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Jerome81
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Username: Jerome81

Post Number: 1520
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 5:20 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Exactly. This forecast in 1940 would have said Detroit would become a city of 5 million by now....

But that obviously didn't happen. They didn't predict suburban exodus. Freeways. racial problems, etc.

Its the same reason they could be right or they could be way off in 100 years. What if suburbs die due to extreme transportation costs and people decide a mass influx into dense cities is the best answer? What happens if another Henry Ford comes along? What happens if Detroit is the energy hub of the future? What happens if water becomes so scarce in the west that people need to move to where it exists? What if there is a massive SF earthquake and people decide they want to live where natural disasters aren't nearly as common, etc?

And you have to bet that a major SF earthquake would do a number on the population here. A lot of people are here because their job is here and they like the weather. A ton of people would like to go where they can afford a home. A massive earthquake would send this place into a frenzy. Companies that built here when it was cheap would use it as the perfect time to rebuild someplace else where the living costs are way lower and the costs of business are way lower. San Francisco is very dense, and it is a beautiful city. But today's San Francisco and Bay Area are NOTHING like they were in 1906. Nothing. Sure people would stick around and re-build. Those that love the city enough. But there would be plenty of other people and businesses who would take the opportunity to start fresh someplace else where the dangers are far less and the costs are far less. Don't think Katrina-type exodus can happen here?? You're NUTS to think that it couldn't. In fact, I'm willing to be that WHEN (not if), it will be just as bad or worse than the exodus from New Orleans.

There are just way way way way way way way way too many variables to even begin to make a prediction like Forbes did. Hell, even if you go back 100 years ago to 1900 (or 1907 Detroit) who in their right mind would ever believe that by 1950 the city would have 2 million residents? Somebody making such a prediction would have called that idea crazy. Same with people in 1950 if you told them in 50 years the city would have half its population and GM would be on the brink of disaster.

You just don't know. It is a worthless article because if even one of those gazillions of variables is wrong, the entire outcome can be drastically different. ie, take the auto industry away from Detroit and put it in Buffalo or Chicago in 1900, and Detroit wouldn't be anything close to 800,000 residents today, much less back in 1950.

Know how much faith I put in that article? Zero. Too much can change.
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Hans57
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Username: Hans57

Post Number: 176
Registered: 05-2006
Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 5:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I read them the other way around, so my day has only gotten better.
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Pinewood73
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Username: Pinewood73

Post Number: 50
Registered: 07-2006
Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 5:30 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The rise in gas prices and electricity will make it too expensive to air condition your house, as a result many people from down South will begin to move back up North due to the heat.
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Hans57
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Username: Hans57

Post Number: 177
Registered: 05-2006
Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 5:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Or you could say the exact opposite; it'll get to expensive to heat your home in winter. But, if global warming becomes an issue maybe we'll see an influx.
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Quinn
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Username: Quinn

Post Number: 1388
Registered: 01-2005
Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 5:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Screw Forbes and their list. When it comes to things like this I think it's almost best to wear horse-blinders...lets just focus on doing what we're doing (Riverfront, New Business, Cleaner city and CBD, new condo's, Indy race, etc etc etc) and make it happen.
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Professorscott
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Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 491
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 6:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Amen, Quinn.

Just for the record, in 2100, I fully expect to be dead, and don't any of you try to talk me out of it.
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Burnsie
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Username: Burnsie

Post Number: 1053
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 6:08 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Patrick wrote, "Look at the thousands of poorly built WW2 era homes that are now starting to show their age." That might be true for some homes of that vintage, but there were also a lot of WWII houses built with wet plaster walls-- which you never see in today's cheapo drywall houses.
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Professorscott
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Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 493
Registered: 12-2006
Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 6:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Shoot. Look at the thousands of poorly built 1980s and 1990s homes that are now starting to show their age.

I had a house built in 1995 - I don't live there now - and by 1998 I was fed up with the el-cheapo "builder quality" windows and put in all new Wallsides.

And my house was about as good as any other house built then. A friend of ours had a house built in '98 or so and the builder (a very large company) tried to convince him it was OK for the main beam to be two I-beams welded together.

The WW2 era houses are brick mansions by comparison to today's garbage IMVHO.
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Track75
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Username: Track75

Post Number: 2548
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 6:33 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

That might be true for some homes of that vintage, but there were also a lot of WWII houses built with wet plaster walls-- which you never see in today's cheapo drywall houses.

