Neighborhood of the week: East Liberty

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by gg

Then educate me. The newer complex across from Fire Side Public House on the corner of Broad and Larimar, what are those? With the nice balconies and such. Those would be so expensive if someone had to work and pay for them. Unaffordable for. most in such a location.

These are affordable units and the occupants work everyday like most Americans.

[jea6321]

Originally Posted by szug-bot

M-Sh was overall probably much much nicer decades ago - with its easy access to the central business district and lower North Side, and you can get to the North Hills w/ relative ease. And again, there are some nice properties there and some streets are lucky to have 'better' residents who actually care for it.

I spent most of my early childhood in MS ( very close to where SCR lives actually). This was the 80's into the early 90's. My grandmother lived there since shortly after WW2 when my grandfather came home from the duty. She stayed there until the mid 00's when she moved to FL with my uncle. I watched the neighborhood transition first hand and it was around the late 90's when it became obvious which direction it was going. We lived on Oakhill st which was one of the last strongholds of well kept and mostly long term owner occupied homes. By 2000, most of the people we knew on the st had moved to the burbs and their houses were bought and turned to lower end rentals. I had another family member living a few streets away until her passing last year. Her house is surrounded by condemned structures and there was an open air drug dealer house across the st when I was there cleaning it out. Its sad spending any time in that area now.

I hope SCR is successful with helping make the area better. It really could be a good place to live again.

[gg]

Originally Posted by jea6321

I spent most of my early childhood in MS ( very close to where SCR lives actually). This was the 80's into the early 90's. My grandmother lived there since shortly after WW2 when my grandfather came home from the duty. She stayed there until the mid 00's when she moved to FL with my uncle. I watched the neighborhood transition first hand and it was around the late 90's when it became obvious which direction it was going. We lived on Oakhill st which was one of the last strongholds of well kept and mostly long term owner occupied homes. By 2000, most of the people we knew on the st had moved to the burbs and their houses were bought and turned to lower end rentals. I had another family member living a few streets away until her passing last year. Her house is surrounded by condemned structures and there was an open air drug dealer house across the st when I was there cleaning it out. Its sad spending any time in that area now.

I hope SCR is successful with helping make the area better. It really could be a good place to live again.

Thanks for sharing. Such things happened in many parts of the city due to our population decline. I working people left to raise their families.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by SteelCityRising

Obviously the dregs of Marshall-Shadeland moved here because they were gentrified out of the expensive Lower North Side neighborhoods like the Mexican War Streets/Central North Side, East Allegheny, Manchester, etc. If we work hard to gentrify Marshall-Shadeland, too, then where are those dregs of society supposed to move? Brighton Heights is more expensive. Bellevue and Avalon are more expensive. Ross Township is more expensive. There is a waiting list for public housing projects on the North Side. As someone who was gentrified myself out of the nicer neighborhood of Polish Hill by wealthier whites (despite the East End progressives on here implying it is only gentrification if rich whites displace poor Blacks) I am a bit sensitive to gentrification. The poor have to live somewhere, and like it or not my neighborhood disproportionately houses them thanks to a few suburban slumlords who gobble up properties and make them all Section 8 rentals.

I simply don't think Marshall-Shadeland has the "raw materials" to ever have substantial gentrification. It has ho-hum housing stock compared to the surrounding neighborhoods, isn't really walkable, lacks any sort of rapid transit access, etc.

That said, I have not seen substantial evidence to suggest the neighborhood has been getting worse in terms of safety over the last 10+ years, which stands in contrast to areas like Sheraden, Knoxville, or even Observatory Hill which I do think have gotten somewhat worse. It's certainly experiencing the slow rot due to abandonment/population decline, but unfortunately that is happening across a pretty wide swathe of the city still, even relatively quiet areas.