 
Lilpup
Member
Username: Lilpup
Post Number: 2198
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 1:26 pm: |    |
What would be the most exciting thing that could happen here in the next year or two? What would you like to see happen to shed light on Detroit? |
Parkguy
Member
Username: Parkguy
Post Number: 26
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 2:45 pm: | |
Getting a real mass transit plan into place, and actually start construction. |
Mikeg
Member
Username: Mikeg
Post Number: 868
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 4:29 pm: | |
A mass transit PLAN? There are dozens of SE Michigan mass transit plans sitting on government shelves in SE Michigan, Lansing and Washington - and the next phase after a plan is obviously not construction.
Personally. I think that's one of the biggest problems we have in this area, we confuse rhetoric and plans with leadership and action.
As for my fantasy, I'd like to see leadership at the local and state governments get their spending in line with revenues and the taxpayer's income growth - that would be a ray of sunshine at the end of the long dark tunnel we've been in.
(Message edited by Mikeg on May 19, 2007) |
Tkelly1986
Member
Username: Tkelly1986
Post Number: 291
Registered: 01-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 5:42 pm: | |
The entire city council resigns and is replaced by credible leaders that have real qualifications, solutions and ideas and that don’t pull the race card in every situation regardless if it is appropriate or not……. |
Quozl
Member
Username: Quozl
Post Number: 668
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 5:42 pm: | |
Boo Freakin Hoo. You don't like the lack of leadership at the local and state government level move elsewhere, cuz you'll be waiting a lifetime for any REAL change in that craphole of a State. |
Andylinn
Member
Username: Andylinn
Post Number: 413
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 6:02 pm: | |
quozl - bull, man. neither i nor any of the other detroit-living 20 somethings i know are happy with ANY of our leadership whether it be city, state, or federal. (al gore isn't in office, he doesn't count) i don't see myself leaving detroit/michigan/the usa because the leaders suck. hell, that's why i'm staying... i want to change things. if people left a place when the leaders sucked, after the 2000 presidential election the US population would be about 150 million, and the east coast, west coast, and midwest would be abandoned. |
Quozl
Member
Username: Quozl
Post Number: 670
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 6:08 pm: | |
Good point Andylinn. I just go back to visit family and vacation, and am always surprised how much you guys pay for basic commodities up there and being taxed out the wazoo. I guess I am just spoiled. Good luck making that positive change dude. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 2779
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 6:15 pm: | |
-Detroit/Ann Arbor commuter rail succeeds
-Quicken builds downtown hq
-Residential/mixed use development along/west of Woodward across from Brush Park. |
Fury13
Member
Username: Fury13
Post Number: 1668
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 6:15 pm: | |
Shrink the city's physical boundaries and break up the school system into about six smaller, more manageable ones.
Areas excluded by the new boundaries could revert to township status or be annexed into adjoining jurisdictions. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 2781
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 6:30 pm: | |
Unfortunately there's a ton of solid tax base around the fringes. Do you want to get rid of the NE corner i.e. East English Village, the Balduck Park neighborhood and the Moross corridor where you have very little blight/vacant houses? The only border neighborhood you'd really want to unload is Brightmoor, but who is going to take responsibility for this area?
I can see how that was a tempting response, Fury. The city is basically at half capacity...there's tons of vacant land. But shrinking from the outside in does nothing except cut out revenue-making areas. I don't see how this is something we should fantasize about as being desirable. |
Detroit313
Member
Username: Detroit313
Post Number: 333
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, May 19, 2007 - 6:39 pm: | |
I would really like to see the neighborhoods cleaned up. Especially around Central Detroit.
Mass Transit-
Belle Isle renovated-
Second Span-
Improved schools-
Hell......i'm thinking too hard!! <313> |
Danny
Member
Username: Danny
Post Number: 5892
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, May 20, 2007 - 1:41 am: | |
Let's make a list for Detroit's future:
2008 brothers killing brothers, black folks flight to the suburbs, population decline.
2009 brothers killing brothers, black folks flight to the suburbs, population decline.
2010 brothers killing brothers, black folks flight to the suburbs, population decline.
2011 brothers killing brothers, black folks flight to the suburbs, population decline.
2012 brothers killing brothers, black folks flight to the suburbs, population decline.
