business

Lansing’s south side struggling, but improving

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By Isaac Constans
Listen Up, Lansing Staff Reporter

In any major city, residents have mental maps of friendly areas and those that are uninviting, whether because of crime, blight, lack of interesting points, or all of the aforementioned. In Lansing, those mental maps seem to demarcate the south side of Lansing as a no-entry zone. Lansing as a whole has higher crime rates than state and national averages, with 10.6 violent crimes per 1,000 residents compared to an average of 4.5 and 3.8 violent crimes per 1,000 residents on the state and national levels, respectively, according to Neighborhood Scout. Many of those stats intensify in certain south Lansing neighborhoods. “I know the guy who works on my car can’t get out of Lansing,” Mark Skidmore, a Michigan State University professor of urban economics, said about his auto mechanic from the south side of Lansing.