What do you think will happen to Lakeside mall since the introduction of the Mall at Partridge Creek?
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What do you think will happen to Lakeside mall since the introduction of the Mall at Partridge Creek?
I don't think I've ever been to Lakeside Mall. It's up by M-59 in Macomb County isn't it? What lake is it near? And where is this Partridge Creek thing?
Since no one else will answer your question, here is my supposition:
1. Nordstrom in PC will take some business from Macys, Sears, and Penneys in LM, but this will be offset by those who are attracted to two main shopping centers at one location.
2. There may be some migration of the smaller stores as the more upscale move to PC, but the synergistic effect of two close together centers will make LM a more desirable place to open a store.
Lakeside Mall has already been harmed by Partridge Creek.
A number of the more upscale retailers at Lakeside left when Partridge Creek opened.
But I don't think Lakeside is in danger of becoming a Northland/Eastland dead/dying mall. An Oakland/Fairlane "so-so, and surviving" scenario sounds most likely.
Non-upscale malls are in big trouble, because they tend to be older and poorly located, and their anchor stores, especially Sears and JCPenney, are in bad shape.
I do wonder what will happen to malls like Lakeside when you have hip, outdoor malls that replicate how we used to shop in downtowns.
Where there other malls that were open but eventually covered, besides Eastland Mall, when that was the trend?
i never was a big fan of lakeside....to big and congested and i can't stand driving on hall rd. i like partridge overall and i can sneek in from romeo plank and avoid hall rd. all together.
A couple of the last "shopping" areas downtown - Trapper's Alley and The RenCen, were not really any different than mall shopping.
Ask how many of the tens of thousands of people who pour into "near" downtown every Saturday at Eastern Market shop at malls. Betcha that number is pretty damn high.
Lakeside will continue to hang on because [[a) the area its located in is doing well, [[b) it has the competitive advantage in winter, [[c) it continues offer a number of key retail stores not available at Partridge Creek, and [[d) it has the competitive advantage to serving Sterling Heights and western Macomb County, due to its location.
1953
Yes, they were different from the mall. The RenCen had a lot of upscale boutiques that weren't affordable to the common folks. Trapper's Alley had alot of specialty shops that catered more so to vistors than the homegrown folks. Neither had alot of shops to warrant regular customers. They were more like a destination shopping area.
If what you are looking for isn't on Hall Road then you don't need it. Every store imaginable is there within a few miles of each other. I just hate Hall Road.
Perhaps shopping in downtown Detroit, but I think there are plenty of other downtowns with shopping districts. I know that my grand children, who never shopped in downtown Detroit, HAVE shopped in downtown Boulder, Denver and even Alpena, MI. Contrary to popular belief [[on here) there are places with viable downtown areas.
If you google Lakeside Mall you will see that there is a large lake to the SE of the mall. I doubt that it was there before the mall was built, but it is a lake, nonetheless
What is interesting is that everyone here, in varying degrees and for varying reasons, seems to detest Hall Road. I think this is very telling. The M-59 corridor has to be just about the worst planning ever - exurban, big boxes, all lined down miles and miles of a high speed freeway. No sidewalks, no walkability from the residential, which are all likewise big box subdivisions.
I mean, who here thinks that is a good idea? How many people outside of the current generation of people already living there will want to live in such a place when those people move on, retire, or die? Especially since most of those came from the relative auto boom years of the 1990's. The auto companies are doing well but will never employ here at 1999 levels again. When those people retire there will be no jobs outside of Best Buy and the like, the vast majority of which you can't afford to live on.
The vulgar ugliness and impracticality of M-59 are almost as bad as the fact that there were people STUPID ENOUGH who allowed such poor development to happen in the first place, nay, encouraged it. Plenty of reasons to leave Metro Detroit.
The irony here is that M-59 should have had the freeway continued from Mound Rd. on thru to I-94. That way all the folks who are only passing thru would not be comingling with the local retail traffic. But there is such an anti-freeway mindset on this forum, that had that happened, even then people would be complaining. I'm not sure having 3 lanes of service drive to handle local traffic would have been the best solution... but what is there right now is a "bumper car ride" roadway.
And your retiree comment argument can be made for practically any location city suburban, exurban. My brother lives 1/2 mile from that stretch of M-59. His recently married son lives 2 miles from that roadway... so I would venture that we're talking about more than 1 generation of folks that want to live along this roadway already. So the demise of this area is so far into the future, that other areas will have failed long before this one does.
Lakeside Mall is the primary mall that my family goes to. Oakland and Macomb are closer, but we've had less than desirable experiences there.
My wife forgot to lock her car at Oakland Mall[[shame on her), and someone was nice enough to go through the entire car looking for valuables but didn't find anything to their liking.
I can tell you the mall is still alive in well, with some store turnover, but a vast majority of the space is filled.
We go to Partidge Creek sometimes too, but we only do it when it's really nice outside. We've never gone there in the winter.
Partridge Creek allows dogs and I was constantly watching where I walked because of dog poop. There was a Judge Judy case involving a couple who brought their dog into a restaurant and the woman was feeding the dog from a plate.
At least one statement I read suggests that the area would be fine because the entire M-59/Hall Road corridor is homogenous, everyone hates Detroit, refuses to go to Detroit, refuses to work in Detroit, and everyone is exceedingly wealthy.
EDIT: ...and apparently that post, and Gistok's terrific reply, is gone.
Wow.....when did this place go up?
Brick & mortar malls will continue to fail & be a long lost memory.....e-Business on the internet will continue to dominate with a significant lower cost model & consumer variety!
Fuel at $5.00/gal will only accelerate the failures.....
The last census saw growth in the area being discussed, but of course everyone who thinks that mass transit is kinda down the list of "front burner" issues in this region is an idiot, according to some here. Anyone who thinks that there is actually growing diversity in the suburbs of this regions is an idiot. And, of course, to think that an issue like economic diversity is more front burner than "the problem" of having two malls in a relatively densly [[by almost any standard) populated area 20 miles outside of the City, is, somewhat predictably, considered idiocy. To some here. Repeatedly.
People still want to shop at these malls, they are not going anywhere any time soon, just like going to the movies, going to the mall is a experience, it give people something to do. How much fun is it to never leave your home and just buy shit on-line, people need to get out. No wonder all these kids are so over weight, they trade playing basketball outside to playing basketball on ps3.
Lakeside's response to Partridge Creek opening up: putting in brick pavers and new decorative lamp posts. The only thing Lakeside has going for it is it caters to less affluent people with cheaper stores then Partridge Creek. I used to live in the "burbs" and Lakeside was only about 15 minutes south. It used to be a nice mall. Lots of stores, easy access. Now I won't set foot in that mall. The clientele that hangs out at that mall makes me keep my wallet in my breast coat pocket. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but there are some real low lifes that hang out there. And anyone who's lived out in Macomb/Shelby will tell you we avoid Hall Rd like the plague. It doesn't matter what time of day it is, the traffic is unfathomable and unavoidable. I've been to the Partridge Creek mall twice. It's nice, but most of the people there are pretentious assholes who think that because they live in Macomb Twp and drive Range Rovers they are the king shit of everything. The same could be said for Sommerset, but at least it's big and you can find anything there.
Partridge creek is very nice and I can take my dog there, so it gets my vote and yes hall rd is always busy, and no I don't think my shit doesn't stink, cuz I drive a land rover and live in Shelby.
"The last census saw growth in the area being discussed, but of course everyone who thinks that mass transit is kinda down the list of "front burner" issues in this region is an idiot, according to some here. Anyone who thinks that there is actually growing diversity in the suburbs of this regions is an idiot. And, of course, to think that an issue like economic diversity is more front burner than "the problem" of having two malls in a relatively densly [[by almost any standard) populated area 20 miles outside of the City, is, somewhat predictably, considered idiocy. To some here. Repeatedly."
Thanks! I knew someone as so clearly intelligent as you wouldn't even have the capacity to cherry-pick a couple of words out of context and pretend to post them as truth, just to pretend to be clever!
This is a very interesting post. Specifically, the class and monetary divide as suggested 2 miles apart E-W on Hall Road/20 Mile. I'm not arguing ot agreeing with the point you made, either. The irony to some must be mind boggling, as apparently many would consider this area to be suburban Port Huron/Sarnia.
Wow. You know there are things to do outside the house besides buy things?
That mess aside, I don't know why any of you seem to think there is going to be some thousand year Macomb Township Reich and that these malls "aren't going anywhere." Correct, they're not going away tomorrow, or five years from now, or ten years from now. The pattern of migration and abandonment in Metro Detroit is about 50 years. Neighborhoods in Detroit that were annexed as farmland within 50 years had not only been completely developed but were already emptied out from white flight.
