Go Honest John

I'm going to reprint this editorial from the Detroit News just in case it gets sucked behind a paywall.

Stop dividing, destroying Detroit's neighborhoods
John Thompson and Graig Donnelly

In the midst of the 40th anniversary of that pivotal and explosive summer for the civil rights movement in Detroit, a very important point is being left out. Detroit has a rich history of people expressing their individuality through their homes. We have both lived in this city our entire lives and are sick of watching this right threatened by policies that divide and destroy our neighborhoods.
The threat comes in the form of seemingly positive legislation that is designed to spur reinvestment in the city. Through several tax-incentive programs, select neighborhoods and, in particular, new developments enjoy a property tax rate far below the standard for the rest of the city.
There are three reasons why we find this to be so alarming:
Detroit is systematically gentrifying whole neighborhoods. We tear down public housing and replace it with homes that cost more than a quarter of a million dollars. Those neighborhoods are fast becoming places where people who have been there for generations can't even afford to buy their own homes. They fear their next tax bill while their new, wealthier, neighbors pay a fraction of what they do.
Splitting haves, have-nots
Many homes in perfectly good neighborhoods are becoming unmarketable. You spend your life and countless resources trying to improve your home in a city where only 15 or 20 years ago banks wouldn't give you the time of day. You had to scrape together whatever you could to do renovations and repairs yourself, only to see, all of a sudden, your neighbor's house across some line on a map become more valuable because they get that tax break.
Maybe you're about to retire and you would like to move into something a little smaller and with less maintenance. Now you can't sell your home.
We are only further driving a wedge between the haves and have-nots in and around our city. Detroit has always been divided. Factories destroyed Polish neighborhoods. Entire cities were constructed so Henry Ford could keep his black workers away from his white workers. Corporations bought our public transportation system and shipped it to other countries. Freeways were built through black, Asian and Hispanic neighborhoods. White families were encouraged by low-interest, government-backed mortgages to drive out on those freeways and never look back.
Now there's a movement of people realizing what they missed in Detroit, and we're giving them an advantage. How about the rest of us who stayed?
Those of us who stayed did so for a lot of reasons. Some of us were stubborn. Some of us knew that we weren't welcome in the places a lot of people were going. Some of us felt it was the right thing to do. And some of us couldn't leave.
Our reasons don't really matter as much as our right to the same advantages as the people coming back.
Detroit is in desperate need of many things. One of those things is real tax reform. The current policy is merely a Band-Aid. In fact, we're causing far worse wounds for the sake of the one we've bandaged.
We write this knowing that we live in the tax break neighborhoods. We write it for our neighbors whom we don't want to see suffer.
John Thompson is owner and Graig Donnelly is an employee at Honest John's Bar and No Grill in Detroit.