Could someone please rewind for me the tape of Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's last mayoral campaign speeches?
The particular part I want to hear again is what he said about neighborhood blight. The media is over-reporting about the shacks and burnt-out hulls scattered around every neighborhood, he said. It is not impossible, he added, to be able to get rid of nearly 50% of all dilapidated buildings before the end of his current term.
Did he actually demolish 50%, while leaving the other 50% to fester in areas I drive the cab around? Or did he bury the tape in convenient rubble?
Joy Road east of the Southfield (M-39) freeway is horrendous. Many of the kidney dialysis patients I transport to treatment live there. Across from the gaping field that used to be the Herman Gardens housing complex are two complete blocks of abandoned, burnt-out strip malls.
I've made two trips to Memorial Street, south of West Chicago Rd. in the past two weeks, and I took house inventory. Out of approximately 45 homes in the block, 30 are abandoned or unliveable. And only about 10% of those 30 are actually boarded up to keep the vagrants out. Only about half the aforementioned strip malls are secured in that fashion as well.
And the press made such a big deal about the remains of New Orleans after Katrina. Those bad parts of New Orleans look like an average part of Detroit these days. And don't forget about Inkster, the Detroit suburb I made mention of last week. Everyone knows a chunk of town known as "Little Saigon" for obvious reasons. You automatically forget the fact Inkster is home of the Marvelettes, who only put the Motown music scene in motion by earning the record label its first gold record.
But at least Inkster boards up all its bad buildings. Detroit, on the other hand, is literally unsecured.
The people aren't asking for, and can't expect, 100 demolition companies to come from all parts of the country and take on Detroit for one solid week, although that would be nice. We also can't expect The Home Depot to donate all its plywood to just one city, although if we could do it, they could help...
But are people going too far to simply ask for safer neighborhoods for them and their kids? We have affluent suburbs such as Livonia and Canton. They have their bad parts. But the bad parts are masked and their grounds are made inaccessible to those who wish to trespass.
Detroit recently got news that their latest census figures were actually wrong: the population surged back up above 900,000. What Kwame wants to see is a million, or over.
The surge was due to a numbers fluke, sir... not because you've carried your campaign promise from election time to now.
Downtown is one thing. It does look better. But how much of that cleanup was done thanks to Super Bowl XL locating here?
As a cab driver, it's not my policy to limit myself as to where I pick fares up, and at what time. They don't like me limiting myself, and neither do I. I hate to turn down a run and have management think I'm scared to do the run.
Truth is, I am. It's a scare that I wish I didn't have. A scare I really shouldn't have.
But a scare that's not being dealt with; plain & simple.
