First time I saw the abandoned block after block in the South Bronx back in 1980 with fake windows in the buildings was a shock to me.
I thought Detroit and East St Louis were really really wore out too.
Now....over half of my hometown is in the creeping abandonment stage too.....once it starts large....it rarely comes back.
Shame....I mean parts of the Bronx and Detroit have been very bad since the 50s.....gone to seed.
this is really paradox but very very bad barrios, ranchos, favelas, quartiers populaires, etc.....are actually more vibrant than US decaying slums....hell, some Brasilian slums are like their own little mirco economy fifedoms ..a world unto themselves.
Doesn't surprise me, as southerners have never struck me as being an urban people. Nowhere is sprawl more prevalent than in the south.
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By 1980 the worst was over and the fires of the Fort Apache days were mostly out (the new name for the pct was"The Little House on the Prairie".)
The south and parts of the central Bronx were the worst in the early-mid 1970s. They hit bottom and stabilized there for a while. I worked there in the 70s (first time I pointed my weapon at someone was on St. Ann's Ave.). I had reason to go back through there a year or so ago with my wife in the car. I was going to regale her with war stories but they had all lost their edge because nothing looked the same, everything was new and shiny.
Those Dresden like streets you recall are now low-middle income row houses that show the pride-of-ownership concept of stabilization works. The same is true in Brooklyn's East New York although Bushwick and Brownsville still have the power to scare.