 
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1336
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 11:48 am: |    |
Read one of the columnists in the News the other day complaining about how business-unfriendly Michigan is and one of his specific gripes was overly restrictive sign ordinances.
I find it a little bit hypocritical that the kind of well-off conservatives who own businesses and complain about such restrictions then turn around and choose to live in the communities with the most restrictive sign ordinances.
For the record, I am a liberal Libertarian, if you can make sense of that. |
Cman710
Member
Username: Cman710
Post Number: 431
Registered: 07-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 12:07 pm: | |
Professorscott, do you have a link to the article? It does not seem inconsistent to think that different rules are appropriate for the residential and commercial areas.
For example, I do not think many people see a problem with large neon signs in Times Square or the Las Vegas strip. At the same time, I do not think many people would want those signs down the block from their house or apartment. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1338
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 12:26 pm: | |
Cman, sorry, I'm too lazy to look it up.
Look at Woodward, say just in Oakland County. In Ferndale, Berkley and Royal Oak, which are all perfectly nice communities to live in, businesses have quite large, bright and visible displays. Now go to Birmingham or the Bloomfields; you can't find a gas station until you're right up on it.
That's the kind of difference I'm talking about. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 4856
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 12:57 pm: | |
I'm not sure how political affiliation connects to sign ordinances.
I guess conservatives are for local control, and if a municipality wants to do one thing or another with their signs, the conservative would support that as long as that's what makes sense for the businesses and citizens there, and, just as importantly, for aesthetics. If your town has a lovely, codified downtown of historic storefronts with limited space to work with (narrow sidewalks full of pedestrians, i.e.) there ought to be very clear, and perhaps narrow, sign ordinances. If your town's retail is all located along collector roads like a Gratiot or a Telegraph, then it's more of a free-for-all, and signs are a sine qua non for doing businesses because the businesses are set back 100 to 1000' feet from the road generally. And because of that, you get nasty built environments i.e. 2/3 of metro Detroit.
'Learning from Las Vegas' is a terrific read about the interplay of signs and the built environment.
Another great topic is that of billboards, especially on highways. I support minimizing them. They are distracting and take away from often-scenic areas (way too many billboards along the roads up north...look at other states' scenic highways and you rarely see billboards). |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 3206
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 1:11 pm: | |
Billboards along the interstate advertising motels and restaurants are helpful. Other than that, they are an eyesore, to be sure. |
Spiritofdetroit
Member
Username: Spiritofdetroit
Post Number: 979
Registered: 11-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 1:15 pm: | |
Mackinaw -
Governor Granholm has placed a moratorium on highway billboards. If one is to go up, another one must go down. This, of course, is because Michigan has the second most billboards in the nation, behind only Florida, if i remember correctly
So, it looks like our governor has done something that you approve of. Yay! |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 4862
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 2:44 pm: | |
Thanks for the info SoD. A moratorium is a nice start. |
Cman710
Member
Username: Cman710
Post Number: 432
Registered: 07-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 3:45 pm: | |
Mackinaw,
Great point. I agree with your point that preferences regarding sign ordinances are not very linked to any particular political persuasion. I do suppose that if you are a libertarian (as Professorscott partially described himself), you would lean in favor of having fewer restrictions on the principle of individual's having the greatest freedom possible with regard to their property.
Of course, one person's freedom impairs another person's freedom. If I put a 50 foot neon sign on my property, I am eliminating the ability of my neighbor to live or work in a more subdued environment.
For that reason, I think that reasonable restrictions on signs are okay, and that each locality should determine its own rules regarding signs. What that will result in is a diversity of places, some of which have a lot of big signs and some of which do not. I think that's probably the best result. |
Bearinabox
Member
Username: Bearinabox
Post Number: 685
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 8:48 pm: | |
quote:I find it a little bit hypocritical that the kind of well-off conservatives who own businesses and complain about such restrictions then turn around and choose to live in the communities with the most restrictive sign ordinances. I remember reading somewhere that the CEO of Toll Brothers lives in an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Go figure. |
Savannah
Member
Username: Savannah
Post Number: 55
Registered: 02-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 8:55 pm: | |
As a child of the '6o's in Detroit I think giant icons are the only way to go when advertizing a business! |
Perfectgentleman
Member
Username: Perfectgentleman
Post Number: 6286
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 9:28 pm: | |
quote:I find it a little bit hypocritical that the kind of well-off conservatives who own businesses and complain about such restrictions then turn around and choose to live in the communities with the most restrictive sign ordinances.
The most asinine statement this week, congratulations. You have nothing to back this up. You don't have the article, you don't know what the politics are of business owners, you don't know what their thoughts are on sign ordinances or if they support them in the communities where they live. There are no numbers on this at all, so you made all of this up. Are you an ACTUAL professor?
(Message edited by perfectgentleman on June 03, 2008) |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1343
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 10:36 pm: | |
I have been in municipal government, and am a member of the Michigan chapter of the American Planning Association, and I talk to people who deal with this all the time, and I deal with it myself. So my overall comment comes from direct personal experience and conversations with colleagues. If it was research, I'd publish it and get paid, not post it here for free 
I agree, I ought to have posted the column or at least the snipped, but I'm both busy and lazy. It was in a Detroit paper less than three days ago; someone ought to be able to find it if they're concerned. I just found the statement amusing, knowing what I know about these sorts of things.
