Talk:Spryfield, Nova Scotia

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this neighbourhood is a bloody ghetto. please make people aware of this when boasting about its many schools & community organizations. crack houses everywhere.

  • I don't suppose you have a source for that, heh? Also, you should try to sign your posts. --Markdsgraham 05:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Do I count as a source? I lived in that neighborhood for most of my life, and I really doubt it's improved from the unpleasant "ghetto on a hill" it was 10 years ago. Please prove me wrong, however. The best point it had was the 4 lane almost-highway running right through the middle of the area, because it meant you could drive away from it faster. It also had a decent library (in the same building as the pool). -- Prgrmr@wrk 02:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with some of what this article says, it is clearly a biased opinion. There is no mention of the high crime rate, many abandoned buildings (both residential and commercial) and the extraordinary number of national chains which have abandoned the neighbourhood in the past 20 years Viper82 18:49, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

  • I agree with the above statement about bias. This is misleading to the point of being dangerous. It reads more a tourism or real estate brochure trying to sway public opinion with pov comments like 'sense of community' and 'general pride'. I'd hate to see a family move to this unsafe and high crime area based on the rosy review. --24.222.54.66 14:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I added the POV-section tag to the section about "The Community", since we certainly don't want some random family (who's dumb enough to use wiki as a moving guide) to accidentally move to spryfield. I considered a TotallyDisputed tag, but the facts presented are accurate AFAIK, even though the overall tone is completely misleading. Prgrmr@wrk 17:01, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I live and grew up in this so-called 'unsafe' community, and although I do think the article is biased, Spryfield is no different than other areas of HRM. In fact, I got assaulted twice while living in the South End, mugged in Clayton Park, and was broken into while living in the West End. Currently, Spryfield is transitioning, as developers build $350,000 homes not far from the Greystone housing project. As for crime, you can check with HRM police, and they will tell you that Spryfield's crime rate is lower than Clayton Park West and Downtown. The high profile crimes always make news, but positive community development gets tagged as 'Armdale' or 'Mainland South'. Anyways, Spryfield is a jewel in the city as far as most of us who live there are concerned - the less people know about us the better! Flunkiejunkie 20:50, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Eh, Spryfield isn't *that* bad, other than the current drug war that seems to be going on (a couple of firebombings, a few drive-bys, but overall they seem to be keeping it among themselves instead of spreading their activities to the general public), Greystone, the high school's environs, and pretty much everything south of Drysdale... 71.7.246.58 04:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • If you want a source for the ongoing drug war in this neighbourhood all you need to do is pick up the Chronicle Herald nearly any day of the week. There was lengthy article about it in the Mail Star on 24/02/07. Sure- Spryfield is a great place to raise the kids- as long as you aren't bothered by the odd drive-by or firebombing.

The tone of this article seems like a school project created by someone within a community school. However, the obvious biases present in the article are dwarfed by the rediculous comments in this discussion. If you feel that Spryfield is a horrible community, edit the page and include your sources that prove the information. I live in Spryfield and have worked in Recreation and Education within the community, and it is not nearly deserving of the stereotypes that some of you are attributing to it. There are crimes, just as there are in any area of HRM or any other city. New developments are revitalising the area, and like the article correctly points out, there is a VERY strong sense of community amongst residents. Like any area, there are particularly bad locations, but a majority of the community is wonderful. There are numerous opportunities for recreation and leisure, decent shopping and dining, and a significant amount of current development that bodes well for the future.

Sorry I forgot to sign the above post. --Prospero007 04:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

My daughter and grandkids lived in Greystone for several years. She was really excited when she first moved in and loved having her own home (rented from city housing) and actually enjoyed the sense of community there. However, things seemed to get worse as a few years went by, or maybe she just woke up to the realities. Anyway, she was really desperate to get out at any cost by the time she left. But that is just one part of Spryfield, which is very diverse. Overall, there is a good sense of community and many people are working hard to improve things for everyone. I live in a different community, about 10 minutes away, but I'm frequently in Spryfield for shopping, etc. It isn't fair to pidgeon hole the entire community based on the worst parts, just as it would not be right to only talk about the best parts. You have to know each neighborhood individually, but if you take the whole community of Spryfield overall, it is certainly progressive and improving, and has some good things to offer people who chose to locate there. Land lubber 13:24, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm 41 and have lived in Spryfield for 33 of those years. I lived in the 500 block of apartments, on Hilden Drive - the one next to Greystone - back when it was still Carson Street - went to school at Elizabeth Sutherland, Rockingstone Height (the school at the top of Greystone) and J.L. Ilsley. I'm not going to pretend that Spryfield is a crime-free land of wonderment. But consider this: When I was in High School in the early 80's, I saved up my money from my first job and bought a $600 car stereo. I did not have a car alarm. That stereo remained untouched in my car at J.L. Ilsley for my final year of High School, at my home in my driveway for over a year. I then moved out on my own over to Dartmouth. Within 2 weeks, the windows was smashed and the stereo was gone. After that, the car was broken into twice more but there was nothing to steal. I just stopped locking the doors so they could rifle through without wrecking the car. This was in a supposedly Secure building.

Last year, I was meeting my wife at Chocolate Lake. I shucked off my backpack, put down my laptop computer and kissed her hello, hopped in the car and went home, whereupon I realized I'd left my computer behind. I tore back to the lake, looked around and, sure enough, it was gone. I saw some of those "hooligan teenagers" who are always in trouble - the thieves and druggies - down in the tennis court playing hockey. I asked them if they had seen anybody up where I had left the computer. They pointed me over to where they had safely stowed it with their gear so that they could keep an eye on it until someone came back for it. I know, you're thinking, "they were going to steal it". Well, if they were, they'd have put it in their giant hcokey bags and I'd have never seen it again.

The fact is there are good kids taught by good parents making up good communities in Spryfield. But in fairness, if you've got a bias against Spryfield, well that's pretty understandable. See, when anything bad happens in the area between Purcells Cove Road and St Margaret's Bay Road, it's SPRYFIELD in the news!!! But, if anything good happens, you'll hear, Armdale, Kline Heights, Chocolate Lake or Melwood Avenue area reported in the media. Yearly the Community gets together and spends a day cleaning up the MacIntosh Runs but gets little or no publicity or again it is mis-directed to one of these subsets so that Spryfield doesn't get any good press.

But you know what I say - GOOD !!!! Because my tax rates are staying nice and low and I want to keep them that way. So you keep right on rolling your eyes or screwing up your nose or thinking "white trash" when I say I live in Spryfield, because, truth is my crime rate is lower than yours except for domestic violence, my neighbours know me, I know them and we watch out for one another. I don't have to change sides of the street when I see a bunch of kids coming towards me because even if I don't know them, they are probably headed to the Community Centre, not the local Pool Hall.

So, please, if I've changed your mind in any way towards Spryfield, don't pass it on. We don't want a bunch of townies moving in and wrecking things. 129.173.33.227 15:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)