 
Miss_cleo
Member
Username: Miss_cleo
Post Number: 779
Registered: 05-2005
| | Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 - 2:43 pm: |    |
really, not ment to ruffle feathers, truely intrested in the answers.
Do you really want everyone in the state of Michigan to live South of 8 mile?
In a few threads I have seen people say things like, they dont understand why people would want to live North of 16 mile, Why dont people get smart and move to the city etc....dont you think it would be terribly over-crowded? Do you think the whole world should live like NYC?
Can you not think of any benefits of living out in the country?
I could never live in a big downtown area.....but I can understand why people want to. Its just not for me. I would be so unhappy there.
Again, just asking. |
Aiw
Member
Username: Aiw
Post Number: 6338
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 - 2:47 pm: | |
quote:Can you not think of any benefits of living out in the country?
Honestly, no. |
Jt1
Member
Username: Jt1
Post Number: 9791
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 - 2:48 pm: | |
quote:Do you really want everyone in the state of Michigan to live South of 8 mile?
No. I think we need to look at smart growth. There is no way that all of the people could live in Detroit and I don't think that we need to force anyone to live in Detroit.
The issue that I have is that we have a state and region that are in stagnant growth and we are eating up thousands of acres to recreate neighborhoods (city and suburbs) that people are leaving. New contruction requires new schools, infrastructure, police, FD, etc but we still have the same tax base.
Once a region is to thin it won't be able to succeed which is what we are seeing in SE Michigan. There is a reason that no out of state companies consider Michigan. The only remaining competition is one city against another and we never see any real increase in jobs, business, etc. We are just moving the same people.
I think that a regional plan to control sprawl may help Detroit but it will certainly help Roseville, Dearborn, Ferndale, etc and help keep regional infrastructure costs down.
Just my opinion. It isn't to keep people in Detroit but keep the limited amount of infrastructure money to a realistic amount. |
Jt1
Member
Username: Jt1
Post Number: 9793
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 - 2:55 pm: | |
quote:Can you not think of any benefits of living out in the country?
Missed that one. yes, I can see benefits. I guess that is why I like the city and the country. It is the part in between that doesn't sit well with me - the people that want all of the conveniences of a city and the pease and space of the country and end up with neither. |
Dannaroo
Member
Username: Dannaroo
Post Number: 116
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 - 2:58 pm: | |
I grew up in the country (on a dairy farm about half-way between Detroit and Port Huron) and currently live in the suburbs (Troy). I think I can understand the benefits and drawbacks to city, suburban, and rural life.
For me, there was nothing wrong with the area I grew up in; I liked the fact that I was maybe only 90 minutes from downtown but still well outside of the suburban reaches so getting bak to peace and tranquility was never too difficult.
Right now, I enjoy living where I live because it is relatively close to my office, close to my friends, and close to the majority of places my fiance and I spend our spare time. My home is in an apartment right now and once we are married and both out of graduate school we will begin looking for a home. I don't plan to move into a subdivision (especially one where you have to join an HOA) and I don't really think I would want to move to a suburb any further away from the core than about Troy/Sterling Heights.
I also don't count out living within the large urban center (but I don't see me moving to Detroit until there are some improvements in shopping choices, public transit, public services...). To me, living in an urban environment is attractive, unfortunately, if I had to make that decision today, Detroit wouldn't get me as a citizen.
In the end, I definitely don't think everybody should live south of 8 Mile Road. I am glad I have the option as to what type of environment I call home. I just hope everything doesn't become a paved over suburban nightmare from Toledo to Flint (including Detroit). |
Raptor56
Member
Username: Raptor56
Post Number: 29
Registered: 05-2007
| | Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 - 3:01 pm: | |
I personally love hanging out at my friend's house out in the sticks. Acreage, pond, fresh air, etc. I have to agree with Jt1 on denouncing the current urban sprawl. Developers are eating up prime land to build cookie cutter housing and commercial developments which turn the countryside into a cement prairie. We have thousands of perfectly good houses for sale in the metro area and plenty of now vacant land in and around Detroit that we should be backfilling with new developments. This way existing neighborhoods freshen up, and we still have our tracks of green space to enjoy, grow food, and save for developing when Michigan's population starts to rise and out grow again. Otherwise you have new developments continually pushing the population farther and farther away, while the existing urban domain slowly dies a vacating death as everyone moves out to greener pastures. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 625
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 - 3:05 pm: | |
It's not important that everyone live south of 8 mile, or south of 14 mile or whatever. However, the current pattern of growth we have experienced over the past 50 years, recently interrupted by economic stagnation, is cost-prohibitive.
We have just about the same number of people in the tri-county region as in 1960, but three times the amount of paved road, twice the length of water line, twice the length of sewer line, half again the number of school buildings and so on. SEMCOG tells us, pointedly and repeatedly, that we have built so much infrastructure that we can't possibly afford to pay for the upkeep.
That is the problem with sprawl. You may live wherever you like, but we all pay dearly for the change in patterns of where people live.
