Most Impoverished, Largely White Suburb or Neighborhood in Detroit (Hamtramck: wedding, train)

[brodie734]

Originally Posted by Slant-6-Dodge

Just curious........I like geography, and the Great American Rust Belt has a geography like no other place on earth. I'm curious about the Big 5 Cities of the Great American Rust Belt: DETROIT, BUFFALO, CLEVELAND, PITTSBURGH and CHICAGO.

The demographics of a city reflect its history. And Rust Belt cities have a unique history when compared to most other American metropolises.

In my travels I found Buffalo and Detroit to be almost clones of one another. Chicago feels like a close sibling to the two, while Cleveland and Pittsburgh are like their very close 1st cousins.

Buffalo and Detroit are certainly twinned. Buffalo may be in New York State, but it hardly feels like New York at all except for the car licence plates. That's it. It feels like it should be in Michigan. Even their accent in Buffalo sounds just like the way people speak in Detroit. You don't hear one hint of Brooklynese once you get west of Albany.......I found that strange.

why should you find that strange? New York and it's tri-state area are effectively a city state. Those Brooklynese types feel more connected with the rest of the east coast than they do with Buffalo... people in the UP of Michigan feel far more commonalities with people in Minneapolis than they do with people in Detroit, that's just the way the story goes. Demographics play a part... those Jewish and Italian communities never made as much of an impact inland as they did along the coasts, where Polish and other central European migrants seemed to cluster around the industrial Great Lakes/Pittsburgh areas.

Buffalo and Detroit are very similar, right down to the abandoned train terminals that loom in both cities as a depressing reminder of the glory days. But there are issues of scale there... I feel Detroit and Cleveland are more linked, there are a lot of family ties and a very large amount of shared culture between Michigan and Ohio in general that Buffalo just isn't in on.

[Slant-6-Dodge]

As an outsider travelling around these cities I found Cleveland to be a bit more similar to Pittsburgh than to Detroit. I thought Buffalo and Detroit were virtual clones of one another on all sorts of levels. Chicago had a very similar vibe too, but on a much larger scale.

I think since both Detroit and Buffalo are border cities to Canada there was an almost "British feel" to both that I didn't sense in Pittsburgh or Cleveland. All of these Rust Belt cities have huge Polish-American populations, but I found Buffalo and the Detroit area to have substantial Irish, Scots and English populations (both through ancestry and recent immigration). I presume this is mostly down to the fact they both border Canada.

[NOLA101]

Originally Posted by mgkeith

I was just visiting the lower east side of Manhattan last month, and took a lot of buses throughout the area. Chinatown has actually spread very far throughout the lower east side, as a relative living there for many years told me. Very little of Little Italy left.

Chinatown in Manhattan has been shrinking for decades. It has obviously grown if you're looking back to 1940 or something, but the main Chinatowns in NYC are in Brooklyn and Queens.

Little Italy in Manhattan has probably been shrinking for at least 100 years, so in that context, yes, Chinatown has "taken over" most of Little Italy, but most of Chinatown has since been "taken over" itself.

[Slant-6-Dodge]

Originally Posted by NOLA101

Chinatown in Manhattan has been shrinking for decades. It has obviously grown if you're looking back to 1940 or something, but the main Chinatowns in NYC are in Brooklyn and Queens.

Little Italy in Manhattan has probably been shrinking for at least 100 years, so in that context, yes, Chinatown has "taken over" most of Little Italy, but most of Chinatown has since been "taken over" itself.

Could we get off this Little Italy kick in New York City?

It has nothing to do with the content of the original posting.

Start another thread if you all wish to discuss Little Italy in New York City.

[us66]

I'm going to still go with most of south Warren. It seems especially downtrodden these days, doesn't have any of the Royal Oak/Ferndale spillover that Madison Heights and Hazel Park respectively have, and areas that were somewhat more livable than 9 and Van Dyke (which was never a nice area, even when new) such as most of what's in East Detroit schools or some stuff near Fitzgerald High have been snapped up seemingly nearly completely by investors. To use a South Park reference, Kenny McCormick would have lived in south Warren. Until five or ten years ago, his family would have probably owned their house, but nowadays, they'd likely be renting it if they were still there.

Another good place to find poor White areas would be Mt. Clemens, or perhaps all the mobile home parks strewn around central Macomb County that predate the McMansions within sight of them. I used to deliver pizzas in Macomb Township and those parks had some real characters.

