Quote Originally Posted by DTWflyer View Post
You sure like to over-exaggerate on the amount of decline/blight/crime on anything that isn't in Birmingham, including in perfectly fine areas of Southeast Michigan.
I think parts of Birmingham are worse too, so maybe I'm just too negative. 14 mile looks much worse. A few blocks just north of 14 and east of Woodward look worse for wear too. Parts of Bloomfield look worse too [[actually most parts of the Twp., almost all of W. Bloomfield looks worse, but not the city).

To me, when I drive Maple east of Coolidge, it looks much worse than in the past. Abandoned K-Mart for years, now being replaced by some warehouse monstrosity, lots of industrial/flex space sitting vacant, rundown retail. It doesn't look that good to me. 1960s-1970s era construction has aged very badly, and yes, even in my neck of the woods. You slowly see lower class stuff like dollars stores and cheap takeouts seeping into areas in South Oakland not right along the Woodward corridor.

I do agree that Clawson is arguably improved. It looked semi-dumpy 20 years ago, and downtown looks nice now. But areas just to the east and west along 14 mile definitely look worse [[Oakland Mall area looks awful). Those 60-era apartment corridors [[Crooks between 14 and 16) look pretty bad too.

John R. south of 14 looks like a semi-slum. I can't imagine that area being desirable over the long run.

Pretty much all of Macomb looks even worse. I drove Van Dyke recently and basically the entire street, from Warren to Utica, looks like hell. Sterling Heights is incredibly ugly.