Considering Highland Park

[Danny]

Highland Park is not what it used to be since the 1970s and 80s. When I was living on Lawton St in Detroit's Martin Park, Pilgrim Village, Univeristy and Palmer Park ghetto hood, ninety percent of the furniture, food and clothes brought my parents bought came from Downtown Highland Park. [[Sears Dept. Store, Highland Appliances and A&P Supermarket). My dad used to work as a middle school football coach and boiler operator at Ford Middle School in Midland St. between Second and Third St. until he was laid-off in 1985. There were crackheads mostly on the west side area of Highland Park ghetto hoods; not the arts and crafts homes and other historic homes where Mr. Boileau used to live. Hamilton St. from 6 mile Rd. to Webb, Second and Third St. was a hub for drug corner dealing and crackhouses in each ghetto hood near a public school and Highland Park Community College District. Now the school is closed and long gone. If you're about to move to that area, be careful! There's no street lighting in the deep ghetto hood since DTE Enengy took them down and only install fewer lighting on main roads. The police are there just a few and its school district is on temporary control by Detroit Public Schools. Highland Park is showing signs of improving its business district. New housing on Midland St. west of Woodward Ave. and new firehouse. But its still got a long way to go.

[Hypestyles]

Does HP have a comprehensive plan to deal with blight?

[Danny]

Highland Park doesn't have any more cash to tear down its abandon buildings. They city is like Detroit, flat broke and in despair.

[Zacha341]

^^^ They did finally tear down the old "Pretzel Bowl" bar on Woodward - it sat burned out and abandoned for only 20 years or so...

[Zacha341]

I concur. The level of break-ins, strong-armings ala street robberies for 'OPP' [[other peoples property) remains a plague for many areas of HP. If you already live there it's easier sometimes to have established patterns and relationships where you're somewhat left alone. New 'green' residents, noted coming in, could be an issue. Predators on the 'OPP' mission literally watch what you bring/ move in.

It's a different lifestyle. There are certain things you can't do, such as a picture window sans curtains with a big screen TV in view? Not advisable. Discretion as to what one has is but one of the adaptations to that scene. Someone needs to be home always to help curtail break-ins along with a nice big dog, alarm etc. I would not do a single home alone in HP at this time.

I'll give you reasons why you wouldn't want to buy a home in Highland Park. Why would you want to live in a crime ridden area? Your home has a chance of being broken into, you'll live near drug addicts that don't care about you. I don't think I would want to set myself up in a situation like that.

[Dan Wesson]

^^^ They did finally tear down the old "Pretzel Bowl" bar on Woodward - it sat burned out and abandoned for only 20 years or so...

And the alternate mayoral office The Tender Trap has gone bye-bye too!

[Dexlin]

Exactly.

Seems to me HP is currently in a better state as a city both politically and financially than both Detroit and hamtramck.

Okay, you're just trolling, now, I see. You know as well as anyone that that is not objectively true in any fashion. I'm a big booster of even what many would call crappy neighborhoods, but HP is the Detroit of inner-city Detroit. HP has every proble Detroit has, but without even anything that could be hoped to be built on to pull it out of it's spiral in the future. Highland Park would probably be the only city in the entire region that you actually benefit, on net, from merging with Detroit.

I know you are kidding. There is no way you are that dense.

[Dan Wesson]

I see where HP no longer has their own water dept. Now they are on the Detroit regional system and the DWSD is suing HP for unpaid services.

I'm wondering which service would make them rob Peter to pay Paul?

Turn off the water or let the crappers back up?

[warsaw7]

Okay, you're just trolling, now, I see. You know as well as anyone that that is not objectively true in any fashion. I'm a big booster of even what many would call crappy neighborhoods, but HP is the Detroit of inner-city Detroit. HP has every proble Detroit has, but without even anything that could be hoped to be built on to pull it out of it's spiral in the future. Highland Park would probably be the only city in the entire region that you actually benefit, on net, from merging with Detroit.

I know you are kidding. There is no way you are that dense.

