Ferndale and Hazel Park. Half a century ago they were both largely white, working-class, shot-and-a-beer towns, which had virtually no black residents, except for one Ferndale street near Eight Mile, and few minorities of any sort, except for a few old European immigrants.
I knew, because I grew up there, in the late 1950s and 60s. Pretty much all my friends’ daddies had served in World War II, and most worked in the auto plants, or in related industries that made parts, from heat protectors to machine tools.
Few of our parents had college educations, and most assumed their sons would be shop rats or homemakers like they were. But some did want their kids to go, in the hope they might become a teacher or go into some white collar job.
Back in 1960, those towns had fifty-six thousand people between them; now, that’s fallen to thirty-six thousand, although the populations seem to have stabilized. But the cities are now considerably different. Ferndale always was a bit more genteel than Hazel Park; there were some better-off sections, and there was a decent-sized shopping district on Nine Mile Road.
Both towns began to suffer in the 1970s and 80s. Populations declined as people moved to larger homes in farther-flung suburbs. Blue-collar jobs moved too, or disappeared. Revenue fell as a result, and when the state began short-changing Michigan cities on promised revenue sharing, making ends meet got harder and harder.
Services began slipping. But Ferndale made an important step in the mid-1990s. A young mayor named Charles Goedert began working hard to revitalize the city, especially the downtown. He realized that if the city marketed itself as a gay-friendly community, that could bring people with disposable income in to buy and improve older homes and spend money there.
And that’s exactly what happened.
Soon, other young professionals discovered Ferndale, a place that had a steadily growing and eclectic restaurant and shopping scene, but clubs and bars and a dynamic vibe.
That doesn’t mean that Ferndale is a place without problems. There are pockets of poverty, and the schools aren’t as good as they need to be. But it is a place people want to live.
Hazel Park hasn’t been as fortunate. It does have good leadership, and the city’s finances are in better shape than during the Great Recession. But there’s not enough money, and school test scores are pretty dismal, with barely a fifth of the kids adequately proficient.
The city has a few interesting spots, like the phenomenal Mabel Gray restaurant, though I doubt if many Hazel Parkers can afford to eat there. In what I found fascinating, the owners of JoeBar, an attempt to create a good restaurant with more traditional fare, gave up recently, and have converted it into Latido, an upscale Latin American restaurant that opened last week.
These places certainly may draw the young and the upwardly mobile, but there are few signs that many are moving there, at least not yet. But that could happen.
State Rep. Jim Ellison, a former mayor of Royal Oak, told me last June that he thought Hazel Park would be the next “in” community. He might be right. But the chef at Mabel Gray told writer Kate Roff he thought “Hazel Park is the next … Hazel Park.”
He said he loved it, saw nothing wrong with its hard-working blue collar nature, and had bought a house and moved there. I have a hunch that those who live there would like to see their city a little wealthier and the schools better.
But otherwise, I’d guess they feel pretty much the same way.
