  Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 2491 Registered: 07-2004 |
You know why there are so many hostile posts on this thread about the city? Prejudice, classism, cultural chauvinism, etc., are all good reasons. But I sense something else. I sense an undertone of fear. | ||
El_jimbo Member Username: El_jimbo Post Number: 712 Registered: 12-2006 |
PG, You are absolutely right on a few things there are major problems with Detroit. Since the current solutions have not worked, what do you propose as an alternative? Moving on to the need for cars even in the city, the thing with the rising fuel prices is that it is going to take a total re-imagining of how we live in order to adjust to it. 1. Denser living arrangements in urban centers and inner ring suburbs. outer ring suburbs and exurbs will no longer be feasible. 2. Investment in all forms of mass transit on a nationwide level. Light rail, commuter rail, and intercity rail (Amtrak) and increased rail freight capacity should be emphasized. | ||
El_jimbo Member Username: El_jimbo Post Number: 714 Registered: 12-2006 |
Detroitrise, At one point in the 90s, something like 8 or 9 Detroit firefighters lived in South Lyon, and I knew PLENTY of parents of my friends growing up who commuted to Detroit, Southfield, and other places in the metro area for work. Plus South Lyon is in Oakland County. Also, it's design is very suburban now with the McMansion homes and such. If it isn't a suburb then I don't know what is. | ||
Pam Member Username: Pam Post Number: 4175 Registered: 11-2005 |
Clarification: I am not hostile toward the city. I do not share PG's views that it is "poisoning" the area. However, gas prices won't make people move there if their job and home are both in the suburbs. | ||
Detroitrise Member Username: Detroitrise Post Number: 2422 Registered: 09-2007 |
Ok, people commute from Oxford to Detroit (and vice-versa) everyday, are they suburbs to each other? If I recall, Oxford was a farming town the last time I went there (in the 90s). Of course it looks suburban NOW because of sprawl, so what would you expect? Besides, they sure don't brag about being apart of Metro Detroit on their site... | ||
Spacemonkey Member Username: Spacemonkey Post Number: 668 Registered: 03-2006 |
South Lyon and Canton are actually exurbs http://dictionary.reference.co m/browse/exurbs registeredguest, face it. You drive really far to do any decent shopping or to enjoy any general entertainment, like going to the movies. And that HAS to suck. I'm just wondering what positive aspects of living in the center of nothing there are. There must be some good reasons for living in Indian Village that out weigh the negatives. What are they? I only ask because I've had this same conversation with others who had lived there. And there wasn't an answer then either. They'd say they just liked it because the houses were fancy and it made them feel like avant gard elitist artist types. Then they grew up and moved to where they could have a family. Or stayed there, if they were gay and weren't to have kids. So be it. | ||
Perfectgentleman Member Username: Perfectgentleman Post Number: 7048 Registered: 03-2006 |
El_jimbo - As there is very little mass transit in Detroit, I don't see your point. The A2 to Detroit plan was hatched 3 years ago and supposedly has $100 million of federal money behind it and we have exactly squat to show for it. It would take decades and billions of investment to get Detroit to resemble a vibrant city like Chicago or NYC. I would like to know what is currently happening that allows you to believe that this is coming? If it weren't for a few generous benefactors like Illitch, Penske, Karmanos and a few others there would be barely any private sector investment in Detroit other than a few loft projects for eggheads downtown. Clearly there isn't much momentum within government to invest, the Democrats control the table in this state and they supposedly are advocates of urban renewal and they haven't done dick other than the forgotten "cool cities" initiative which was a dismal failure. The sad fact is that a city of people that are more dependent on government than they pay in through taxes is destined for failure. When the middle class left, that changed the game. There is no earthly reason why anyone in the suburbs would be looking to Detroit as an answer for high energy prices. After all, the employers are in the suburbs too, so you would still need to commute. Then you have crime, poor city services, crummy schools and the rest of the mess. Until Detroit can get some people elected based on their ability to produce results it will languish in failure for the foreseeable future. (Message edited by perfectgentleman on June 17, 2008) | ||
Rax Member Username: Rax Post Number: 442 Registered: 11-2007 |
quote: High gas prices is the only reason I keep seeing. Over and over again. | ||
El_jimbo Member Username: El_jimbo Post Number: 715 Registered: 12-2006 |