Now look at the inner ring burbs [[and their malls.) Lord knows 50 years ago south Warren and Eastland Malls were the Macomb Townships and Partridge Creeks of their days. What shitholes they are now! While the inner ring burbs are certainly not as divested as Detroit [[or likely ever will be) they're looking pretty shitty these days, and their malls especially [[the ones that are still open). Could you even imagine what the area around Hall Road will look like in 50 years? Again, I'm not saying it's going to be Brightmooresque, but you have the additional problem of everything being a big box or the mall. You can't repurpose it for anything but another big box [[so it sits empty) and you're left with a closed mall. With all that shoddy construction, I doubt those houses or that mall can even be PHYSICALLY sustained that long. When are we going to think in the long term here? And I said transit one damn time so get over it.
Funny how everyone is trying to talk poorly of the malls on Hall Rd, and just Hall Rd in general, yet business is booming up and down M-59.
Yes, but don't you understand? THOSE people [[and there progeny) who moved out of Detroit , oh 30 to 40 yrs ago, don't deserve to be prosperous. They should be punished for exercising their right to live where they like because where they like isn't Detroit. So, close your eyes, click you heels three times, say "There's no place like the D" and all the businesses on Hall Rd and environs will be obliterated along with the hopes, dreams and McMansions of all those deserters.
I don't think anyone ever said that. All I've seen on this forum is people asking the State of Michigan and local governments to stop building new freeways, utilities, schools, and safety services in the orchards while the infrastructure needs of the City of Detroit and inner-ring suburbs go neglected.
If these malls were on Woodward a mile apart, this thread never would have been started. No matter how bad the traffic was, it would be seen as a blessing and deserved. Because it's in the suburbs, it's neither. It's somehow wrong that they even exist and that they are patronized quite generously.
I think the same people would still be complaining for the same reasons, maybe even more loudly if the malls were in Detroit. Hall Rd was not dictated by market forces. Instead, it was dictated by private developers who were in cahoots with the latest Maybury that wanted to be the premier retail destination. This is no different than Livonia 50 years ago or Southfield 40 years ago or Troy 30 years ago or Novi 20 years ago or Canton 10 years ago.
Well, you're most welcome, but I don't recall ever having played with you.
Lakeside Mall will survive. I have been there over the weekend and still bustling with people. The mall still has the advantage during rainy and stormy days and has a excellent Food Court and traditional storefronts. Lord and Taylor is still in business and is two separate Macy's stores.
And here's a list of some other area malls and their lifespans according to poobert's math:
Northland: 1954-2004 [[would be dead today)
Eastland: 1957-2007 [[would be dead today)
Wonderland: 1959-2009 [[already died, though in 2005)
Summit Place: 1962-2012 [[would be dead this year)
Macomb: 1964-2014 [[two years left)
Universal: 1964-2014 [[two years left)
Livonia: 1964-2014 [[already died, though in 2009)
Westland: 1965-2015 [[three years left)
Tel-Twelve: 1968-2018 [[already died)
Oakland: 1968-2018 [[six years left)
Somerset Collection: South 1969-2019; north 1996-2046 [[South has seven years left; north has 34 years left)
Southland: 1970-2020 [[eight years left)
Briarwood: 1973-2023 [[11 years left)
Fairlane: 1976-2026 [[14 years left)
Twelve Oaks: 1977-2027 [[15 years left)
Horizon Outlet Center, Monroe: 1987-2037 [[25 years left)
Laurel Park Place: 1989-2039 [[27 years left)
Birchwood: 1990-2040 [[28 years left)
Kensington Valley Factory Shops: 1996-2046 [[34 years left)
Great Lakes Crossing: 1998-2048 [[36 years left)
What would you think?
It will survive until they finally put a mall in the vicinity of 26 and Mound/Van Dyke area like has been bandied about for years. All the Washington/Romeo/Macomb Twp/Shelby Twp residents will abandon Lakeside rather quickly I'd expect. There was a mass exodus it seemed to The Village in Rochester when that opened back when I was in high school. But I will agree it does have the bad weather appeal that a open air mall can't compete with.