I appreciate the award for "most asinine statement this week", a hard-won prize during GWB's admin IMVHO. |
Retroit
Member
Username: Retroit
Post Number: 174
Registered: 04-2008
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 10:44 pm: | |
If everyone follows the sign ordinance, then how does it benefit (or disadvantage) anyone? |
Perfectgentleman
Member
Username: Perfectgentleman
Post Number: 6291
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 11:03 pm: | |
quote:So my overall comment comes from direct personal experience and conversations with colleagues. If it was research, I'd publish it and get paid, not post it here for free.
So in other words your so-called evidence is anecdotal in nature based on your biased opinion. Do you really think anyone would pay for this nonsense? You really have an inflated opinion of yourself. If you are so lazy, perhaps you shouldn't be making reckless statements you can't back up? |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 4875
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 11:08 pm: | |
Regardless, some more information should be provided to facilitate this thread. The first post needs some fleshing out, as it is quite a provocative but seemingly hard to prove notion that was put forth. This could be constructive with more info. |
Detroitplanner
Member
Username: Detroitplanner
Post Number: 1666
Registered: 04-2006
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 - 11:28 pm: | |
Wow what a contrarian viewpoint. Signs ain't big enough? You must get some stares at the MAP conference! |
Mikeg
Member
Username: Mikeg
Post Number: 1644
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 - 12:06 am: | |
The truth is that well-off liberals AND conservatives choose to live in communities that just happen to have been the early-adopters of more restrictive sign ordinances back in the late 70s and early 80s. At the time, many of these communities were just beginning to see growth in their commercial development. Older, more developed communities were slower to adopt these types of sign ordinances, mainly because so many existing signs would be grandfathered and it would take years before the ordinance changes would produce a noticeable difference.
Having sat on a suburban planning commission in the early eighties that considered such changes to our sign ordinance, I can tell you that any decisions to make sign ordinances more restrictive are the result of much public debate. Generally the chamber of commerce is on one side and the professional planning staff is on the other side, with vocal public support from a tiny group of residents. It is up to the recommending body and elected officials to sort out what is best in the long run for the community and in the absence of organized opposition and a lack of a large installed sign base, this was a very easy decision for some outer suburbs to make 30 years ago.
(Message edited by Mikeg on June 04, 2008) |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1344
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 - 12:15 am: | |
To respond a little to the more recent posts:
(1) My opinion is "biased", as is everyone's; that's what opinions are. Most conversation is based on anecdotal evidence and things seen and overheard, and this is a blog, which is a form of conversation among mutually interested people, not a symposium.
(2) I'm not saying I agree with the writer of the column; in fact my own opinion about signs is closer to Cman's last paragraph a few posts up this thread.
The people who are opposed to the restrictions imposed by sign ordinances, from study and personal experience are the owners of retail businesses, which should be obvious on its face anyhow. The owners of large businesses (or multiple businesses) tend to have the resources to devote to fighting such rules, and do.
In metro Detroit, the cities with the highest concentration of such business owners are of course the wealthiest communities: Grosse Pointe Shores, Bloomfield Hills and so on. Just drive through these communities and you will immediately see that they place much more restrictions on signs than is typical of other communities.
So calling my statement provocative kind of surprises me; I kind of think it's obvious to anyone who's been in government at all and had to deal with these kinds of things.
But I'm still not ready to go to the extreme of actually trying to find the column that was the basis of my starting this thread. The attacks on me are interesting; I'm just starting a conversation, not kicking you out of a tavern or anything. Gosh. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 1346
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 - 12:22 am: | |
Hey, Mikeg, good post! Your post crossed my most recent one so I hadn't seen yours before I wrote mine. Very reasonable and informed, thanks!
Incidentally the notion of "grandfathering" in zoning law is not automatic in Michigan, though quite a few people think it is. You can zone out existing things which make them "legal nonconforming", then they go away over time under a variety of circumstances. You know that though, but I doubt many people do, judging by what I hear. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 4879
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 - 8:36 am: | |
Signs in GP Shores? I don't think there is one retail plot in that city. |
Perfectgentleman
Member
Username: Perfectgentleman
Post Number: 6304
Registered: 03-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 - 1:17 pm: | |
quote:I'm not saying I agree with the writer of the column
Why the title of the thread then?
quote:this is a blog
No it isn't, it is an internet forum. Facts do help in either case.
Here is your original statement:
"I find it a little bit hypocritical that the kind of well-off conservatives who own businesses and complain about such restrictions then turn around and choose to live in the communities with the most restrictive sign ordinances."
In order for your premise to be correct, you would need to have a representative sample of the following data points:
1) The political affiliation of business owners.
2) Their opinions on sign ordinances and whether those views affect where they choose to live.
You have no stats or factual data on either one of those so the entire thread is pointless. You are merely generalizing based on your own predisposition.
quote:The attacks on me are interesting; I'm just starting a conversation, not kicking you out of a tavern or anything.
Nobody is attacking you, I am disagreeing with you because you chose to pick a fight with conservatives by stating they are hypocrites over a non-issue with no evidence to back up your assertions. Don't be so dramatic, is your ego that fragile?
(Message edited by perfectgentleman on June 04, 2008) |