Having just done some renovation to a WWII-era home, I wish it had drywall. Drywall is relatively flat when installed. The wet plaster varied in thickness from 3/4" to 1-1/4" within a few feet. Lay a straightedge on the wall and you could slip a pencil under it.

Old doesn't always equal quality craftsmanship. Maybe all the good plasterers were off at war.

There have been time in Detroit's past when building booms occurred and lower-priced homes were pushed out as fast as possible. Perhaps with nice touches not found in today's homes but check them carefully any you'll find the same issues with plumb, level and square as with todays quickly-built homes. Just like today, not all tradesmen are true craftsmen.

quote:

I had a house built in 1995 - I don't live there now - and by 1998 I was fed up with the el-cheapo "builder quality" windows and put in all new Wallsides.

You can get a high quality new home today but you have to pay for it. Most buyers seem willing to settle for "builder quality" windows and such in exchange for more square footage, a spa-tub and granite countertops. Or they just can't tell the difference between builder quality and good quality.

You can get a good quality new home today but you have to be knowledgeable about high quality building products and practices and be willing to pay for it.
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Goat
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Username: Goat

Post Number: 9502
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 6:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Houses built in the /30s weren't that fantastic either. Unless of course the people had money to pay the labourers or the cost of materials. Most of the hosues were built cheaply due to the recession.
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Craggy
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Username: Craggy

Post Number: 253
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 7:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

One of the reasons for potential DECLINE in many of the cities listed is a lack of water.

It seems that this resource might actually be Detroit's biggest asset in coming decades.
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Jimaz
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Username: Jimaz

Post Number: 2444
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 7:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Maybe Great Lakes states should form an OPEC analog for water mining.
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Rocket_city
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Username: Rocket_city

Post Number: 309
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 7:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I think cities like San Fran, prone to major natural disasters are far more likely to become ghost cities before Detroit, even if it does rebuild.

Our extinction is due to social tolerance. Detroit is merely a perfect city, but with one of the worst social architectures ever built. Yah, that describes most cities, but I'm just illustrating a point.

Detroit was built to be nice...like all (most) places. One day, attitudes changed and so did the city. I wonder, (to think WAAAY outside the box), what would happen if all of a sudden those attitudes changed to the opposite extreme?

The first thing I see realistically becoming extinct in Detroit is the public school system.
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Danny
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Username: Danny

Post Number: 6108
Registered: 02-2004
Posted on Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - 12:43 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Rocket City,

You quote that the first thing I see realistically becoming extinct in Detroit is the public school system.

I SAY:

NO!!!! Detroit Public Schools could be privatized from a corporate company providing new school buildings, school surplies, enforced dress codes and policies, more after school activities, better percentage in standarized tests and a higher graduation rate.


That would beat those EVIL charter schools.
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Rocket_city
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Username: Rocket_city

Post Number: 313
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 12:21 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

How can you say, "NO" when what you said agrees with me?

A private school is not a public one. So, if Detroit Public Schoos went private, there would be no more Detroit Public Schools. Hmmm, I think I just graduated to 2nd grade! ;) j/k

Seriously though, DPS responding to the loss of student enrollment is one thing, but the corruption at the top is a whole other can of worms.

Hopefully, the new lady (superintendent) has been sent from above! :-)
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Tomoh
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Username: Tomoh

Post Number: 305
Registered: 11-2004
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 8:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Rocket_city, I think you are correct. Sentiment caused Detroit's decline. But sentiments are starting to change and a new generation of suburban Detroiters are waking up to the realization that things aren't as bad as they were led to believe.
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Yvette248
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Username: Yvette248

Post Number: 692
Registered: 10-2006
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2007 - 8:52 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Channel 4 really gave it to Forbes today. Apparently, when Rod Meloni called Forbes to get a factual basis to the story, the reporter refused to comment. Yep, THE REPORTER REFUSED TO COMMENT TO ANOTHER REPORTER!

Wow. Talk about journalistic ethics! You can write trash but you can't back it up?
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Sf_mike
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Username: Sf_mike

Post Number: 14
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 1:33 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I don't like this article.

Mike
San Francisco
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Civilprotectionunit4346
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Username: Civilprotectionunit4346

Post Number: 142
Registered: 06-2007
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 9:26 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

They way things are going..... I really kind of believe this article. Don't want to sound negative nancy on everyone....But with the way the population is dwindling and the economy not bouncing back like it should here, this is a very very real possibility.
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Yvette248
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Username: Yvette248

Post Number: 696
Registered: 10-2006
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 9:52 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Some people need to get a firmer grip on reality. Has any major city ever in this country just disappeared from existence? Remember how the media panned Houston as supposing to be a "ghost town" after the oil bust in the 80's? Anybody know the population of Houston now? Something like 100 billion, right?
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3420
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Username: 3420

Post Number: 115
Registered: 10-2003
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 9:54 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I not trying to hijack this topic, but I was caught by the pics.

