What Happened to Eastpointe? (Detroit, Gaylord: sale, crime rates, homes)

[Remisc]

Originally Posted by BurtsBees

[JS], no offense, but you're 16 and have zero life experience. You shouldn't talk as if you know so much about these cities. Can't walk through SCS during the day?

LOL! I was thinking the same thing! My Aunt Barb lives in the 'bad' part of SCS (because there's a foreclosure with an overgrown lawn 2 blocks over! GASP!), and I feel perfectly fine walking around there.

[scolls]

Originally Posted by [JS]

Saint Clair Shores is a nice city for the most part, but there are some places there that I wouldn't walk through in the daytime, let alone at night. Nowadays it's like that with any nice city. Ferndale, Madison Heights, Warren, definately Royal Oak...

What happened to Metro Detroit should be the title of this thread. Pretty much every neighborhood seems like it's being dragged down with the inner city...

Are you afraid of your own shadow?

[Remisc]

Originally Posted by [JS]

Saint Clair Shores is a nice city for the most part, but there are some places there that I wouldn't walk through in the daytime, let alone at night. Nowadays it's like that with any nice city. Ferndale, Madison Heights, Warren, definately Royal Oak...

What happened to Metro Detroit should be the title of this thread. Pretty much every neighborhood seems like it's being dragged down with the inner city...

Ferndale and SOUTHERN Warren I can understand, because of the Detroit Factor and such. But Madison Heights, SCS, and Royal Oak are perfectly fine cities.

[Northsider 248]

Originally Posted by Remisc

Ferndale and SOUTHERN Warren I can understand, because of the Detroit Factor and such. But Madison Heights, SCS, and Royal Oak are perfectly fine cities.

I had used Ferndale and Warren as good examples. As for Madison Heights and SCS; they are for the most part exceptional cities, but they definitely have their bad areas.

Madison Heights is mostly a nice city, but there are some places there that are just plain crummy. There are many trailer parks scattered around Madison Heights that are in poor condition. The area south of Lincoln and east of John R. in particular is in very bad shape. People have bars on their doors and windows. There are four houses I remember just off of the tip of my mind that are in horrible condition and can not possibly be occupied because of their condition.

Southern Royal Oak is very nice, but once you get north of 13 Mile it starts to fall apart until you reach the city borders. Once you reach 13 Mile, there's a complete difference. I've seen quite a few boarded up, barred up or blighted houses in the area. I live next door to a blighted, almost abandoned house; and even after the owner received a 17-page citation and corrected the problems with the home, it is still in horrible standing. It's so poorly kept that pieces of the fence have fallen over in our backyard multiple times from rotting. The owner is only around maybe once a year, and the police have been called to the house at least twice.

This isn't just a sob story though. There was a house in Royal Oak, near the southern end, that was completely spraypainted - the front, the door, the windows, and anything the vandals could get their hands on. If you look around the city, there are plenty of boarded up houses. There are quite a few houses with barred up doors, and a few scattered houses with barred windows. There are even some non-industrial businesses that have bars on the windows as well.

The Middle School alone in Royal Oak has been arsonized twice. The second time, I knew the arsonist. While he was very stupid and had bad judgement, he was mentally stable and had a strong hatred for the school. He had basically forced the whole school to stand outside for two hours in the earlier days of March while the second floor Boys bathroom literally burnt to a crisp and the Royal Oak Fire Department delayed strongly; simply because he thought it would be funny to burn the school down. If I'm not mistaken, there was already a shooting at the High School as well.

Royal Oak is not a good city; but most people who don't live here do not understand it. Sure, the city has mansions, a beautiful downtown, and a small upscale creative class, but after you get over the short-lived glamor of Royal Oak and you get down to really looking around; it's like living on Eight Mile, minus the adults in gangs and add kids with knives. The schools are a joke, the children are out of control, gangs are fast on the rise in the school system, houses are becoming quickly blighted, and nobody's doing a thing about it.

Saint Clair Shores is generally in much better condition than Madison Heights and Royal Oak. There are still some bad parts of it, but I guess it would not apply to a thread about Eastpointe, as it's safe to say that most are oddly focused around the Roseville border. These neighborhoods are not exactly 'blighted', but they're attracting gang attention.

I wouldn't walk through one of these neighborhoods and get my hard earned money stolen from me. I've lived in Royal Oak for five years, and I've walked around my neighborhood for about one. Already, I've almost been robbed. If it weren't for the fact that I had my bike and a friend with me, I would have most likely been robbed, stabbed or beaten up at that time. I'm always watching over my shoulder when someone else is on the sidewalk. I usually take a shortcut through a low-rise apartment complex, but often enough there are shady people hanging out in the parking lot, and I'm basically forced to take another route. I have a strict curfew enforced that means I basically can not leave the block after dark because my parents are too afraid that I'll be targeted by a rapist or a mugger, even when I am in a group of eight or nine people. Alot of these people who haven't lived in these areas have no idea how bad they can actually be.

