A neighborhood in an Indiana city fought and stayed put, but friendships have frayed.

For months, Ellen and Dave Keith worried about a land grab. City officials in Charlestown, Ind., population 8,100, seemed determined, the Keiths said, to get rid of them and everyone else in their neighborhood so that a developer could build something fancier. To them, it felt like a middle-class city trying to push out those who had less. And so began a painful court fight, which we wrote about in February.

This month, a judge granted a preliminary injunction in favor of the Keiths and their neighbors, concluding that city leaders could not fine people for code violations as a way to force them to give up their homes. It was a victory for Pleasant Ridge, a battered neighborhood of prefabricated World War II-era homes in this southern Indiana city.

“We won that part, yes,” said Mr. Keith, who is 69 and has lived here for decades.

“But really, things have gotten worse,” he said. “What we’ve found out is that there are quite a few people around here who want Pleasant Ridge gone. We used to feel like we were upstanding citizens and part of the community. Now people look down their noses at us, like you are messing up their city.”

Since the fight over Pleasant Ridge began, Ellen Keith, 64, said she had lost clients at the Hair & Such Beauty Salon where she cuts hair. Mr. Keith said the couple had lost friends. Even some of his relatives, he said, seem to think that Charlestown would be better off without Pleasant Ridge, which city officials say draws a disproportionate amount of crime, drugs and animal control nuisances.

City officials, who did not return phone messages, have announced they will appeal the court ruling. But even as the debate has played out, Pleasant Ridge has emptied; people sold their homes and moved away.