  Detroitstar Member Username: Detroitstar Post Number: 959 Registered: 01-2006 |
Pam, check out that Freep special section on their website where they drove every single mile of the city over 4 months. There is a color coded maps that breaks down the quality of the city block by block. I would send a link, but I'm posting on my phone right now. | ||
Pam Member Username: Pam Post Number: 3540 Registered: 11-2005 |
quote: Found it, thanks for the info. http://media.freep.com/driving detroit/mcgrawsmap.html | ||
Ggores Member Username: Ggores Post Number: 18 Registered: 10-2007 |
detroit is not a pit. it's stankhole. and yes, this comes from one who is very sad. :-) and bitter. | ||
Norwalk Member Username: Norwalk Post Number: 220 Registered: 11-2006 |
So if it's such a pit what are all you people doing here? Anybody remember in the late 70's when a certain City was referred to as "Royal Joke" | ||
Softailrider Member Username: Softailrider Post Number: 129 Registered: 02-2007 |
Can't compare the two , Detroit's 100 times the size of Royal Oak . Almost the entire middle class left after the riot . Huge city with no middle class tax base equals huge problems . | ||
Detroitrise Member Username: Detroitrise Post Number: 1631 Registered: 09-2007 |
Yeah, Softailrider just put everything into one nutshell. | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 1076 Registered: 06-2004 |
Detroit is an elegant, historic city full of potential that is worth fighting for. The problem with Detroit can be summed up in one paragraph: the region is dominated by a middle class and upper middle class that has what I would call an antipathy or apathy for urban values. They just don't really care about city living and therefore they have not historically been willing to fight, pay and bleed to keep the city thriving. They're idea of paradise is a half acre and a Home Depot. This is the same crew that spouts hysterics over crime in Detroit and thinks that riding a bus is beneath them. These beknighted masses were the ones who cut and ran from '65 to '95. Now they sit and stew in the wretched Detroit suburbs wondering why their kids are moving to Chicago and why they don't have a job. I think (hope, pray) that the city will transcend the close-minded little suburbanites (ironically whose grandparents actually used to live in the city) be repopulated by a new group of immigrants and young people who see the precious value in the city's density, diversity, history and infrastructure. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5258 Registered: 10-2004 |
quote: Be advised that you're already having that happening in SW Detroit. Be further advised that these immigrants (both legal and not) don't take a shine to many of Detroit's majority population. Question that??? Go ask... Sometimes people get what they say they wanted and only then do they realize it's not quite what they expected. | ||
Vetalalumni Member Username: Vetalalumni Post Number: 952 Registered: 05-2007 |
It would be very rare for me to speak ill of Detroit or the people there. On the other hand, the topic of Detroit hardly ever comes up unless I bring it up. | ||
Figebornu Member Username: Figebornu Post Number: 61 Registered: 01-2008 |
Face the facts Detroit - you are doomed when you "somehow" cannot light the city streets at night. | ||
Raggedclaws Member Username: Raggedclaws Post Number: 138 Registered: 08-2006 |
Ray...my parents moved my family out of Detroit in the 1970s specifically when they were told that my brother and I could not attend the elementary school that was a block away but instead would be attending a school across town (inconvenient for the parent of 2 small kids)by bus. Can you give me an example of how my parents should have stayed in Detroit fighting, paying, and bleeding ? How about my husband's family from around Vernor & Military (1990s) when the random gunshots thru their windows, auto theft, and home break-ins got to be too much for them, moved to the 'burbs (Dearborn Hts ?•••• What should they have done, BE SPECIFIC, to stay and fight, pay, and bleed to change things back to the way they were ? Your rhetoric is bullshit and I breathlessly await your SPECIFIC examples of fighting, paying, and bleeding... Oh, yeah...could you also explain the difference between 'burb values and urban values ? I assume you meant family or moral values otherwise I'm sure you would have phrased differently & chosen different words... Waiting.... | ||
Defendbrooklyn Member Username: Defendbrooklyn Post Number: 686 Registered: 11-2005 |
I must fully agree with many different levels of the thread title... Roads - YES Leadership - YES Cleanliness - YES Spirit - NO City Services - YES Crime - YES | ||
