On Jul 26, 3:32*pm, Drifter wrote:
On 7/26/2010 12:31 PM, D. Peter Maus wrote:





On 7/25/10 22:57 , Gregg wrote:

What you describe is something that happens and has happened in
subdivisions/developments/communities across the culture.

"White Flight" is nothing new. In fact, it was actively cultivated by
real estate brokers in communities throughout the 50's and 60's. The
reason had less to do with race, and more to do with profit. Sell whites
on the fear, offer them fresh properties in the suburbs, handle the
sales and purchases on each end, turn around and handle the purchase of
the city properties by the new class moving in. Fortunes were made.

That said, the new class need not be black to lower the standard of
living in a community. Two of the communities I grew up in are now run
down, lower end communities. And race is not involved. Both were new
construction, higher end, communities when we moved in. Today, in the
later one (where we moved in in the late 60's,) home prices have fallen,
the state of repair is poor, and 30% of homes have been declared unfit
for habitation.

Time is a bitch. And it levels all playing fields.

The previous community, into which we moved in '55, are now lower end,
now starter homes, though still nice homes as a whole, and, again,
racial components are not involved.

The phenomenon is driven by a lot of things. One is, that the monied are
often driven by new construction, fresher locales, and distance from the
madding crowd. While lower end buyers must buy within their budget, or
rent. That means existing, older homes, from which the monied have moved
for newer environs.

Race need not apply.

Now, there were blacks moving into the second community where I grew up..
And there was considerable noise about them. But the unrecognized
reality was that their homes were better maintained and landscaped, and
they often had nicer, if not more interesting, cars in the garage. All
of which may have been motivated by an intent to avoid falling into
stereotype. Without the over-and-above, they would have fit right in to
the existing environment without a hitch.

But these were not people who were put into these homes by 'block
busting commitees.' They bought, and mortgaged, their homes themselves,
based on their own qualifications. Blockbuster homes were often bought
by the committee, and then spun to the occupants with assistance to
those who could not otherwise afford to live in the neighborhood. That's
what led to the stereotype.

Even in those cases, the problems were not with blacks moving into the
homes, but with the committees putting them into homes that they could
not rightly afford, and couldn't maintain.

Now, your communty's situation may be different than mine. Likely it is..
But it's hardly a hard case of racially caused decay. Community decay
dates to the Greeks and Romans. It's part of the process of evolution of
a community. The case is more likely the politically motivated ignorance
of realties that put people into homes the couldn't afford to maintain
than it is the race of the people themselves.

Nicely put Peter. In my neck of the world, the Hill District, is the so
called local getto. too many years ago, it was home to the captains of
industry. coal barons, steel magnets, etc. big beautiful homes, churches
looking like they belonged in old europe. and, as always does, the money
was lured out of the city, you can check/ read the history of the
first Johnstown flood. and other places in our mountains of western PA.
the homes left behind were mostly made into many apartment set-ups.
most people living in the city, blue collar, needed to be near their
work. and so it goes. max profit, little over all up keep. in a matter
of a generation, the large beautiful homes and the nice locals were a
slum. and so it now goes in the so called rust belt. BTW, the Hill
is the Hill Street station from the old cop series. "Hill Street Blues"
the main writer was an x cop from the burg.

BTW, on the way home from Indy, a bunch of us stopped to see "The Eye".
Peter, I love it! took a bunch of pix. always enjoy Chicago food too.

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I can agree totally with what Peter and Drifter have written.
Communities do
devolve to a point where only folks at the bottom of the economic
ladder are left.
The fact that these are often African-Americans is not so much a
testament
to the cultural inferiority of blacks as it is a statement about how
our basic
economic structure is racist. Along with Gregg, of course....