The Bluff: Atlanta's Forgotten Community (Decatur, Stone Mountain: rental, high crime, homes)

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by crazynip

I'm sure the city could find creative ways to get those people to move out. Pay some gangs or homeless a few dollars to hassle them until they move. Remember, eminent domain is not voluntary, the city can offer them current market value, which in that hood is likely 20 grand a house, and tell them to get down the road before the bulldozers get there...

Ok... I mean this has to be like the craziest most absurd thing I have ever read on these forums yet.


Let me get this straight... you want tax dollars used to encourage gangs and crime... to get people not committing crimes to move from an area that is known around town as crime-ridden.

So we are kicking people out who are peaceful, raising the crime rate with tax payers money, and not to mention we are unethically committing crimes against innocent people.

For crying out loud... Even from a development only point of view... you are devaluing the property by encouraging crime.


The best thing to do, in part, is just to wait. When if our local economy comes back to life... things like the Beltline will create catalyst sites all over town for improving neighborhoods. Even with out it we are already in an up-swing of gentrification.

So I would support catalyst sites, try to make main streets or corners with small businesses (potential taverns/coffee shops) be more aesthetically appealing and over time things will improve.

If we do use eminent domain on a place where people are still living there.... I would use after strict code enforcement of apartment buildings (not houses). Some of them are blighted and are not even maintaining decent living conditions. The rent is so low they can't even maintain their own property and they attract more people causing problems in neighborhoods than homeowners do.

I say if an apartment building maintains their buildings and keeps their property up to code that's great, but if they let it become blighted and have trouble keeping up financially and let the rent rates fall drastically low, then the city should condemn it for prolonged code violations and prepare the land for a developer.

The lot of an apartment buildings are more attractive to developers, since they are already big. You don't have to worry about... differentiating a good house vs. a bad house. Many of these bad off neighborhoods have good people in them. People that have invested alot of money and hard work in their homes, even though other people didn't just two doors down.

Its unfair to tell someone they can't keep their lifetime of hard work and investment and they have to find a... potentially crappier house on another block, so it can be bulldozed for developers.
Now if a property is dilapidated, vacant, and not being maintained to code... then I'm all for it, but that is rarely the case with every house on a block.

In most other cities where a city cleared a block... typically if there were good homeowners there... they were persuaded to move through financial incentives. In other words... they were able to move into a house that was maintained as well as theirs was or nicer. If there is really any money to be made from selling a larger lot to a developer... that is where the money should go.

As for vacant abandoned houses... I think the landowner needs the ability to maintain the property and keep the property. That house might have value and they are waiting for the home market to improve. However, if the property isn't maintained to code and the property well kept after repeated warning, then the city should should give the owner a chance to tear the house down and maintain a empty lot. If that doesn't work... then after repeated violation take the home over, tear it down... unless the building has potential value in itself for development (decent condition) or it happens to be a house that sticks out for historical significance of the neighborhood.

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by crazynip

Probably not worth fixing most of the homes, but they could do what Baltimore and Detroit is finally wising up and starting to do: Seize the property through eminent domain, dozing the area, then selling the property to developers...

Originally Posted by crazynip

I'm sure the city could find creative ways to get those people to move out. Pay some gangs or homeless a few dollars to hassle them until they move. Remember, eminent domain is not voluntary, the city can offer them current market value, which in that hood is likely 20 grand a house, and tell them to get down the road before the bulldozers get there...

If you're not you must be a nut.

[roadtrip75]

Originally Posted by crazynip

If you doze this cesspool of a neighborhood and sell the land to developers, you could make money, collect more taxes to pay for it, etc.

Good plan: we've got the scum quarantined, but let's go ahead and break them up and spread them throughout the community. That'll work out just great.

[crazynip]

Originally Posted by roadtrip75

Good plan: we've got the scum quarantined, but let's go ahead and break them up and spread them throughout the community. That'll work out just great.

Where do you think these scumbags who used to live in the projects went when they were bulldozed? They are moving out into the suburbs, living in homes paid for by section 8 because the owners who bought them as investment homes are stuck with them and the only way they can make payments is to go section 8 with them....

Honestly, somebody refute this fact...

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by crazynip

Where do you think these scumbags who used to live in the projects went when they were bulldozed? They are moving out into the suburbs, living in homes paid for by section 8 because the owners who bought them as investment homes are stuck with them and the only way they can make payments is to go section 8 with them....

Honestly, somebody refute this fact...

i would refute it if i knew what the heck you just said and what it has to do with your psycho plan of paying gang members to run people out of english avenue so the city can bulldoze hundreds of historic homes and beautiful structures.

[crazynip]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

i would refute it if i knew what the heck you just said and what it has to do with your psycho plan of paying gang members to run people out of english avenue so the city can bulldoze hundreds of historic homes and beautiful structures.

There are no historic homes or beautiful structures there. Everything is too far gone.


"historic" homes abandoned, stripped of copper, full of black mold, used to cook meth, even the rats wont live in some of these places

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by Jay7751

This is very good candid article about The Bluff:

If you’re visiting Atlanta and aren’t looking to be shot in the face, swarmed by smack dealers, stopped by cops merely for being white, or set ablaze by an HIV-positive crackhead squatter, stay away from the area known as “The Bluff.”

Blight of the Living Dead - Taki's Magazine

it's candid but it's also the most racist article i think i've read in a long time.

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by crazynip

There are no historic homes or beautiful structures there. Everything is too far gone.


"historic" homes abandoned, stripped of copper, full of black mold, used to cook meth, even the rats wont live in some of these places

have you seen the carnegie library there? the english avenue elementary school?

houses can be in ****ty condition. that doesn't mean they're gone. up until a few years ago, east lake was a really bad neighborhood— now homes are being restored left and right into places of beauty.

i don't know why you're putting quotes around "historic". the homes are all historic and many were designed beautifully, and there are plenty of local landmarks.

what needs to be done to this community is a swath going westward. first, along northside drive, take the old abandoned lots and urban blight, and make it a destination people want to go to— it isn't that hard as GA tech, the world of coke, etc. are blocks away. with police patrolling, gradually it will become a desirable area and the criminals will see that it's too difficult to carry out drug deals, so they'll move somewhere else. urban pioneers will move in and restore these homes (it can be done) and the area will be listed on the national historic register.

either that, or the beltline going along the western side of the neighborhood will move people in going eastward.

either way it has to be done from the edges. eminent domain and government action for the most part isn't going to help. the city government just needs to set up opportunities for the private sector to do what it does best— bring in money and bring back the neighborhood.

[bryantm3]

tell me this neighborhood doesn't have potential:

"english avenue elementary" - Google Maps

[crazynip]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

tell me this neighborhood doesn't have potential:

"english avenue elementary" - Google Maps

The only way it has potential is to remove EVERY SINGLE RESIDENT. Get back to me when you have a plan for that...