Gee, there you have it - NO ONE cared, NO ONE acted, drugs were rampant
Now those drug dealers died, got old, and can't secure any decent jobs, wow
Highland Park failed due to Society.
Printable View
Gee, there you have it - NO ONE cared, NO ONE acted, drugs were rampant
Now those drug dealers died, got old, and can't secure any decent jobs, wow
Highland Park failed due to Society.
HP failed for the same reason Detroit failed, piss-poor leadership. Those elected kept milking the cow until it went belly-up. Why spend money on a bale of hay when you can put that money in your own pocket? Now it's going to take something short of a miracle to bring it back around.
Detroit didn't fail because of poor leadership. If anything, it's had pretty decent mayors for big-city standards. Cavanaugh, Archer and Duggan are pretty much universally regarded as top-tier mayors.
Young was divisive but most folks acknowledge he did OK-to-well considering circumstances. Bing was a cipher and Kwame a crook, but really none had absurd public policy decisions.
No man [[or woman) could have stopped Detroit's epic decline.
There's a lot more to leadership than the guy who sits at the top of the pile. You have City Council, City Clerk, DPS leadership, hundreds of others in leadership roles and their staff. Through all that bureaucracy there is plenty of room for people with no show jobs, shady contractors, and overall waste especially in a city too distracted by crime, drugs, and decline to really notice the internal corruption. The Mayor has to assume that the people 4, 5, 6, rungs down the ladder are doing their jobs as there are so many of them even the most diligent executive can't keep tabs on them all.
Until Duggan no Mayor seemed overly interested in shaking up "business as usual" in the city government as a whole. Perhaps it's just the timing that allowed him to make such progress [[once you hit rock bottom the only way to go is up) but I think it's more than that.
So when people have a complete lack of desire to achieve
-- it is the mayors fault, and the city councils fault ?
People in HP fail to pull in $15,000 a year on average,
and no one is willing to blame the individuals for their failures ?
Perhaps if people demanded straight A's from all students in a class,
and devoted a society towards creating achievement from people,
so they actually function in society ? How about that ?
Then there is no ""entitlement"" of food stamps, paying utility bills, etc.
A city functions on its own, as a sustainable environment, intellectually.
You're putting the cart in front of the horse. HP is not in the condition it's in because the current residents can't pull in over $15k, the current residents are there because of the condition HP is in. HP @ one point was a fairly well-to-do place to live. As safety and services deteriorated, those residents voted with their feet, and were replaced with who you have now, residents looking for a bargain basement place to live. If the people you vote in can't, won't, grow or maintain what was entrusted to them or continue to bleed it dry, what other results can you expect? Wasn't the mayor or some other office holder indited on some fraudulent activity just a few years ago? I can't recall all the details right now.
100 years later. HP is the core of the black ghetto. No High School, no street lights, no community college, no public library, no Ford plant, no Chrysler Corp, no hope!!!
The ones living in HP are not forced to work in HP, they CAN go elsewhere.
If they had skills, talent, knowledge, jobs exist nearby as well.
But they don't, hence the point. HP is a defacto "throwaway" community, ignored by anyone with resources, unfortunately, and the current residents mostly live there because there's nowhere else to go.
But the issues in HP have basically nothing to do with the current residents. They're there because the city is deemed practically worthless.
^^^ Uh, yeah. Somehow that has been forgotten. Unless you live in Detroit.
WTF ???
"" the issues in HP have basically nothing to do with the current residents. ""
I wholeheartedly dis-agree .
Did HP actually SUCK those people in [[like a vacuum cleaner) ??
The people don't make money, so is there is none at city hall !!!
I put the blame on the residents, fair and square.
No aspirations to evolve forward. They don't seem very motivated.
The 11,000 people barely make over $15,000 a year on average.
I've read reports that nearly 80% of the city’s residents live in senior homes, meaning ~ 2,000 property owners are the tax rolls.
In 2001, Highland Park’s financial crisis grew so severe
Jennifer Granholm appointed an “emergency financial manager”
to handle the city’s finances. That was almost 20 YEARS AGO.
Our systems are broken and HP reflects it directly.
Towne Clubber stop being a trolling idiot. No one claimed that there wasn't a single commercial taxable property in HW.
HW is an overwhelmingly residential community, which is why it has high property taxes. That doesn't mean its commercial tax base is literally 0.
Get a freakin life already, and stop trying to play braindead "gotcha" with every post.
How does a city become prosperous and well to do ?
It involves money coming in, from businesses and residents.
Highly skilled, educated residents, are the backbone of any city.
If we drop many of the 11,000 HP residents into Grosse Point, Birmingham,
etc., etc., etc., etc - many would simply fail with wealth all around them.
If cities give HUGE tax breaks over and over again to big business,
then the tax burden falls onto the senior citizens - also whacked !!
Younger people won't move in, because the taxes are high. Paradox.
Speaking of brain dead, is that the reason that you continuously post false information? To repeatedly and [[often) intentionally do so is the ultimate in trolling.
Not to mention your whole “Birmingham” act, which is highly doubtful at best. Talk about being an idiot and needing to get a life.
That's an awfully broad brush you're painting with.
Taxes have never been high on my priority list when it comes to picking a place to live.
Rather:
*Proximity to trendy/upscale amenities
*Growth rates
*Proximity to high-paying corporate jobs
Are the main things I look for. I don't want to live in an area with a rapidly aging population nor an area where the residents have limited disposable incomes [[as these areas will be most susceptible to store closures and regressive governance).
After those 3 things, I look at school quality and safety.
In 2016, 23% of Michigan residents were age 60 or older.
Taxes, utilities and other recurring costs are THE top items on my move to somewhere else list.
