People Mover & safety at night?

**shovelhead** · March-21-10, 06:45 AM

Quote:

Along with fixing the schools, we have GOT to figure out some sort of 21st century blue collar economy.

English,

Truer words were never spoken, by you and many others.

In the early 1990's my high school auto shop teacher and friend of over 40 years said the same thing, lamenting the direction of his suburban school district and it's decision to de-emphasize the manual arts so to speak. More emphasis on CAD-CAM, and "clean" work. No more hands on so to speak. And emphasis of allowing manual labor to be sent overseas.

I agreed with him then and still today. When putting all your eggs in one basket, well you better not drop the basket. We now see how many engineers in America are out of work, the global manufacturers can outsource to India the same work at a fraction of the price. Look at Tool and Die manufacturing, to China. We cannot compete with a Chinese worker living in company housing working seven days a week.

And on a more personal note, like you stated in the above quote,some people are just not cut out for design work, Geometry, calculations, etc, better suited to manual tasks. I'm one of them, I'll be the first to admit it. I've been successful in my line of work since the early 1970's, but for example computers, I'm limited to e-mail and web surfing. Anything else just boggles my mind.

**Hermod** · March-21-10, 09:04 AM

Originally Posted by shovelhead

In the early 1990's my high school auto shop teacher and friend of over 40 years said the same thing, lamenting the direction of his suburban school district and it's decision to de-emphasize the manual arts so to speak. More emphasis on CAD-CAM, and "clean" work. No more hands on so to speak. And emphasis of allowing manual labor to be sent overseas.

I agreed with him then and still today. When putting all your eggs in one basket, well you better not drop the basket. We now see how many engineers in America are out of work, the global manufacturers can outsource to India the same work at a fraction of the price. Look at Tool and Die manufacturing, to China. We cannot compete with a Chinese worker living in company housing working seven days a week.

And on a more personal note, like you stated in the above quote,some people are just not cut out for design work, Geometry, calculations, etc, better suited to manual tasks. I'm one of them, I'll be the first to admit it. I've been successful in my line of work since the early 1970's, but for example computers, I'm limited to e-mail and web surfing. Anything else just boggles my mind.

There are a lot of jobs going begging for "competent" automotive technicians, marine diesel technicians, and appliance repairmen.

neighbor · March-21-10, 09:10 AM

Hmmm, according to the CrimeMapping site there seems to be a lot more going on Downtown than a lot of people here would like you to believe. I'm looking at you DeroitDad and you CassCorridor.

I have a feeling if all car break-ins downtown were reported there wouldn't be enough room on the map to mark them all. I know I didn't report mine a few months ago.

Ravine · March-21-10, 12:06 PM

English, if you were planning on moving to Detroit, and you still want to live in Detroit, I think you should proceed with that plan.

When you felt as though Detroit was your "oyster," and came & went as you pleased, Detroit was plenty damned dangerous. Really.

But, you were very young, and when we are very young, we are invulnerable. Those Breaking News Alerts aren't scary, because they are always about somebody else. Our parents are raving sirens of over-wrought, exaggerated hysteria.

Fast-forward to Now. You're older. Not all that much, but enough so that your contretemps on the People Mover, side-stepped as the danger was, left you shaken up and feeling some qualms about your planned move. You don't feel invulnerable, anymore. So much the better, since you never were.

Well, you were wrong about that invulnerability stuff. So what. Everybody else was wrong about it, too.

I think you have shown a tendency to believe that you were quite the worldly, street-smart sister from the 'hood, and you have bristled when folks like me have had some rather harsh things to say about Detroit.
I think the PM incident re-aligned your perspective on the city, and on yourself. That is not said as a way of crowing that we were right and you were wrong; the point is that, just that quickly, you are seeing things a bit differently, eh?

However, I went through all of that so I could arrive at this:
When you were very young and freely oystering around town, your sense of carefree nonchalance [[understandable as it may be) was inappropriate to the circumstances.
The Good News is that your current state of anxiety and doubt is, to some extent, also inappropriate to the circumstances. You're just shaken up. Why wouldn't you be shaken up? But, it will pass, and if you really want to live in Detroit-- the one that you know just a leetle bit better, now-- then, goddamit, you go right ahead and move to Detroit, because not-doing something you want to do, because you're scared, is for losers.

I think maybe you just needed a little wake-up call, perhaps on a couple of different fronts. I could be wrong, but it seems as though you picked up.