Like it or not, high gas prices will be a change agent in the way people do business. Keep in mind that business wasn't always in the suburbs. Business used to be downtown. However, things like freeways and inexpensive fuel led to the growth of the suburbs and for business to be able to move out of the central city. If fuel prices continue to rise, businesses will be forced to relocate their offices as well. The biggest change I think will first come is in supply chains. In the old days, products moved mostly by rail from one destination to the next. Because rail was only efficient when transporting a large volume of product, warehousing facilities were commonplace to hold the excess goods. However, with the invention of the automobile and cheap fuel, slowly, more and more shipping of goods was done by semi truck. This created the ability for supply chain managers to use what is called "just in time delivery". Instead of large shipments requiring expensive warehousing, product was moved through the efficiency of the highway system and cheap fuel by semis hauling smaller loads when they were needed. Unfortunately, this system is predicated on low cost fuel. As costs rise, the margin of cost savings of just in time delivery will shrink compared to the cost of warehousing. Eventually, it will be cheaper to warehouse goods shipped in bulk via rail freight than it will to rely on Semi trucks. The thing with this is that it also centralizes distribution networks in central cities where the railyards are. The new warehouses that will be needed require new staff to work them...meaning more jobs for in central cities. | ||
Paulmcall Member Username: Paulmcall Post Number: 1159 Registered: 05-2004 |
The only thing I fear is that Detroiters will never get their shit together. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 2493 Registered: 07-2004 |
Gas prices, if they keep rising (which they most certainly will) will make suburban living less and less affordable. Cities are more efficient users of natural resources. I think the 40-and-younger crowd is more likely to embrace that about cities. Will fuel prices alone do it? No. The tipping point involves more than fuel prices, but they're going to encourage it. Actually, what you're looking at is a nationwide trend, one that, surprise, surprise, Detroit is behind the curve on. You may not believe it, but I have lived through the process I am talking about, so I'll elaborate a bit. When I lived in New York in the 1980s, it was, in many ways, a dysfunctional city. Homeless people everywhere, police turning a blind eye to crime, broken infrastructure, subways that would crawl to a stop for 15 minutes at a time, pitch black. The downtown scene was a bunch of scummy bars with punk bands that scared the bejeezus out of the decent people of Westchester County. But I was there. And so were my friends. In 1991, I moved there permanently, with a bunch of other hardy pals, and we all rented an apartment in a marginal neighborhood. We created art events and lively bar scenes. People picked up on that energy and would "slum it" and come downtown. We were the roughnecks who made peace with the local yokels and patronized their bodegas and stuff. They became used to seeing those crazy white kids. Then, bit by bit, the people with money moved in. First the adventurous ones. They could afford to buy distressed buildings or invest in clubs or bars. Once the investment began, things happened quickly. People who were LESS adventurous moved in. They had good day jobs and no kids and loved living in a dense diverse neighborhood with quirky bars and loudmouths. Once that happened, the landlords piled on. They raised our rents so we had to move on to the next crappy neighborhood. There, we did the same dance of diplomacy with the locals, thereby softening them up a bit for the next wave of people with more money than us. Eventually, you had enough people with money, enough people owning property with political connections and pull with the city, that vital city services were restored in the areas with enough people of means. Not the schools, but the sewers, parks, water lines, electricity, etc. were all upgraded when necessary. Eventually, 10 or 20 years on, you had neighborhoods where even I would have been terrified to walk at night filled with professionals, paying soaring rents to live in neighborhoods that had been a lovely shambles mere decades before. And, frankly, that's what's happening in cities across the country. In some metro areas, the majority of building and investing is going on, not in the suburbs anymore, but in the city center. A hardy and significant minority of young people are rediscovering the neighborhoods their parents and grandparents abandoned. And that's a fact. It's happening here in Detroit, too. Slowly. And it's building. And, with rising fuel prices, we're only likely to see more of it. You may not believe it, but I have seen it happen. And now, the wary parents and grandparents of Westchester County, the ones who pulled up stakes and left the city to rot, they go downtown to visit their kids in college at the New School for Social Research and marvel at how clean and bright and efficient -- and expensive -- everything is. | ||