Every year stuff. |
Charlottepaul
Member
Username: Charlottepaul
Post Number: 1030
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, May 20, 2007 - 4:57 pm: | |
Glad to see that no one said a new auto plant opening up. |
Tammypio
Member
Username: Tammypio
Post Number: 122
Registered: 04-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, May 20, 2007 - 8:17 pm: | |
Rehab of the MCD...yeah, I'm probably having a great dream...but after watching that video on the other thread....well, ya know! |
Lilpup
Member
Username: Lilpup
Post Number: 2206
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, May 20, 2007 - 9:26 pm: | |
large condos in the MCD? |
Scs100
Member
Username: Scs100
Post Number: 1044
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, May 20, 2007 - 9:41 pm: | |
I was told that Matty had actually looked into putting lofts/condos in MCD and that the office portion of the station was in such bad shape that it would just be easier to tare it down and rebuild it to make condos or lofts there. Sorry to kill that one. |
Jasoncw
Member
Username: Jasoncw
Post Number: 363
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, May 20, 2007 - 11:21 pm: | |
The tri counties and their cities merge.
I think that would help lead to other things that people will post in this thread (mass transit, better politicians...)
Definitely a fantasy though.  |
Trainman
Member
Username: Trainman
Post Number: 425
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, June 23, 2007 - 3:40 pm: | |
If enough people move out of Detroit, there will be more buses then people.
But, we will still have to widen all the freeways up to 8 lanes in each direction because of all the suburban growth. It will cost billions to do this but there is no reason we can't tax fast food for this. After all, anyone who can afford to eat out can easily pay a little more to support the trucking and rail industries in Michigan. |
Jb3
Member
Username: Jb3
Post Number: 11
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, June 23, 2007 - 5:34 pm: | |
As long as we're dreaming, and i've talked to some city people that feel that what Next Detroit is working on, IS a kind of 'shrinking' of the City, i would love to see consolidation of the neighborhoods into vibrant communities. I would love to see the city offer trade-offs for homeowners to trade their properties in some of the sprawling neighborhoods for property in new or rehabbed masterplanned neighborhoods with higher density and viable school options. With enough centralized property, our inadequate zoning policies could be reworked to promote higher density and smart growth tactics. Though i shuttered to see the 'Shrinking Cities' exhibit on letting nature reclaim 3/4 of the city, i think that the idea has some merit on a smaller scale and if more substantially reasoned through. Personally, i feel that current models of home ownership are stagnating. The problem is that aren't any real options...either buy a condo with no yard or buy a 1/4 acre lot in a quasi-suburban model of sprawl...not really good enough for me to invest in. I'm not suggesting that the City shrink it's boundaries, only to make the city more maneagable by trimming the fat and consolidating in pre-determined geographic areas. the rest should be designated as a no-fly zone for building on and let nature take it back. |
Andylinn
Member
Username: Andylinn
Post Number: 429
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, June 23, 2007 - 5:44 pm: | |
jb3, i, in many ways agree with you, the problem here would be the fact that some border/far areas of detroit are actually quite historic, safe, and desirable. |
Jb3
Member
Username: Jb3
Post Number: 12
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, June 23, 2007 - 6:03 pm: | |
Rehab. Save the good. Redefine the rest. It is doable. It just takes some of that leadership other posters have been clamouring for. So i guess the one thing i would wish for for the future of the D, is some qualified and progressive leadership. It's not for want that we don't have this. We have a ton of talent and creativity in the city, it's just for our defeated mentality. Too many times have we heard from private interest groups that what the people want is financially unatainable. The thing is though, that in the current model of our business as usual that we have defined for oursleves and have adhered to for the past hundred years (yes, probably even longer depending upon which facet we are talking about) is that they are right. In the world of private development and market determinance is that only one market exists, that of buy, build sell. No one ever thinks about getting communities to invest in their own future, they only want them to invest in their post WWII product. The history you speak of that is worth saving is hardly any neighborhoods or housing that has been built in the last fifty years. My question is that if our current model of building and development isn't worth keeping, then why do we keep building it? So save the good, dump the rest and get people to invest in their own futures and communities. It is a profitable model, just not one anyone wants to take the time to develop and implement. |
Jb3
Member
Username: Jb3
Post Number: 13
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Saturday, June 23, 2007 - 6:06 pm: | |
Haussman did it in Paris. Most people like that city right? Even if you hate the French like me, you ahve to admit that Paris is desirable. gotta run/walk...keep dreaming D'ers. |
Alan55
Member
Username: Alan55
Post Number: 286
Registered: 09-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, June 23, 2007 - 6:46 pm: | |
Baron Haussman worked for Napoleon III, who was in essence a dictator. Thus, there was no oversight on his work.