26 and Mound is pretty close to the Stony Creek entrance, so I don't see a mall there; 26 and Van Dyke already has a Target, Meijer, Home Depot, Kohls, and assorted other stores, but I don't see the same stores on Hall Rd or in Rochester/Rochester Hills suffering over much. They have talked about putting a Wal Mart and a mall up at 32 and Van Dyke, in Romeo, for a number of years now, but I haven't seen any action in that respect and I lived near there for 36 yrs, up to last week. It seems a little close to the 23 and Van Dyke Walmart, but I'm sure it will be supported adequately as is the one on 23 and the one on Mound and 59. There is more than enough shopping traffic in that area to support a lot of stuff. Don't forget that there is very little retail past the 26 and Van Dyke area up until you get to Lapeer or Port Huron. Those people need to shop too. Most of those little towns don't have much more that a grocery store, a drug store and a plethora of gas stations and bars. Almont even lacks the grocer.
Horizon in Monroe isn't doing so hot.
Stromberg2
You're right, my math was way off, not an absolute formula. Look at the first 8 or so malls though, and their environs. Not doing so hot, eh? I'm not saying abolish malls and the suburbs. Do any of you really think we need that many goddamn malls? Even I was astounded by the length of that list. And that doesn't count big box stores and strip malls. Most of those malls were built after Metro Detroit stopped growing in the 1970's. So we needed ten more malls, and to pave G-d knows how many acres of orchards and farmland for subdivisions for no more population? Again - live where you want, but can't our government be smarter about our development?
Lakeside Mall is a good place to go and so is Partridge Creek. If you don't like Hall Rd, Schoenher and Hayes are very good alternatives for Lakeside and Garfield Rd is a good alternative for Partridge Creek. Both Malls will survive for a long time. What's more disturbing to me right now is that Detroit does things so fucked up that we can't even get a Meijers.
I suppose the specious argument is that the government built the infrastructure to allow this to happen in a never-ending froth and fervor driven desire to move everything out of Detroit. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out here, and as you and New York clearly know, Hall Road's expansion was built out of demand...people were already moving out there in droves. Yes, developers came to these "wanna-be Mayberry's" because that is where the people and money were and were moving to. So, to say that Hall Rd. was not dictated by market forces is fairly eyeball-gougingly confounding, unless one is to argue that NOTHING that exists today is dictated by market forces because EVERYTHING, it seems, is in one way or another, a direct or indirect product of a subsidy [[we can look at the current "demand" in Downtown Detroit, for example, if we are going to "go there.")
So, how many people lived in the Hall Road area before the road was widened into a highway, public utilities constructed, and schools, fire, and police protection provided?
In other words--were PEOPLE clamoring to live in the Hall Road area, or were the DEVELOPERS clamoring to pave over the orchards? I ask this, because people generally don't "demand" to live in open fields with no roads, water, sewer, electricity, schools, or fire and police protection.
Show me where I said anything about Hall Road competing directly with Detroit? I doubt any of the stores along Hall Rd have ever had a location in Detroit, especially if the company is less than 30 years old. What I am saying is that Hall Rd was not driven by market demand... Or at least market demand for more retail in Metropolitan Detroit. Every new business along Hall Rd is coming at the expensive of some inner ring suburb that was the Hall Rd of the 1980s or 1990s.
I don't agree. Why else would developers build there if there was no demand for products and services?
Hall Road has been planned out for a while by the State. It's had a huge ROW, and I would imagine one day they may consider extending the M-59 freeway out to I-94.
The state's growing population [[back in the day), white flight, and people wanting more space have driven all this.
I currently live near 10\Mound, and this has all effected the area I live in. Universal Mall is dead, and the next two closest malls I don't go to because they're too trashy.
I too have plans to move further out, to probably Royal Oak\Clawson\Troy, but I don't ever want to live near M-59, that's too far away from my job in Detroit.
Well, developers are in the business of building and if they aren't building then they aren't making money. In a region with no population growth this means that much of the development is zero-sum: each new development comes at the expense of an older development.
Because your politicians work in the favor of deep pocketed developers.
Well, you just confirmed my point.
Where people wish to live and where developers wish to develop usually go hand in hand. As to the infrastructure part, it would be disingenuous not to admit that there are definitely chicken/egg elements, but I would suggest that is fairly universal, and could just as easily be applied to anything. To suggest that there wasn't demand would be in error.
We can do the Hudon's-Marshall Fields-Macy's thing, and pretty much all of the type of retail that was once in Detroit, even if the names change. But, yes, as it relates specifically to Hall Rd, you are probably talking more about shifting from the inner-rings as opposed to city proper. My comment was more in response to some of the now-missing venom that was spewed earlier in the thread. For what it is worth, I shouldn't have lumped you in.
