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Originally Posted by subterranean
It’s controversial because you called Westland a slum.
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I called it a borderline slum. A sprawly area in the bottom 20% of school performance, and with said performance plummeting, in a region with crappy overall performance, is extremely undesirable. It also has a giant empty mall, and a rundown commercial spine (Ford Rd.) filled with rent-a-centers, dollar stores, cash-for-gold and other less desirable businesses. And the housing is mostly aging bungalows for Southern migrants.
If you want to call it something else, fine, but Westland is not on the radar for anyone with options, so relative affordability is irrelevent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by subterranean
I think you forget (or plain don’t know) that the vast majority of Detroit’s suburbs are exactly representative of blue collar cities like Westland, Livonia, Southfield, most of Down River, Macomb County, etc.
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Livonia and Southfield are middle class. Livonia has decent schools, amenities and good services. Southfield has poor schools (basically entirely AA) but still has decent incomes, services, location and home values.
Macomb County and Downriver are highly variable. And, yeah, there are "Westlands" in these areas. Taylor, Roseville, Lincoln Park, Romulus are largely the same; cheap but plummeting in desirability and near-slums. Areas increasingly kept alive by Section 8 and govt. checks, dependent on outflow from Detroit. A generation ago these were UAW towns with a Southern twinge.