When people talk about "sustainable development" the word "sustainable" refers to the availability of resources to maintain what has been built. We have not developed in a sustainable way, which is why our roads are in awful shape, we have more and more problems with our old water and sewer mains, and so on. |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 1777
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 - 3:11 pm: | |
Probably the worst feature of country living for old buzzards like me is the distance to medical care. I have friends living in Antrim county, pushing their 70s, and the nearest doctor is in Traverse City, 60 miles away. But the older you get, the more you're going to realize how you appreciate -- treasure, really -- quiet and solitude. So for them it balances out. Me? I like visiting the country, but I'm a city boy. Wells and septic tanks suck. Literally. |
Kaptansolo
Member
Username: Kaptansolo
Post Number: 97
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 - 3:53 pm: | |
Miss_cleo-no everybody should not be forced to live like you have to in NYC...but the difference...New York had people leave for Jersey and Long Island, nut New York has always had people coming to it. When they moved...they were replaced.
In Detroit, people moved there for jobs in the auto industry. When people began moving out and auto industry was leaving as well...there was nothing left to attract people to Detroit. Even people who like city living agree...you have to have a thriving economy to make a city work...and without the auto industry there...there is no way to generate that type of money and attract new people in the numbers it would take to make it work.
People are not moving to Detroit for it's culture or art or music or to become an actor or work in it's financial district.
I love Detroit but...it's gone
I came to New York in 1993 on vacation and the first thing I said was...damn, a real city. If people stopped moving to New York...it would dry up just as Detroit did. New York just has so many other things that attract people to it. |
Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd
Post Number: 1247
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 - 4:01 pm: | |
reducio ad absurdum |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3543
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 - 6:13 pm: | |
Jt1 has it right. We need more smart growth to minimize the intermediary zone, let the country remain just that, and build up previously urbanized areas.
Not everyone should live south of 8-mile. That's just stupid. We have the freedom to move, but I tell you, creating a system that gets more people to move near or below 8-mile instead of further and further, is worthwhile. You can't make people do anything, but you can create a regime which makes it beneficial and worthwhile, comparatively, to move closer to the city, or at the very least, a regime which no longer subsidizes sprawl at all costs. My hopes for this happening in this region are low. |
Miss_cleo
Member
Username: Miss_cleo
Post Number: 780
Registered: 05-2005
| | Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 - 8:17 pm: | |
Thank you all for responding. I can appreciate all your points of view a lot better now...instead of all the harping that the burbs and sprawl and rural living sucks. I also agree with a lot of your points, we really arent all that far apart in the way we think, just in where we choose to live |
Caldogven
Member
Username: Caldogven
Post Number: 107
Registered: 05-2006
| | Posted on Friday, August 10, 2007 - 9:35 pm: | |
Jt1
Just what is SMART GROWTH? |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 627
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, August 11, 2007 - 1:57 am: | |
Smart growth as defined by an advocacy group:
"In general, smart growth invests time, attention, and resources in restoring community and vitality to center cities and older suburbs. New smart growth is more town-centered, is transit and pedestrian oriented, and has a greater mix of housing, commercial and retail uses. It also preserves open space and many other environmental amenities."
It is the antithesis of "sprawl", another poorly understood term. Sprawl (to me) is defined as growth in urban use of land that is not supported by commensurate population growth. So, if your population in your region grew 20% last year and you developed 20% more land (more or less), you are not sprawling. If your population grew 5% and you developed 20% more land, you are sprawling. |
Charlottepaul
Member
Username: Charlottepaul
Post Number: 1399
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, August 11, 2007 - 12:28 pm: | |
A good, easy read on this subject is a collection from different writers edited by Terry Szold and Armando Carbonell called "Smart Growth: Form and Consequences." Every chapter is written by someone different and each author has his or her own take and definitions of sprawl and smart growth as well as what could be done to address the issues. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 3709
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, August 11, 2007 - 12:39 pm: | |
Metro Detroit will spontaneously contract in size and/or density when the economic engine continues to sputter and more jobs of all kinds will be lost. It's inevitable. How could it be otherwise?
Detroit is not a vacation or resort community for the retired. Without jobs, poof! There goes Detroit.
And then there will be even more ruins to chronicle on Web sites. That's what's been fueling much of the ruination to date, in addition to a few other important factors. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3545
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, August 11, 2007 - 1:01 pm: | |
The same goes for the entire metro area. The consequences are already being felt i.e. in the oversupply of housing. |
Charlottepaul
Member
Username: Charlottepaul
Post Number: 1401
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Saturday, August 11, 2007 - 1:10 pm: | |
I'm pretty sure that metro Detroit will still keep developing further out. Livernoisyard, hopefully we don't have to wait for there to be NO jobs in metro Detroit for sprawl to be controlled. |
Mcp001
Member
Username: Mcp001
Post Number: 2903
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, August 11, 2007 - 11:37 pm: | |
Don't be too sure of that.
The developers are beginning to see a slow down in the market (and that sub-prime thing isn't helping out matters too much either).