These couple of sentences from Wikipedia are telling:
"His work had destroyed much of the medieval city."
"It is estimated that he transformed 60% of Paris' buildings."
Whatever you think of our various units of government and government officials, they are not allowed to act in this way. |
Charlottepaul
Member
Username: Charlottepaul
Post Number: 1182
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, June 23, 2007 - 8:11 pm: | |
But they should and would if they were the great leaders that Jb3 suggests. There is nothing wrong with what Napoleon did. Sometimes it takes a heavy handed dictator to force things to be done. We can't rely on Capitalism; it will only do what the market demands. There is little 'market demand' to shrink Detroit. |
Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok
Post Number: 4654
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, June 24, 2007 - 12:51 am: | |
One other thing that Baron Haussman did was by destroying so much of medieval Paris, his scheme ended up moving the poor people out of Paris to the suburbs, which is the way it is to this day. Poor people cannot afford to live in Paris.
Also, one of the reasons that Baron Haussman put all those broad boulevards in Paris is because the restive population of Paris for centuries had riots and put up barricades (such as in Les Miserables). From the turbulent time of the Fronde during the regency of Louis XIV, to the French Revolution of 1789, to the Commune of 1870, Parisians have had a mob mentality.
So Haussman's plan was to give cannons a nice straight line of shot, and to make the roadways too wide for effective barricading. |
Lowell
Board Administrator
Username: Lowell
Post Number: 3915
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, June 24, 2007 - 2:28 am: | |
A sudden, rapid and overwhelming change of heart such that our metropolitan community would let go of old animosities and begin to think as one and share as a family -- something between an evolutionary leap and a religious revival.
So I'm with Jasoncw in hoping for metropolitan union. Yes, too big of a dream for only two years, but a move toward shared governance and ownership of basic infrastructure, education, and public safety would be a good start.
A similar dream sees the enactment of serious legislation for rural preservation and the effective end of urban sprawl. I believe this could be achieved through tax codes that make development of declined urban areas irresistably attractive and development of rural areas prohibitively expensive.
Mass transit would be nice too but will be ineffective until sprawl is checked and consensus formed. |
Nere
Member
Username: Nere
Post Number: 60
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, June 24, 2007 - 3:54 am: | |
Renovate poor neighborhoods;
Make Downtown a part business, part recreation, part tourist attraction;
Mass transit;
Create more reasons to move to/stay in Detroit. |
Jb3
Member
Username: Jb3
Post Number: 14
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, June 24, 2007 - 8:18 am: | |
I would like to think that we as 21st century citizens of an educated and humane civilization could provide for those more unfortunate than the rest a little better than in the late nineteenth century. Lets' not forget that Hausmann wasn't just dealing with poor people, he was dealing with completely abhorrent living conditions within the city. Clean drinking water was not even available before he did what he did, disease, plague and crime was running rampant, so say what you want about him and his dictatorial methods, but the result provided clean water and better living conditions for the poor than when he started. And Hausmann actually died poor (well...not wealthy), his methods could be interpreted as truly humanitarian as he was not motivated simply for his own profit. True that he made alot of money for the city and developers, but he wound up in so much debt that it took the rest of his life to pay it off. And for what? Better living conditions for those more unfortunate than himself, so don't judge him too harshly please, it was a different time in a different world. |
Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok
Post Number: 4659
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, June 24, 2007 - 1:50 pm: | |
Jb3, I didn't judge Haussman, I was merely stating historical facts!
