An Epidemic of Blight Collides With a Pandemic
This article was originally published, in slightly different form, on Alex Alsup’s Substack, The Chargeback. It is shared here with permission. All images for this piece were provided by the author.
One of the most important streets in Detroit, to me, used to be the block of Hazelridge Street between Celestine and MacCrary.
The street is in northeast Detroit, in the city’s 48205 zip code. 48205 is probably one of the most distressed zip codes in the country over the last 20 years, thanks to two decades of unrestrained tax foreclosures of homeowners in poverty, rampant property speculation from suburban tax auction buyers, unmitigated evictions, deterioration of housing conditions due to lack of repair funds, and landlords uninterested in maintaining their properties—to name a few of the perpetual housing crises that have confronted residents in the area.
I used to visit the Hazelridge Street regularly because, even though there had been only one occupied home on the block for years, just about all the other houses were still standing, despite being vacant:
