  Merchantgander Member Username: Merchantgander Post Number: 1524 Registered: 01-2005 Posted From: 150.198.164.127 |
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pb cs.dll/article?AID=/20060127/O PINION03/601270354/1001 Very good article by Daniel Howes | ||
Irish_mafia Member Username: Irish_mafia Post Number: 322 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 69.221.79.80 |
Yes it is. His comments about the city not being "welcoming" in the past as well as the comments about working with the leaders that your a dealt are both instructive. | ||
Skulker Member Username: Skulker Post Number: 3456 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 67.103.104.93 |
With all due respect to an accomplshed man, gimme a damn break. The man builds regional malls, sucking retail out of the downtown environments here and across the country savaging tax bases of central cities and now he blames them for being unwelcoming because they have high taxes and people are leaving? Al is a very smart guy. As soon as he saw highways being built he instinctively knew that retail was forever going to be changed. Freeways were going to create far far bigger draw areas for competitive retailers that would drive down goods costs. Bigger markets = bigger purchasing power = lower costs. Bigger stores = more vartiety = more convenice = little guys getting squashed. The real wonder is that it took Wal-Mart and Home Depot so long to become as big as they are. Credit where credit is due. Smart guy, made shitloads of money. However, I don't buy too much of the argument that Detroit isn't "welcoming" and it is especially ironic coming from the man that built the malls that killed the downtown Kerns, Crowleys, Hughes and Hatchers and Hudsons. About a year ago proposed a Four Seasons hotel with retail and a residential tower for the Hudson block. He wanted the City to grant nearly $50 million to the project. By contrast the DDA is LOANING $15MM to the Book Cadillac. City said no, now they are considered unwelcoming? Wake up and smell the coffee people, this article is an 81 year old carefully crafting (spinning) his legacy. | ||
Rustic Member Username: Rustic Post Number: 1988 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 130.132.177.245 |
Maybe he sees opportunities for fraudlent tax shelters in the CBD? ... :P... | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 1200 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 67.100.158.10 |
I actually find myself in complete agreement with Skulker for once. The article itself is disingenuous. The Snooze, among others, always trots out the "Detroit needs to compete with the suburbs". It's not an issue of Detroit competing with its own suburbs, as much as it is an issue of Southeastern Michigan competing with other regions in the world. How is that supposed to happen, though, when enormous subsidies are given to the suburbs to thrive at the expense of the core city? I call bullshit on Taubman. As a real estate guy, he knows that price is driven by demand, and some of the most expensive and desirable markets in the nation are ones with smaller lots and higher taxes. Seems to me he would rather make Detroit a giant suburb. Not too surprising coming from someone of the generation that produced the banality of mass suburbanization. The 1950s are over, Al. I know I'm preaching to the choir. Just need to vent is all. That guy drives me nuts. The poetic justice is that the U of M architecture school that bears his name is gung ho on teaching urbanism. | ||
Skulker Member Username: Skulker Post Number: 3464 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 67.103.104.93 |
Grasshopper is slowly awakening, it bodes well for his future.