Amen. I agree with you 100%. That city is a cesspool. Have you seen the highland park community college or ventured off Woodward? Even on Woodward it is sketchy. There are packs of wild dogs, wild crackheads and wild hookers running loose on the streets. While I appreciate your optimism and your stories Lowell, I cannot agree with you. I have a friend who was a cop there and the stories he told were flat out horrendous, which is why he left. He really couldn't take it anymore. More power to you if you move there, my advice be careful! I would research the area however before deciding based on what you heard in an Internet forum.

[Lowell]

Something no one will ever understand unless one has actually lived in the situation for more than a cup of coffee, and instead chooses listen to dramatic anecdotes by burnt out cops who have seen the worst or people who choose to focus on the worst aspects based on drive-by assumptions, is that there are islands of solid community where people care for, watch over each other and live their lives comfortably in elegant homes. If you don't have good neighbors, no matter where you are, your life will be hell.

These are the same people who throw all of Detroit into the same 'cesspool' ignoring the University Districts, Rosedale Parks and the like. Indeed there is a degree of glee in their voices, maybe making them feel better for living in their over-priced tiny residences in what they perceive to be a 'safe' area. As I said above, they will never understand or think you are lying when you try to explain otherwise.

As also mentioned above Highland Park has these pockets, in the Northwest, Southeast historical districts and in an area built in the 60's, that is suburban ranch-like in appearance, between the Model T plant and Davison, John R and Oakland. But it seems no one wants to hear that because it doesn't reinforce their biases.

[Cliffy]

Lowell,
I respect your opinion abut I disagree agree with you 110%. The city is 3 square miles with a sky high crime rate. I have no idea when you sold your house but the city is not even walkable unless you want to get jacked. The sketchy people that loiter on Woodward all day through the summer. Its not bias. Its reality. We see it with our eyes. I don't want to live in a neighborhood "pocket", I want to live in a community.

[chicagoforlife]

I don't need to live in or near HP to know how bad it is there. I have been there and ventured off of Woodward, the conditions that I saw there were not ideal living conditions and even if I had to relocate to the Detroit area I would not even have HP on my list of places to choose to live. I'd much prefer to live in Hamtramck over HP.

The city is 2.97 square miles, over 90% black and 40% of the population lives under the poverty level, the city has also been declining in population since the 1940 census, seriously the city has lost over 75% of it's peak population.

[nain rouge]

Highland Park is an enigma. It had/has beautiful homes and apartments, all kinds of shops on Woodward, and a central location. Theoretically, it was everything people are looking for now in Ferndale, but better in almost every way. Yes, Highland Park is old and connected to Detroit, but so are cities like Hamtramck, Dearborn, Grosse Pointe Park, and River Rouge, and somehow even the worst of those cities are much better than Highland Park.

I guess Highland Park was just too close to the tumult on lower Woodward back in the '60s and '70s. I don't know.

[Lowell]

I don't need to live in or near HP to know how bad it is there. I have been there and ventured off of Woodward.. .

Thank you for making my point and your bravery. I hope the experience wasn't too frightening.

[izzyindetroit]

Okay, you're just trolling, now, I see. You know as well as anyone that that is not objectively true in any fashion. I'm a big booster of even what many would call crappy neighborhoods, but HP is the Detroit of inner-city Detroit. HP has every proble Detroit has, but without even anything that could be hoped to be built on to pull it out of it's spiral in the future. Highland Park would probably be the only city in the entire region that you actually benefit, on net, from merging with Detroit.

I know you are kidding. There is no way you are that dense.

Trolling huh?

Both Hamtramck and Detroit have emergency managers. Detroit is going through bankruptcy. Neither of the two city's mayor or city councils have any true power.

Does Highland Park have similar issues? Yes, but as of today, it is better off both politically and financially. You just have a hard time facing the facts.

[Dan Wesson]

In my years of working in the home's of the cities of Southeast Michigan, I have seen and met those fine people who for whatever reason stayed in their homes. Yes, those little enclaves of good people surrounded by deteriorating conditions exist. But they live defensively, keep a low profile and reduce their exposure. The first thing I noticed was the low tech wrought iron bars and dogs. Then came the burglar alarms. Now the surveillance systems.

