I have to comment on this. I grew up in the Larimer Ave area of Pittsburgh which was known as Pittsburgh's Little Italy. Yes, the Avenue was dominated by Italians, but there were plenty of other ethnicities that lived there also. It was a vibrant, attractive Avenue with business dotting the landscape, and houses and apartments along it and its side streets. That was in the 60s and maybe just slightly into the 70s.

Through Google earth, take a look at it now. You'll see huge swaths of empty lots and dilapidated housing. It has no life. It's been that way for a few decades now. So, why? What happened? What's the variable? Black Americans moved in; that's what happened. Drive up and down the Avenue and its side-streets. You won't see white people, or Hispanic people, or Asian people. You will see black people. It's such a tragedy. The white people left, the Italians and poles, and Germans, and Slovaks left, the Catholics and Protestants left.

Over the last few decades when I would visit Pittsburgh and tell my dad that my sisters and I were going to visit the old neighborhood, he would tell me: "Be careful." It was good advice.

One of my favorite guys here, Pizza, used to write that there is some truth behind stereotypes. That they don't appear out of thin air. I always respected his honesty.

Crash is clearly trolling , but I CANNOT dispute anything by Oli or Hoodlum.I've lived in a few places and my experience is that the number and % of regular civil Black folks is dwindling and larger % of Black folks are just BAD neighbors.


Hoodlum, Trump's rise is partly based on people not being able to tell their version of the truth for fear of being labeled a bigot,etc.

Reality is reality. The existence of the mafia doesn't mean that every Italian American or Sicilian American is a gangster, but the mafia does exist. By the same token, if people look at archive pictures/footage of many cities, you can literally pinpoint the exact era that neighborhoods declined. Not opinion, but facts. It is what it is.

What I've been able to do a few times, and for several family members, is to drive the bad element out of neighborhoods or blocks before they become irreparably damaged. The formula is no different than what the newcomers do when an area is initially becoming gentrified.

Alright dude, enough already.

+1

but I CANNOT dispute anything by Oli or Hoodlum.

What he wrote about Pittsburg applies to the big manufacturing towns in my state...namely that if you take a snapshot of these towns from 4-5 decades ago and compare them to now....you'd hardly think that you're looking at the same places.

Is the same amount of manufacturing still there that was there 4 decades ago, or has most of the industry now gone?

Thanx 4 the feed nets..but i'm a little confused on your very last sentence. Layman's terms please?(if u want,that is).

Manufacturing industry has been in decline for about 4 decades, you are right about that. I think what doomed people more than those jobs going away, were their attitudes about education and entrepreneurship. My father worked in a factory and the point wasn't for him to break his back for his son to be working right alongside him, doing the exact same thing. That factory job was a means to an end, not the end itself.

About the neighborhoods falling apart? I always say that there is a difference between not having a lot of money and being poor. Once a person loses his/her dignity, they are poor.You can walk through the worst neighborhoods in America and find many people who carry themselves with pride. They respect themselves and their home/environment. The problem is that the losers with no self respect ruin the entire area for the regular people.