So Welcome Back, goddamit.

**shovelhead** · March-21-10, 12:18 PM

Originally Posted by Hermod

There are a lot of jobs going begging for "competent" automotive technicians, marine diesel technicians, and appliance repairmen.

On foreign manufactured items. We need manufacturing here, not just service work.

Dependence on foreign manufacturing IMO is as bad as dependence on foreign oil.

What if [[always expect the unexpected) China sides with, say North Korea and sets off a conflict in South Korea? And we side with South Korea? Where does that leave us?
Or if China sides with a mid-east rogue nation? That attacks us or sets off a mid-east war? Anything is possible.

Just saying.......

Ravine · March-21-10, 12:26 PM

Shit. I'm sorry; I didn't realize that this thread, which was initiated by English and regarded a highly personal matter, was no longer about English or her highly personal matter.

Please excuse the interruption. Carry on.

**Warrenite84** · March-21-10, 12:58 PM

English, sorry about your experience with the would-be purse snatcher. Crime is everywhere. My elderly Aunt in Eastern KY was a victim of of a home invasion/ purse snatching up in a holler with no one nearby, recently.

Have you considered a CCW permit? It may allay your fears about going out at night and raise your feelings of safety wherever you go.

**iheartthed** · March-21-10, 01:24 PM

It sounds like this incident has finally married two things together in your mind: the [[partly media fueled) perception of Detroit being a "dangerous place", and a personal experience to confirm the perception. I'm not surprised that your friends from South Central and the South Side would think that you're crazy for wanting to live in Detroit. I know people who grew up in the worst parts of Brooklyn and the South Bronx, who have this perception that Detroit must be hell on Earth*.

*Once at a party, I actually had someone literally say to me "You're from Detroit? From what I heard about it, I thought that place must be something like Hell of Earth."

Please excuse me if my tone begins to sound a little harsh after this... But I have to be honest: this sounds like such a non-issue to my ears. I ride the NYC subway almost every single day, and nearly every time I'm on it I hear an announcement telling me to watch for three things: 1) pickpockets, 2) purse-snatchers, and 3) terrorists.

Yes, you were almost the victim of a purse-snatching, but... so? I think it's a safe assumption to say that there was a purse snatched on a street or transit system in every major city in America yesterday. That the purse just happened to be yours is the statistical price that you paid for carrying a purse in the civilized world. If that's something that you aren't willing to deal with then carry your purse in a jungle in Papua New Guinea until you're blue in the face without fear of ever encountering one purse snatcher... But just be cognizant of the man-eating tigers roaming about.

**English** · March-21-10, 02:24 PM

Thank Ravine and iheartthed. More food for thought, as I follow the shenanigans in the US House over health care on C-SPAN.

**English** · March-21-10, 02:27 PM

Originally Posted by Warrenite84

English, sorry about your experience with the would-be purse snatcher. Crime is everywhere. My elderly Aunt in Eastern KY was a victim of of a home invasion/ purse snatching up in a holler with no one nearby, recently.

Have you considered a CCW permit? It may allay your fears about going out at night and raise your feelings of safety wherever you go.

My mom is worried about me getting shot with my own gun.

So sorry to hear about your Aunt. We're becoming a less cohesive and more amoral society as a whole. People are more into self-preservation than they are into concern for their fellow human, I guess.

DetroitDad · March-21-10, 03:12 PM

Originally Posted by neighbor

Hmmm, according to the CrimeMapping site there seems to be a lot more going on Downtown than a lot of people here would like you to believe. I'm looking at you DeroitDad and you CassCorridor.

I have a feeling if all car break-ins downtown were reported there wouldn't be enough room on the map to mark them all. I know I didn't report mine a few months ago.

With Ravine's post to English in mind, I have to say that my views on Detroit have changed significantly in just the time I have been here.

There isn't a week that goes by where I don't see broken glass on First st, near DTE, or on my walk to work down two blocks of Bagley. Beyond that, there is regular rowdiness and vandalism for club goers in Downtown. Building owners and officials have gotten good at hiding the problems in Downtown though, and so I worry a little less about more serious crime than I used to.

Most of the messes are fixed within days, usually before the work week begins. This is important because the appearance of not caring about place and small crimes lead to a belief that the people there let a lot slide, or just don't care, supposedly leading to bigger problems with crime and blight.