El_jimbo Member Username: El_jimbo Post Number: 716 Registered: 12-2006 |
Detroitnerd hit the nail on the head with that. | ||
Registeredguest Member Username: Registeredguest Post Number: 379 Registered: 10-2003 |
"registeredguest, face it. You drive really far to do any decent shopping or to enjoy any general entertainment, like going to the movies. And that HAS to suck. I'm just wondering what positive aspects of living in the center of nothing there are. There must be some good reasons for living in Indian Village that out weigh the negatives. What are they?" Thanks for showing me the light, Spacemonkey. Indeed, it totally sucks. Just one big, fat waste of money in the middle of nothing. I am putting my house up for sale tomorrow, as a matter of a fact, so that I can move to a nice sub-division in northern Oakland Country. Who knows, maybe we can be neighbours! Thankfully, there, I'll be serviced by a plethora of Kroger's (with their wide variety of pre-packaged foods), Celebration! Cinemas, Bed Bath and Beyonds, tanning salons, neighbourhood grille's such as Applebees and TGI Friday's, nail parlors, little Chinese restaurants in strip malls, neighborhood pot-lucks with interesting people talking about lil' Johnny making the honor roll and being AYSO soccer team captain, drywall, more drywall, wide roads, traffic, more traffic, vinyl siding, skinny brick, and more traffic, sporadic sidewalks, 20 mile drive to the metropark, a storm sewer run-off ditch disguised as a neighborhood park and pond (maybe with a fountain, if lucky), a large back yard, dogs and owners who do not clean up after the dogs, development, inspiring architecture that somehow seems to replicate itself across America, The Home Depot, petty neighborhood politics about whether to plant a Red Pine or Scotch Pine at the entrance of the sub-division, Cul de Sacs, a 25 mile commute to work, oh, and did I say, traffic... | ||
Rax Member Username: Rax Post Number: 444 Registered: 11-2007 |
For the love of God please stop comparing NYC to Detroit. Try Baltimore or something. | ||
Detroitrise Member Username: Detroitrise Post Number: 2425 Registered: 09-2007 |
Rax, there's o way we can compare ourselves to Baltimore either. Detroit is comparable to 70s/80s NYC. Just imagine us without the skyscrapers, 1 million (or less) people, and slightly less dense. They're 2-3 times as dense as Detroit and not even half our size. BTW, I feel ya Registeredguest. The suburban life can make a city person break down. (Message edited by DetroitRise on June 17, 2008) | ||
Bigglenlake Member Username: Bigglenlake Post Number: 126 Registered: 05-2008 |
"Detroit is comparable to 70s/80s NYC." No, it isn't. | ||
Higgs1634 Member Username: Higgs1634 Post Number: 533 Registered: 10-2005 |
Dnerd- Great story and inspirational. However, the glaring difference between NY and Detroit is it will take more than some idealism at the neighborhood level to right Detroit. Further, comparing Detroit with NYC or Chicago is apples to oranges. Michigan's only major industry is in a free fall. Ford will be laying off 15% of its high wage white collar worker to go along with the massive bloodletting at the blue collar level. GM isn't far behind. Cerberus Motors is probably not long for this world. It's more than just people not wanting to live in Detroit, it's the fact that NYc...even in it's darkest days, was nowhere near the level of economic slump Detroit is in now and will be in for the foreseeable future. NYC in it's darkest days still had large areas of almost unimaginable wealth and where wealth was constantly being created. NYC, in it's darkest days, was still a draw. Detroit has been all but irrelevant for almost a generation. (Message edited by higgs1634 on June 17, 2008) | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 4522 Registered: 10-2003 |
Detroitnerd, Amen. I witness daily what you have described. No need to waste keystrokes, though. The Suburban Entitlement Generation will never understand that their perfect prepackaged ways aren't preferred by everyone. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 2494 Registered: 07-2004 |
