 
Miketoronto
Member
Username: Miketoronto
Post Number: 808
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 9:34 pm: |    |
Ray,
Chicago, SF, and NY are not all full of rich people. Infact for all the talk on the rich people, all the cities mentioned do not have very high family income levels, except in a couple close in neighbourhoods.
These cities still have a ton of middle class, and poor people. Infact a city needs a mix of everyone to be a true place. |
Mayor_sekou
Member
Username: Mayor_sekou
Post Number: 1990
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 9:42 pm: | |
Those cities though have a concentrated sect of wealth that isn't present in Detroit and it shows. In terms of cities there is a definite trickle down effect in the sense that where the rich go everyone else wants to follow. Here that isn't present so there is no steady influx of these followers to fill the core or the outlying neighborhoods. Of course this isn't the only reason people aren't moving here but it is a often overlooked factor. Detroit needs the rich. |
Miketoronto
Member
Username: Miketoronto
Post Number: 809
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 10:16 pm: | |
one could argue that the middle class build a city? Almost all the interesting places and culture that our cities have, has been made by the middle class, immigrants, and to a small extent the rich.
You will find though that people do not usually hang in the rich areas. They are kinda boring usually  |
Treelock
Member
Username: Treelock
Post Number: 288
Registered: 03-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2008 - 10:27 pm: | |
Regarding the initial post, Iheart, a neighborhood needs a 24-hour population to create demand for businesses.
Yes, it's great that downtown is getting the Compuwares and the Quicken Loans, but those aren't the kinds of businesses that are going to fill up all the empty storefronts. You need residents to support grocers, shoe repair shops, pharmacies, boutiques, etc. |
Detroitplanner
Member
Username: Detroitplanner
Post Number: 1574
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 7:08 am: | |
Detroit Rise, there are still parts of Mack that really need a lot of help. Not all of W Warren or Fenkell needs help either, just large portions of 'em. |
Miketoronto
Member
Username: Miketoronto
Post Number: 810
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 7:29 am: | |
Repair shops, boutiques, etc never where there, because downtown was a residential hotbed. They were there, because downtown was a regional destination.
A downtown based just on downtown residents will still not contain all the services and retail that a metropolitan downtown usually has.
You have to have a metropolitan wide draw. |
Island
Member
Username: Island
Post Number: 40
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 8:13 am: | |
http://www.cityofsouthfield.co m/ Official Center Of It All |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 4023
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 8:34 am: | |
quote:Repair shops, boutiques, etc never where there, because downtown was a residential hotbed. They were there, because downtown was a regional destination.
A downtown based just on downtown residents will still not contain all the services and retail that a metropolitan downtown usually has.
You have to have a metropolitan wide draw.
You still need the residents, though. Back in the 1980s, then-Mayor Marion Barry concentrated on filling up downtown DC with as much office space as possible. The result? The downtown was dead after 5.
It wasn't until about 10 years ago, when Tony Williams took office, that residential development started to occur downtown, with retail following about 5 years after. |
Iheartthed
Member
Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 2842
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 10:17 am: | |
quote:But if people are having to commute out to like 25 Mile Road for work. They are not going to think of locating in a city neighbourhood.
Economic activity must be brought back to the city.
Exactly! |
Miketoronto
Member
Username: Miketoronto
Post Number: 811
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 10:37 am: | |
Downtown DC was dead after 5, because the city stopped being a regional destination. The downtown was killed off by the suburbs. This had nothing to do with residents living downtown or not.
Often downtown residents are brought in to fill the void of people not coming downtown anymore.
Downtown residents are important, but they are not the be all and end all of a vibrant downtown. A vibrant downtown needs people who come in from all points of the region, and also come in for work, etc.
The huge shopping, entertainment, and office towers of downtown Chicago for example, are not sustained just by downtown residents. They are sustained by people coming in from all points in the region.
Actually downtown Chicago is a good example of something else. Despite a huge amount of downtown residents, State Street is still suffering. Retail on the scheme many people want, can not be sustained just by people who live within a two block radius. Malls don't operate like that, and neither will a downtown if it is ever to be a true downtown again and not just a local place. |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 4026
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 10:56 am: | |
quote:Downtown DC was dead after 5, because the city stopped being a regional destination.
SERIOUSLY??? Are you out of your mind?
For decades, Downtown DC has had hundreds of thousands of people commuting in everyday for work, museums, theatres, restaurants. The downtown was still dead after 5. Why? Because other than people going to dinner or happy hour, no one lived nearby.
I think it's a bit preposterous that you purport to know more than what my own eyes have seen in the past 7 years.
