Does Detroit suffer from Ghetto-itis ?

[Detroit Stylin]

Why yes....this post IS thoroughly offensive....

[Willi]

Does the truth hurt that much that it cramps your Style

[antongast]

Are you scum antongast ?

Yes.

You have started 3 threads and been on the forum how long

Going on, shit, almost nine years. I feel old.

-- yeah a real thinker, reader, motivator, etc.

[Willi]

Now that Pam got her music fix - on to how to fix the lawlessness that people tolerate.
If people don't put up with all the nonsense in a neighborhood , it gets squashed, diminished.
When folks are apathetic, an-anything-goes-anytime type attitude, the neighborhood fails.
Yo Anton, you do anything at all to fix something, somewhere, somehow for others ?

[sumas]

This post is complete gibberish. I have no idea what you are trying to say. It's sad that your cultural pathologies make you insufficiently motivated to pull up your bootstraps and learn to express yourself coherently. What should we do about Willi's cultural pathologies, guys?

Ignore it maybe? No one who lives in Detroit or cares about it, would suggest there are no issues or big problems. Must say I don't understand the rants either. Scum??? I might consider inviting him to my area of town but really don't need an idiot to incite issues with zippo comprehension or promote foolish dogma.

[Willi]

The theory of three monkeys who hear no evil , see no evil, speak no evil, works well, huh ?
What a wonderful way to plod thru life Sumas, just ignore the facts, the truth, the world.
Have you ever challenged anyone to not dump something, not be a thief scrapper, etc .
- perhaps intervene and tell someone NO you can't do that in this neighborhood ?

[ABetterDetroit]

I be old, isn't that how Detroit folks talk? Ms Grace at 87, passed last week and finally before she died, taught me how to fry chicken right. An amazing woman, an amazing neighbor. These are the people I see trash talked all the time. But I do know her recipes now and will share with community. I wouldn't trade my neighbors and community for the world. Sick of PC crap and in my world we get rid of the bull. It's not white or black, Christian or Jew, young or old or new world views. Just really good neighbors. People should be as lucky as I feel. Yes assholes this is Detroit!

My sympathies on the passing of you friend. It never gets easy, my thoughts are with you.

[sumas]

The theory of three monkeys who hear no evil , see no evil, speak no evil, works well, huh ?
What a wonderful way to plod thru life Sumas, just ignore the facts, the truth, the world.
Have you ever challenged anyone to not dump something, not be a thief scrapper, etc .
- perhaps intervene and tell someone NO you can't do that in this neighborhood ?

You are an amazing asshole: want my creds and people in my neighborhood can do better: look at this list toad:

I can paper my home office with volunteer of the year awards
Written many successful grants that enhance my community
Support local business
Published author
Work with kids to enhance life skills.
House homeless folk that need a little boost
Teach area kids cooking skills
Teach piano lessons
Support other non profits in youth education
open our home to out of state and out of country organizations for world issues
do planned community clean ups
tithe to my church
teach Sunday school and support financially to youth athletic programs
operate a community garden
Cook for community events
sit on our block club board and street association
Maintain and invest in our fantastic historic home

Actually my list of community involvement could go on and on.

As mentioned my neighbors do more.

My husband has Parkinson's and I am legally blind. Just what, please, do you do, for community.

Sorry you are the one that plods through life with your narrow life vision. I can't see and my vision is way better than yours.

If I am a monkey, you are a stinking filthy ape.

Sorry Lowell, kick me off the forum, but I really detest creeps!

[sumas]

My sympathies on the passing of you friend. It never gets easy, my thoughts are with you.

Thank you, a wonderful and vibrant woman passed. Her kinder mow our vacant area properties and she, in local vernacular, raised her kids right.

[Willi]

I need to apologize to Lowell for being vulgar.

Wouldn't be your first time throwing a fit on the forums, eh Sumas?
Nice to know who is all high and mighty and jumping on the soapbox to preach.
Obviously someone that cares to give something to the community and make it better.
Can Detroit clone you Sumas and put one of you on every block, um er no they can't.
So it's left up to the other 700,000 residents to do their part.