Back then there was a functioning Police Dept.

Now? Well, the trend is your friend and the trend is going the wrong way.

Who wants to live on the edge of misfortune day in and day out?

Such a strange mixture of guns and roses this thread has taken.

[chicagoforlife]

Thank you for making my point and your bravery. I hope the experience wasn't too frightening.

Coming from the Southside of Chicago it rivals some of the worst neighborhoods here. I'm not sure which direction off Woodward is the worst in HP, I remember being on Hamilton and Glendale for some reason both streets I can remember, is that HP or Detroit?

[izzyindetroit]

Thank you Lowell for sharing your personal accounts with us. Your opinion and view was exactly what I was seeking when I created this thread. I assumed the same, however needed someone else to confirm my perceptions. I would still like to hear additional experiences of people who have actually lived in the city.

Nain Rouge, HP is quite an enigma indeed. [[it is why I am so interested in living there) It has all of the infrastructure, location, and the remaining architecture most cities would die for yet somehow manages to have this large stigma. My thoughts of why this stigma remains, on top of the issues which have already pointed out such as pensions, declining tax base, lack of governmental staff, etc. are the multiple social service organizations located in the city. Organizations which provide food to the homeless, transitional housing, drug addiction rehab and detox services, LGBT services, free medical services, mentally challenged services, prisoner re-entry programs, et al. HP's location within the city/metro transit network makes it a convenient place for people in need of these services to get to. With the lack of educated, working, or professional class people to balance out the the amount of people in need, HP appears like a shit hole on the surface.

With that said, it is my belief that the people we see as we travel through HP, actually live elsewhere. They are just visitors like the ones who destroy Corktown every March or Downtown very time there is a concert or football or baseball game.

Lowell confirmed my thoughts with his experiences. It is your neighbors which make your community and the community is what will make you or break you. It appears as though HP has a couple of these communities which are still worth living in. Unfortunately the home I was considering is no longer an option, however I will continue to see if others become available.

------------------------------------------------------

Thank you to everyone who supplied their opinions like I requested. I should have known I would get a bunch of ignorant and stereotypical responses. Your views are very similar to the ones I received from friends and family 6 years ago before I moved to Detroit. In the time since, I have proved many of them wrong when they come and visit.

It amazes me how hypocritical people can be on this forum. Detroit gets bashed and everyone here wants to defend it. Yet Highland Park is basically a microcosm of Detroit and it gets no love...

[Gistok]

Izzy, I think that you came into this with a preconcieved notion... only one person called you a troll... none of the rest of us did... but I do believe that your mind is already made up... since you've just called a bunch of us ignorant and hypocritical...

Tell you what... why don't you go ahead and buy a house in Highland Park and report back to the rest of us in about a year... and give us our comeuppance... and tell us just how wrong we were... because as far as I'm concerned... you're only listening to what you want to hear... and not all sides of the story... This was confirmed when you stated that Hamtramck and Detroit are worse than Highland Park... due to the EMF and Bankruptcy. Had you looked at some hard fact statistics instead of just anecdotal information, you might have come to a different conclusion.

But I will leave you with this last word... from an author on a book from Detroit....

In 2012 Mark Binelli, author of Detroit City is the Place to Be, wrote that Highland Park is "the Detroit of Detroit" due to being in an overall poorer condition than the City of Detroit. He stated that "there was occasionally talk of Detroit absorbing Highland Park" but because the City of Detroit is uninterested in "adding more crime, blight, and desperately poor people to its own mean buffet of urban pathologies", the proposal to take Highland Park is "wishful thinking".

Good luck on your choices...

[warsaw7]

Izzy, I think that you came into this with a preconcieved notion... only one person called you a troll... none of the rest of us did... but I do believe that your mind is already made up... since you've just called a bunch of us ignorant abd hypocritical...