Furthermore, I think the concept of a "regional destination" is bullshit. That sounds like a vacation spot, or somewhere you go out of your way to be. It's not unlike Detroit's current strategy of "luring" suburbanites downtown. A healthy downtown (or any neighborhood) is one that functions on convenience and economic efficiency.
(Message edited by DaninDC on March 14, 2008) |
Dougw
Member
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 2077
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 1:39 pm: | |
It sounds like there are two different questions being argued about here:
1. Should the city of Detroit try to revitalize itself from the core spreading outwards, or should it focus on neighborhoods first?
2. Is it more effective to lure residents, or lure businesses as a first step to revitalizing downtown?
And IMO the answers are:
1. From the core outwards. This is how it's happened in NYC and other cities that are successfully revitalizing; basically it's the only thing that can work. People want to live/work in or near the core, and it builds out from there. This is why I think the "NEXT Detroit" plan to target 6 neighborhoods for rebuilding/reinforcing/etc is mostly a waste of time. It's not a bad idea in terms of experimenting to see what works, but the idea the city can somehow specifically plan and micromanage a revitalization effort for every single neighborhood in the city is ridiculous. No other city does this. It can be done with the downtown, though, because it's small enough to be manageable.
To revitalize neighborhoods, all you can really do is fix systemic problems such as these at a city-wide level:
A. Make the city council electable by district (preferably a hybrid system) so that councilmembers are more accountable to their neighborhoods, and can legislate at that level in order to improve their areas of the city.
B. Fix the ridiculous property tax system in the state/city so that property tax rates don't reward vacancy, speculation and abandonment as they do now.
C. Implement Activity-Based Costing (ABC) throughout the city government as recommended by former auditor general Joe Harris to make it more efficient and effective.
D. Hire more police to reduce crime.
E. Install fixed (rail) transit lines to foster economic development along corridors, Etc, etc.
(For what it's worth, I live in a city neighborhood a few miles from downtown, so I'm not downtown-biased.)
2. You need to attract both residents and business downtown, but IMO residents are easier to lure and will have a greater initial impact, making it easier in turn to lure business. Again, whatever works. Fortunately, downtown Detroit didn't overbuild with new residential towers in recent years, so I don't see a problem similar to the one in downtown LA happening. |
Dougw
Member
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 2078
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 1:42 pm: | |
I forgot F. Implement a Land Bank for reclaiming vacant lots as Cleveland and other cities have done. |
Gistok
Member
Username: Gistok
Post Number: 6478
Registered: 08-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 2:06 pm: | |
quote:I think it's a bit preposterous that you purport to know more than what my own eyes have seen in the past 7 years.
LOL... OK Dan, then how is it that you know so much more about Detroit than Detroiters on this forum?
(Message edited by Gistok on March 14, 2008) |
Izzadore
Member
Username: Izzadore
Post Number: 120
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 3:17 pm: | |
quote:Furthermore, I think the concept of a "regional destination" is bullshit. That sounds like a vacation spot, or somewhere you go out of your way to be. It's not unlike Detroit's current strategy of "luring" suburbanites downtown. A healthy downtown (or any neighborhood) is one that functions on convenience and economic efficiency.
So true. Detroit's downtown will continue down its current path but not flourish until the city can offer a Georgetown, Wrigley-ville, Warehouse dist. (EGAD!) or Pacific Heights of it's own. |
Izzadore
Member
Username: Izzadore
Post Number: 121
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 3:24 pm: | |
Dougw,
Put it this way. Answering a bottom-line question answers the question posed to us by Iheartthed...
"Why is Downtown Detroit NOT the center of it all?" |
Miketoronto
Member
Username: Miketoronto
Post Number: 814
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Friday, March 14, 2008 - 10:59 pm: | |
Danindc, if downtown DC was such a destination for things other then work, then you would not need residents to fill the streets at night.
Downtown DC lots its title as the centre of the region decades ago, in terms of retail and some entertainment. People flock to malls in suburban DC, and many also entertain themselves out there. That is why downtown is dead after 5PM.
Cities are putting the focus on downtwon residents, so that it can look like downtown is busy. But at the end of the day, downtown residents are not the only key in the puzzle to a vibrant downtown. And if all you have are downtown residents walking the streets, then you have failed at makeing a "downtown".
Residents are important. But making the centre of the city, the "centre" for the region is the true meaning of having a downtown, or city centre, etc.
I am not saying do not have residents downtown. I am saying there are other issues that need to be addressed, as to why people are not coming downtown as it is.
Residents are an asset. But so are the thousands of other people who do or could come into the city each day.
