Redefining A Neighborhood

The City of Roanoke is holding it's delinquent property sale this Wednesday for parcels with unpaid taxes. This is always fun to look at because like any city Roanoke has easily defined good and bad sections. There are neighborhoods in Roanoke where people live because of the color of their skin and there are neighborhoods in Roanoke where people live because of their income ability.
I don't believe a quadrant list is necessary.
But the Delinquent Property List is a fairly good sign of the progression or regression of a neighborhood.

I live in Old Southwest but I consider Day & Marshall Avenues to be My Neighborhood. The reason for this distinction is geographic. When we began Block Pride, our bi-annual clean up, we needed a boundary, the starting and stopping points and 10th Street, Elm Avenue, 5th Street and Campbell Avenue were easy to identify. So My Neighborhood became this.


My Little Section Of Old Southwest Roanoke


This is what we call 'The Block Pride Neighborhood' and the changes we have accomplished over the past decade are incomparable to any progress any other section of the City of Roanoke has witnessed. I can say that because I have lived here for seventeen years and have gladly participated in our progress. Why am I bringing this up now?
Because in the past when the Delinquency Report came out we could count on a few of the homes in our area being on the list. Our neighborhood was high turn over rentals with landlords who cared more about rent than they did about the maintenance and upkeep of the home they owned. This pattern can be seen in the blighted, neglected areas of our city where tenants who care little about their environment are in control. For me the most obvious example of this 'tenant disrespect' and 'landlord disassociation' is trash/litter around a home or apartment.
Fo years that image of trash on the sidewalks, beer bottles in the yards, and broken down cars allowed us to become two of Roanoke's Forgotten Streets.
Day and Marshall Avenues... Ohhh... Scary....
There is no hiding the fact that if you wanted drugs, prostitution, or the behavior associated with it on a daily basis you could always just drive over to Day & Marshall. That was a fact. Our streets were claimed by the thugs.

Then, yes. Now...

Day & Marshall Avenues are a shining example of neighborhood reclamation through resident involvement. No other six block area in The City of Roanoke has undergone the complete metamorphosis we have experienced. Multi-Family Homes have been converted back to Single Family Homes, properties that were once rentals are now owner occupied, and of course the Painted Ladies add colorful flavor. All of this began by bending down and picking up someone else's litter thirteen years ago.

For me, having only one house on the delinquent list within My Neighborhood is proof we have been successful. I'm very proud of the progress we have made.