The Downtown Loop often seems a fitting metaphor for our town. Some things just go 'round -- and 'round -- and 'round -- and keep coming back to the same place.

Like Rolling Hills. And all that that entails.

You remember Rolling Hills, the 20-acre subdivision just off the Durham Freeway, in the heart of what was once Durham's fabled Hayti district. Since 1985, two developers have tried and failed to build out and sell homes there -- fulfilling part of an Urban Renewal plan conceived in 1957.

In 2003, the city foreclosed for delinquent loans. In 2007, it made a deal with two urban redevelopers with big ideas for Rolling Hills and the depressed Southside neighborhood nearby.

Since then, the city has bought all but 18 of the lots and buildings that were actually owned by private residents or landlords. Thursday, the city's community development folks were asking the City Council for $1.9 million to finish the job (from $2.7 million already set aside for buying out and relocating the residents).

Now, by this time, the developers were supposed to have put in $325,000 of their own money and had a rebuilding plan well under way, with neighborhood advising and consent.

Well --

"That strategy has not happened," City Manager Tom Bonfield said.

Now, there are more and less good reasons it hasn't happened. The Economy and all that. Doesn't matter.

The taxpayers of Durham are about to end up with $2.7 million worth of inner-city real estate they bought and cleared for reinvestment and rebuilding more than 35 years ago.

More important, it reinforces the sense of unmet promises that has hung over old Hayti for decades.

Hayti's Urban Renewal was approved only with overwhelming support from Durham's black voters, for whom, in large part, Hayti was home and community. The prospects for New Hayti looked bright.

That was in 1962. Forty-seven years later, there's very little to show.

According to Bonfield, a new "strategy" will be presentation-worthy next month. That, in turn, will lead to a new "plan."

That's where we are. Seems like we've been by here before.