Downtown residents alone do not keep downtown retail, theatre, entertainment districts, parks, office towers, etc full and busy. They are just a part of a busy and amazing downtown district.
I can walk any downtown street full of residential, and you know what? It is still mostly dead at night. The places that are busy downtown into the early morning hours, are all the streets that attract not only downtown residents, but also suburbanites, and other city residents. |
Detroitmaybe
Member
Username: Detroitmaybe
Post Number: 27
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 1:30 am: | |
Miketoronto
I'm not sure how much of the City of Detroit u actually visited but, it is important to understand that the vast majority of our City is being blatantly neglected!
In the Master Plan and overall strategy for many other urban cities they have implemented a plan which includes developing the core districts, typically downtown, and using that strategy to increase and strengthening their tax base.
However, Detroit cannot afford to take this approach due to the massive and critical level of disinvestment in our inner city neighborhoods. Both have to be addressed simultaneously because unfortunately, while developing Downtown is important...the well-being and quality of life for the hundreds of thousands of existing residents is even more!!
(Message edited by detroitmaybe on March 16, 2008) |
Chow
Member
Username: Chow
Post Number: 457
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 7:50 am: | |
Detroitmaybe,
It takes money to fix the neighborhoods. Lots of money. You said that cities develop their cores to increase their tax base. And there you have the paradox:
The neighborhood tax base is steadily eroding, but their is no money to fix that. If you focus on downtown only, the neighborhoods will continue to decline but you will get a momentary shot in the arm from the investment. |
Detroitmaybe
Member
Username: Detroitmaybe
Post Number: 29
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 9:47 am: | |
I often wonder where we get the notion that Detroit has no money? Although Detroit may have limited funding available in the annual budget, the allocations of that money are the decisions of our mayor and City Council.
Unfortunately, we have a problem in Detroit which includes funds not being appropriately allocated, mismanaged, and stolen...and that's one of the main things that prevents us from growing...in addition, Detroit has not always been cash strapped, and there is no excuse why it should have ever gotten this bad!!
I advise that you go to the City's Budget dept. webpage and see how your precious tax dollars are being spent. They have the entire City Budget listed and u can see how much we get annually, and the budget allocations for each City Department. We are getting ready to spend close to $90 Million on a new Fire Academy that won't even be located in Detroit city limits.
I don't ever wanna hear that "we have no money" excuse again!! Just because our citizens are poor doesn't mean our City government does not receive money from federal and state government. They are just too ignorant and corrupt to manage it properly!! |
Mwilbert
Member
Username: Mwilbert
Post Number: 135
Registered: 11-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 10:07 am: | |
Well, I would never claim that the City is using the money it does have in the most effective way, but one of the city's big problems is that a lot of spending is locked in to pay for debt and retirement obligations that were already incurred. The city also pays a lot of money to employees who may not be attending to the most critical tasks, but who are infeasible to redeploy.
That is one reason why I believe bankruptcy and receivership will be good for the City. |
Paulmcall
Member
Username: Paulmcall
Post Number: 716
Registered: 05-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 10:55 am: | |
They have been dumping money into downtown since before the Renaissance Center was built. Meanwhile the neighborhoods have been left to rot.
As a former resident of the Grand River-Greenfield area, I can tell you there is plenty of housing still there. Tearing down Montgomery Wards and the Federals building for more housing doesn't make sense.
More business is needed there and the community needs a shot in the arm with civic improvements.
They also need to get the crime rate down and take pride in their community.
Too many people have been beaten down and just don't care.
Picking up after themselves and having nuisance crimes enforced would go a long way toward changing attitudes. Hey, it worked in New York go figure ... it could in Detroit. |
Chow
Member
Username: Chow
Post Number: 458
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 1:48 pm: | |
Detroitmaybe,
Sure the city doesn't allocate money in the most efficient manner... but you forget the steadily eroding tax base. Detroit has less money year after year... I will contend that city could make an effort in the neighborhoods. But apparently there is no political will to do so.
Furthermore, I don't know if anyone is saying a lack of funding is what caused Detroit's downturn. I would hypothesize that it has something to do with postwar government subsidized economic relocation. Add to that a toxic reputation that kept investment away for years.
The problems in the neighborhoods will persist even with increased investment from the city. More efficient (or just MORE) police, EMS and fire response is desperately needed... no argument there. But Detroit needs jobs. Its as simple as that. CAY said that if you give a person a steady paycheck, most of the other social problems start to fall in line.
