 
Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd
Post Number: 1413
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 2:26 pm: |    |
D'oh! A perfectly good argument spoiled by the facts! |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 3311
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 2:27 pm: | |
Don't be bringing that high-falutin' systems engineering BS around here! |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 752
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 2:35 pm: | |
The redundancy argument is true as far as it goes, but this is directly and unarguably subsidizing sprawl. It amazes me Detroit would consider such a thing.
It would be equally redundant, and stupid, to build a new "Interstate 94B" right next to the existing Interstate 94. That way when one is under construction people could just use the other instead. It would only cost several billion dollars! What a great idea! That is where the limit is on the redundancy argument.
The competing system some have mentioned is not "planned". Show me those "plans". It is a pipe dream (literally!) and will never be built. So Detroit isn't doing something to trump some competition; there isn't really any.
It astonishes me how frequently and happily the City shoots itself in the foot. Wouldn't you think they'd run out of bullets eventually? |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3678
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 2:51 pm: | |
Profscott has it right.
Mikeg, if all existing customers are going to pay for it, then 900k people in the city and a couple million people who live in inner portions of the metro area will have higher rates for something they will never use, in areas they really don't care about. This infrastructure will enable the unwarranted and previously undemanded building of more modern suburbia, where the rich will be housed, at the expense of much poorer people in the city who will have higher bills just so that this unneccesary creation of new luxury housing (in a shrinking region, btw) in White Lake or Metamora or Grand Blanc etc can take place. It's the exact same scenario of post 1950 highway building.
You wanna live out there? Then dig a fucking well.
The DWSD better know something we don't know when it comes to the profitability of this. They better make a killing.
The fact that exurban development is being enabled by a central authority like this is a massive meltdown of regional planning and common sense. |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 3312
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 2:57 pm: | |
It's not even just the water. Developers would have greater access to water and sewerage in these greenfields, and will apply for permits to build. Of course, new roads will be required to service the new developments, and the State will be forced to pony up, diverting money away from much-needed maintenance of existing infrastructure. Then comes the construction of schools, police, fire, libraries, ad infinitum.... Money can only be spread so thinly before you reach an inflection point on the curve. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 753
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 3:16 pm: | |
Mackinaw, it's even worse than what you say, because the fact is DWSD will make a killing. The city as a whole (in fact, the region as a whole) will suffer. It's like selling cocaine to your own grandchildren, and reveling in the money you make, notwithstanding the overall harm to your family.
Dan, you're right, and I think we hit the inflection point about 30 years ago. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 754
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 3:17 pm: | |
By the way, what is this "regional planning" I hear so much about? It apparently exists, but I've never seen it. |
Ndavies
Member
Username: Ndavies
Post Number: 2773
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 3:20 pm: | |
The sprawl is going to happen no matter what you do. You can either plan for it, get ahead of the curve and manage it, or continue to chase after it.
The real argument to allowing DWSD to build the system is it keeps the previously built infrastructure in use. If Oakland county builds their own system, it will make some of the water plants in the city redundant. The city will have capacity they have no hopes of ever using.
Also Detroit's central city infrastructure is old. It will soon be needing replacement/upgrades. At that time the outer suburbs will be subsidizing Detroit's upgrades. You need to keep places that can afford to subsidize lower income areas in the fold. |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 3314
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 3:31 pm: | |
quote:The sprawl is going to happen no matter what you do. You can either plan for it, get ahead of the curve and manage it, or continue to chase after it.
It's precisely that type of attitude that allows this crap to continue unabated, regardless of the consequences for the region or state. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 755
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 3:33 pm: | |
I don't accept that the sprawl is going to happen no matter what. Other regions have found ways to limit it; we can too. We would need our state legislature to get a clue, so I'm not saying it's likely, but it's possible.
There are already lots of people who are in a position to be forced to subsidize upgrades to existing DWSD infrastructure. If we build more housing out in the exurbs, it won't bring more people into the area, it will just move people out of existing homes into the new homes. So the same number of people will be responsible for more infrastructure.
