11:23am

above 2006 - below 2004

For the next half-hour or so I followed my notes, winding through block after block of the type of neighborhood I see every day; unkempt, patched roads, old 2 and 3-story Victorian-style homes, the occasional eviction-mound of unwanted trash. During this time I observed that, while the number of standing burned or vacant houses appeared the same as last year, the number of demolished ones and/or new-builds were actually on the increase. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that, at least to me, it appeared as if some modest effort was indeed being made by the city to address issues of blight and decay.

Not finding anything of visual interest, I returned to Jefferson and Mack Avenues were I wanted to locate a couple of facades shot in 2004. There were 2 or 3 I had particular interest in finding, and when I did so I noticed nothing new; no improvement, no change, no worse. It appeared as if there was anything to steal or vandalize, it had already been done.