New York woman visiting Detroit falls victim to crime

[Det_ard]

Hate to hear this. I used to hang out as a young single woman in that area all the time 10-12 years ago and nothing ever happened. To be sure, I don't even have the time of day for the panhandlers when I'm a pedestrian. I'd rather donate to churches, community orgs, the Capuchins, etc.

Extremely sorry this woman has this experience. Surprised WSU police wasn't around; it's time for foot patrols in Midtown.

Want viable, walkable neighborhoods? Cops and security have to walk the beat. They can't just cruise around -- they need to WALK.

This is the kind of story that people hear and draw all kinds of conclusions about. However the same kind of thing happens here in Philly, and up in NYC. Perhaps not in Rittenhouse here or in Times Square there, but things definitely happen. But it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy... a string of bad incidents back home means that Detroit is terrible, but when bad things happen here, people don't draw conclusions quite so quickly. Not sure what the difference is.

Having lived in both Philly and Detroit, the big difference I see is that Philly legitimately has a lot more areas that are considered "livable" by middle and upper-class folks. A quick look at Zillow shows 165 homes/condos for sale for over $1 million and another 414 priced between $500K and $1 million. Add in 852 homes for sale between $300K and $500K and it's clear there are a lot of middle and upper-class areas, with their accompanying amenities.

So in a nutshell, Philly has 1,431 homes for sale over $300K. In comparison, Detroit has just 28. The ratio of nice/nasty is just higher in Philly. There's plenty of crime there too, and world-class ghettos, but there are enough large "nice" areas that it's easier to overlook the bad. We still have a long way to go in Detroit to reach that balance.