I'm not guessing or projecting; I'm just saying this is what has happened for the past fifty years, and it will continue unless we decide to apply the brakes. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3679
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 4:32 pm: | |
"Also Detroit's central city infrastructure is old. It will soon be needing replacement/upgrades. At that time the outer suburbs will be subsidizing Detroit's upgrades. You need to keep places that can afford to subsidize lower income areas in the fold."
This is an important aspect, Ndavies. That's why DWSD has to make money off this. But, they've been charging high rates for a long time now, and Detroit's infrastructure is still in need of overhaul. The forecasts for the growth of this region aren't good, which means they won't be getting new customers. So while you're point is well made, I don't think that this is something we could count on, nor something that this expansion will help us achieve. |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 3316
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 4:37 pm: | |
And that's the heart of the matter. The number of customers is going to be relatively constant, as the Detroit area has been in an era of nearly-zero population growth for 35 years. SO, instead of spending money on upgrading existing infrastructure, the proposal on the table seeks to spend money on new infrastructure in areas where there are no current customers. This won't negate the need to replace old and aging infrastructure in the core. There's a HUGE opportunity cost going to waste here.
Yet people in Michigan wonder why their tax dollars don't go very far.... |
Quozl
Member
Username: Quozl
Post Number: 1476
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 5:55 pm: | |
quote:In an effort to tame land-devouring sprawl, the state of Oregon, and the Portland metro area in particular, have taken bold steps that have garnered both national scrutiny and national acclaim. In 1973 the Oregon legislature passed its landmark urban growth boundary law, requiring each municipality in the state to draw a line in the sand (or through forests and farms, in the case of western Oregon), beyond which urbanization could not march - at least, in theory. Today, each of Oregon's 241 cities is surrounded by an urban growth boundary (UGB). Portland's was first established in 1979.
The law does seem to have had a positive effect in reducing sprawl in the state, but certainly not in stopping it cold. Greater Portland not only stayed aesthetically pleasing but met the Smart Growth goal of increasing density greatly. In the decade prior to the imposition of the Urban Growth Boundary, new population was added at the density of 2,448 per square mile. In the decade after the imposition of the Boundary, it was added at the density of 3,744 per square mile. That was a 53% increase in density, a major achievement
But the discouraging news after all that effort is that the Portland Urbanized Area still sprawled out across 39 additional square miles (25,000 acres) from 1980 to 1990. In its first decade of vigorously applied Smart Growth techniques, Portland could not stop the urbanization of rural land. The reason? The population grew by 146,000 during the decade.
The same disappointing results were to be found in the entire state of Oregon. Preliminary figures from the 1997 National Resources Inventory indicate that hundreds of square miles of open space have been converted to developed land since the 1973 state legislative action to stop that from happening. Population growth - much of it from former Californians fleeing the rapidly congesting Golden State - was the cause.
Increasing numbers of residents are decrying the added congestion and surging housing prices that are the result of trying to prevent sprawl while having rapid population growth.
As people continue to pour into Portland and Oregon, development pressures within the "containment vessel" of the Urban Growth Boundaries are intensifying. Indeed, articles warning of "gaps" and "cracks" in "the Great Wall of Portland" have become legion. And resistance to the ever-higher densities and in-fill development promoted by regional planning authorities as the way to grow without sprawl appears to be spreading even here in "Ecotopia."
If metro Portland's population continues to grow and if the Portland public' s desire for breathing room and reasonably priced housing trumps its desire to contain or slow sprawl, the Portland Experiment of 1980 to 2000 may not be the exemplar of what Americans may be persuaded to adopt. Rather, it may be an example of Smart Growth controls that even the most ecologically minded and motivated Americans won't accept over the long run.
The lesson would not be that the Smart Growth efforts of Portland were wrong-headed but that the best-thought plans cannot create a protective wall for nature that will withstand the continuous onslaught of population growth. |
Johnlodge
Member
Username: Johnlodge
Post Number: 2590
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 6:12 pm: | |
"population growth"
Look, the last two words of that story explain why that doesn't pertain to our senseless sprawl. |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 3317
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 6:17 pm: | |
And pro-sprawl people always want to say that Portland's growth boundary has caused it to become unaffordable. It's still the cheapest large metropolitan area on the West Coast--by far. |
Broken_main
Member
Username: Broken_main
Post Number: 1322
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 7:09 pm: | |
I think I should chime in now.
