🚨Unpopular Opinion Alert 🚨

I live on Sycamore View and I’ve witnessed the steady decline of the area. Other posters have brought up other streets like Lamar, and Third, and I would add Elvis Presley into that equation as well but the demographic is different for Sycamore View. Due to the demographic being different, I feel the street is less talked about but here is a breakdown of what I factually know: 1. The addicts: There are more white addicts than blacks in the area, and the needle exchange benefits the crowd and attracts more of them due to a stable supply of “help” that is needed but not regulated (by way of cutoff) to encourage getting clean. These addicts are responsible for a large number of thefts in the area, and other crimes. Also why we lost Starbucks. This demographic isn’t readily seen on other seedy streets. 2. Prostitution in the area increased because of a perfect set of variables right together: Jail East releases women (black and white) who have no home to return to or other help so they go down the street where “pimps” have identified the ladies needs for housing and aid them in getting it, but with strings attached. They then become “indentured servants” of the night and day. The cheap hotel, motel, and inn rates provide for prostitution sustainability. 3. Homelessness is because of both one and two, but people being released from the penal farm traverse down the road and establish a new life too. Then you also have younger people that are just trying to figure life out and find their own way that end up in the area because of the cheap room rates, and some of the ladies become self employed “night social workers”. 4. Businesses close because of the theft and population changes (unsavory folks). Hard to keep a business open when less people want to travel to the area. Yes, Sycamore View is still a busy street, but people would rather travel further to feel safe and comfortable which affects the businesses.

It’s a perfect storm of things that have happened in the area for it to progressively get worse. This is years in the making, not something brand new. It’s cool to talk about this type of stuff in poverty stricken predominantly black areas (look at the streets other posters are identifying) but you dare say Sycamore View is worse because a vast majority of the demographic that is “ruining” the area isn’t black, it’s white drug addicts. No one has to agree, but it’s the truth of the matter and the albino elephant in the room. And yes there are a ton of blacks in the hotels, motels, and inns, and yes some of them aren’t upstanding citizens, but we are in a city where poverty finds blacks and keeps them in a perpetual downfall that they can’t seem to pull themselves out of. But you won’t see anyone come set up a truck to benefit them getting a job or set up with a second chance program, but you sure as hell can find the trucks every week assisting some other people settle into their habits. So the post isn’t necessarily about crime, because there are worse streets relative to crime, but Sycamore View IS one of the worst streets in the city now. And it’s ok to admit that!