[jonnynonos]

Originally Posted by us66

I'm going to still go with most of south Warren. It seems especially downtrodden these days, doesn't have any of the Royal Oak/Ferndale spillover that Madison Heights and Hazel Park respectively have, and areas that were somewhat more livable than 9 and Van Dyke (which was never a nice area, even when new) such as most of what's in East Detroit schools or some stuff near Fitzgerald High have been snapped up seemingly nearly completely by investors. To use a South Park reference, Kenny McCormick would have lived in south Warren. Until five or ten years ago, his family would have probably owned their house, but nowadays, they'd likely be renting it if they were still there.

Another good place to find poor White areas would be Mt. Clemens, or perhaps all the mobile home parks strewn around central Macomb County that predate the McMansions within sight of them. I used to deliver pizzas in Macomb Township and those parks had some real characters.

Eminem called south Warren the white hood.

[Arthur Digby Sellers]

Originally Posted by us66

I'm going to still go with most of south Warren. It seems especially downtrodden these days, doesn't have any of the Royal Oak/Ferndale spillover that Madison Heights and Hazel Park respectively have, and areas that were somewhat more livable than 9 and Van Dyke (which was never a nice area, even when new) such as most of what's in East Detroit schools or some stuff near Fitzgerald High have been snapped up seemingly nearly completely by investors. To use a South Park reference, Kenny McCormick would have lived in south Warren. Until five or ten years ago, his family would have probably owned their house, but nowadays, they'd likely be renting it if they were still there.

Ditto for South Redford. It's the South Warren of the west side.

[02blackgt]

Originally Posted by Slant-6-Dodge

Just curious........I like geography, and the Great American Rust Belt has a geography like no other place on earth. I'm curious about the Big 5 Cities of the Great American Rust Belt: DETROIT, BUFFALO, CLEVELAND, PITTSBURGH and CHICAGO.

The demographics of a city reflect its history. And Rust Belt cities have a unique history when compared to most other American metropolises.

In my travels I found Buffalo and Detroit to be almost clones of one another. Chicago feels like a close sibling to the two, while Cleveland and Pittsburgh are like their very close 1st cousins.

Buffalo and Detroit are certainly twinned. Buffalo may be in New York State, but it hardly feels like New York at all except for the car licence plates. That's it. It feels like it should be in Michigan. Even their accent in Buffalo sounds just like the way people speak in Detroit. You don't hear one hint of Brooklynese once you get west of Albany.......I found that strange.

I moved from Detroit and lived in Buffalo for a few years and have to agree with you. Buffalo and Detroit people wise were very similar in culture, language, ect. Now if you were to compare city to city, i would take Buffalo any day. They actually have some amazing inner city neighborhoods that are not ghetto and run down. I felt a whole lot safer living in Buffalo (yes i lived inner city). Yes Detroit has a few nice inner city neighborhoods, but they are generally very upscale like Indian Village. Buffalo had a few like those, but they also had lots of areas that were middle class, safe, urban living.

[chh]

Originally Posted by Arthur Digby Sellers

One thing you'll find here is people are migratory. I can count on one hand the number of people I know who live in the town they grew up in. There is definitely a stigma attached to it, even if you're only moving one city over.

I live in a smallish town (Battle Creek) and many people here grew up in the area, with a lot of people their parents and grandparents also live here, when I was growing up here in school I'd say close to half of the kids families just never left town, I.e. their grandparents live here.

[brodie734]

Originally Posted by 02blackgt

I moved from Detroit and lived in Buffalo for a few years and have to agree with you. Buffalo and Detroit people wise were very similar in culture, language, ect. Now if you were to compare city to city, i would take Buffalo any day. They actually have some amazing inner city neighborhoods that are not ghetto and run down. I felt a whole lot safer living in Buffalo (yes i lived inner city). Yes Detroit has a few nice inner city neighborhoods, but they are generally very upscale like Indian Village. Buffalo had a few like those, but they also had lots of areas that were middle class, safe, urban living.

The primary difference between Detroit and Buffalo, other than size, is black population. The vast majority of Detroit's problems ultimately stem from destructive racial politics and divide and conquer games played between the city and suburbs. Detroit would be much better off than Buffalo if not for the racial attitudes of the population in southeastern Michigan both 40 years ago and in the present day.