…and Baltimore is the Detroit of the East Coast, which is why I like it here so much.
Knuckle Sandwich brought to light the recent history of homicides in Oakland, pointing to a San Francisco Chronicle series on the murders. What was most interesting to me was the interactive map they’ve developed, plotting the homicides on a map that includes interestingly enough, liquor stores.
I’ve heard Oakland compared to Baltimore but not really Detroit. My one visit to Detroit around ’94, the city seemed a bit post-apocalyptic with it’s empty city blocks, abandoned buildings and long green corridors. Also Oakland is relatively integrated US city from comparisons I’ve read.
Anyways I saw on this following linked blog that the cities with the highest violent crime rates for 2006 were ranked:
1. St. Louis
2. Detroit
3. Memphis
4. Oakland
5. Baltimore
some more statistics if you look around here:
http://www.abetteroakland.com/how-underpoliced-is-oakland/2007-11-13
Hey Dr. Spence– Funny thing, after I made my last comment i went over to Amazon to check some of Adolph Reed’s books and I found your review of his book on Du Bois. I’ve made a couple of false starts on that book fairly recently.
it’s worth keeping at it. adolph’s academic books can be….obtuse to put it mildly.
I don’t know if i should be insulted or not
Detroiters take our little highlights very serious and to compare another city to Detroit (good or bad) is almost insulting.
Don’t know if I’m being serious here or not.
Detroiters consider themselves in America but not part of America. We go by a different set of rules and obviously can put up with a different lifestyle than other “Americans.”
We’ll do something just gawd-awful that anyone else would find horrific and the rest of the country just says “only in Detrot.”
I find that amusing because most of my friends around the country believe I live in a war zone and they cant believe I can safely raise my children here (i am a single mother with 3 small ones).
I don’t know if I do live in a warzone. maybe because i’ve lived in it for so long that I can’t tell the difference.
….. just took a moments pause to listen to the usual night sounds (a round of bullets in the air like it was new years eve and some man beating his woman in the middle of the street for disrespecting him in front of his friends.) I turned off all the lights in the house, checked on the sleeping kids that weren’t even phaze by the bullet spray and then came back to the computer. Every few minutes I hear a car pull up to the drug house that’s two doors down and wish the police would close the house up for the fourth time so my son can actually ride his bike down the street instead of just having a two house width to play in front of.
I have traveled over this country and even visited Canada (like every weekend one year), Puerto Rico and skirted around the border of Mexico and I can honestly say I haven’t had an experience in any city like I’ve had in Detroit.
So when you say your city is like Detroit and you’re just comparing one thing about, maybe I shouldn’t take it as an insult, but I do take it as something.
Still unsure if I’m being serious or not.
Another fact about Detroit – Not only were we just announce Murder Capital (AGAIN – the most and longest on the list for a while now) but now we’re the top five fattest city and the top ten foreclosured home city.
So we’re fat, broke and like to kill each other. Hmmmm, that’s hard to compare to.
just another rant from loving a black woman and a detroiter @ heart.
Kisses.
A couple of things:
I’m not so much comparing Detroit to other cities as I am saying that what is happening in Detroit is a template for what is happening in other cities. Understand Detroit and you understand Oakland. I didn’t call Detroit the Oakland of the Midwest, remember. And while I can understand being sensitive about Detroit–I am too–because Detroit is for better or worse THE American City, comparisons are necessary in order to understand the type of events that are happening in cities throughout the country.
Second, I’m not comparing “my city” to Detroit. Detroit IS my city. From the Dexter-Davison area that IS a warzone, to Rosedale Park and Indian Village (which are most definitely NOT warzones). I claim it all.
Oakland is the Detroit of the West Coast http://t.co/UeEB6wfJ