Lansing
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7/8/2011
Hi there, I'm going to get real. I grew up on the conservative west side of the state and moved to Lansing in 1997. The first few years were okay. There was a steady job market, crime really wasn't so bad, violent crimes were rare. We moved south of Lansing in 2006. The efforts in making Lansing a better place to live is appreciated, and let me tell you why that effort is taken. GM was a huge employer in the area. It is the life-line of the city. There were several "sister" companies who made products for GM and also employed thousands of people. Here's the problem: when jobs are taken away and no longer existent, people get desperate and places fall apart. There are no jobs here, crime is out-of-control (going from one murder a year to several), bank robberies, thefts, high-speed chases, etc. It's really crazy. Mayor Bernero is trying to "clean up" the city by planting flowers and making downtown prettier for visitors, but the real problems are not being solved. Police force is being layed off, teachers are pink-slipped, fire fighters are forced to resign, and the list goes on. Foreclosures are everywhere and it extends out from the city to suburbs 15 miles away in every direction. Literally every neighborhood's housing is about half foreclosed. People who need to move to find jobs are moving. Those who can't afford to move or don't care, are staying, but double-checking their locks. If Lansing looks ghetto when driving through, it's because it is. It's so sad because it used to be a really cool place to live with everything near and businesses booming, but now even businesses have packed up. I moved because the school systems were deteriorating. Whites are the minority now, there's nothing wrong with that, but greater diversity means greater crime. That's a fact - look it up. The roads are terrible. So much money being spent on flowers and superficiality and not enough on fixing that 4' X 6' pothole in the middle of MLK Blvd. The cops don't mess with you unless you're doing something very suspicious because they're dealing with crazy crimes. The neighborhood my mother-in-law lives in used to be a really nice, quiet, safe neighborhood. She recently had someone in her house, while she was there, with a knife trying to rob her, or whatever he was doing there, TWICE in two weeks! What is going on?! They reports say that the population has dropped 5%, but that is not true. When I moved there 200,000 people lived there, now there's a little over 100,000 and the roads are still crowded. I'm sad that the economy hit Lansing so hard and wishes it can bounce back, but it's not looking promising. Do not move here right now unless you have a job and find a place on the outskirts of town. I feel like it's a ticking time bomb at the beginning of an explosion.
sharron | Eaton Rapids, MI