Anyway, I guess it would depend on how you define market demand for more retail. As the market changes, so does the demand, so whether the demand merely shifted from one location to another [[true), or whether overall growth of the region led to the demand [[not true), it was demand nonetheless.
You might also add...
Bloomfield Park [[died in the womb 2009)
http://detroityes.com/webisodes/2010...mmit-Thumb.jpg
It was definitely the people that came first, and the developers came in and filled the retail shortage.
Areas like Shelby and Macomb have been heavily developed for decades now. The GM Tech Center's massive postwar expansion fueled growth up Van Dyke past Utica.
Prior to Lakeside, there was basically no shopping for these folks. And, until Hall Road was expanded, all these folks had to travel to Oakland or South Macomb to get anything beyond Kmart/Meijer [[the old school, smaller ones).
Hall Road, while hideous, is a great location in real estate terms, and has been fabulously successful. Practically every chain in existence has a location.
I don't have the time to research it in detail right now but I'm very skeptical that Metro Detroit's pattern of development has been residential development before retail. I know for sure that this wasn't originally the case since Northland and the other -land malls were all built on farm land.
Which naturally leads to two questions:
1. When was the last time a developer asked you what you wanted? [[I think it's funny how suburbanites across America "want" to shop at the same stores, eat at the same restaurants, and have all their buildings look the same. It must be because Applebee's is just so gosh darn delicious!).
2. Why do people in Southeast Michigan "want" to live near Hall Road, while in other metropolitan areas, housing values are higher closer to the core, thus indicating a "want" to live in the core?
Are you attributing this phenomenon soley to geographic and cultural differences?
I know that you believe what you think is fact, but the empirical evidence shows otherwise. None of that tacky plastic crap on Hall Road would have been constructed without enormous inflows of infrastructure cash from state and local governments.
But hey, "market demand" is an easier sell because you can explain everything by attributing it to some mystical force that runs the universe, and don't have to bother with actual investigation, facts, or nuance.
"It is demonstrable that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the foot is formed for the accelerator, therefore we drive cars."
--Dr. Pangloss
This point is generally untrue. There are a few exceptions, like NYC, or San Francisco, but usually it's cities with a very unique built environments and highly concentrated and specialized set of employment bases.
Generally speaking, U.S. wealth is concentrated in suburbs. Not necessarily on the periphery, but definitely in the suburbs.
Hall Rd., BTW, never struck me as a particularly wealthy area. Isn't it basically middle-middle class, like most of Macomb? Prices are certainly much cheaper compared to equivalent homes across the Oakland County line.
Hall Rd is very centrally located when you look at it. You're within a few minutes from Van Dyke, Gratiot, I-94, I-75, Lakeside Mall, Oakland Mall, Partridge Creek, M-53, Great Lakes Crossing, Selfridge Base, Dave & Busters, several mutliplex theaters, a large number of parks, a lot of restaurants, Cj Barrymores and several airports.
Add all of that to the fact that propoerty taxes in Macomb County are the lowest among the big three counties and the price of a comparable home in Macomb County is a lot lower than a comparable home in Oakland County. And you have a pretty good reason to live close by. Michigan is a good state to live in with a lot great areas. As a Detroiter, I'm a lot more interested in trying to build my City up than tear other cities down.
1. Naturally, you've read miles into things to fill your appetite for sarcasm, snarkiness, and basic disdain for everything here.
2. Your empirical evidence is always you, GP, as is your investigation, facts, and nuance. Pardon me for not blindly leading myself to your wonderful world of urban utopia and hatred of all else.
In 1950 there were more than 1,000,000 people living outside the City of Detroit in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties. Are you trying to make us believe they were all living in farmhouses and sending their children to one-room schoolhouses?
25 years later, where did their children live when they got married? Unlike previous generations, they didn't want to live in a multi-generational household with mom, dad and grandma. Therefore they looked outside their parents' neighborhood for a place of their own to live in and developers accommodated the demand they created by building nearby apartments, homes and businesses, including retail. Since then, even as the total population growth rate in southeast Michigan went to zero, average household size continued to decrease, which also contributed to new housing demand. Middle class flight from the city of Detroit has been only one of many reasons for post-war suburban growth.
Absolutely right, and adding to the suburban growth has been consumer demand for larger homes on larger lots, a trend that only hit a recent speed bump due to the economy.
