28 replies to this topic

[Chad Vander Veen]

It's true, a corn dog would be a better mayor.

[DalOwnerX3]

When I was down there for jury duty, K street was even scary during the day.

[Darthvader]

When I was down there for jury duty, K street was even scary during the day.

Haha! If you think K street is a scary place wander around downtown Chicago or Detroit and see what a real city is like. If K street mall scares you you're better off not leaving the friendly confines of Folsom.

[Baldguy]

I love the smell of urine in the morning.......every morning.....

[cw68]

Haha! If you think K street is a scary place wander around downtown Chicago or Detroit and see what a real city is like. If K street mall scares you you're better off not leaving the friendly confines of Folsom.

seriously. It might not be shiny pretty, but it's not truly scary.

[Dave Burrell]

Haha! If you think K street is a scary place wander around downtown Chicago or Detroit and see what a real city is like. If K street mall scares you you're better off not leaving the friendly confines of Folsom.

I've been to both places you mentioned and they aren't nearly as bad as Watts..... if you think you're brave, try taking a stroll thru Watts after dark. I even drove thru there daily during the riots. Now thats scary.

(but I do consider Detroit to be one of America's armpits - Jersey is the other)

[cw68]

I've been to both places you mentioned and they aren't nearly as bad as Watts..... if you think you're brave, try taking a stroll thru Watts after dark. I even drove thru there daily during the riots. Now thats scary.

(but I do consider Detroit to be one of America's armpits - Jersey is the other)

No thanks, I am not that brave. I'll separate dangerous from slummy. Detroit is on the upswing, if they could just get people to go there! It's all clean and ready for people, but it's empty.

[Steve Heard]

I found myself walking down K Street one night after a downtown Christmas party.

I noticed an elderly couple walking ahead of me with shopping bags. They had to walk a gauntlet of thugs, druggies and other unsavory characters.

I feared for them so followed them to make sure no one jumped them.

The man looked over his shoulder at me before turning the corner, and I realized he must have thought I was following him to rob him.

So I did.

Okay, I kid about the last part, but seriously, it may not be the worst place in the world, but it's a nastly, smelly, forboding place in the heart of downtown. It sits between our convention center and Old Town. The Convention and Visitor's Bureau works their butts off to get visitors to come to Sac, and this is what they get treated to. Terrible. Nothing gets done about it.

I know a parole officer who once told me that if he needs to find a parolee in Sac, he looks there first.

Funny story: He told me he was down there once, had just finished a large burrito, when he spotted a bummy looking guy walking quickly down the street with a very nice motorcycle helmet. He knew something was wrong. He looked down the street and saw a guy following him. Their eyes met, and each knew the other was a cop.

My friend stepped out into the bum's path, and he took off running, with my burritto gorged friend and the other cop in pursuit.

He eventually caught up with him and tackled him to the ground. He was on top of the guy, cuffing him, and he suddenly felt like he was going to throw up. He was pissed off at the guy for stealing the helmet and causing him to run a couple of blocks with stomach full of burritto, and told the guy, if 'I puke it's going all over you!'

[Chad Vander Veen]

No thanks, I am not that brave. I'll separate dangerous from slummy. Detroit is on the upswing, if they could just get people to go there! It's all clean and ready for people, but it's empty.

Lots of good

[Chad Vander Veen]

Still some bad

[Darthvader]

No thanks, I am not that brave. I'll separate dangerous from slummy. Detroit is on the upswing, if they could just get people to go there! It's all clean and ready for people, but it's empty.

Detroit on the upswing? You have got to be kidding me. Sure they cleaned it up for the Superbowl and they have the IRL race at Belle Isle but that's about it. People go for the Hockey and Baseball and Football games then leave. There is about an 8 sq block area of the stadiums, casinos, and restaurants that essentially make up the downtown. There are a few bldgs that are occupied but that's about it. All the dept stores closed up and moved out to the suburbs long ago and that thing called the "people mover" stands idle, althought it makes for a good skate park.

One wrong turn off the freeway going to "downtown" and you'd see what I mean.

[cw68]

I've spent plenty of time in Detroit. It is on the upswing. The downtown area has been cleaned up, had money pumped into it and everything, but the people don't come. New sports stadiums, cleaned up hotels, casinos, etc. Yes, there are very nasty places and I've been in them. (My mother-in-law still misses a lot of her old shops and restaurants in the 'hood.) But the fact remains that downtown Detroit is nice. Empty, but nice.

Problem is that the entire state of Michigan is in a decline and with the future of the US auto-industry what it is, there's not a lot of hope.

[tony]

I've spent plenty of time in Detroit. It is on the upswing. The downtown area has been cleaned up, had money pumped into it and everything, but the people don't come. New sports stadiums, cleaned up hotels, casinos, etc. Yes, there are very nasty places and I've been in them. (My mother-in-law still misses a lot of her old shops and restaurants in the 'hood.) But the fact remains that downtown Detroit is nice. Empty, but nice.

Problem is that the entire state of Michigan is in a decline and with the future of the US auto-industry what it is, there's not a lot of hope.

I, too, have spent a fair amount of time in Detroit, although only a couple of short visits in recent years. While I would agree it 's on the comeback, it's got a long, long way to go. It's still the mopst segregated city in the country, unless I'm missing one, like Birmingham, for example. I think Detroit's problems go deeper than being a one-industry town. There's lots of money in Detroit, bu it all, and I mean all, left the city for the burbs back in the 60s and 70s. Hence the demise of what was once a most impressive downtown shopping district. I remember the last department store closing when I was in college in the early '80s. So the problem now is that no-one is left in the city except for the poor, and even many of them have fled.

I've been back there twice in the past 5 or 6 years and I recall being stunnned at how large sections of the city between downtown and Grosse Point, sections that had been full of boarded up and burned out three-story houses in the '80s, had been completely cleared so you could drive for nearly a dozen blocks without seeing more than one or two buuildings standing. It was like a new subdivision where they had built the streets but ran out of oney before they got started building houses (hmm, sort of like the little development at teh corner of Green Valley and Natoma Street backing up to the lake). It was rather surreal. The otehr truely surreal aspect of downtown Detroit (last time I was there) was the 30+ story former Cadillac headquarters, a beautiful, art-deco building, completely boarded up. Yeah, they've done some work downtown, but without people living there, it's still a city without a chance of revival.

As for comparisons to Chicago, there are none. While Chicago has always had some rough neighborhoods (Sox park being on the edge of one that has changed dramatically with the demolition of the high-rise projects), it has one of the most vibrant downtowns in the US. Cleveland (my hometown) is a better comparison, but even Cleveland looks good compared to Detroit these days. I always thought of Cleveland as the little brother of Detroit, but Cleveland was not so completely tied to one industry, and has fared better in attracting people downtown (the flats and the wharehouse district come to mind).

K-Stret? Annoying and unpleasant, but I wouldn't consider particularly dangerous. I remeber when I was in high school in Cleveland being instructed not to stop for red lights at night at certain intersection near downtown because of the high likelihood of someone lying in wait there. That same area is now right where all the activity is around teh Jake and Gund Arena. Things do change.

[DrKoz23]

Looks like John Saca is up to it again.

http://forum.skyscra...ad.php?t=133718

Hopefully he can get this one built. 40 stories... and only one tower. A little less ambitious than The Towers... but still looks nice.

By the way... the CalSTRS building looks like it will be really nice once completed.