Are they? My personal experince is that Kelbaugh talks a good line about New Urbanism and high end design, but I have yet to see anything meaningful. He seems completely convinced that pretty buildings, front porches and brick pavers solve everything. I sat on an academic panel with him at a conference in which he stated "Race really isn't the issue with Detroit, it all boils down to bad design". Huh? His Charette this year is focusing on the Aeropark / Areotropolis area along I-94 between Metro and Willow Run. Hardly urban. Apparently this is the choice for the year because all the "interesting places" have been done already in Detroit according to Kelbaugh. This after warning all of the students last year to always move around down town Detroit in threes because it "is still a dangerous and tough place." Being a suck up to DPZ while being completely ingnorant of what is happening in a major city does not make one an "urbanist". | ||
56packman Member Username: 56packman Post Number: 29 Registered: 12-2005 Posted From: 129.9.163.234 |
Skulker--did you ever consider that the hundreds of thousands of people who moved miles away from Hudsons,Kerns and Crowleys might want stores close to their homes? (the city of Detroit gladly aided this population shift by supplying all of the developing suburbs with WATER) or that there would be a nation-wide shift away from multi-story mega department stores in all cities save for Manhattan or Philly, where a couple of old line stores still function. Do you realistically expect that Mrs. Bloomfield Hills is going to drive downtown, find parking (we all know downtown is nothing but a parking lot, but it's not easy or free enough for this customer profile)to do her shopping?. Those stores thrived due to the hundreds of offices once located in the CBD, who also voted with their feet and moved out (also a nationwide phenomenon, practiced to the extreme here). Mr. Taubman's comments about infrastructure are very insightful. In his business, land IS the commodity. Detroit has tons of vacant land, absolutely made worthless due to a class shift of epic porportions, compounded by decades of ineffective self government. His comments re: the Riverfront apartments are interesting. Detroit has had many "mercy projects" given to her--and yes, there are usually tax breaks associated, but very little market demand based speculation for which the developer expects the kind of return a suburban project will yield. | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 1202 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 67.100.158.10 |
Skulker, my comment was based on conversations I've had with students and alumni of the program at U of M. Let's be honest, though. Detroit has been subject to a lot of bad design, not just in buildings, but in the spatial relationships throughout the city. I would disagree with Kelbaugh, and say that racial politics has a LOT to do with design in Detroit (I've been re-reading Sugrue lately). It's all intertwined.... I have to applaud the choice to have the charrette on the Aeropark, though. Good design need not be restricted to the political boundaries of a large city. | ||
Supersport Member Username: Supersport Post Number: 9813 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 64.118.137.228 |
Sorry bub, that's the shit that kills an urban environment. Keep it in the suburbs. Those who are moving back aren't doing so because they can get a nice big suburban type lot in a gated community, they are moving back because it's just the opposite. Those moving back often hate that shit you speak of. | ||
Jsmyers Member Username: Jsmyers Post Number: 1372 Registered: 12-2003 Posted From: 209.131.7.68 |
In partial defense of Kelbaugh: While they did move the charette this year, it was largely because they were paid a large sum of money to do so. I have heard statements that "all the interesting places have been done already" as well. But I have also been told that it WILL be back in Detroit next year. While I will in no way agree that "Race really isn't the issue with Detroit" (nothing could be further from the truth, I do agree that one of the Detroit's biggest problems is bad design. Many of these bad designs have are are being corrected (RenCen berms, Campus Martius "intersection," the early end of Bates). But there are still new instances of bad design being created. For example, plans to cut off downtown streets or remove historic green space for short term benefits is only going to hurt (State St and the park at times square for the bus terminal, rumors that Shelby north of Michigan will go kaput).
I couldn't agree with you more Danindc. | ||
Skulker Member Username: Skulker Post Number: 3465 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 67.103.104.93 |
56Packman: Yes I have considered all those issues and am very well versed in them. Thank for rehashing the points I make very explcit in an introduction to urban history class class I teach. The point I take umbrage with his the assertion that Detroit isn't welcoming and that it is some how the fault of Detroit that it is ine the state it is today. Detroit was in no way able to meaningfully stem the tidal wave of factors you list, just like nearly every other major city was not able to. To now turn and be critical of Detroit and somehow blame it for the damage wrought by those factors is disingenuous at best. It is especially hollow ringing coming from a man who made billions of dollars off the very same events events that led to the decline..and yet still Taubman wants the City to pony up money it can ill afford for his pet projects. DDC: I don't think race has much if anything to do with design in Detroit. Thats not my point. My point is that economic restructuring combined with race and a hsot of other issues have done the damage to Detroit, not "poor design". Large portions of Detroit have small lots with homes with porches, alley garages, walkable nearby commercial and retail space, grid pattern streets; in other