Raggedclaws Member Username: Raggedclaws Post Number: 139 Registered: 08-2006 |
While I'm waiting for Ray's specific examples I'd like to make another point... I'd like everyone to consider the racial implications of Ray's argument. He is pissed & resentful of the white, middle class who "abandoned" Detroit. He considers this the problem with Detroit. Is he implying then that the current Detroiters - we know the majority of whom are NOT white middle class - are responsible for the its current state ? What exactly is Ray saying and does it have undertones ? Why is he so angry ? And most importantly: WHY DOES DETROIT NEED TO BE REPOPULATED BY IMMIGRANTS & YOUNG PEOPLE IN ORDER TO BE SUCCESSFUL ? Last time I checked Detroit already had residents, can't they make the city better, Ray ? | ||
Lefty2 Member Username: Lefty2 Post Number: 1226 Registered: 07-2007 |
CRIME CRIMINALS | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 1082 Registered: 06-2004 |
Raggedclaws, glad you asked. First, the issue with Detroit is not race but I don't blame the current residents. I blame the middle class that bolted 30 years ago, which happens to be white. If everyone in a city with a job and money leaves, the city collapses, which is what happened. What I mean by urban values are the values of city living. I spent 20 years in big cities like Chicago and SF, and what urban values to me mean is cherishing the public space, energy, diveristy, competition, excitmement, the gritty pride of overcoming the city's daily obstacles, knowing your way around, being comfortable with economic, racial and social diversity, taking pride in the fact that you know the every stop on every line of the subway,appreciating the granduer of the daily street theatre of people from every walk of life, pressed together in a writhing mass of humanity, surging, selling, buying, creating, living, dying, together. That is the glory and the wonder of city living (at leat to me) and it is something alien to the guy in Livonia living on a culldesac mowing his lawn. Chicago had and has all the crime and problems of Detroit, but its residents never abandoned the city. They stuck it out. When my roommate and his girlfriend were robbed at gunpoint in front of our house in Chicago, we never DREAMED of leaving the city. He in fact slugged the guy. When the CPD came, they were so mad at my roommate for "risking his girlfriend's life" (as they put it), the threatented to arrest him! But that's the mentality. We're not afraid of anything and we're not leaving. The guy asked for his wallet, and my roommate punched him and said "Fuck you!" That's the mentality of fight, pay and bleed that made Chicago thrive while Detroit died. To the pathetic narrow-minded suburban Detroiter, "urban values" is a codeword for poor urban Black because in their tiny little worldview "city" equals "poor urban black." It is all that they know. It seems to me they have no conception of what city living is all about. The world is full of thriving amazing cities like London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, New York and on and on and no that are not polarized, dysfunctionalized and obsessed with this black-white conflict that consumes this region. | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 1083 Registered: 06-2004 |
I will make one concession to the suburbanites. Many have children, and I will be the first to admit that cities are no place for children unless you have a lot of money. San Francisco, for example, has the lowest percentage of children of any city in the world. I was in Shanghai for 2 weeks last month. Fabulous city. Totally amazing. But what shocked me was that its teeming streets seemed to be filled with people almost exclusively between the ages of 20-40. No kids, no old people in sight. I'm sure they're tucked away someplace. But it reminded me of a fundamental truth: thriving cities (or the thriving parts of cities) like Manhattan and Chicago are economic battlegrounds and nightime playgrounds for healthy educated knowledge workers under 40, ready to kick ass 60 horus a week at the office and party like rock stars at bars and clubs Wednesday through Saturday. This is what gives cities their energy. There really isn't room for snot-nosed little children, who frankly speaking are expensive and noisy. So, I guess I can understand why the blue collar family of four limps out to BFE Macomb County or whereever after they get married and have kids. What's iritating about this region is that the stereotypical guy in BFE Macomb County never even bothers to do his tour of duty in the city from say age 20-40. He marries some girl when he's 25 and they go buy a house in Romeo. Shit, they probably even go to church every weekend and have 4 kids. It makes me ill. | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 1084 Registered: 06-2004 |