Mayor Duggan has said clearly a number of times - Residents have to step up -

[sumas]

My neighbors are fantastic. Shit happens and as community got home invasion crooks arrested with working with the 7th precinct. Got scrappers arrested and a newbie drug house shut down.

I am Detroit proud. Please quit pretending Detroit is some kind of no mans land with losers and welfare cheats. I can walk any where in my community and be greeted. we want a safe community too. We all bleed red. Our kids are adorably charming. There are serious issues but please do not assume that community doesn't care or invest in our seniors or youth.

Not high and mighty, it takes a village to invest in social issues and I really love that my village gives a shit. Honestly so many community members are so impressive. Investment in our kids will indeed make a better city.

[Willi]

Obviously some neighborhoods don't have the intense community involvement
-- and those need work as well, so it really is a block-by-block overhaul of the city.
Something like 20 square miles of the city lies vacant.

[Zacha341]

You know reading what you wrote Sumas reminded me that too many of us stay in our silos too much relative to community. It's easy to go into our homes and wall off literally and you cannot reach everyone for sure, but the solution does start with interaction. Please keep doing what you are doing and I'll try to do more on my street/ community.

Actually my list of community involvement could go on and on.

As mentioned my neighbors do more.

My husband has Parkinson's and I am legally blind. Just what, please, do you do, for community...

[Dan Wesson]

You know reading what you wrote Sumas reminded me that too many of us stay in our silos too much relative to community. It's easy to go into our homes and wall off literally and you cannot reach everyone for sure, but the solution does start with interaction. Please keep doing what you are doing and I'll try to do more on my street/ community.

Every time I am in the city and surrounding metro area I notice exactly that.

The only place where you can "Loiter" anymore is your little patch of earth in a city of public streets, parking lots, shopping centers, etc...

You get in your car and get out of your car, all the time at the mercy of legal and illegal impediments.

That's why the Island is so nice you can park and get out without looking left and right and merging with the populous at the city's pace. Especially now with the State takeover.

It seems as a kid the neighborhood was your playground and the kid's in it were your companions. As an adult this is just not so.

Like Zacha says,

"It's easy to go into our homes and wall off literally and you cannot reach everyone for sure".

It's just one of the normality's of big city life for most big city dwellers.

If you live outside of all that for a number of years, it becomes glaringly obvious.

[gazhekwe]

I recognized some of those fixes from my early days. Money was short and we employed all kinds of makeshift make it work fixes. Might have looked 'ghetto' by the definition presented up top, but it was early student art work, really. So, how to change things? Invest in our neighborhoods. Make them work from the inside out.

[stasu1213]

How often do people see this "type" of stuff in Detroit ?
Eliminate it , banish it, or is the flavor of the local neighborhood streets ?

http://thechive.com/2014/08/25/odds-...tto-25-photos/

Detroit does suffer from it. Look at the retail district in the upper middle class neighborhoods. Avenue of Fashion is a street full of weave shops, barbershops, low class antique/resale shops etc that dont pull or attract the people who live in the neighborhood. So called cutesy missspelled name is the norm such as "Kutz" instead of "Cuts" as part of a name for a barbershop. Gas stations/Kentucky Fried Chicken pop up all over the place. Graffiti becomes a thing of art and is sprayed on every bus stop and wall in thr hood. I would like to thank the DEGC for having a hand in keeping Detroit an oversize ghetto by selecting and allowing where some of these businesses should or could open.

[Willi]

Many, many things can be done with some bartering and interaction within a community.
It's only when the folks living in an area, actually talk, engage, and act, do things change.
I have zero guilt for posting this thread, some are beginning to ""get it", understand it.
A nasty Ghetto exists because people LET it exist, they don't do anything to stop it.
Money doesn't fix much, yet people and attitudes can fix just about anything.

There is no money magically appearing to fix Detroit, this year or next or by 2020.
People can make a conscious choice of how a neighborhood looks and acts.