What is the point of this thread? Arguing about obscure facts and continuously ranting/shouting about how crappy HP is [[like people in this niche forum don’t already know). Sometimes the negativity of this place is toxic; you would think instead of being called DetroitYES! this place is called DetroitNO!
If you can’t focus on anything but all that is wrong in the region, why nothing is going to work, revitalization is going to fail because x/y/z, why are you here? It’s like reading “Old Man Yells at Clouds” over and over.
Looking at the demographics of Highland Park from the 2010 census too many old folks is not the problem. Only 14% were older than 65.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Park,_Michigan
Older folks are a good thing for communities. Baby boomers have all the money, and you don't have the burden of educating their kids.
I'm pretty sure Bloomfield Hills has the highest median age in Metro Detroit.
You're right. I'm not sure why I wrote buildings, when I kept looking at what you wrote "HW doesn't have a commercial tax base" and then denied ever saying that when confronted with the fact that HW does have a commercial tax base, despite being very little compared to its neighbors.
What's the solution :
Take Highland Park as a primer, the revenues do not match expenses,
declining population, and even lower tax revenues moving forward.
About 11,000 people, so its a MICRO-Detroit , easier to handle .
Highland Park incorporated as a village in 1889
and then incorporated as a city in 1917
https://wdet.org/media/daguerre/2015...e013438bb9.png
Unfortunately, the OP can't form a coherent thought so we can ascertain what they are even trying to get out of this.
BUT, Highland Park does need to be discussed. It's a sad city, with an honorable history. It is the result of both capitalism and mid-20th century liberal/welfare programs, both of which need major reforms.
Highland Park is a great shame on the metro region and state. It's not so much being negative about a place, but let's be honest with what HP is today and pragmatic about how we fix such a city.
The fact the entire city is abject poverty and very little is being done about it. And that it was allowed to be the foremost and first "suburban" middle class powerhouse to what it is today.
No high school. A police force run out of a strip mall. Shells of houses. A closed, beautiful library. Hamilton Ave.
Massachusetts Ave. is nice, but it ain't helping the city image much.
Well I hate to break this to ya' iheartthed - it is NOT acceptable.
No one should be elated about passing high school.
There should be no parties, no tents, no relatives invited over.
It is a mediocre achievement at best, if anyone barely scraped by and passed
The fact that 11,000 people can barely hit $15,000 as an average income
is an utter disgrace upon Michigan, the USA and America as a whole.
Are we talking about poverty or Highland Park? These are two different things, but for some reason people in this message board tend to conflate the two.
If we're talking about poverty, every region has poverty. There are nearly 2 million people living in poverty in NYC, and their issues rarely get discussed by the media. Certainly never discussed as a judgment on NYC itself.
But poverty isn't the sole reason why Highland Park looks the way it looks. NYC proves that you can have rich and poor in the same city. In Metro Detroit, rich and poor like to be divided by municipal boundaries. People of means in Metro Detroit don't want to share services with poor people.
I'm talking HP, pointed out with maps, figures, facts etc., etc.
The poverty seems to be congealed in those 3 square miles.
As for the look, don't give a diddle poo or two - how it ACTS is another issue
They act like they are incapable, unable, and can NOT earn more.
We all know people in poverty manage to become decent middle class
- if they have the desire, drive, inner willpower to overcome circumstance
Let's take Lowell : he posted
""I lived in Highland Park most of my adult life.
I could keep up my property, send my kid
to the Catholic school and pay my taxes""
Highland Park
- Population: 10,955
- Poverty rate: 49.0% [[top 10%)
- 2017 violent crimes per 100,000 people: 1,701 [[top 10%)
- Median home value: $33,500 [[bottom 10%)
Highland Park, Michigan, ranks as the fifth worst city to live
in the country in part because it is the poorest American city
by a wide margin.
You're a funny guy, Towne Cluber. I don't know what's funnier, your bizarre attempts at trying to one-up all my comments, your utter lack of reading comprehension, or glaring lack of context.
Read the thread, and stop posting nonsense that has nothing to do with anything. Whether or not Lake Angelus and it's 290 residents have a higher median age is beyond-irrelevent. The point is that HP is young and BH old; obviously older communities are not disadvantaged.
And you're wrong [[again), not that it matters.
http://zipatlas.com/us/mi/city-compa...median-age.htm
You not only need to re-read, but you need to learn how to do basic research and stop saying things off the top of your head. Average and median are two completely different things. You originally said median, yet you posted something with average. Keep up your dishonesty!
Probably understated, but... Pretty close to the heart of the problem. There is no check and balance on sprawl in Michigan. You can move across an imaginary line and not be responsible for the empty shell you leave behind. This incentivizes people to keep moving across imaginary lines.
Highland Park isn't an anomaly in Michigan. The better question is why does Michigan have so many Highland Parks?
I dis-agree . It is a very, very unique situation.
HighlandPark exists WITHIN the Detroit boundaries.
https://www.highlandparkmi.gov/Gover...the-Mayor.aspx
The facts , figures, and statistics are easily seen.
https://datausa.io/profile/geo/highland-park-mi/
Highland Park, MI is composed of 92% black residents
The median age of all people in Highland Park, MI was 41
The homeownership rate of Highland Park, MI is only 36 %
What SPRAWL ?? - it has been it's own unique entity for over 100 years
Highland Park incorporated as a village in 1889
and then incorporated as a city in 1917
So what Town Club ? no one cares about those 308 near Waterford
Highland Park was independent - it had its own Mayor -
EBLL rates over 20% are highly concentrated in southern parts of Highland Park, the Lower East Side, parts of Boston Edison, Delray and the Near West Side.
https://datadrivendetroit.org/wp-con...n_20190227.jpg