When I took a trip to Cleveland a couple years ago, I did a bit of walking and driving to check out the Cultural Gardens (gorgeous, btw), and saw this in person.
Whole projects turned into graffiti playgrounds. After admiring some of the good writing, I thought of what you've insinuated - basically some shyt from The Wire.
Did they condemn all those buildings, or was it an economic thing? Still curious about that, after all this time...
Yup, East Blvd. and MLK are rather insane, a beautiful testament to internationalism, completely surrounded by violent, impoverished areas.
It was an economic thing, the area was a vibrant Black and White middle-class area, and then White flight and the drop in industrial jobs literally emptied them out.
White people ran to the far-West side and the West Side suburbs (some of which are fairly slum-like, Parma for instance) or the ones with money ran to the East suburbs (Shaker, Cleveland Heights, East Lake, etc), and the Black people stuck owning homes or renting just stayed. This is the second complete generation of people that grew up in the areas completely violent. Police presence is almost non-existent, and the kids that can get out, do.
East Cleveland is even worse.