Understanding Northwest Detroit

I have tried over the last few days to better understand Northwest Detroit. I have a long, long way to go.

Today I was at one restraunt, part of a national franchisee, where people were sitting in the restraunt selling CDs and DVDs in a way that I strongly doubt they were paying proper royalties, and they might have been selling DVDs or films still doing their first run in theatres. I decided not to ascertain the whole details of the matter, and since this was the only one of that chain located in Detroit west of Livernois, I will not name it.

I have spent my whole teaching career, all 3 and a half years, teaching in Detroit north of I-94 and west of Livernois, which is a rough approximation of north-west Detroit, although I would argue the area south of Warren between Livernois and the first crossing of the Dearborn border is more south-west Detroit, with its high number of Hispanics. However Warrendale, the area along Warren further west once Detroit is reentered, has few if any Hispanics, but some portion of Arabs which still makes it culturally foriegn to the part of Detroit I teach in, where schools have 98%+ black student bodies. That includes some students who while they fully acknowledge a their black heritage also acknowledge white and Native American heritage. Those number probably between 5 and 10 percent of the overall student body, at least those who have at least one grandparent who is fully white, but how much those see themselves as making them other than just black is hard to say, and still probably undecided for some. I may be overestimating, since the percentage of such may be higher in lower grades than in middle school.

The far northwest has many areas. My school, John R. King, is located in the heart of the Belmont Neighborhood. This neighborhood has less strong of an identity than some. It is also harder to describe.

Actually the school is not in Belmont. Belmont starts on the other side of Strathmoor, and goes all the way to Greenfield. It goes from Puritan to Fenkell. So the school is adjacent to Belmont, and the houses closest to the main entrance of the school are in Belmont, but the school itself is not there.

In general the crime level and percentage of abandoned houses seems to rise as one goes south from 6 mile to Fenkell between Schaefer and Hubbell. I have analyized the issue less west of Hubbell.

There are some areas in the northwest that stand out. Grandmont, the area just south of Grand River just before the Southfield Freeway, and even more so Rosedale Park and Rosedale Park north alone Grand River between 6 mile and maybe Lyndon or so from the Southfield Freeway to Evergreen have a history of being some of the more affluent parts of Detroit.

However as my coworker who lives in Rosedale Park told me "its still the neighborhood". This is not as exclusive as Palmer Woods, Sherwood Forest or Indian Village, and I was told by another co-worker 3 years ago the neighborhoods were going down hill.

It was at the Little Ceasars Pizza in the heart of Rosedale Park I overheard some black Hebrew Israelte types spewing their message of racial segregation and denunciation of inter-racial marriage.

Rosedale Park has also produced members of the Detroit City Council who excell at race baiting politics being used to advance their own narrow interests.

Still whenever I start to try to explain Detroit I realize I know way too little of the city.

An area I am trying to understand is Brightmoor. This area is poorer and less African-American than other areas in the North west. It has a combination of drivewayless dinky houses crammed next to each other, houses with 5 or more empties lots by them, blocks without houses, and less than 20 year old new build houses with attached garages. It has seen some of the highest rates of abandoned house removal, but one can still find 4 aboandoned houses in a row in some places.

As in most neighborhoods in Detroit the notion that whites there are the last stragglers on of the massive white population that left are too simplistic and often just plain wrong. True, I also at times have poor sampling size issues. I do know 2 white people who live in Brightmoor and meither fits that description. One is a native of Pittsburgh who came to Detroit a few years back to engage in urban homesteading. The other is a man of Italian descent who was born in Farmington, Michigan, largely raised there and Redford Township, and now lives in Brightmoor.

Even some of the white people who really are hold outs don;t fit the assumed mold. For example John George, the founder of Motor City Blight Busters may be white, but his wife is black, and therefore John George Jr looks black. To understand George one has to try to wrap their mind around Sandhill/Old Redford and its struggle to thrive against crack houses, drug dealers and neglect from the city combined with oppressive beauracratic red tape. On the other hand MCBB at times suffers from an overabundance of volunteers to do its work. The problem there is it lacks the logistical support staff to formulate ways in which to effectively use the volunteers.

Then there is the North Evergreen/Southfield area. This is the area north of 7 Mile between Evergreen and Southfield. It is a neighborhood with the 78 acre O'Hair Park, including the 20 acre Pitcher Woods. Adjacent to that on the east is the abandoned Pitcher Elementary. To the west is Henry Ford High School, one of the schools run by the EAA that may be the high school in the city that suffers the most from brain drain to Cass and Renaisance.

 The neighborhood also has the misfortune of having 8 Mile and some of its unsavory businesses along its north edge. If it was not for having to live insanely close to such businesses, the probably early 1950s housing that covers most of the streets just south of 8 Mile would seem attactive. In the part of the neighborhood just west of the Southfield there are lots of abandoned bungalow houses, crammed on small lots, and in general not an easy place to want to live. Even the Little Free Library in O'Hair park has an under abundance of books.