What to do with ghettos?

[memphis]

I had the day off today. Out of boredom, driving around town. It's really breathtaking how rundown and abandoned sections of town are. Miles of boarded up houses and even whole apartment complexes left to rot. Grassy lots feet overgown. Little legitimate business in sight.
What productive actions can be taken to correct this? It's really disturbing that people live like that. It's even more disturbing that people don't even think about it.

[memphis]

I had the day off today. Out of boredom, driving around town. It's really breathtaking how rundown and abandoned sections of town are. Miles of boarded up houses and even whole apartment complexes left to rot. Grassy lots feet overgown. Little legitimate business in sight.
What productive actions can be taken to correct this? It's really disturbing that people live like that. It's even more disturbing that people don't even think about it.

I agree. I really enjoy driving around ghettos, too, as its instructive to see how the other half lives.

Though I recommend treating red lights as merely a suggestion.

I wouldn't say I enjoyed it, though I guess one could say that it was interesting in the same macabre way that it's hard not to gawk at a nasty accident. I really wanted to post some photos to give people a sense of what I'm talking about, but I'm not about to go around the slums snapping photos and I really couldn't find any online, which struck me as strange b/c usually I can find photos of anything (no matter how obscure) online.

[memphis]

However, ghettos are not anything new - they've been that way for the last 30-40 years.  Why the sudden fascination?

30-40 years? You can't be serious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_The_Other_Half_Lives

[memphis]

I think my question may have been misinterpreted. I wasn't so much asking what to do about poverty, though that is a tricky question too. I'm talking about neighborhoods more than people. I don't get the impression that a lot of people live in the areas I'm talking about, with so many properties apparantly abandoned. My county hasn't really grown since 2000, but there's been plenty of new development in desirable areas. The nasty parts of town have been hollowed out. It just seems really inefficient and undesirable.

[memphis]

But, hey, cookouts.  It's a wonder people aren't flocking to Detroit.

They should.  Houses were selling for a dollar a few months ago.  They could at least flip them when the housing market completely recovers.

LOL@ the idea that Detroit will recover. South and North Memphis are a lot lke this. There is exactly 0% chance that these areas will ever be desirable. Nobody is even considering gentrifying these hell holes.

[memphis]

But, hey, cookouts.  It's a wonder people aren't flocking to Detroit.

They should.  Houses were selling for a dollar a few months ago.  They could at least flip them when the housing market completely recovers.

LOL@ the idea that Detroit will recover. South and North Memphis are a lot lke this. There is exactly 0% chance that these areas will ever be desirable. Nobody is even considering gentrifying these hell holes.

Now now now show some optimism

I guess you could say there is some gentrification on the periphery.  A few years ago we might have lumped Binghamption in with North Memphis - now its well on its way to improvement.  I could easily see Cooper/Young expanding southward into some streets that we now associate with South Memphis.

Cooper Young and Binghapmption are still rife with boarded up crack houses. Can't really see any development spilling over.

[memphis]

Low income white neighborhoods just don't give off the "abandon all hope, ye who enter here" vibe that black ghettos do. You don't see nearly as many abandoned properties or overgrown lots and there's not remotely as much violent crime. We also don't have many poor white neighborhoods in Memphis. Most Southern white poors live in the country, and I suspect this is true in the rest of the nation as well.