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I recently returned and saw the same bombed out buildings still there. In any other sane city, those buildings would have been removed. But in Detroit they just stay there as a blight for decades. It's disgusting...

I spent a couple of years at Sacred Heart Seminary a few years back and I know what you mean. The Seminary itself is a colossal, grand edifice between 10 and 96, but the area that surrounds it is indescribable. There used to be a nice, upscale neighborhood for Jewish professionals to the east. The houses were all English-style, very dignified looking. Most still remain, but every 7th or 8th house has the windows boarded up or tarp stretched over the burned up remains of the ceiling.

Very distressing, but to the west it's even worse, a classic urban jungle. You have some of the biggest crack dens in the city. On my last day at the seminary, some guy flipped his lid and started walking down the street shooting people. He killed two. This all took place within 2-3 blocks of Sacred Heart. Some nights when it was warm enough to keep the windows open you could hear drive-by-shootings and outright gunfights. Sometimes I felt as though I were back in the Persian Gulf War. No kidding! Unbelievably sad.

There are so many good people at the Seminary. Really terrific priests, professors, and seminarians. They are trying their darndest to resurrect the Church in Detroit. I really do fear for their safety come November 4, especially if the democratic "messiah" loses.

I know exactly the neighborhood you're talking about. I attended the University of Detroit Mercy. My family's history in Detroit goes back to the 1920s when my grandfather, an immigrant from Lebanon, owned a grocery store near 10th street. My father was a professor and later dean of the business school at UDM. All of my siblings attended UDM. My nephew attended Sacred Heart. I was baptised at old St. Maron's Church. I love Detroit's history. But I'm disgusted at what it's become. I think it needs to be leveled before it can ever heal. They should put all of their resources into demolition of urban blight. That's the promise that that criminal thug mayor ran on, but apparently the money which could have been used for that was instead used on his legal defense and the lawsuit the city had to pay for his criminal acts.

Detroit died in 1967 after the riots and has never risen again. Ironically, before those riots Detroit was considered "the City on the Go" -- national media outlets considered it a model city for urban renewal and race relations. And then that summer saw the worst race riot in the nation's history. Eventually the Los Angeles riots topped Detroit as the most destructive. But LA bounced back. Detroit never did.