Osborn
"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."
Osborn and Regents Park have been consigned to the urban wasteland. Once out-flung expansions of working-class housing, these neighborhoods have been among the worst in Detroit for quite some time. Osborn, centered around 7 Mile Road, has was known for decades as a hotbed of gang activity. Those of the middle class avoided the place and talked about its dangers with racist overtones - thugs, gangs, loitering. With Measure 2, the place now lives up to that reputation. It is a place to be avoided unless you're wearing the right clothes and know the right code.
The southern end of things, near Coleman Young Airport, is not quite as bad... but the further out one goes, the more questionable the territory. The city limits of Harper Woods, the nearest suburb on the eastern edge of this mess, are plainly obvious: in that direction, derelicts give way to homes, and cracked and crumbling pavement to neatly maintained streets.
There are no streetlights at night, of course, and during the day most streets feel like ghost towns, while a few corners and buildings host various kinds of illicit activity.