It's not idealism, silly. It's investment. There's money to be made in redevelopment. If people like Penske can see that, I don't know why any other businessperson of his caliber -- or lower -- cannot. You're right about our "major" industry being in freefall. So? Manhattan was a bastion of manufacturing and shipping up until the 1950s. Now there's hardly any of that there. It was supplanted by other industries and businesses. Instead of tying our collective economic well-being on auto companies, in the end it's best that we diversify and innovate. Nothing going on regionally? We have one of the biggest concentrations of research and development, robotics technicians, automation experts. We have a lively and diverse music scene. We have one of the most diverse cities in the United States when it comes to architecture. We have billions of dollars of trade passing through our regions several international crossings. We don't have it made, not by a long shot, but we have some stuff to build on. I think when you say Detroit has been all but irrelevant for almost a generation, that perhaps you need to do a bit more reading or research. At the very least, it shows that you're not the best qualified person to discuss the city, the region, or their prospects for the future. | ||
Yooper Member Username: Yooper Post Number: 163 Registered: 12-2006 |
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Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 2495 Registered: 07-2004 |
What is that, Yooper? It's the most haunting non sequitur I've seen in a while!  | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 3207 Registered: 04-2006 |
quote: Zing! End of thread. | ||
Arc312 Member Username: Arc312 Post Number: 59 Registered: 01-2006 |
Up until the Late 20th cities were built in locations that offered resources, food, defense, and a way to get goods/people to where they had to go. Defense on this continent doesn't matter anymore. For the time being you can get food anywhere or grow some veggies in your backyard (yes I know that’s a stretch). Goods are accessible where their are stores. People want to live near the highway/major arteries or transit so they can get around (but we don't have it). At current that means the Suburbs and Downtown Detroit are the logical growth centers. However, this is the information age during a time of globalization; the airport and university will be the hubs of the 21st century city. For Metro Detroit that means places like Ann Arbor, Rochester and the New Center area (The Woodward Corridor for that matter) will be ideal places for growth. They will become the downtown(s) of the region. The region will continue to grow in terms of acreage, but the development will be mixed with pockets of high density surrounded by greenbelts and farms. HOWEVER, due to the rising cost of transport, those areas will have to be connected by transit. If you’re familiar with the garden cities movement, I think it acts as a good model for an future American development. Decentralized development on a regional level, but centralized and (densely populated cities) on a local level. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G arden_city_movement I don’t think that a majority of Americans want to live with the density that the Chinese are faced with; we have a history of settling the wilderness and preferring a quasi-pastoral way of life (what the suburbs were supposed to be) thanks to our Anglo heritage. There is a Professor @ Michigan named Robert Fishman who wrote a book on this phenomenon. Check out “Bourgeois Utopias”. http://www.amazon.com/Bourgeoi s-Utopias-Rise-Fall-Suburbia/d p/0465007473/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?i e=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213731039& sr=8-1 | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 2497 Registered: 07-2004 |
So, if fuel prices keep rising, um, we're going to build our cities around the form of transportation that uses that fuel least efficiently: Jet planes? I find that very difficult to believe. | ||
Leannam1989 Member Username: Leannam1989 Post Number: 13 Registered: 06-2008 |
I think the rise in gas prices will help cities some, but why would a working class family move into a city? Cities generally have more crime and not-so-good schools. Unless they can afford private schools, most families would rather live in a suburb with good schools. But some of the empty-nesters and young couples will probably start moving into cities. Everything is right there close and there's (in my opinion) a bit more culture in cities than in suburbs (which tend to be characterized by chain restaurants and strip malls). | ||
Spacemonkey Member Username: Spacemonkey Post Number: 672 Registered: 03-2006 |
Suburbia bashing is soooo 1985. The same way that the minivan bashing fad died away -- and for the same reason -- fearing the supposed uncoolness of suburban living is long gone. Why? Because once people came to realize that "Convenience Is Cool" ultra convenient things like minivans, walk-in closets, and living 10 minutes from Home Depots and Starbucks became the shit. C'mon, everyone knows that by now. It's only a fool who pretends to be against the suburban lifestyle anymore. Being comfortable kicks ass. | ||
Higgs1634 Member Username: Higgs1634 Post Number: 534 Registered: 10-2005 |