Tell you what... why don't you go ahead and buy a house in Highland Park and report back to the rest of us in about a year... and give us our comeuppance... and tell us just how wrong we were... because as far as I'm concerned... you're only listening to what you want to hear... and not all sides of the story... This was confirmed when you stated that Hamtramck and Detroit are worse than Highland Park... due to the EMF and Bankruptcy. Had you looked at some hard fact statistics instead of just anecdotal information, you might have come to a different conclusion.

But I will leave you with this last word... from an author on a book from Detroit....

In 2012 Mark Binelli, author of Detroit City is the Place to Be, wrote that Highland Park is "the Detroit of Detroit" due to being in an overall poorer condition than the City of Detroit. He stated that "there was occasionally talk of Detroit absorbing Highland Park" but because the City of Detroit is uninterested in "adding more crime, blight, and desperately poor people to its own mean buffet of urban pathologies", the proposal to take Highland Park is "wishful thinking".

Good luck on your choices...

Facial!!! Total facial! Good point, move there and report back here a year after you move in.

[Dexlin]

Trolling huh?

Both Hamtramck and Detroit have emergency managers. Detroit is going through bankruptcy. Neither of the two city's mayor or city councils have any true power.

Does Highland Park have similar issues? Yes, but as of today, it is better off both politically and financially. You just have a hard time facing the facts.

Are you kidding me? Did you not just see the story in the paper, today, that basically says HP is going back into emergency management? Are you seriously trying to tell me that whether someone is currently under emergency management or not speaks to the long-term prospects of the city?

Detroit and even Hamtramck actually have taxable people and places left. Whatever their current situation and how they got there, there are assets left worth millions [[and in Detroit's case) billions of dollars. HP is more poverty stricken, more crime-filled, worse schools, more...than Detroit; this isn't my opinion, these are demonstrable facts. It's probably better to think of HP as a neighborhood of Detroit but with the burden - and, yes, at this point is has become a burden and not a source of pride - of having a seperate government to try and sustain. It'd be like having Dexter-Linwood incorporated to the west.

HP is gone. Not even Detroit gone, but gone. The only thing of any fiscal value it had left was it's water system, and even that had to be shut down in 2012 and basically put under the protection of DSWD. HP will come back if only because it's in Woodward, but there is no longer any excuse for it to operate as a seperate municipality, anymore, and I say that as a huge proponent of local government. There has to be something stunningly important about HP geographically, financially, etc...to make an argument for its independence, and all that made it special is gone.

But, then again, what's to be expected of the future of a city founded to help a millionaire dodge another city's taxes, and never trying to expand beyond that fact of its founding?

[chicagoforlife]

The issue I would have is that the city is THREE square miles, has no downtown and has all the problems that Detroit has.

[mwilbert]

The issue I would have is that the city is THREE square miles, has no downtown and has all the problems that Detroit has.

I would not deny that Highland Park is quite distressed [[the decline of Hamilton since my childhood hanging out on Antique Row is something I marvel at, in a bad way), but the three square mile thing isn't a problem--if anything it is a strength at this point, for two main reasons.

One is that because of its small size, anything that happens can have a citywide effect, which is why is declined so fast. Since it is now in terrible shape, things aren't likely to get a lot worse, whereas any improvement will be very noticeable.

The other is that the entire city is within maybe six-tenths of a mile of Woodward, which is the most strategic and most likely- to-be-invested-in part of the area. Detroit has large sections that are near nothing and have probably have a future as primarily parkland or farm. This is not really true of Highland Park.

I'm still not overly optimistic--it could take decades before the Woodward corridor is revived all the way up to Palmer Park from downtown--but I don't believe HP's size is a handicap at all.

[chicagoforlife]

I would not deny that Highland Park is quite distressed [[the decline of Hamilton since my childhood hanging out on Antique Row is something I marvel at, in a bad way), but the three square mile thing isn't a problem--if anything it is a strength at this point, for two main reasons.

One is that because of its small size, anything that happens can have a citywide effect, which is why is declined so fast. Since it is now in terrible shape, things aren't likely to get a lot worse, whereas any improvement will be very noticeable.

