Extinct by Gangs

I love old houses. I love how unique they are and the materials that were used to make them so long ago. Brick is my favorite. And I love the houses in the old neighborhoods where the houses touch on both sides and the run of houses flow like a snake up and down the neighborhood hills. Then you realize, they are empty. The windows are boarded up, the cement steps are cracked and tilted, the upstairs windows are cracked or broken out completely. No one lives in them. Good solid walls, strong roofs, and no one lives there…WHY?! They went ‘extinct’ due to gang violence and low incomes. Gangs fought with each other to ‘claim’ the neighborhood without looking back to see what it was they were fighting for. The once green lawns so carefully tended by the gruff old men, the women who chatted from porch rail to porch rail, the kids jumping rope and coloring with chalk on the sidewalks at their neighbors door. All gone. People became afraid to go outside. Children were getting hurt or killed by stray bullets. Mothers went against mother because of the things their sons and daughters had done to each other. They neighborhood became a war zone, and people moved out. If it were still green, still friendly, still close, the recession would not have caused them to move from their cherished homes. They would have worked harder, longer, or worked more than one job, just to stay there. But why live in a place you fear? The Gang who set out to lay claim to their neighborhood wins. But what do they win? When the smoke clears, they wipe the sweat from their brow, smile and turn around…there is nothing left to own and they move on to the next neighborhood. They don’t feel bad about what they did, they don’t regret making happy families move, they don’t care about the battered old buildings left to crumble. They are satisfied about ‘winning’ and finally being able to claim the neighborhood as their own. So right now there is nothing to fear, the gangs are gone, except for an older member here or there now laying against the wall in a stupor. I wonder, if I was rich (which I am far from being), could I bring these homes back to life? Would anyone move in again and make it their own? Would the memory of what the Gangs took from this place be stronger than the dream of it coming alive again? So right now we let them sit, the only residents being the rats in the basement, the cats on the first floor and the pigeons in the attic. As for the humans, they have become extinct by gangs.