Bulletmagnet

Do you stay in area? The third pic you have is the area that is going to developed. The land has been bought up by a CDC and single family homes will be built. Not the suburban type but the same type of housing that use to be there from what I saw. I don't know when but I have seen the blueprints for the area. I will ask the man who is over the CDC when they are going to start digging and building.

Myself and a couple of other men cleaned from E. Warren to the corner where you see the green and gray house last month during the Motorcity Makeover. The mowers we had almost broke due to the high grass, but we moved all the debris out the grass and cut that whole block where you see the green and white house in the background in about 8 hrs with just your average mowers.

The area to me has so much potential, but we are working hard to speed up the process to make it a nice neighborhood. Soon as I see him I will ask. I saw your pic and just had to let everyone know that this area is about to change.
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Spaceman_spiff
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Username: Spaceman_spiff

Post Number: 64
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 10:22 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

RE: Jimaz and Craggy

The Great Lakes States currently have a water compact with the Canadian provinces which regulates diversions. I see a debate on the horizon on water rights, whether water is a product subject to the Commerce Clause and regulation by the Federal Government, and/or whether the public trust doctrine gives the Great Lakes States authority to regulate it.

Rather than divert this thread, I have moved some content of this post to a thread titled "Water Rights"

I've noticed this topic has been getting more media coverage recently, and I'm glad of it. Better to plan ahead one way or another.

-Spiff

(Message edited by spaceman spiff on June 29, 2007)
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Tomoh
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Username: Tomoh

Post Number: 306
Registered: 11-2004
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 11:15 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Losing half its population makes Detroit no better and no worse than St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or Buffalo (or New Orleans for that matter). Somehow Detroit is always chosen to represent the downside of large American cities.

Yvette248, yep and now Houston is right after Chicago as the country's fourth most populous city, which Detroit could have been if it were allowed to annex its suburbs in the same way as Texan cities.
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Rrl
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Username: Rrl

Post Number: 856
Registered: 12-2003
Posted on Friday, June 29, 2007 - 12:42 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

If I had to place a bet upon which will still be around in 2100, the CoD or Forbes magazine; I'd place my money on Detroit.

And I'm a fairly regular reader of Forbes.

Magazines are sooo 20th century. :-)
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Bijouloveshues
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Username: Bijouloveshues

Post Number: 2
Registered: 07-2007
Posted on Sunday, July 08, 2007 - 11:52 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

sounds like they're just searching for stories...

everyone loves to talk about how doomed Detroit is, but the fact is that it can always turn around, and I happen to think it has and will continue to.

I have just moved back from Chicago where I lived for 7 years and while I never spent much time downtown Detroit while I lived here (wasn't allowed to at my age) - now that I have some independent experience behind me, I think Detroit has a wealth of things that make it an interesting metropolis... it just needs people to continue to demand the growth of downtown. (more shopping to draw suburban money would be nice... and, um, TRANSIT)!!!

Chicago has an amazing amount of people that take the Metra commuter train into the city on the weekends (even weeknights for games) where they leave their cars behind and bypass expensive parking lot rates to pay $1.30 for their ride into the city. They even drink on the train and sing and have a rawkus good time :p This system reduces gas costs for consumers, drunk drivers trying to make it home after games or clubbing, creates jobs and raises money for the city. Detroit needs to get over the whole Motor City thing standing in the way of adopting a transit system. The two can live in harmony and only stand to benefit everyone by doing so.

Bottom line, Detroit is great and is frankly, a blank canvas. When you're starting from scratch you can take it anywhere!
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Ray
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Username: Ray

Post Number: 931
Registered: 06-2004
Posted on Monday, July 09, 2007 - 1:52 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Detroit's best century is ahead of it.
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Emu_steve
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Username: Emu_steve

Post Number: 396
Registered: 11-2006
Posted on Monday, July 09, 2007 - 7:20 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I hope this isn't like (but the opposite) James Glassman who predicted Dow 36,000 in a book (I didn't read the book though).

Forgot his timetable, but I believe it was right before the big stock market selloff earlier this decade.

