The new neighborhood...former housing project turned housing experiment
Since we've decided to sell our house in a trendy Memphis neighborhood and build a new house in what currently is a several-acre vacant lot in a part of town that has been neglected for decades, a few people have been, um, curious as to what we're doing and why.
The site of the new neighborhood was, until quite recently, home to a huge housing project in Memphis. Crime abounded, as the surrounding neighborhood crumbled. (Strangely enough, the surrounding homes look a whole lot like the homes in my neighborhood, just generally not as well kept-up.) So the projects were demolished, the people in the projects dispersed around Memphis, and the new construction begun. As I mentioned in my previous article, some of the residents of the old projects will return to the new neighborhood, either in multifamily rental units, or in single family homes. What I LOVE about this plan is that our prospective next-door-neighbors may have paid market rate for their home, may have gotten a HUD grant (if their income is lower than the city's average for their family) to help with up to 30% of the purchase price, or may be a recipient of public housing who was essentially hand-picked to live in this neighborhood after taking some classes and working intensively with a case worker. What a perfect way to get a diverse neighborhood going! Plenty of people who will pay market rate will be attracted to the neighborhood because of its proximity to downtown Memphis....our family can't afford the housing on Mud Island, nor do we want to live in a trendy loft with two kids, so this new development almost Downtown is exactly what we've been waiting for.
Now we just need to see how much longer we wait.