Crain's did a good write up to answer some of your questions. I think they were being a little too optimistic, though. I'll explain why further down. From Crain's:
In other words, they will have to tear more buildings down for parking structures.
In other words, you're ceding all of those people to Chicago and the coasts because your region is too cheap to build a stupid, bare bones light rail line.
Probably the best point of all. The decision makers don't know what the fuck they're talking about. They're trying to speak to us in Spanish while the rest of us are conversing in Portuguese. They think it all sounds the same, but we're really speaking two different languages.
Anyway, as I said above, the article is a bit too optimistic. That's because it doesn't take into account that historic renovations only make sense when the property values are expensive [[or expected to). Density pushes up the value of land, which pushes up the value of the buildings built on the land, which is the basis of the incentive to restore old buildings. No transit, no density, no increase in property values. So really, the transit is the base of it all. That's why I said Dan Gilbert's buildings will be worthless without the train line.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...ith-light-rail