Udmphikapbob...There is nothing wrong with the main in Livonia. The last break that occurred was due to power failure from DTE. The one thing that people fail to realize is that these stations run on electricity and most of DWSD stations have 2 or more services to assure that we have continuous voltage in all of our station. DTE losses a lot of transformers daily...especially this year.
To all that suggest that this will encourage more sprawl. This is true to a certain extent. Livingston County is now experiencing problems with its growth. They were considering connecting to MHOG but that area is experiencing problems with the well systems that they invested millions of dollars to distribute over a 4 cities.(They seemed to realize that their source of water is too far from there largest customer, Howell)
Iheartthed...Flint receives their water from the City of Detroit. Even though they have their own water treatment plant, their source of water is very hard to treat and they may have a hard time staying in compliance with the MDEQ. Trust me, they do a lot better buying from Detroit and selling to their citizens and surrounding communities.
A little note on the line and treatment plant that serves Flint. It(Fort Gratiot Plant) is underused and has the capacity to pump 1 billion gallons of water a day. We will be able to use this station more efficiently with the greater load.
Johnlodge...the MDEQ is cracking down extensively on old wells. They have found that people in Livingston are capping their older wells incorrectly and that it is contributing greatly to the poisoning of the groundwater. There is a growing number of companies and people that are dumping anything and everything into these old wells, therefore tainting the groundwater.
In addition...Sprawl is already happening in the west, they just don't have water. I think from a business point of view, it would be best for Detroit to service these communities due the fact that we stay consistent with our product. DWSD maintains an excellent quality drinking water throughout the region.
Mackinaw..DWSD local infrastructure is undergoing main replacement now in some crucial areas. Our infrastructure is upgraded yearly. In addition, we are working more efficiently than ever(partly due to better operational planning, by yours truly) |
Broken_main
Member
Username: Broken_main
Post Number: 1323
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 7:17 pm: | |
BTW this extension will complete a much needed loop in our system. Hopefully they will look into the the Livingston area next because there are a lot of Lansing area people moving out that way.
From and operational standpoint, this is really a much needed main in our system. It will also give us yet another alternative to draw water down if we ever have a problem in our system down here. |
Mackinaw
Member
Username: Mackinaw
Post Number: 3681
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 7:58 pm: | |
Thanks for the input, Broken_main. I know DWSD does plenty of work. It's just a matter of keeping up and avoiding a crisis, as I'm sure I shouldn't be telling you. |
Granmontrules
Member
Username: Granmontrules
Post Number: 169
Registered: 01-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - 8:00 pm: | |
It sounds like a good idea to me. While I don't approve of sprawl it does mean that Detroit is in the center of SALES. Better we get it than the competition. Sprawl and growth is going to happen whether we like it or not. Think about tomorrow not today. |
Novine
Member
Username: Novine
Post Number: 149
Registered: 07-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 12:18 am: | |
How about completing the look from Wixom south where people actually live versus where they don't? |
Toolbox
Member
Username: Toolbox
Post Number: 1104
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 9:01 am: | |
How about DWSD fixing the stopbox in front of the Field house? It has only been leaking a good amount of water constantly for the past 2 years. At least they put a barraciade up a year ago. |
Craig
Member
Username: Craig
Post Number: 369
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 10:46 am: | |
It seems that a lot of you are missing the point: "Flint" has been moving to build infrastructure to supply its own needs in the face of extortionist rates and the high-handed manner of the "Detroit" system. Sprawl, or any sort of substantial building is unlikely in this economy, so don't worry about that.
The issue is simply one of market share. Detroit wants more (by building into areas served by private and municipal wells, and Flint wants to break free of the Detroit-based circus. |
Danindc
Member
Username: Danindc
Post Number: 3323
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 11:17 am: | |
quote:Sprawl, or any sort of substantial building is unlikely in this economy, so don't worry about that.