[sumas]

Thank you Zacha, I am thoroughly no saint. My neighbors do so more. It is important that neighbors engage but really get sick of non Detroit people telling us what should happen. I have lived in suburbs and frankly they need to deal with their issues. Not much different than ours.

I do get frustrated sometimes. I got mocked by non area residents when I walked around and picked up litter. Went down to a neighbors house and delivered a pumpkin helped him pick up trash that blows in too.

Drive our state highways, litter everywhere. Too many really dumb people.

The sanctimonious folk point fingers at our city and it galls me. Our problems will be theirs soon enough.

[Willi]

Dumb folks gall me

~ get sick of non Detroit people telling us what should happen~
~frankly they need to deal with their issues ~.
~Not much different than ours~

If the problems are similar, why are you sick of a Non-Detroiter making a comment Sumas ?
The borders of Detroit interface with many communities and you don't live on an island

I am thoroughly no saint.

[Gpwrangler]

The sanctimonious folk point fingers at our city and it galls me. Our problems will be theirs soon enough.

I hope you're not wishing ill will towards a neighboring city. We already have enough problems. The latest craze is pushing our cars a few hundred feet across into Detroit and stripping them in full view. Gonna be a bad day if they try that at my house.

People sling crap both ways on here. Gets old both ways.

[Wesley Mouch]

Thank you Zacha, I am thoroughly no saint. My neighbors do so more. It is important that neighbors engage but really get sick of non Detroit people telling us what should happen. I have lived in suburbs and frankly they need to deal with their issues. Not much different than ours.
...snip...

On the other hand, you could be happy and just continue doing what your community has been doing -- and you can then expect more of the same results.

I am not a Detroiter right now. But I was raised in Detroit. I went to school through college there. And I worked there for 25 years. Is my opinion something you should be sick of simply because I don't live there today.

The attitude that Detroit has the world figured out and doesn't need to listen to outsiders has to end. I would have thought bankruptcy might have been a hint that things weren't going well -- or maybe the condition of 90% of the city?

No. Seems that was a plot by the 1% to steal the jewels.

Your posts, sumas, are generally wise. But telling people to mind their own business is why they have -- for the last 30 years -- let Detroit slide.

Now people are engaged in Detroit. They want her to succeed. And you want them to go away.

Remember that a lot of people out there are former Detroiters who have a valid claim to 'Detroit', too. Welcome them.

[antongast]

Is my opinion something you should be sick of simply because I don't live there today.

No, your opinions speak for themselves. I only found out in this post that you don't live in the city, but I was sick of your opinions long before that.

[Willi]

Wouldn't want anyone from the suburbs spending money downtown Detroit , eh antongast. ?
I get it, it's your boundary, YOU pay for everything, YOU support everything, like an island.
That may be the easiest way yet to crush the D - Keep all the evil money out - You are smart

[antongast]

Wouldn't want anyone from the suburbs spending money downtown Detroit , eh antongast. ?
I get it, it's your boundary, YOU pay for everything, YOU support everything, like an island.
That may be the easiest way yet to crush the D - Keep all the evil money out - You are smart

I have no idea how you managed to extract that from any of my posts. I didn't address that question in this thread at all, and don't remember having done so recently anywhere else either.

If you must know, my position as a voting resident of the city is that our political institutions should avoid pursuing policies that create burdens for people who live here in order to make it easier or more comfortable for people from the suburbs to visit. I don't think that's an unreasonable principle for any local unit of government to follow. People from the suburbs should feel free to come here like anyone else, but they should get no special treatment, and they should recognize that our institutions do not exist for their benefit.

For some reason, people from the suburbs tend to take it as a personal insult when city residents hold positions like this, while unapologetically applying the exact same principle to suburban institutions. While I do think this dynamic is harmful to the city in some ways, I don't think it makes any sense to blame residents of the city for being insufficiently accommodating. We're not here to accommodate you. That's not me being rude, that's you feeling entitled to something to which you should not reasonably feel entitled.

[Jimaz]

The subconscious act of ineffectively concealing one's crypto fascism confirms its presence.