The other is that the entire city is within maybe six-tenths of a mile of Woodward, which is the most strategic and most likely- to-be-invested-in part of the area. Detroit has large sections that are near nothing and have probably have a future as primarily parkland or farm. This is not really true of Highland Park.

I'm still not overly optimistic--it could take decades before the Woodward corridor is revived all the way up to Palmer Park from downtown--but I don't believe HP's size is a handicap at all.

That could have an effect on development in HP in a positive way. If it's to ever come back and correct it's problems than it doesn't have too big of a land area to cover. You are correct about Detroit having large chunks of area that are complete wasteland and far from anything and that could and probably already has handicaped Detroit in a negative way.

Hamtramck is actually a city in the Detroit area that I would strive to be like, it's densely populated and very urban in character and is even smaller than HP. If Detroit was anything like Hamtramck than there wouldn't be too many problems, same with HP.

The lack of a big area in HP could help but it's already bad there and it's such a small area, I'm just surprised that nothing has been dealt with in HP given that it covers only 3 square miles.

[izzyindetroit]

Izzy, I think that you came into this with a preconcieved notion... only one person called you a troll... none of the rest of us did... but I do believe that your mind is already made up... since you've just called a bunch of us ignorant and hypocritical...

Tell you what... why don't you go ahead and buy a house in Highland Park and report back to the rest of us in about a year... and give us our comeuppance... and tell us just how wrong we were... because as far as I'm concerned... you're only listening to what you want to hear... and not all sides of the story... This was confirmed when you stated that Hamtramck and Detroit are worse than Highland Park... due to the EMF and Bankruptcy. Had you looked at some hard fact statistics instead of just anecdotal information, you might have come to a different conclusion.

But I will leave you with this last word... from an author on a book from Detroit....

In 2012 Mark Binelli, author of Detroit City is the Place to Be, wrote that Highland Park is "the Detroit of Detroit" due to being in an overall poorer condition than the City of Detroit. He stated that "there was occasionally talk of Detroit absorbing Highland Park" but because the City of Detroit is uninterested in "adding more crime, blight, and desperately poor people to its own mean buffet of urban pathologies", the proposal to take Highland Park is "wishful thinking".

Good luck on your choices...

I didn't specifically call you out, but beings you seem to be offended by my words you must have a guilty conscience of sorts. I worked in Hamtramck City Hall for a couple of years recently, the administration and politicians are about as corrupt as they get. For some reason the metro media doesn't pick up on these stories, so you don't hear about them. The Hamtramck Review runs the stories though, if anyone is interested in reading about them. The people and their diversity in Hamtramck is what makes the city great, same goes for Detroit. Crime, blight, loss of tax base, high legacy costs, lack of services, insurance costs, taxes, etc. are all just as f'ed up in Hamtramck and Detroit as they are in Highland Park.



As I had mentioned before, the property I was considering is no longer available. If you or any other forum-er would like to assist me in finding a different home, I would more than happy to report back on an annual basis.

Here are my requirements for possible selection:

Location-
South side of Louise to the north side of Puritan between Woodward and Hamilton OR south of Buena Vista to the Rhode Island-Mass alley between Woodward and Oakland. In either HD, closer to Woodward the better.

Condition-
It needs to at least be in a livable condition, so no burn outs or missing roofs. Minor exterior or interior repairs and updates is ideal; usually comes with a lower price and allows me to put some sweat equity into it. Move in ready properties aren't out of the question but I am not a fan of Ikea-like bathrooms and kitchens. Extra points for original details, fixtures, and features.

Style-
Bungalows or Tudors over Colonials

Price-
Ideally, $25-75k.

Other-
A garage is a must have.

I intend to at least check out 189 McLean, but it doesn't quite make the cut from what I have seen of it online.


As far as Mr. Binelli is concerned, well duh?! Detroit cannot take care of its own children, so why would it have any interest in adopting more? Even if GP Park was an offering for annexation, it would be stupid for Detroit to acquire it. Not to mention, it would be easier to dismantle Social Security than to convert any suburban Detroit area municipality into the city itself.