Short-term rationalization of a long-term problem. A bit disingenuous, don'tcha think? |
Danny
Member
Username: Danny
Post Number: 6553
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 12:02 pm: | |
I can't wait to see all the EVIL Wal-Marts, Krogers, Meijers and McMansions being built up in a once swampy forested farmland and once Native American lands just beyond 40 mile Rd. Communities made for middle income white folks before blacks and any other ethnic folk comes. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 761
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 12:23 pm: | |
Hmm. At what point do the house numbers become six digits? I forget the formula... |
Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd
Post Number: 1416
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 12:56 pm: | |
Prof: At $100,000, I believe. |
Ffdfd
Member
Username: Ffdfd
Post Number: 191
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 12:59 pm: | |
quote:At what point do the house numbers become six digits?
quote:Prof: At $100,000, I believe.
http://tinyurl.com/wrcur |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 763
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 12:59 pm: | |
Not the prices, silly, the house number, like your street address. I have seen house numbers over 70000 in the northern 'burbs, and I know there is some formula that relates the mile road to the house number. |
Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd
Post Number: 1417
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 1:05 pm: | |
Prof: Your overliteralness is showing. ;) |
Smitch
Member
Username: Smitch
Post Number: 24
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 1:38 pm: | |
Prof: You will find the answer to your question here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M ile_Road_System_%28Detroit%29 |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 765
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 1:42 pm: | |
Ahh, so when they build cookie-cutter subdivisions north of 47 1/2 Mile Road, if I'm doing this correctly, those would be six digit house numbers. I had wondered.
Now for you northern 'burbanites, I know there is not yet a 47 1/2 Mile Road, but then the water extension isn't built yet... |
Beavis1981
Member
Username: Beavis1981
Post Number: 600
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 2:31 pm: | |
Now I wonder how they are going to get a pipe out there without completly cluster-fucking the infrastructure 'round here. For those of you "city folk" there is NO direct northwest road from here to flint. We only have a handful of north/south roads with a hodge-podge of east/west roads. |
Jimaz
Member
Username: Jimaz
Post Number: 3321
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 4:12 pm: | |
I thought I read somewhere that it would "roughly" follow the route of I-75. |
Broken_main
Member
Username: Broken_main
Post Number: 1326
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 4:43 pm: | |
Jimaz..it does roughly follow the route of I-75. Most of the land had been presumably purchased years ago(don't quote me on that) and DWSD has been awaiting the time to construct.
The 35 mile main pretty mush connects a 42' main in Orion(there is a station on the same hill that the palace sits on), and it will connect to the 96' main at Potter and Baxter in Flint.
People on the forum question how this provides redundancy within the system. Well, the city of Detroit pushes most of its water North until it reaches 20 mile Road. The water that we treat at the Fort Gratiot station is pumped west(to Flint) and South(through Imlay City) to the same station that we pump the water north to(at 20 Mile and Dequindre. If something would ever happen within the distribution system pumping north, then we could easily change the directional flow of water to pump south from more than one point(Imlay City)Remember the Fort Gratiot Station can pump 1 Billion gallons of water a day and pushing all of that water through two outlets is surely safer than the one that we have right now.
I know this sounds like much, but I monitor this system all day and night. Looking at it from the operators point of view, this link is much needed for all of us to run more efficiently and effectively. |
Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd
Post Number: 1423
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 4:46 pm: | |
Who said, "When you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail"? |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 769
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 4:51 pm: | |
I repeat my earlier argument: if we built an identical new I-94B next to the existing I-94, then there is much less risk of traffic jams, since if one freeway is out of commission everybody can just use the other. We don't do such a thing because it is catastrophically expensive and changes land use in an awful way. I don't know why anyone thinks we can extend municipal water out into the woods and it won't have any negative effects.