c (Message edited by ray on February 22, 2008) | ||
Jtw Member Username: Jtw Post Number: 205 Registered: 06-2005 |
ray, you can't get any prescription drugs that will make people want to like you? the worst people i ever met was a couple who moved to livonia...... surely going to hell. | ||
Raggedclaws Member Username: Raggedclaws Post Number: 142 Registered: 08-2006 |
Ray, your "concession to the suburbanites" betrays your entire argument. Now how 'bout those real-life, specific examples of how the white middle-class who bolted (mine had kids so keep that in mind w/your examples) 20 years ago could have stayed to fight, pay and bleed ? I'm particularly interested in how my in-laws could have stopped the then growing problem with gangs like the Latin Counts and the Folks in SW Detroit. Tell us Ray, with two kids in tow, how could my father-in-law have fought that ? Oh yeah, he worked about 60 per week - so keep that in mind also... Did you mean for your response to me to be in two parts or can you not give examples ? | ||
Chuckles Member Username: Chuckles Post Number: 192 Registered: 02-2007 |
Ray...you say... ••• There really isn't room for snot-nosed little children, who frankly speaking are expensive and noisy. •••• I say...it's a shame YOUR parents didn't feel the same way... Ray says ••• Shit, they probably even go to church every weekend and have 4 kids. It makes me ill. •••• I say...that statement speaks volumes>>>> Regards | ||
Masterblaster Member Username: Masterblaster Post Number: 134 Registered: 03-2005 |
Ray Concerning kids, because Detroit is at least 60% single family homes, I don't see why those people aged 20-40 people, who have kids, can't move to those outer single-family home neighborhoods after they've had their fill of living in Downtown/Midtown/New Center/Riverfront. I think people say a "city" is not a place to raise children, is the lack of open space where children can roam and do so safely. When alot of people think of "city", they think of tenements and slums, or people crammed on top of each other in apartments. But most of Detroit wasn't built that way. TO RAGGEDCLAWS, maybe your father-in-law could have invited his neighbors to his house or a community center/school and had a little meeting to address the rising crime problem? I am sure that there were others in his block who were also concerned about the gunplay. Maybe they could have started a neighborhood organization to deal with the issue? I don't know | ||
Outoftown Member Username: Outoftown Post Number: 4 Registered: 02-2008 |
"TO RAGGEDCLAWS, maybe your father-in-law could have invited his neighbors to his house or a community center/school and had a little meeting to address the rising crime problem? I am sure that there were others in his block who were also concerned about the gunplay. Maybe they could have started a neighborhood organization to deal with the issue? I don't know" You are kidding, right? | ||
Goldensunshine Member Username: Goldensunshine Post Number: 73 Registered: 11-2005 |
ALL I can say is that I live in Seattle now, but I rep DETROIT all day long! I live in Seattle, but I can't really identify with any issues, or history here. Detroit was my home for 26 years - there's no separating me from that. I am a proud Detroiter no matter what. People try and get me to diss it all day long, but they never lived there, I did. Whether I rant or rave, it all comes from a good place. | ||
Lmr Member Username: Lmr Post Number: 124 Registered: 03-2007 |
Goldensunshine, I agree with you. I have lived in Minnesota 24 years but I've very much still a Detroiter, always will be. I can't identify with any of Minnesota history except as an observer of it. On the other hand I have at least 6 generations back of Detroit history. I am never hesitant to tell people that I'm from Detroit...if they don't like it, tough. | ||
Crumbled_pavement Member Username: Crumbled_pavement Post Number: 198 Registered: 08-2007 |
This is a good thread. I think I've learned a lot here. So, I guess the solution to Detroit's woes is simply to leave. Actually, I think that solution will work. If everyone just leaves Detroit, the crime rate will be the lowest in the country (0%), the taxes will be the lowest in the country (0%), insurance will be free (since you won't need it), no more corrupt city government, no more wasted taxes on subpar city services, I could go on... That's it, that's the solution: pack up and leave. I'm packing my bags now. Thank you to everyone in this thread who has helped me to see the light and the solution to all of Detroit's problems! | ||
