Reply #9: not true at all

[rapturedbyrobots]

in durham there is no lack of imagination or desire to fill the 'slums'. no idea why you would call a working class neighborhood a slum. but anyway...most of the deteriorating commercial real estate that contributes to urban blight in durham is simply not made available for grocery stores...or anything else. the buildings just sit there, boarded up, crumbling...setting a cap on land values in the neighborhoods surrounding them (making it easy to buy up entire blocks for luxury condo construction). people have offered to buy them, offered to lease them...but the owners (speculative developers) hold out because they are waiting for an influx of rich northerners that can pay more...way more than the current market rate. unfortunately, the 'tide to lift all boats' never comes (its been 'coming' for at least 10 years now). the result is that locals have NO ACCESS to these spaces while the speculators wait to cash in and the city quite literally falls apart.

and for the most part, when renovation does happen the CITY pays the costs through very generous incentives to developers for gentrifying re-development. no help if you're just a regular homeowner trying to fix your house though.