And I'd bet Glassman took say Dow 10,000 and did a linear projection using some percent growth say 15 - 20% (they were going nutty over the 'new economy' then). 20% growth compounded annually can get pretty big in a hurry. Isn't the rule of 72 for money doubling: 72 / rate = # of years to double. 20% would be 3 1/2 years.

Conversely, one could do the opposite for Detroit. Do a statistical projection for the next 90 years and come up with some silliness.

I predict once Quicken comes to Detroit and some other big company comes to the Hudsons site (along with some riverfront housing) that Detroit's population could start heading up which would blow that statistical projection out of the water.
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Fareastsider
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Username: Fareastsider

Post Number: 527
Registered: 08-2006
Posted on Monday, August 13, 2007 - 11:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

How stupid. Given all of the doom and gloom predictions of this region it is still a large independing metropolitan area. The metro area has 5-6 million people considering Windsor, Flint, A2, and outer reaches. Given economic ups and downs the region has made it through. But a ghost town!?! how dumb. I always have felt that this region is segregated from the rest of the country as we are north of any cross country routes and the cities rep. keeps people away.

(Message edited by fareastsider on August 13, 2007)
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Ray
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Username: Ray

Post Number: 975
Registered: 06-2004
Posted on Monday, August 13, 2007 - 11:44 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I've got a crisp $20 bill in my pocket that says Forbes will be out of business in 2100.
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East_detroit
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Username: East_detroit

Post Number: 1164
Registered: 11-2003
Posted on Monday, August 13, 2007 - 11:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Michigan will be the new Florida.

Hang on to your real estate.
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Sf_mike
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Username: Sf_mike

Post Number: 16
Registered: 02-2006
Posted on Tuesday, August 14, 2007 - 2:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The only earthquake that would get me to leave San Francisco is the one that kills me. Ok, obviously not having a job would get me to leave.

(Message edited by sf_mike on August 14, 2007)
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Rb336
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Username: Rb336

Post Number: 1235
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Tuesday, August 14, 2007 - 2:32 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

If you include Windsor/Essex, Genesee and Washtenaw I think you are pushing it to 6.5 million or there abouts
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Trainman
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Username: Trainman

Post Number: 515
Registered: 04-2006
Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 11:04 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Maybe the SEMCOG framework for action mass transit plan will actually work and come off the shelf by removing tens of thousands of cars off the freeways and roads.
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Lefty2
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Username: Lefty2

Post Number: 51
Registered: 07-2007
Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 11:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I'll be dead by then
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Goblue
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Username: Goblue

Post Number: 285
Registered: 03-2007
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 12:52 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Quinn: You're too polite...........F___ Forbes!!!
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Craig
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Username: Craig

Post Number: 298
Registered: 02-2007
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 8:04 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Our economic basis for being is living on borrowed time. No doubt someone will always live here, but we'll be more like the modern-day impoverished Egyptians living in the shadows of pyramids built by their predecessors.

This has happened elsewhere and the signs are evident that it will happen to us. Has anyone ever heard of Johnstown, PA? Know its history as a giant in steel production? Seen the sad, hollowed out place that it is today? Youngstown?

Foolishly, perhaps, I've made my bid to not join my age cohort in pursuit of opportunity elsewhere. Why? 1% optimism, and 99% is the unshakable sense that this place is home.

Our best hope, I feel, is for entrepreneurs with the same sense of "home" that I share to land their 'better mousetraps' here instead of heading toward the glamor of the coasts or south. I have no entrepreneurial ideas of my own, yet, but I'm working on it, for the sake of my own kid as well as yours.
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Alan55
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Username: Alan55

Post Number: 428
Registered: 09-2005
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 8:11 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Is this the same Forbes Magazine owned by that political and economic genius, Steve Forbes? I expect the magazine to be out of business by 2022.
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56packman
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Username: 56packman

Post Number: 1699
Registered: 12-2005
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 8:25 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Steve Forbes is the poster child for the lucky sperm club
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Spitty
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Username: Spitty

Post Number: 601
Registered: 07-2004
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2007 - 8:47 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hi,
It's Spitty from the future.

It's too bad that you guys don't know about World War 5 yet. That was a duzy.

I'm the only one who survived.

I'm working on cloning myself and building a woman so the human race can go on, but I needed a break from that so I posted on this thread.

I'm moving to Detroit since I sort of own the whole world and there's no violence there anymore. I'm choosing to make Detroit the Cradle of New Humanity mainly to spite Forbes.

You wouldn't even believe how fast my internet is here in the year 2100.