Miami's ghetto areas (pictures included) (Jacksonville, Hialeah: real estate market, condominiums, landscaping)

[citizen477]

[quote=cuba libre;7031313]The areas I described - North Miami, NMB, Opa Locka, El Portal, Shenandoah, Hialeah, Westchester, and so on are SUBURBS. We're not talking about the inner city, we're talking about other cities in Miami-Dade county or unincorporated areas. What happened to ALL of Miami-Dade County is unheard of (nothing like this has ever happened to an entire county before)

White residents kept moving northward where some ended up in Aventura and Broward, while others left the state all together. That pattern is actually quite typical in many counties where large cities are located. The white residents just don't move to an immediate suburb and stop. Over time, and in some cases generations, they move farther and farther out. What's happening now, however, is the donut effect, where the younger generation of whites are moving back into the Downtown and immediate suburban areas gentrifying them, pushing minority groups further into the suburbs.

You can't sing your 'gentrification, social justice, 'cycle of poverty' song because it doesn't apply to Miami's case. The whole county is not inner city...

Once again, the original thread IS about the inner-city, though. The immediate suburbs of Liberty City, North Miami, El Portal and so on are mixed bags. There are pockets of these neighborhoods that have fallen into disrepair. Perhaps you need to clarify which aspect of the conversation you are referring to: gentrification or deterioration.


What a shame, right?? I remember seeing pictures of Overtown during the 40's and 50's and the streets were filled with vibrant activity, they were bustling. Those were the days before welfare and government handouts, and DRUGS.

Government programs, perhaps, assisted in the deterioration of these areas, but that's not all that occurred. Many minorities took advantage of these programs and were able to lift themselves out of poverty and into a better situation for themselves. There's a lot more going as to why these communities are the way they are, and it transcends the typical notion of the welfare mother. The drug trade is a strong argument, particularly in terms of disproportionate incarceration of Black and Hispanic males for possession when compared with White males. But that's another post.


Person A: White male electrician making $45,000/year leaves House A in good condition

Person B: Minority male electrician making $45,000/year moves into House A and the condition deteriorates, as well as surrounding area. (minority male took white male's job and moved into his house)

Which period of a city's history are you referring to? It's rather unlikely that a white, male electrician is going to be making the same amount of money as a minority male electrician if you're referring to the period in which the gentrification started. If you're referring to contemporary times, most minorities who have moved into these areas tend to be less educated than even the wealthier minority groups who fled before them. This means that the "new wave" of minorities are going to be making far less money, so of course, it is not inconceivable that as each successive wave makes less and particularly as incomes continue to stagnate, these new residents will fall behind in their home repairs.

Minorities of all colors moved in and filled the employment positions that whites abandoned. They also moved into the white people's former neighborhoods, one house at a time. Everything is the same except for the condition of the homes. Now they are in worse condition.

That is a generalization. Every neighborhood has its versions of well-kept homes. Some would even argue that sections of Coral Gables, when compared with other pockets, are rundown. What are you using as your yard stick, here? I've seen homes in Opa-Locka and Miami Gardens that could easily be featured on the cover of "Home & Garden". You have to put things in perspective. Not everything is as it appears in the media.

[citizen477]

Originally Posted by Mack wild

Wow.

After seeing those pictures it becomes how clear it is that most of the people who complain about the bad things of Miami are definately out of touch. I mean those pics are absolutely no worse than any other city or even the small crappy town that I live in now .. totally on par and in many ways actually better looking.

Concentrated poverty is always an awful thing, but at the end of the day, those broken down houses and store fronts may say one thing about the people who live in them, but sometimes we have to step back and actually think about who these people are. I do outreach programs with people from many of these neighborhoods, and I can tell you that low, self-esteem combined with poverty, ignorance and hopelessness produces exactly the kind of neighborhoods we saw in those pictures. However, the majority of these people do not want this lifestyle, but when you haven't been exposed to the alternative or you don't think that the alternative is attainable, it's rather hard to transcend your situation, particularly, when peer pressure is open you, as every class has its own idiosyncratic patterns of peer pressure and social expectations. Finally, we need to ask ourselves some tough questions, as well. For example, why has this been acceptable, and what can be done to reverse it? I'm inclined to believe that there needs to be some revolutionary interference, but there will be tremendous resistance, however.

[ddrox08]

Originally Posted by somebodymiami

Miami's inner city neighborhoods don't have abandoned blocks of houses, as it had a population growth not decline like detroit, so it doesn't look like the Midwest city's. and they look worse in person, take a trip down to Brownsville( brown subs) and tell me it isn't bad. the suburbs of Miami are worse looking than the inner city. some parts of Hialeah look worse than the black ghettos .






most of the buildings in Miami's "inner city" neighborhoods are 3 to 4 story buildings also, as seen in pic.

