing? Things aren't always what they seem.
Attacking people "who never looked at a map" even though we did, in fact, live close by, but by geographical and cultural boundaries wouldn't even consider those areas local, is just arrogant. Yeah Greenfield and Fenkell was close to Grandmont, but so was Southfield and W. Chicago, which to me was much closer, as Cody High was my block's districted high school, [[and in the 70s was full of burnouts). Three blocks west was districted Cooley, and four blocks north was Redford. But whodafuck cares where it rests on a map other than you? We sho' as hell didn't. We had our boundaries, and if we drifted from them we got in trouble, either by being there or by our parents.
So please, stop trying to be such a damn know-it-all all the damn time, and then getting pissed off when you get called out on it. Learn something from being wrong instead of being all hard-headed about it.
By the way, "whodafuck cares", "sho' as hell don't" and "hard-headed" are all classic Detroit terms, but you already know this because you're so well-read.