During the day, Downtown has a lot more "eyes on the streets" than it did just a decade ago, and that does make me feel more confident in having my family live here. However, we know where to avoid, and what to look out for, many new residents and guests to Downtown Detroit do not. If petty crime is really crime of opportunity, and I am aware of those opportunities, than the city actually is safer for me, but not for visitors or new residents and workers.

[[Continued below)

DetroitDad · March-21-10, 03:37 PM

Of course, I still am living amongst people who are shady criminals, but then, the suburbs and surrounding neighborhoods are not that much farther, and I have to wonder if it's all just a case of out of sight, out of mind. That was my thinking behind being okay with living where I live. I'd rather have our problems constantly infront of me [[and my daughter), forcing those problems to always be in front of us and on our minds, instead of hidden unseen a couple of miles down the interstate/motorway.

English, this ties into your personal brush with crime and thoughts on frustrated urban youth, and older people just stuck in their ways. It should be common knowledge that in the majority abandoning Detroit, the cities have been defaulted to where our region and Michigan tosses it's throw away children.

**English** · March-21-10, 03:51 PM

Thanks DetroitDad. You're right, if everyone flees, then there's fewer eyes around. I definitely would like to be your neighbor simply because we *need* more professionals to move into revitalizing neighborhoods. Last night, my mom suggested Birmingham. When I was a kid in the 1980s, I seriously thought if I went to Birmingham, they'd arrest me. I know better now, and I do go up there occasionally to have lunch or coffee with friends, but I can't afford North Woodward on a single assistant prof's salary.

And I think that there's some value to having grown up *in* a city. Sure, I was shaken up and my friends were too. But I kept my bags, keys, wallet, and heck, even my sweet potato pie from Astoria Pastry Shop precisely because all three of us had grown up in three different ghettoes. We noticed the kid from the moment he got on, we knew he was coming for my bag, and my friend took action. Even in 'hoods you don't know, as rapper Lauryn Hill once sang, "Every ghetto, every city/Every suburban place I been/Makes me recall my days in the New Jerusalem". The American urban experience has some broad similarities, which is why I'm friends with these ladies, and why we chose to get out of Ann Arbor and start our weekend in the city.

Now, if you change the demographics of the three of us, the result very well may have been different. A lot of young women [[well, we're in our 30s, so I guess not that young) may not have known what to do.

I definitely don't mind sharing this slice of my personal business if it helps other people stay alert and hold on to not just their bags and purses, but their laptop cases and camera bags. And yes, I'll be back in the city on Tuesday, and soon, just about every day. It will be great to get back into the swing of things again, and maybe get to some forum gatherings... it's been at least 6 years.

**wolverine** · March-21-10, 05:17 PM

I wasn't trying to be snark in my post at all. I posted the crime notes to prove a point. You shouldn't let an incident like this prevent you from moving to downtown Detroit. Anywhere you go, you should always be aware of your surroundings. Even in the best of neighborhoods people get mugged.

But I found it rude to go on the unnecessary University of Michigan rant....ok so you hated it there. It had nothing to do with this discussion.

**English** · March-21-10, 05:37 PM

Originally Posted by wolverine

I wasn't trying to be snark in my post at all. I posted the crime notes to prove a point. You shouldn't let an incident like this prevent you from moving to downtown Detroit. Anywhere you go, you should always be aware of your surroundings. Even in the best of neighborhoods people get mugged.

But I found it rude to go on the unnecessary University of Michigan rant....ok so you hated it there. It had nothing to do with this discussion.

Wolverine, I've had a great experience at the University of Michigan, and just the promise of the degree has already opened many doors. It will open doors for the rest of my life. However, those experiences are all about the wonderful professors and colleagues I've worked with, not about "Wolverine" sports culture.

You can't control how people respond to you. You found me rude -- well, I definitely found your post insensitive and mean-spirited and I chose to mirror that insensitivity and mean-spiritedness back to you. It's not as if I interjected my opinion about U-M sports into any thread here in the past -- I'm simply not interested. To treat me, as several of you did, like an idiot who doesn't know that crime exists everywhere just doesn't deserve a serious or polite response. Especially not in the wee hours of the morning.

**Hypestyles** · March-21-10, 05:40 PM

the people mover needs to be 24-hours, if it's going to mean anything in the long term.. at least until 2:30, right after the bars close..

