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There have been several posts in this thread about living in poor neighborhoods. I came across this excellent article in the Los Angeles Times of July 21, 2013, entitled "It's not so simple in Detroit" about the multiple factors in that recent bankruptcy. I excerpt one paragraph from the article about one of the factors which I thought was relevant to our eariler discussion in this thread:
"We could blame racism and white flight. That's a popular theme. And there is certainly plenty of racism out there. But it wasn't always just white folks who left Detroit. There are very few people who will stay in a poor neighborhood if they don't have to. As the city went from a population of nearly 2 million in the 1950's to about 700,000 today, many thousands of black families left, just like the white ones, in a perfectly legitimate effort to find safer neighborhoods and better schools."
I have to make one comment on this post based on the three years that I worked in inner-city Detroit.
White flight was a major occurrence from 1960-78 or so as a result of the fears of still more riots.
From 1978 - 1990, most middle class AA families left the city largely as a result of the crimes that they had to endure over the years.
One of my best employees ever is a classic example. She and her husband worked their tails off - he at GM, she at the hospital. They saved up money to pay cash for a Buick Park Avenue. They bought the car. The next morning, she was leaving at 6 am to head to work and someone was trying to steal her stereo from the new car. She was able to get her husband to come out with his shotgun. The cops could not get there for 40 minutes.
People say that they would NEVER live in Detroit. I would move back to MOST Detroit suburbs for FREE in TEN MINUTES because most of them are very well managed. I still have my eyes on some real estate in Dearborn ...
I have to make one comment on this post based on the three years that I worked in inner-city Detroit.
White flight was a major occurrence from 1960-78 or so as a result of the fears of still more riots.
From 1978 - 1990, most middle class AA families left the city largely as a result of the crimes that they had to endure over the years.
One of my best employees ever is a classic example. She and her husband worked their tails off - he at GM, she at the hospital. They saved up money to pay cash for a Buick Park Avenue. They bought the car. The next morning, she was leaving at 6 am to head to work and someone was trying to steal her stereo from the new car. She was able to get her husband to come out with his shotgun. The cops could not get there for 40 minutes.
People say that they would NEVER live in Detroit. I would move back to MOST Detroit suburbs for FREE in TEN MINUTES because most of them are very well managed. I still have my eyes on some real estate in Dearborn ...
Midtown Detroit is now booming. Upper end apartments are being built/rebuilt and are selling quickly. Lots of new businesses in this area as well. They depend on WSU police as you can't count on Detroit Police to show up.
Midtown Detroit is now booming. Upper end apartments are being built/rebuilt and are selling quickly. Lots of new businesses in this area as well. They depend on WSU police as you can't count on Detroit Police to show up.
And there are mansion districts along Woodward Ave. that have their own PRIVATE security patrols. I am NOT going to move to a city where you pay very expensive high taxes and get NO CITY SERVICES, not even basic police and fire services.
I can be less than a mile outside of the city limits and get services and police response in three minutes.
Midtown Detroit is now booming. Upper end apartments are being built/rebuilt and are selling quickly. Lots of new businesses in this area as well. They depend on WSU police as you can't count on Detroit Police to show up.
And you were last in Detroit - or anywhere near it - when???
I was there last month (family wedding - family lives in the "doughnut around the hole" in the metro area). Robyn
In Scotland people like you are called 'posers'. Pretentious. You'd fit in well with the current government. Unbelievable.
In the US - it's mostly "poseur" (from the French).
And I don't see anything pretentious about someone who has at least a little not wanting to live near people who don't - especially if the way the latter live is very different than those in the former are used to. Also especially in terms of things like values - morality - etc.
BTW to HIW - the OP - did you mean for us to discuss only places in the US - or places around the world? There have been some questions about this. But - since you started the thread - it's your call IMO. Robyn
And I don't see anything pretentious about someone who has at least a little not wanting to live near people who don't - especially if the way the latter live is very different than those in the former are used to. Also especially in terms of things like values - morality - etc.
While I understand what you are saying, in reality I'd like to see a competent, completely unbiased study (nowhere to be found ) of a definitive correlation between "morality" and the factor of socioeconomic status that you and Wyoming imply. The judeochristian ethic, for example, is not reflected in some of the views I read here. (I say this understanding the difference between ethics and morals, but do not want to get into a blatant religious discussion about "values" and "morals" on this thread).
How about living in the same neighborhood with people like Bernie Madoff? He was rich. He is a criminal. There are a lot of other examples.
I can certainly agree that most of us feel more comfortable when we are among our own type of people, that birds of a feather flock together, but to just think that poor people are this or that and rich people are this or that is erroneous.
It may be just anecdotal but I've known a few divorced women with children who were trying to get back on their feet and they were perfectly nice--well educated, decent, honest, but poor. Their values were the same as mine. There's a man on trial now in Boston who was a big time mafia leader with a lot of money and how many people did he kill? Was it NINETEEN? or a lot more?
I wouldn't want to live with poor criminals or rich criminals. I can't believe that you can get to be our age and still think in such narrow terms.
Example 1: My grandparents were very poor farmers - no indoor plumbing, he took a plow and walked behind his old horse to plow. Their farm was just as tidy and well kept as any other. No junky cars or equipment around, grass always mowed, etc... They didn't have many nice things but what they had was clean and in good repair. They had manners.
Example 2: My inlaws were very poor and looked very poor and would fit the negative stereotype of poor. Even when they finally moved out of the slummy part of Cleveland and into a rather modest but nice area - their house looked g-awful. The first time I went there I walked into the LR and there was 1 chair in the center of a filthy carpet. People were sitting on the floor - the queen mother sat in the only chair. She said: "Have a seat" and motioned for the floor. We were there to attend a wedding of a college friend of my ex - I had a linen dress with heels - not something you sprawled on a filthy carpet right before you go to a wedding. At this point his dad had a decent job with GM - they weren't raking in the money but with all the kids gone they should have been OK. They sure could have bought more than 1 chair and cleaned the carpet, but, why bother - right? They had shutters on the window and a couple were hanging by 1 screw. 3 years later I went back and those shutters were still hanging by 1 screw, the carpet was even dirtier and they still had 1 chair. Values.
I think the difference is pretty clear. My EX left home at 13 and came to MN to go to school and then on to one of the best colleges in MN. As hard as he tried, he still carried some of that trashy behavior.
The USA. Don't like the crime statistic, government, warmongering, NSA, PRISM, Patriot Act, Gitmo/Abu Ghraib torture and detainment, no fair trial, general arrogance and ignorance, fast food obsession, obesity rates, number of guns, focus on money and materialism, phony smiles and fake "friendliness" etc.
So where is your version of paradise?
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In Scotland people like you are called 'posers'. Pretentious. You'd fit in well with the current government. Unbelievable. 
) of a definitive correlation between "morality" and the factor of socioeconomic status that you and Wyoming imply. The judeochristian ethic, for example, is not reflected in some of the views I read here. (I say this understanding the difference between ethics and morals, but do not want to get into a blatant religious discussion about "values" and "morals" on this thread).