While it might not seem significant to most people, the jobs created by new offices, spin off retail, restaurants, the stadia, and casinos are all welcomed in my eyes. |
Nemoman
Member
Username: Nemoman
Post Number: 4
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 2:56 pm: | |
I think the condo market downturn in LA merely reflects the real estate market in general. I do not profess to know what will work for Detroit; however, I do know what has worked for San Diego. When I moved here in 1978, downtown San Diego was like "Omaha by the sea" (no insults to Omahanites intended), Downtown had been deserted by the middle class who had fled to the tonier suburbs. Downtown was dominated by tatoo parlors and topless bars that catered to young sailors. There were a lot of SRO hotels catering to the poor. There were no great restaurants, no retail shopping that could compete with the suburban malls, and absolutely no reason to go downtown, except for people like me who worked there. The turnabout began in the early 1980s with the development of the Horton Plaza shopping mall downtown sparked by our redevelopment agency. Redevelopment spread to the adjacent Gaslamp Quarter and suddenly we had restaurants, nightclubs and nightlife. The City then began to develop a substantial number of residential condos downtown, which brought in higher income young professionals and empty nesters. This in turn synergistically created increased demand for retail and restaurants. The kingpin was the recent addition of Petco Park downtown and the revitalization of the East Village warehouse district where it is located. San Diego has become a real city; it is very walkable and safe. It still lacks decent public schools. All this was done without adding more jobs downtown. Detroit needs to attract the middle class downtown. It may not have San Diego's climate, but it does have a waterfront and a new ballpark. It also has something SD doesn't- a tremendous supply of affordable real estate. The middle class is essential to the mix because it will be more empowered and more demanding (than the poor) of city government in terms of city services and crime. |
Paulmcall
Member
Username: Paulmcall
Post Number: 736
Registered: 05-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 3:17 pm: | |
Yeah well what kind of crime does SD have?
How are their schools and what is the police response time?
What is the mix of people in San Diego?
I believe SD population is much better off and they don't have at least an 85% black inner city population.
How educated are SD's population?
All this makes a difference. |
Nemoman
Member
Username: Nemoman
Post Number: 5
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 3:38 pm: | |
Paulmcall: I do not know the statistical demographics of downtown SD when I moved here in 1978; however, it was largely minority (more so hispanic than black) and poor. I do not know about the crime rate except that the perception in the burbs was that it was unsafe. The issues you raise do make a difference, and it may be much harder for Detroit to do the same as SD. That does not mean the solution is different. My older sister has always been bullish on Detroit - yet she lives in tony little Birmingham. In 1978 I never would have thought about living in downtown SD; however, I now would consider a downtown condo when I retire. The key for Detroit then would be to attract persons like my sister to live downtown. It appears to be a chicken or egg conundrum in terms of which comes first; however, without middleclass "pioneers" returning to the core city, I doubt much will change. |
Trainman
Member
Username: Trainman
Post Number: 659
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 4:46 pm: | |
It's the fault of the DARTA supporters who caused the Livonia opt. out.
We used to have SMART bus service to the airport and to the downtown via the 200 bus route. But, protecting state and federal funding and gaining the support of industry were not important enough to the DARTA board of directors. |
Paulmcall
Member
Username: Paulmcall
Post Number: 738
Registered: 05-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 4:51 pm: | |
Most people drive cars. That won't make Detroit grow with middle class. |
Swingline
Member
Username: Swingline
Post Number: 1055
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 7:47 pm: | |
Nemoman's description of San Diego's progression mirrors most of what Detroit's development leaders have been trying to achieve, with the exception of a major downtown shopping mall. San Diego is different from Detroit in the regard that its population has not sprawled quite as much as Detroit's. San Diego and its suburbs have many middle and upper middle class neighborhoods within 15 miles of Horton Plaza's downtown location. Retailers know that customers will only travel so far for typical mall offerings. Because so many of Detroit better-off households have sprawled so much further from downtown, the demographics just don't work for a major downtown mall here. The other aspects of the progression can work to attract middle class households though. |
Miketoronto
Member
Username: Miketoronto
Post Number: 816
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 8:37 pm: | |
Detroit's wealthy are not that far from downtown. Even Summerset is only like 25min from downtown Detroit. Downtown is not as far out from the majority of the region like people act it is.