quote: I think when people compare Detroit to NYC as some sort of urban renewal example they are willfully ignorant of the facts. As a point of fact, I said "Detroit" NOT the REGION was irrelevant. If Detroit wasn't viewed as irrelevant, how do you explain the current level of blight in the Central Business District, in the Cass Corridor/Mid town, all along Jefferson, Woodward, Grand River, and many of the neighborhoods? A vast majority of regional wealth voluntarily left Detroit almost a generation ago. No amount of hipster bars and trendy lofts are going to draw it back. It's comfortably ensconced in Oakland County and else where. NYC in its darkest...which we're now reaching back to the 1950s...hell let's go to the Depression... never had multiple "landmark" buildings stand derelict (for 30 years) in the heart of its business and financial hub. Does NYC suffer blight in depressed areas, yes. Are there buildings standing derelict for 30 years on Wall street? Mid-town? 5th ave? Madison Ave? No. Not ever. Why? Some of the people left to set up shop in Westchester, but the "money" never did. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 2498 Registered: 07-2004 |
I think you've got the idea, Leannam. The first people to go into the city are often without children and younger. It does build from there, especially when you get a critical mass. Hell, Brooklyn's Park Slope was a tough-ass neighborhood in the 1950s when the first bohemian types started moving in to claim it. Now, you can't throw a fistful of rice without hitting a well-to-do white person with a baby stroller. | ||
Rax Member Username: Rax Post Number: 447 Registered: 11-2007 |
What Detroit neighborhood do you live in right now Detroitnerd? Just curious. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 2499 Registered: 07-2004 |
Um, they're both American cities. They both felt the excesses of car culture, postwar disinvestment, etc. You ask me "how do you explain the current level of blight in the Central Business District, in the Cass Corridor/Mid town, all along Jefferson, Woodward, Grand River, and many of the neighborhoods?" Have you been to "Midtown" lately? Did you see the new museum, the new loft developments, the renovated museum, the craft breweries, the restaurants, the bakery? Did you see the new developments at the university? Did you see the new housing and parking they're putting up right on Woodward? Did you see that they've finally rebuilt the bridges over the freeway? Did you notice the old-man bars that have been reclaimed and renovated by Paul Howard? Have you been to the Bronx Bar? Have you noticed the addition to the student center next to Cass Cafe, which completely redid the floor a few weeks ago? How about the new little coffee shop that opened up in the medical center over there? Or that the Beethoven crack-hotel is being renovated into apartments with patio areas? Have you been to the completely renovated Cliff Bell's for a jazz show downtown? Or have you seen the new streetscaping in Corktown? Have you seen the luxury homes being built off Jefferson right on the river? You might have missed all that. Sure, lots of the city is still in poor shape, but it has to start somewhere. I've seen it happen. It starts in one place, and then when it gets too expensive, people shuffle on to the next neighborhood. And then that gets nice and expensive. It ripples out, like waves in a pond. But, the very fact that you're asking me to explain blight that is largely DISAPPEARING BEFORE MY VERY EYES is further proof that you don't know what you're talking about. Sure, a lot of wealthy people have left Detroit over the years. That's created a disinvested city. And that was fine with developers for years, as they'd just extend the freeway, add more lanes, carve up more farmland, and move on to the next subdivision. And, now that gas is getting more expensive, we're going to see people less liable to live out in the boonies, at least in places where they have to drive a few miles to buy a freakin' newspaper. The money to be made REdeveloping the city will be the new economic driver. And the good part is that you don't have to do anything. You just sit back, Higgs, wherever you are, and let it happen. You get to complain about how rotten and dirty and blighted the city is, and watch while fewer and fewer people consider you to be in touch with reality. As for New York, yes, buildings did stand blighted all through the 1980s and 1990s. The Empire State Building didn't even have anywhere near occupancy for about 20 or 30 years after it was built, IIRC. The Guardian Life building on the corner of Union Square Park stood largely vacant for years until it was redeveloped by the W hotel chain. It's now a luxury development, right by a park that is one of the largest greenmarkets in the city. And 20 years ago it was a shitty little part of town where they let the Communists sell their newspapers. I'm beginning to wonder: Are you trying to prove to everybody on this board just how out of touch with reality you are? |