Actually, most of what governments do, everywhere and all the time, is make poor decisions that create drastic and unintended side effects, and then scratch their heads wondering why the side effects happened. |
Broken_main
Member
Username: Broken_main
Post Number: 1328
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 4:55 pm: | |
But we are not talking about freeways, we are talking about water here. In our stations, we have up to 12 High Lift Pumps, but we never use all of them, the redundancy is there so that if we lose one, for whatever reason, we can put another one in so that YOU, the customer, won't have to be without water or have to boil your water due to low pressures. |
Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd
Post Number: 1424
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 5:17 pm: | |
The same people in charge using the same metrics to measure the same indicators year after year -- and it leaves much to be desired.
Here's a fantastic idea. Let's try to reinvest in our cities and inner-ring suburbs. Instead of spending all this money to move stuff out where nobody lives, why don't we provide services in places where people use less resources, and need less resources to get around?
How about a place where the water doesn't need to be moved all over creation because people live in denser places?
How about a place where people do not need to drive all over the place to get what they need for the day?
How about building structures in places where there are *already* fire hydrants every 1,000 feet?
How about places where mothers are not chauffeurs for their children all day?
How about places where we share a community garden instead of pumping water into vast lawns on corporate campuses?
These things are what you commonly see in other cities. And, after going other places and seeing how life is organized there, many people from the Detroit area simply give up and leave.
And so metro Detroit becomes a place where, year after year, the same tired "solutions" are engineered year after year. We move more water, more cars, build vaster acreages of water-sucking turf, one-year tarmac and Tyvek year after year, leaving empty parking lots, abandoned real estate and ghettohoods in our wake.
As Lewis Mumford once said, a system that attempts to fix a problem by enlarging a problem suggests that a deep-seated process is at work. It may be time not to present rationales, but to examine them!
(Message edited by detroitnerd on September 20, 2007)
(Message edited by detroitnerd on September 20, 2007) |
Oakmangirl
Member
Username: Oakmangirl
Post Number: 411
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 5:50 pm: | |
Impressive, Detroitnerd. Lewis Mumford was visionary.
So what's it going to take before we stop the sprawl? |
Quozl
Member
Username: Quozl
Post Number: 1497
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 5:54 pm: | |
quote:So what's it going to take before we stop the sprawl? $7.00 a gallon gasoline? |
Oakmangirl
Member
Username: Oakmangirl
Post Number: 412
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 6:09 pm: | |
I thought that Quozl, but I really don't think that would phase many people. They might decide to carpool, but even that might be too much to ask. People adapt, become complacent and complicit. |
Fury13
Member
Username: Fury13
Post Number: 2408
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 6:12 pm: | |
"So what's it going to take before we stop the sprawl?"
Snipers on every arterial road would do it. |
Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd
Post Number: 1425
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 6:17 pm: | |
It takes a critical mass of people to effect the change. Most people simply leave. Why should they butt heads with people who fear and hate cities? Why should they fight year after year for light rail only to have to own a car anyway? Why should they fight to preserve a city that the region is embarrassed of? They give up. I totally understand.
All you have to do is move to Chicago, and you have your El stop, your coffee shop, your bookstore, your bars, and it's all there. And you never have to explain to people why you live in the city, with all its ills and crime and bad schools and stuff. Because they know damn well why you live in the city: It affords a high quality of life, despite its shortcomings. All you have to do is hand them Carl Sandburg's poem!
But, for those who want to live in ever-larger homes, spend ever more hours commuting, pay higher gas bills, water bills, school millages, and live in neighborhoods that are homogenous (class-homogenous, age-homogenous, race-homogenous) with world-class sports venues, shopping malls, golf courses, and luxury hotels -- here we are! We are a region that will demolish things just because they're old, and will dive head-first into any infrastructure boondoggle that promises that somebody, somewhere, will build something that might make some money!
Ever hear of the cargo cults? I have. The story goes like this: Primitive peoples lived on islands in the Pacific. During World War Two, U.S. airships landed with desirable things inside. They got to eat Army food, use cast-off metal drums, salvage cool pieces of metal and canvas. They built a whole economy in just a few short years based on the detritus of the U.S. military.
Then, one day, the war was over. The ships stopped landing, and instead passed far overhead. What would bring back the prosperity?
