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Kyle,
I plan to take a different approach to answering your question.
Did you and your fiance, stop and look at homes in the area. Did you for even a nanosecond consider buying. You ask why there are nothing but rundown homes and businesses. Well look to yourself and people you know and you will find the answer. Throwing money at problem does not a solution engender. People with the guts, courage, and stamina to move in clean-up and set the example that this blight can be overcome are what is actually required, along with the critical element of the restoration of some semblemence of family and community loyalty. Am I then a part of the problem, sure I am. Do I believe that there is much hope the problem will go away in my time or even my childrens time heck no. Is the problem segregation, no that may have contributed to the problem 30 years ago but the problem today is that even the fiscally advantaged minorities are unwilling to return to these communities to help clean them up. Prospect was like this back in the 50s (my father was a Policemen and from Independence Ave to at least 39th and Prospect has been this way since as long as he can remember in the sixties the corridor widened both to the west and the east and extended pretty much to the area surrounding Swope Park to the south. The families that improve economically flee the area to the Suburbs and the area grows. Little other than true reinvestment coupled with commitment to occupy those areas will reverse the trend.
It should be noted that people who try to make this commitment are met with anger and hostility and are often driven back out either through violence or in the case of business economic starvation. This is a very complex problem with no easy answers. I really do not believe it is a case of wanting to overlook the problem as a dirty little secret, but of people feeling that a hopeless problem exists and that concentration on problems that can be fixed should instead be the priority.
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