words, all the hallmarks of New Urbanism. Yet much of these areas are some of the hardest hit in terms of economic abandonment. We built New Urbanism 50 - 80 years ago and people fled it droves. Based on this one could argue New Urbanist style is to blame for decay of cities. The whole argument for New Urbanism has a HUGE logical error. Cities and neighbrohoods were built on Form A. New suburbs were built on Form B. Millions of people left Form A to live in Form B. The proper reseponse to salvage cities and urban areas is to build on Form A. What kind of logic is that? Don't get me wrong, there are a host of ills wrought by suburban sprawl that ought to be prevented moving forward and for exisiting ills mitigated where feasible. To do this is a cross discipline, multi-pronged public policy challenge, of which design is a part but not a keystone part. Form follows function. Changing land use, taxation and infrastructure policies to encourage land reuse and discourage greenfield development will result in urban focused design as developers, engineers, planners and architects are forced to respond to the new realities of density and walkability issues. Simply making this area or that have an urban design will not meaningfully impact the continued sprawl of regions like Detroit without the other issues addressing the underlying causes. | ||
Gogo Member Username: Gogo Post Number: 1176 Registered: 11-2003 Posted From: 198.208.251.23 |
I'm unsure why people would move back in droves if we offered the same things that the suburbs offered. I think this is a terrible idea. Detroits opportunities lie in its uniqueness which cannot be found in the suburbs, not by duplicating what people can already get everywhere else. | ||
Sumotect Member Username: Sumotect Post Number: 162 Registered: 08-2004 Posted From: 64.243.32.9 |
One of the bizarre ironies of the region is the kind of “grass is greener” idea that makes people in the city build a suburban developments like Virginia Park, and places like Bingham farms, and Canton build New Urbanism. Both sides of the fence feel unreal to me. | ||
Wolverine Member Username: Wolverine Post Number: 107 Registered: 04-2004 Posted From: 141.213.196.136 |
"The poetic justice is that the U of M architecture school that bears his name is gung ho on teaching urbanism." As a student of architecture at U of M, I should mention that the school is considering dropping Taubmann from its name. I've only heard that, but there's already evidence as people around there generally refer to it just as the "College of Architecture and Urban Planning" Just thought I'd mention it. | ||
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan Post Number: 3108 Registered: 10-2003 Posted From: 67.172.95.197 |
Sumotect, good observation, and one that has struck MOST of Michigan. The state has a mass cass of "The Grass is Greener on the Other Side" Syndrome. It is only after it is too late that we realize what we once had. Detroit is trying replicating the suburbs in the city, and the suburbs are trying to replicate the city in the suburbs. The irony of it all almost make one want to laugh. Detroit proper will see a much bigger demographic and market when they stop marketing their new developments to only a few types of person. As someone already said, Detroit is going to come back when it offers a clear altenative to suburban living. And more importantly for everyone to realize, building urban doesn't necessarily mean tight rowhouses and apartment buildings, it simply means equal replacement within the core city neighborhoods. That also includes houses that fit the current lot sizes instead of trying to combine lots like the suburbs. | ||
Tomoh Member Username: Tomoh Post Number: 68 Registered: 11-2004 Posted From: 68.40.205.183 |
I don't know that building suburban developments somewhere in Detroit is really the way to attract anyone from existing suburbs, but who knows, maybe there is a market for suburbanites wanting to locate closer to downtown. As for the type of neighborhoods that Detroit aleady has much of, with gridded streets, no driveways, and some stores nearby, I believe that's what they call TNDs, Traditional Neighborhood Designs (or is it Developments), and it's just one part of New Urbanism. And as for New Urbanism in general, Kelbaugh's school of architecture and urban planning was voted as the 4th best New Urbanist school in the US and also had the 4th highest number of recent graduates going to New Urbanist firms (this was in the latest issue of New Urban News). The magazine noted that Kelbaugh was a big supporter of New Urbanism within the school while the architecture department was generally against the principles of New Urbanism. In defense of the logic of New Urbanism, now that a generation has grown up with the new suburbanism and experienced it and has perhaps become disgusted with it, so much of it has been built up that there's not much New Urbanist choice when choosing a neighborhood that fits all others of one's criteria. I think stuff like the lofts construction in Royal Oak is an example of new New Urbanist developments catering to a latent market. Of course these lofts in Royal Oak can only increase organically, limited by the size of downtown Royal Oak, so we aren't able to tell just how large the demand is. Likewise, we don't see how large the potential market for urban living in Detroit is due to other perceived limitations. Then again, with a lack of good examples of urban types of living in the metro area there are lots of people who just have never seen what they could be missing. I think urban infill is by default "New Urbanism" because it's also "Old Urbanism" and we've seen some successful examples of that recently in Detroit. Preservation of greenfield sites in the metro area is good policy that's also good for Detroit and the inner ring. I'm waiting for the inner ring to start taking sides and forming coalitions with themselves and Detroit, as I know Ferndale has for things like transportation. |