**p1acebo** · March-21-10, 05:42 PM

Originally Posted by Hypestyles

the people mover needs to be 24-hours, if it's going to mean anything in the long term.. at least until 2:30, right after the bars close..

Isn't it open later on the weekends?

**English** · March-21-10, 05:43 PM

^ It's open until 2 am on Fridays and Saturdays.

**wolverine** · March-21-10, 07:43 PM

Originally Posted by English

Wolverine, I've had a great experience at the University of Michigan, and just the promise of the degree has already opened many doors. It will open doors for the rest of my life. However, those experiences are all about the wonderful professors and colleagues I've worked with, not about "Wolverine" sports culture.

You can't control how people respond to you. You found me rude -- well, I definitely found your post insensitive and mean-spirited and I chose to mirror that insensitivity and mean-spiritedness back to you. It's not as if I interjected my opinion about U-M sports into any thread here in the past -- I'm simply not interested. To treat me, as several of you did, like an idiot who doesn't know that crime exists everywhere just doesn't deserve a serious or polite response. Especially not in the wee hours of the morning.

What makes you think I care about Wolverine sports...because of my username? Never once have I ever mentioned any of that. Where are you coming up with this stuff?

**English** · March-21-10, 08:31 PM

Originally Posted by wolverine

What makes you think I care about Wolverine sports...because of my username? Never once have I ever mentioned any of that. Where are you coming up with this stuff?

I was responding to this statement of yours: "But I found it rude to go on the unnecessary University of Michigan rant....ok so you hated it there. It had nothing to do with this discussion."

In that "unnecessary rant", never once did I imply that I "hated" the University of Michigan, here or anywhere else.

Here is your first statement in the thread:

Originally Posted by wolverine

Pointless to move away. Why even bring it up?? You seem to be quite content with Ann Arbor.

This thread is not about you, Wolverine. It's about what I experienced Friday night in the CBD. If you want to start a thread about crime in A2/U-M, feel free.

**Zacha341** · March-21-10, 08:53 PM

Sorry to hear about the incident English... it is very disturbing and leaves you shaken for a while. Here's an option regarding laptops: Carry your laptop in a backpack NOT a "traditional" laptop case.

A laptop "case" screams what the contents are.... I'm in and out of all kinds of areas so I put my laptop down in one of those cushioned tight zipper cases, then put that down inside a dark non-decript BACKPACK or heavy duty cloth tote bag. I line the bottom of that with the bubble wrap and just take care how I set the bag down... which I rarely do. They even make backpack "style" laptop cases that are already cushioned.

Originally Posted by English

Thanks everyone. I posted to find out if there's stuff going on that people have heard about, and that I wouldn't hear about on the news. And BTW, I certainly have never posted ANYTHING about Ann Arbor being safe on this forum or anywhere else EVER, so you can miss me with that crap.

I guess I need to just adjust a few things. I'm particularly thinking about laptops -- I'm getting a really nice one from WSU, and was planning on working in some of the new cafes. I'll need to think of a way to carry it that doesn't draw attention. But what I don't want is to become a purse-clutching, street-crossing, trembling wimp anytime a lone man or a group of men crosses my path.

pffft, I hear you. But I've always gone places in the city and the 'burbs at night, not wandering the streets by any means, and NEVER past 11 pm when I'm by myself. When you work all day, every day, and it's dark so much of the year in the evening, I think it'd be not that great of an existence to only be able to shop or catch up with friends or go to an event on Saturdays or Sunday afternoons. I am religious, and attend church a couple of weekday nights... sometimes afterwards, I'll stop by the store. Also, sometimes I need to run to CVS or the grocery store to get things, and it gets dark at 5 or 6 in the winter. I don't have a guy in my life to do those things... and who's to say that if I did, he'd always be willing and available to do it?

Shovelhead, one thing that has happened is that I dress a lot better than when I was a DPS teacher, not because I have any more money, but by dint of doing a lot more consultant work out of town, and supervisory work, for the past 5 years. I think that I used to have this "I work with young people and I ain't scared of young black men" attitude as well. I've taught juveniles before, in two different summer school programs, and I can count the times I've ever felt threatened by young brothers on one hand... actually, other than this incident, I have to go back to when I was 14 and being harassed at a bus stop near the North End... nearly 20 years!