Just wanted to tell you that I really love the photo you took.

[cuba libre]

Originally Posted by citizen477

Once again, the original thread IS about the inner-city, though.

Your weakness is that you have to pick up and move our debate back to the 'inner city'; back to your comfort zone of "MLK ideology" and "social grievance politics" in order to make your arguments rhyme with what you have been force fed your whole life - that Republicans are greedy devils and that the only way to "salvation" is through the gospel of the Democratic party and hopefully redistribution of wealth.

The typical model of inner city 'gentrification' is alien when compared to what happened to Miami. Your viewpoint would work great in Detroit, Clevelend, and Chicago specifically. Layer it on to what happened in Miami and it doesn't make sense. Hialeah, North Miami Beach, and Westchester are the opposite of inner city, yet they were still purged of all white residents.

[somebodymiami]

lol, not my photo, got it from skyscrapercity, dont remember who posted it, other wise i would state, i took a whole bunch from maps.google, going to post in a few waiting for upload.

Originally Posted by ddrox08

Just wanted to tell you that I really love the photo you took.

[crisp444]

Originally Posted by cuba libre

Hialeah, North Miami Beach, and Westchester are the opposite of inner city, yet they were still purged of all white residents.

Have you been to Westchester? It is one of the whitest areas in all of South Florida: nearly 94% white. Sure, most of those white people are Hispanic, but many of them are middle-class, second generation Cuban-Americans that chose to settle there. Also, there still are many non-Hispanic white people who live in Westchester. Westchester is a horrid example to use of a place that used to be nice but is now ghetto, or of a place that "was purged of all white residents."

Hialeah, though becoming more diverse in the nationalities represented there, remains a mix of working class and middle class, and the majority of the population is still white Cuban/Cuban American. Many areas of Hialeah are run down, but you would be surprised at how many of the middle class neighborhoods are safe, clean, and well-kept. Hialeah, as a whole, was never known to be an affluent area, and even when it was majority "Anglo," it was never known as desirable. Again, Hialeah is a bad example to use of a place that used to be nice but is now ghetto, or of a place that "was purged of all white residents."

I don't know enough about North Miami Beach to comment on it like I did for the two municipalities above, but a quick search of the demographics reveals that the city is 47% white.

If you want to talk about suburbs that were, for all practical purposes, "purged of all white residents," please see East Orange, NJ; inner Prince Georges County, MD; and many areas of southern Fulton County, GA (near ATL airport).

[somebodymiami]

took some pics from maps.google.com











































hope everyone is satisfied.

[blackklight]

looks pretty similar to the detroit videos i've seen

[citizen477]

Originally Posted by cuba libre

Your weakness is that you have to pick up and move our debate back to the 'inner city'; back to your comfort zone of "MLK ideology" and "social grievance politics" in order to make your arguments rhyme with what you have been force fed your whole life - that Republicans are greedy devils and that the only way to "salvation" is through the gospel of the Democratic party and hopefully redistribution of wealth.

The typical model of inner city 'gentrification' is alien when compared to what happened to Miami. Your viewpoint would work great in Detroit, Clevelend, and Chicago specifically. Layer it on to what happened in Miami and it doesn't make sense. Hialeah, North Miami Beach, and Westchester are the opposite of inner city, yet they were still purged of all white residents.

Alright, then, educate me. What is your point? Miami's gentrification pattern is different from other metropolitan areas and, therefore________________. Please fill in that blank.

[cuba libre]

Originally Posted by crisp444

Have you been to Westchester? It is one of the whitest areas in all of South Florida: nearly 94% white.

Westchester is 85% Hispanic (with an undefined/unknown mestizo population). White Cuban immigrants are on the decline in that area with an unknown 'mixed race' population rapidly increasing in there, just like other areas of Miami.

Westchester had a 13.7% White, non-Hispanic population, in 2000. That number has undoubtedly gone down. Still, a large percentage of 'technically' white Hispanics in Westchester hardly bucks the overall trend of White flight in Miami, or even in Westchester. Westchester is a "colorful mess" at best, with its menagerie of Spanish signs ligning the street and a dingy/barred window appearance to most of the houses there.

Per the 2000 census

Races in Westchester:

• Hispanic (85.3%)
• White Non-Hispanic (13.7%)
• Other race (2.8%)
• Two or more races (2.2%)
• Black (0.6%)