The average new house in 1950 was 983 sqft, in 2007 it was 2521 sqft. Many had 9' ceilings and 3 car garages. They weren't going to be building these larger houses on the traditional 35' x 100' city lot. The suburbs, with open land, were where people and developers were looking to build a home.
Add in lower household size and lack of attractiveness of living in the city for most people and you get the growth pattern we see now.
This is it, in a nutshell.
There has been plenty of historical demand for new housing, even in the face of population stagnation, because A. Household sizes have declined, meaning there are more households, and B. The existing housing typologies and locations are undesirable.
Detroit didn't empty out because they built homes in Macomb Township. If you were to block new housing on the periphery, you would probably just send housing demand to the super-periphery, or out-of-state.
Your typical middle class couple would never consider Detroit or even a declining inner ring bungalow suburb.
That's kind of you to be so optimistic, but your description just makes it sounds so good that I feel I need to pick up the pace on my plans to move to Chicago.
Sorry, Snyder, I love Detroit but I'm not interested in sticking around much longer with the way things are going, and I sure as HELL don't want to live near anything like Hall Road, like virtually everyone I know and of my generation [[I don't give a shit that somebody here knows somebody who has a kid who moved to 19 mile). You old timers can grow even older here together and figure out how to pay for all this garbage yourselves, since you love it all so much, and wonder why your grandkids would leave such a paradise and scatter to four corners of the earth. Cheers!
And if you take a good look at what you're saying. You'll realize that you're moving to Chicago for Chicago. Which is all the difference right now. No one is comparing Michigan with Illinois, Indiana or Ohio. They're comparing Detroit with Chicago, Indianapolis or Columbus. That's why a strong Detroit is necessary. Hence my desire to build it up. And not liking Hall Rd does nothing to accomplish that. Helping to keep my street clean, safe and well lit while supporting the businesses there will. Good luck to you in Chicago, it's a helluva city.
I've lived most of my life outside the state, and a few years of my life outside the nation. First generation American and non-native Detroiter.
If you find fault with my statements, then challenge them, but juvenile and irrelevent personal attacks are a waste of everyone's time.
Chicago lost 6.9% of its population in the last decade. It grew in the 1990's. Detroit lost 25% of its population in the last decade!
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in...ecline_do.html
This dude seems to grasp what at least half the people here adamantly refuse to admit even exists:
"The problem with the “things like this happen all the time in Chicago argument” is – while Detroit and Chicago may share many of the same negatives – Detroit lacks Chicago’s positive quality of life attributes. If Detroit could match Chicago for downtown vibrancy, economic and ethnic diversity, fully-formed mass transit, and walkability then we wouldn’t waste time comparing population losses."
At any given place in Metro Detroit, only one of those attributes may apply [[except little old Hamtramck being both diverse and walkable, heh) - and in most places in the Metro none of those factors apply at all - ahem, that'll be my Hall Road/Lakeside tie in to keep the thread on topic! Of course, according to many people here, none of that shit really matters. Glad there are people like kraig around...I'm also going to keep on keepin' up the good old neighborhood I live in until I leave the state. I just can't do this forever.
Like I said, Chicago has the second worst population loss in the nation.
Chicago lost over 200,000 residents, or 7% its population, over the last decade.
And, if you look at the annualized data, the decline has accelerated in the last few years, so basically 1% population loss annualized.
Chicago has basically had non-stop population loss since about 1950. The 1990-2000 decennial data is useless for all cities, because Census changed the methodology [[they used assumed homeless and other nonrespondents, which had never been done before).
So, if you're asking if Chicago is doing relatively well compared to Detroit, the answer is obviously yes. Compared to anywhere else, pretty much no.
I think it's telling that almost every defense of Hall Road posted in this thread has included a disclaimer to this effect. Why do we as a society accept the fact that new retail districts are built in a way that almost nobody likes? If people up in Macomb County demand retail, fine, great, give it to them. But jeezus, build it in a way that doesn't give people migraines every time they go near it.
Well, given the fact that most of those million+plus people lived in suburban residential areas within a 15 mile radius of Northland when it was built [[not to mention the other million living in Detroit within the same radius), how can you remain "very skeptical that Metro Detroit's pattern of development has been residential development before retail"?
The pattern of development in Detroit and it's outlying areas has always been that large scale retail development follows residential disposable income. This is true here and throughout the USA. Try getting a loan or investment capital to build a new shopping center without having a business plan that provides sufficient evidence that the surrounding area has enough disposable income to support the new retail.