Well, the natives reportedly built landing strips, with a radio shack and lights, hoping the planes would come to land again.
Guess what happened? Nothing!
That is what our local leaders remind me of, some tribal leader, listening intently into his coconut-headphones in the strip radio shack, demanding that we use our scarce resources to light the field, lay out the strip straighter, bigger, longer, to attract bigger planes. If we can just get the strip big enough, the planes will start landing again.
And that is, to my mind, one of the major reasons why people give up in disgust and leave. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 770
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 6:33 pm: | |
Boy, 'nerd, I gotta hand it to you, that story pinpoints why we are where we are. |
Oakmangirl
Member
Username: Oakmangirl
Post Number: 413
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 6:41 pm: | |
That's quite a negative, albeit realistic, assessment.
"And that is, to my mind, one of the major reasons why people give up in disgust and leave."
Many do leave, and some return (me included), but I wonder why I'm here, why try, when I read of decisions like this. Maybe misguided idealism? I think many of us say "family"; it's really more that the city gets under the skin...and well, yeah it's an obstinate idealism. |
Broken_main
Member
Username: Broken_main
Post Number: 1333
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 6:44 pm: | |
I love Detroit!!! |
Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd
Post Number: 1426
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 6:56 pm: | |
Well, I left and then returned. I was priced out of every neighborhood I ever lived in in New York, so that drove me back here. After a while in New York, I started to feel like I was never on deck with the glamorous folks, always down in the engine room stoking and shoveling!
Anyway, despite some real ambivalence, Detroit has been good to me. I've been able to eke out a good living here, haven't had to make too many ideological compromises, and I've already done the "world-class-city" thing, so I don't really feel like I'm missing out on much.
I hate to seem so consistently negative, but when people start getting into what I call "cartwheeling rationalization mode," somebody has to speak up and point back to the larger problem.
By the way, I love Lewis Mumford. His essay, The Highway and the City, should be required reading for anybody interested in debunking car culture. |
Fury13
Member
Username: Fury13
Post Number: 2410
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 7:08 pm: | |
"Most people simply leave. Why should they butt heads with people who fear and hate cities? Why should they fight year after year for light rail only to have to own a car anyway? Why should they fight to preserve a city that the region is embarrassed of? They give up. I totally understand.
All you have to do is move to Chicago, and you have your El stop, your coffee shop, your bookstore, your bars, and it's all there. And you never have to explain to people why you live in the city, with all its ills and crime and bad schools and stuff. Because they know damn well why you live in the city: It affords a high quality of life, despite its shortcomings. All you have to do is hand them Carl Sandburg's poem!
But, for those who want to live in ever-larger homes, spend ever more hours commuting, pay higher gas bills, water bills, school millages, and live in neighborhoods that are homogenous (class-homogenous, age-homogenous, race-homogenous) with world-class sports venues, shopping malls, golf courses, and luxury hotels -- here we are!"
You really nailed it. Kudos. |
Oakmangirl
Member
Username: Oakmangirl
Post Number: 414
Registered: 08-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 7:13 pm: | |
It's okay to get worked up, just mind that you don't have a meltdown; some folks out here really enjoy it when your mood ring implodes.
Is that in "Technics and Civilization"?
"After a while in New York, I started to feel like I was never on deck with the glamorous folks, always down in the engine room stoking and shoveling!"
Interesting you note this; I often whether devotion to the city has to do with identifying with or championing the underdog. |
Broken_main
Member
Username: Broken_main
Post Number: 1334
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 7:24 pm: | |
It just seems to me that people are so busy pointing at problem after problem and never help with a solution.
This city is full of potential. I think there are a few people who actually see the potential but the rest just, to put it lightly, exist. They just live with it and they don't deal with it.
Let me say one thing, and I will be through. When I sit in on meetings and I am asked my thoughts on any subject, my answer has and will always taken with the citizens of this city first. And believe me when I say this, I am a citizen of Detroit and I care about every concern the people of this city has.