He merely did what he was ordered to do by Emperor Napoleon III. Nothing more, nothing less. |
Jb3
Member
Username: Jb3
Post Number: 17
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, June 24, 2007 - 7:10 pm: | |
Sorry Gistok, I didn't mean to point fingers. I was just trying to throw some positive spin on the Paris reconstruction. I'm not a historian nor do i know all the particulars, but as i understand it, Haussman had a lot of freedom in determining what needed to be done. I don't think he was only a lackey for Napoleon III, but it is true that he couldn't have done any of it without the Emperors support. I'm pretty sure he was a brilliant man with a singular vision that he was utterly committed to. |
Civilprotectionunit4346
Member
Username: Civilprotectionunit4346
Post Number: 73
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2007 - 10:48 am: | |
In the future I invision the auto plants will no longer be UAW...and the whole union thing in Autoplants will go away. For now, people keep leaving the Detroit Metro area and the cities population is less then a million and continues to decline as people leave for suburbs elsewhere or move out of state. Everyone has there positve and negative views of what they think will happen in the next 5 or 10yrs from now. My view is kind of both, like I said I invision that the automakers will no longer have unions at there plants, I do see that the decline of population as people tend to see that the economy hasn't improved by much or anything at all, & when people need money to support themselves & their families they will move to where the economic situation is better. Yes the whole riverfront development is a great prospect, but they still aren't finished with it, there is still more work to be done & who know's if that will help out, maybe it will. Just from my stand point what I see going on & coming from an area where the economy is doing better then here. I see that people see that and their is people trying to do the best that they can, I just view it as person from another area with a diffrent perspective. Ive seen this state has been in turmoil for a long while, and what most the people in power have done is sit on there hands....they try to help but it seems like that nothing has showed for what they have done...more like smoke & mirrors. Try to make things look & sound better then they really are.... I like the detroit area and it's diveristy....I just don't see the city coming back to it's glory days like it did when Detroit's workforce & economy was at it's finest & greatest times. I am sure some of the economy will pick up someday...Im not sure about the population increasing to something what everyone was used to. |
Nainrouge
Member
Username: Nainrouge
Post Number: 194
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2007 - 12:40 pm: | |
I would like to see a grocery store in the CBD and more people moving downtown. I would like to see us stop trying to lure national chains and build up and expand our own local businesses. I would like to see Detroit promote it's musical history better (where do you send a Motown fan after they have been to the Motown museum? Why do we have a Hard Rock cafe, but no Motown Cafe? What about Hip hop and Techno?)
I would like to see Detroit capitalize on its urban farming assets and become a world leader in this field, beginning with a change in the zoning laws to make urban farming legal.
Detroit has some nice places to visit (Campus Martius, Foxtown, Harmonie park, Greektown, and soon the waterfront as a few examples) but you cannot always walk or bike from one to the other without going through blighted areas. I would like to see the "islands" grow and eventually combine to a whole.
These and many other things, I wish for Detroit. |
Civilprotectionunit4346
Member
Username: Civilprotectionunit4346
Post Number: 76
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2007 - 1:36 pm: | |
That is a good point you bring up Nainrouge about Motown & Techno...Not that many places that cater to those genres downtown. I am more into the industrial techno scene, and there is the city club...yeah it's alright. |
Nainrouge
Member
Username: Nainrouge
Post Number: 195
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2007 - 2:27 pm: | |
Once while watching Dick Clark introducing Christina Aguilera, I wondered why Detroit couldn't put on its own New Year's celebration with a focus on Detroit's historical and current music scene. |
Civilprotectionunit4346
Member
Username: Civilprotectionunit4346
Post Number: 77
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2007 - 3:54 pm: | |
Why doesn't Downtown Detroit does something for new years eve? That would surely be something everyone here could probably agree on. |
Downtown_remix
Member
Username: Downtown_remix
Post Number: 386
Registered: 03-2007
| | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2007 - 5:17 pm: | |
i would like to see several neighborhoods continue to improve; Boston Edison, Riverfront East, Corktown, Woodbridge, Brush Park, CBD,
2012 we will see these areas shine again. Though small sections of the city, these re-developed neighborhods are very important areas that will retain the cities most prosperous districts and secure the good citizens that can afford the high taxes, the high car insurance, and the high cost to heat and cool these homes. |
Tiberius
Member
Username: Tiberius
Post Number: 4
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2007 - 8:27 pm: | |
We need a 10 year plan to re engineer a city that lost a million folks. The aging infrastructure and bureaucracy was built to support a Detroit of 50 years ago and that's gone. On the bright side I foresee that we will always have pockets of fantastic historic homes but surrounded by more decay. |
Tiberius
Member
Username: Tiberius
Post Number: 5
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Monday, June 25, 2007 - 8:50 pm: | |
We need a 10 year plan to re engineer a city that lost a million folks. The aging infrastructure and bureaucracy was built to support a Detroit of 50 years ago and that's gone. On the bright side I foresee that we will always have pockets of fantastic historic homes but surrounded by more decay. |