East Detroit, the point is that they're U-M grad students from big cities and neighborhoods that are arguably rougher than most of Detroit. If they hadn't been with me, I would have gotten the bag snatched. He did go for it, but my girlfriend from South Side Chicago saw him coming and stood between me and him with her hand inside her coat pocket. All she had was mace, but he didn't want to chance it. So in this case, thank God for grad student SISTERfriends. A lot of the women I know aren't half so savvy.

I don't get this. Even if I live somewhere else, I will be working in the CBD. Until yesterday, I always felt more comfortable in the CBD than I did in RO... it's more familiar. I don't know the ins and outs of RO shops, and I don't know the people who manage or own places the way I used to know places in the D.

If I don't move directly to Detroit, it'll be an inner ring suburb that's diverse, and I'll rent instead of buying, because the intent will be to save up in order to move somewhere in Detroit. It's not a question of whether I'll live in Detroit again, it's a question of timing.

**English** · March-21-10, 08:56 PM

Originally Posted by Zacha341

Sorry to hear about the incident English... it is very disturbing and leaves you shaken for a while. Here's an option regarding laptops: Carry your laptop in a backpack NOT a "traditional" laptop case.

A laptop "case" screams what the contents are.... I'm in and out of all kinds of areas so I put my laptop down in one of those cushioned tight zipper cases, then put that down inside a dark non-decript BACKPACK or heavy duty cloth tote bag. I line the bottom of that with the bubble wrap and just take care how I set the bag down... which I rarely do. They even make backpack "style" laptop cases that are already cushioned.

Zach, thanks -- that's a GREAT idea! I've got one of those nice zippered sleeves, and always get the cheap bags from conferences. [[At one point, I was using my sorority bag to cart around everything -- it doesn't look all that special. The bubble wrap is also a great idea.

**wolverine** · March-21-10, 09:30 PM

Originally Posted by English

This thread is not about you, Wolverine. It's about what I experienced Friday night in the CBD. If you want to start a thread about crime in A2/U-M, feel free.

Might I refresh you what I responded to:

Originally Posted by English

This left me wondering if I'm an absolute idiot for considering a move back downtown as a single female.

No you aren't. And you should move back to Detroit if that is what you've been intending to do all along. There is crime where you currently live [[as you are aware of my post on page 1), and it's possible anyone, including you, could still be a victim.

Sorry it happened to you. Since this thread is about you, hopefully you won't mind other people sharing stories about similar situations.

I won't go any further with this.

**English** · March-21-10, 09:41 PM

Thanks Wolverine. I'm willing to drop it too. Have a good night.

Ravine · March-22-10, 08:15 AM

The gun thing... I'm just not a gun type of guy. I suppose I should have one, but I don't really want one. I made it this far without one.
The gun thing ties in with a related issue, here. As some folks have suggested, staying safe in a crime-ridden city does involve using some judgment about where to go, when to go there, etc. That's pretty obvious, although I once heard a female co-worker announce that if she felt like going to the party store on the corner at 11:30 on a Friday night, well, she was just gonna do it, and she wasn't about to let fear dictate her movements. That last part is good, as a concept, but at the same time, I thought, Geez, it ain't about proving something, it's about keeping risk at a minimum. Like with gas stations: even if you're a super-macho tough guy, why allow yourself to end up in a spot where you have to buy gas at 3:30 in the morning?
I bring that up because it relates to something I once heard someone say about owning a gun. He said that when he began carrying a gun, his decision-making processes changed. He took chances that he would not have taken before. Sort of like the bit where you see someone, who looks somehow threatening, headed in your direction on the sidewalk. Do you cross the street, or not?
Using that as an example, he said that once armed, he no longer would avoid people like that, because he figured, What the hell, I'm carrying. If he wants to fuck with me, well, let him bring it on.
The point he was making is that carrying a gun caused him to stop practicing the avoidance of such potentially confrontational moments, and-- thereby-- increased the chances that he would be involved in a violent incident. Once he realized that he was doing things differently, it bothered him because, for him, the bottom line was that while he didn't want to come out on the losing end of a situation of that type, he didn't really want to end up blowing a hole through somebody else, either. His conclusion was that the very act of carrying a gun, changing his behavior in the way that it did, made it increasingly likely that he would wind up using it.
He decided to stop carrying. Personally, I don't see why he didn't just continue carrying, but return to his formerly more-cautious, confrontation-avoiding ways.
But he had a point, there. Just sharing it, I am.