If this project creates sprawl, then so be it. The city will profit off of providing them with the water they need. I really doubt if any of the diehard Detroiters will be setting up home up there anyway. at least we will get first dibs on the cold water. LOL |
Detroitnerd
Member
Username: Detroitnerd
Post Number: 1427
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 7:32 pm: | |
Oakman: It's one of the essays in the book *The Urban Prospect*. Technics and Civilization is a great book. If I ever feel down, it often seems that reading Mumford for a little while energizes me.
The City in History is another great one, too.
My working-class background informs my whole life. My father was not a nice man, but one line he told me has had a life-long impact: "When you see people out goose-stepping in your back yard, you either join them, or you go out and kick their ass!"
Broken: Well, my first post (1424) was all my fantastic ideas! But the main point remains: When, to solve the problem, you enlarge the problem, something is really seriously wrong, even if it looks good on paper (money coming in to DDWS). The power-brokers can laugh all the way to the bank, but we urban water-drinkers will pay for the lion's share of that jolly journey ourselves! |
Broken_main
Member
Username: Broken_main
Post Number: 1335
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 7:57 pm: | |
I guess because I am a part of DWSD, I see a need more so than the people of Detroit would. I can also see what you are saying. I haven't always agreed with what the higher ups in DWSD have done, but I have seen an incredible amount of initiative taken to make things better and make things run more efficiently. |
Jimaz
Member
Username: Jimaz
Post Number: 3326
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 9:43 pm: | |
Broken_main, you already know that people out west envy our water.
We take it for granted here. You're doing a great job. Thank you.  |
Ordinary
Member
Username: Ordinary
Post Number: 254
Registered: 06-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 9:45 pm: | |
Sometimes I wonder if these projects are initiated and pushed by the people who stand to make a pile of money selling all the material needed, i.e. valves, pipe, fittings, needed for construction. |
Broken_main
Member
Username: Broken_main
Post Number: 1336
Registered: 06-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 9:47 pm: | |
Of course I do...That is why it is important for Detroit to take control of the water for the region. Trust me, If we don't someone else will. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 771
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 - 11:52 pm: | |
Well I'll agree with one thing, the municipal water in metro Detroit is right up there with the best anywhere, quality and price. I've lived a lot of places. My only concern about expanding mains has nothing to do with the water system itself; it has only to do with the population effects of putting water into new, rural places. They don't stay rural.
You want a shock, live in Denver or Albuquerque for long enough to get that first water bill. |
Jerome81
Member
Username: Jerome81
Post Number: 1619
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Friday, September 21, 2007 - 2:12 am: | |
Detroit has the capacity to expand, so why not right?
How come nobody ever stops to think that once the existing capacity is filled that we should call it good? Capacity is filled, so they buy a new pumping station. Then when the opportunity to expand the rationale is "Detroit had unused capacity this can fill up"
Same arguement as building freeways, just moving water instead of cars.
The government (and the water system) is there to serve the needs of the people. If the population isn't growing, and the existing people already have water, why are we talking expansion?
Detroitnerd, great posts. I agree with that. I'm kinda one of them (not native Detroiter, but spent time there then left), but I know about 10 here in Chicago alone who did exactly what you described. A few of them have told me they're never going back. |
Dougw
Member
Username: Dougw
Post Number: 1920
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Monday, October 01, 2007 - 2:40 pm: | |
quote:It sounds like a good idea to me. While I don't approve of sprawl it does mean that Detroit is in the center of SALES. Better we get it than the competition.
I live in the city and want the city to succeed, but why should I care how much market share DWSD has? I don't. The subsidizing of sprawl is the MUCH bigger problem. If anything, I wouldn't mind seeing a smaller competing system spring up around Flint, let them go for it. A little competition may lead to better service. (Although DWSD's service is good in many respects, and I appreciate Broken_main's posts on this thread.)
Anyway, this expansion sounds like a disaster. Has anyone mobilized to protest this in Independence Township or anywhere else? It would be great to see a protest on the other end in Detroit, comprised of mostly Detroiters. I'll readily admit that I'm too busy/lazy to organize a protest myself, but I would happily attend one. |
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