Lmr Member Username: Lmr Post Number: 125 Registered: 03-2007 |
I think the reason that a lot of us left the Detroit area for other states in the past was not so much to "get away from Detroit" as it was to just try a new and different setting. The motivations actually were not nearly as negative as they might seem. When I graduated from college in 1983 I did have some job possibilities in Detroit, but decided to take one in another state just for a change of pace, to see what living someplace else would be like. There are certainly people whose goal is to remain near their hometown for their entire life, and there is nothing wrong with that. There are also people whose goal is to try someplace different at some point in life and that is ok too. I don't see it as so bad that someone in Detroit would move somewhere else temporarily or permanently, what I do see as too bad is that very few people who are living somewhere else would want to move *to* Detroit now. My dad was born and raised near Cleveland. Until he left the army near the end of WW II I he hadn't lived anyplace except Ohio and Pennsylvania. By the time he left the army, his sister and her husband had moved from Ohio to Detroit for work during the war and they convinced my dad that Detroit would be a good place for him to move to...lots of good job possibilities for a steelworker...they were apparently right too, since my dad moved to Detroit in 1945 and died there 20 years later. It's those kind of people that Detroit is not now able to attract. Back about the time of WW I my grandfather and his 4 sisters and brothers were living in Ionia, Michigan...which was a long way from Detroit in 1915. They had no family ties to Detroit. All but one brother moved from Ionia to Detroit mainly because they could make far more money than they ever could in Ionia at the time. My grandfather was an electrician and at that time Detroit was like a gold mine of opportunity for him. So no, the solution to Detroit's woes isn't leaving, it's being able to attract new people. Along with that, if a place can attract new people some current residents will opt to stay. Others will still opt to move away but not always because they are moving away "from" something. | ||
Crumbled_pavement Member Username: Crumbled_pavement Post Number: 199 Registered: 08-2007 |
Well said Lmr. I was being sarcastic. Lmr said: "So no, the solution to Detroit's woes isn't leaving, it's being able to attract new people. Along with that, if a place can attract new people some current residents will opt to stay. Others will still opt to move away but not always because they are moving away "from" something." However, on a serious point, how do you attract someone to a place where everyone leaves so bitter. I don't blame a person for leaving but when someone else is coming in they are made to feel like the greatest idiot for even considering coming anywhere near Detroit. I've had suburban people question me, like I'm on an interview or something, about why I had the audacity to move to Detroit. You think that attitude is helpful? | ||
Lmr Member Username: Lmr Post Number: 126 Registered: 03-2007 |
I think we're talking about slightly different things. I was talking about the entire metro Detroit area, not the city itself. I think of it as all one (except when I'm there). I guess I've been gone just long enough that I forget about the city vs. suburbs issue until I think about it. Tell you one thing though...you can tell you are dealing with a real metro Detroit native if they understand what you are talking about when you mention that city vs. suburbs issue. That is an alien subject to all but the natives. Detroit is the only place I know of where almost without exception people define themselves or anyone else as being from the "city" vs. "suburbs". Sure, that exists to a point in other places but it's seems so much more pronounced than in most other places. Somehow I think if people could be attracted to the entire metro area it would raise all boats - city and suburban. | ||
Crumbled_pavement Member Username: Crumbled_pavement Post Number: 200 Registered: 08-2007 |
Another good post Lmr, and I agree with you. However, the metro Detroit area is one of the most divided and I seriously doubt many people want to see it as one. Until we work together there won't be much to attract people to this region, unless they like conflict because we can definitely serve that up. Sad...so sad | ||
Lilpup Member Username: Lilpup Post Number: 3559 Registered: 06-2004 |
LMR, go to New York and ask "bridge and tunnel"? |