This goes for most major metro areas, where the large majority of residents live within 20-30min of the centre. |
Nemoman
Member
Username: Nemoman
Post Number: 6
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 10:24 pm: | |
I think Detroit is actually more compact than SD. My sister's house in Birmingham is off 15 mile road, which theoretically is only seven miles north of Eight Mile which I always understood to be the northern boundary of Detroit, In contrast, I live 20 miles north of downtown SD. although I am technically within the city limits. Anywho I digress. I think the central issue is: why live in a city or travel to it. The city must offer something the suburb does'nt. In SD my suburb - Rancho Penasquitos - was a great place to raise my kids, but as an empty-nester, it is a cultural black hole. If I move downtown, I can abandon daily use of my car and walk to work, restaurants, movies, diverse retail and the waterfront. Cities always have been problematic for families with children; however, many European cities are much more liveable and family-friendly than any in the states. I'd live in Barcelona in a heartbeat. Detroit's most likely pioneers are childless "bohemians" and the oft-maligned "yuppies" for whom living in a converted factory brick loft is a status statement. If they create a vibrant core, then it will be fashionable to go downtown again. Once it becomes fashionable to go downtown, people begin to imagine the possibilities and advantages of living there. All of this takes time and careful planning. |
Bearinabox
Member
Username: Bearinabox
Post Number: 553
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 10:30 pm: | |
quote:In SD my suburb - Rancho Penasquitos - was a great place to raise my kids, but as an empty-nester, it is a cultural black hole. I have never understood the mentality that raising one's kids in an acknowledged "cultural black hole" is somehow good for them. Wouldn't they find it just as boring as you do? Maybe I'd have to become a parent to understand. |
Detroitrise
Member
Username: Detroitrise
Post Number: 1790
Registered: 09-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 10:33 pm: | |
"I have never understood the mentality that raising one's kids in an acknowledged "cultural black hole" is somehow good for them. Wouldn't they find it just as boring as you do? Maybe I'd have to become a parent to understand."
If you consider boring better schools and safer neighborhoods, then I guess people love boring... |
Nemoman
Member
Username: Nemoman
Post Number: 7
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 10:39 pm: | |
Bearinabox: As teens, my kids began to find the burbs as stultifying as I do. However, here in SD - unless you can afford $20000 per annum for a private school - your goal is to raise a child in a neighborhood and public school system where you are not concerned with their physical safety, and where the graduation rate is significantly far north of 50%. That is why the initial pioneers for any deteriorated inner city tend to be childless. |
Mwilbert
Member
Username: Mwilbert
Post Number: 137
Registered: 11-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 10:44 pm: | |
"Most people drive cars."
But that doesn't mean most people want to drive cars everywhere they go. It is pretty clear from the experience of other cities that a lot of well-off people don't want to, or at least that they are willing not to. Perhaps there are fewer of those people in metro Detroit, but there are also relatively few existing walkable areas, so downtown ought to be able to attract some of those people if the city can get its act together.
The population of this region is probably going to be like the population of most of the rest of the metro areas in the country, which is moving to a preference for a more urban lifestyle. Those more urban areas don't have to be downtown, they can be in Midtown or Hamtramck or Ferndale or Royal Oak or Birmingham, but they are going to exist, and there isn't any reason downtown can't be one of them, or even the premier one.
That doesn't mean it will be, but that model has worked other places, and it could work in Detroit. |
Mwilbert
Member
Username: Mwilbert
Post Number: 138
Registered: 11-2007
| | Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008 - 11:01 pm: | |
Of course it depends upon their ages, but children have different cultural needs than adults. They don't/can't go to clubs, most theatre is inappropriate for them, etc.
Children spend a lot of time in school, and naturally parents want that time to be well-spent. That consideration simply outweighs most others. Also, people are generally more willing to take risks with their own environment than they are with their children's--I think people often veer well into being overprotective--but it is an understandable inclination. That tradeoff does change as the kids get to be teenagers--they have more scope, and parents hopefully ease off a bit on the overprotection.
However, since the vast majority (75%+, I think) of US households have no children in them, there are plenty of people you can attract without being particularly child-friendly. Detroit would be in no way unique in this respect. |
Bearinabox
Member
Username: Bearinabox
Post Number: 554
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Monday, March 17, 2008 - 1:06 am: | |
quote:children have different cultural needs than adults. I agree to an extent, but a cultural black hole is a cultural black hole, and even a young child knows one when they see one. Or at least I did.
To me, living in an area with no good schools is an easier problem to overcome than living in an area with no soul, no character, and no culture. But that's a view colored by my own life experiences, and I'm in no position to condemn others' choices. |
Sean_of_detroit
Member
Username: Sean_of_detroit
Post Number: 68
Registered: 03-2008
| | Posted on Sunday, April 06, 2008 - 4:44 am: | |
Los Angeles' solution to their downtown problem (in response to the original post):
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/u p/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl= 7281654&ch=4226713&src=news
I doubt this would work in Detroit, but it would be a interesting way of advertising properties during some of the electronic music events. |
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