Case in point: A developer in Sterling Heights is auctioning/selling off a chunk of the area that he was developing and moving back to Illinois. |
Andylinn
Member
Username: Andylinn
Post Number: 510
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 12:40 am: | |
livernoisyard, I would HOPE that what you say was true... that detroit would CONTRACT with the sputting in jobs... but alas metrodetroit is LOSING population FAST and yet geographically we're still growing... |
Charlottepaul
Member
Username: Charlottepaul
Post Number: 1412
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 12:45 am: | |
"but alas metrodetroit is LOSING population FAST and yet geographically we're still growing"
Yikes, that's like a person without any money gaining weight... |
Jrvass
Member
Username: Jrvass
Post Number: 163
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 6:56 am: | |
Smart growth would be for the developers to foot the bill for sewer extensions, road widening, etc. You want to move to Fowlerville former farmland from Fraser? Fine!
The fee is $200,000 for your infrastructure... spend what you have left on your house.
Now, I must admit that I don't live S. of 8 mile. But my house on a lake was built during WWII. 20 years before I was born.
People say "Why don't you move to Lansing and be closer to work? You could have a new, bigger house."
I retort "Why would I want a bigger house? To accumulate more crap?"
Anyone who has driven in the M-59/I-96/D-19 area recently vs. 10 years ago, knows what I am talking about. All that infrastructure cost is not being borne by the businesses or homeowners!
Growl... grrr.
James |
Charlottepaul
Member
Username: Charlottepaul
Post Number: 1417
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 11:00 am: | |
Yeah, and even worse, the inner cities shouldn't have to be the ones footing the bill for expanding outlying suburban infrastructure; they have enough to worry about for themselves. |
Patrick
Member
Username: Patrick
Post Number: 4801
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 3:45 pm: | |
I dont know...many developers are starting to develop "in" rather than out in 67 Mile Road. look at 12/Mound. That whole tract was developed and it is having a ton of trouble selling. |
321brian
Member
Username: 321brian
Post Number: 409
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 6:41 pm: | |
Developers in Detroit need to put the houses on bigger lots.
Not many people want to look out a side window and look in to their neighbors side window.
A little space between neighbors makes for better neighbors. |
Fareastsider
Member
Username: Fareastsider
Post Number: 526
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 8:57 pm: | |
^^^^^
Uh oh some people are going to get upset about that one! It is a sin to be on a 70' wide lot to some on here......I wont even begin to mention a 1/4 acre! |
Charlottepaul
Member
Username: Charlottepaul
Post Number: 1428
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 9:02 pm: | |
Detroit isn't for people like you 321brian. Get used to it! It's a city, not a suburb. |
321brian
Member
Username: 321brian
Post Number: 410
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 10:12 pm: | |
Detroit doesn't seem to been a city for most people they way things are going now.
Why not try to build the type of housing that is selling in other areas?
Maybe mix in some affordable housing ($100,000-$150,000) too.
Everyone can't afford lofts starting at $250,000, and believe it or not everyone doesn't want to live downtown without a car.
Paul,
Your response it typical to this forum. If it isn't something that will make Detroit look like it did 50 years ago it isn't right.
By the way, isn't Charlotte just one big suburb? It doesn't seem to have a problem attracting people. |
Charlottepaul
Member
Username: Charlottepaul
Post Number: 1431
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 10:20 pm: | |
"By the way, isn't Charlotte just one big suburb? It doesn't seem to have a problem attracting people."
Yes it basically is, but people don't choose to live in the Charlotte area for that reason. The older and denser the neighborhood, the more expensive the neighborhood. People these days want mixed use, denser, communities. The new home subdivisions are basically for the poorer people that get bumped out of the inner city.
P.S. In almost every new "neighborhood" in Detroit where the previous homes were leveled, does now have larger lot widths. Still seems difficult to me to argue that it is a good thing. Can't understand why after all these decades Detroit hasn't figured this issue out. |
Charlottepaul
Member
Username: Charlottepaul
Post Number: 1432
Registered: 10-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 10:24 pm: | |
"Your response it typical to this forum."
Tha's because this is a Detroit Yes forum, not a suburbs yes forum. |
321brian
Member
Username: 321brian
Post Number: 411
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, August 12, 2007 - 10:56 pm: | |
It is a good thing because Detroit was built to hold 2 million people. This will never happen again!
Why not spread out the new growth?
Give people housing stock they want to live in.
I know this is a DetroitYes forum. I am offering a suggestion that I believe will help and because it isn't in line with the way things used to be and because it is slightly suburban in nature it is automatically killed here.
The days of playing in the street in front of your house is over. People want backyards and some space.
I know developers need to fit as many houses on a lot as possible to make a buck but filling Detroit to the gills with house after house is never going to happen again.
This city if full of vacant blocks. Not lots. Blocks!
Why not fill a block that was build in the 1950s with 60 houses with 20 or 30 houses priced from $120,000 to $250,000 with decent sized yards and garages in the back to keep the "city feel"?
To go a step further. Why not tax new homes in the city at around 35 or 40 mils and keep them there until they are adjusted with inflation?
The tax rate for poor schools and services keeps a ton of people out too. This would make it more easier to justify a move back to the city.
Why?
Because it makes too much sense. |