I have enough life experience and studies in American and foreign urban planning to be able to make judgment. I've lived in and visited frequently many neighborhoods around Metro Detroit, and I'm well aware of alot of what goes on there. I've discussed this with other people of my own age, and it's mostly the same response - "Royal Oak isn't a bad place. There's lots of shopping and everyone has alot of money" - when in reality, this is a narrow and generalistic view on things. I doubt other teenagers are required to explain the socio-economic effects of population density and it's effects on crime, education and wealth to grown adults on a regular basis when discussing local political matters (for lack of a better term).

[us66]

I believe the house with the gang graffiti earlier in the thread was at Boulder and Ash; it had a lot of graffiti but it has been painted. There are still some well-kept homes on that street, including a couple newer builds, but the rest mostly ranges from the working poor to biker gang types. There's also a house further up the street that hasn't had a roof on it in I don't know how long. Arby's at Eight Mile and Gratiot closed a few months ago. Some sections of Eastpointe are still okay, but much of it reminds me of the Warrendale section of Detroit with better code enforcement. Go down streets like Brittany north of Nine, Rosalind north of Nine, Tuscany south of Nine, and pretty much anything by the old Eastwood Theatre. For not much more a month, Fraser and most of SCS are infinitely more desirable or a brick section of HW.

[desertdetroiter]

Originally Posted by scolls

Please do because I frankly don't believe you. I go by Eastpointe frequently and have not seen this. I have never been attacked while driving down Gratiot regardless if I was in Eastpointe or Detroit. Hell I go to the White Castle at 8 Mile and Gratiot often. Day or night.

LOL...so true. The crime exaggerators on these forums get on my nerves. I'm a native Detroiter with plenty of friends and family living in East Detroit (i still call it that no matter what), and there is absolutely NOTHING run down about that town. People say this stuff because the demographic of the town has changed somewhat....not to mention that some folks want to believe it whether it's true or not so as to accomodate their preconceived notions. It's ridiculous.

[us66]

Since this post was last fully active, there has been at least one child mauled by a dog (on Lexington near Forest; second on that street in a year), someone shot at a garbageman (Normandy and Oak), two Chrysler minivans were stolen from the library parking lot the same day earlier this week, one of two middle schools closed (and they're going to close what is arguably the best elementary school in the ED school district), and check out the graffiti battle going on at the industrial building at 10 and Tuscany.

[ForStarters]

Originally Posted by us66

Since this post was last fully active, there has been at least one child mauled by a dog (on Lexington near Forest; second on that street in a year), someone shot at a garbageman (Normandy and Oak), two Chrysler minivans were stolen from the library parking lot the same day earlier this week, one of two middle schools closed (and they're going to close what is arguably the best elementary school in the ED school district), and check out the graffiti battle going on at the industrial building at 10 and Tuscany.

US66, no offense, but I think you are proving desertdetroiter's point.

In basically 3 months time, a kid was bit by a dog, some nut case (who should probably be committed) shot at a garbage man, some idiot stole 2 cars (unless the owners reported their own cars stolen to collect the insurance $), and some teenagers sprayed graffiti at an abandoned industrial site. That is not a crime problem, that is a barely anything, IMO. It would be different if there were gang killings, serial rapists, child abductions, etc. But the stuff you are reporting is trivial.

Maybe people just have different perspectives on what is serious crime, but I can guarantee if you live around people, stuff like that above will happen anywhere.

The school closing is a big issue, but definitely not a problem limited to Eastpoint. The economy has been in the crapper.

[us66]

I know I may have come across as alarmist, but these quality of life issues are the kinds of things that make people want to pack up and move to a more northern suburb. I know they're fairly minor things (well, maybe not shooting at the garbageman) but they sure bother a lot of people. The graffiti was actually kind of funny. One group of vandals crossed out another group of vandals' artwork and replaced it with their own. BTW the building is occupied.

[scolls]

What's funny is everyone on this forum would agree Gaylord is better than Eastpointe and in the same time period, Gaylord has had a murder, robbery, and drug bust in a town the size a single block in Eastpointe.

I frequent the Macomb Mall area for my shopping. I use to take 94 but ever since this thread, I take 7 mile to Gratiot and take Gratiot out there waiting for someone to attack my car in Eastpointe.