WSU to build $93 million biotech hub

[nain rouge]

It is interesting how people like Dan Gilbert and institutions like Wayne State are all over stuff like the M-1 Rail, but then lead the charge for parking garages and ill-placed surface lots. It seems like the community leaders need to get together and decide what they really want: a more urban Detroit, or a more suburban Detroit. Because with the new M-1 Rail, you'd think you'd want as new developments facing Woodward whenever possible. People are moving into these neighborhoods because they want an urban experience, but developers seem to drag their feet on meeting the change in market demand because their neighbor Joe in Bevery Hills is worried about where he'll park.

[Detroitnerd]

It is interesting how people like Dan Gilbert and institutions like Wayne State are all over stuff like the M-1 Rail, but then lead the charge for parking garages and ill-placed surface lots. It seems like the community leaders need to get together and decide what they really want: a more urban Detroit, or a more suburban Detroit. Because with the new M-1 Rail, you'd think you'd want as new developments facing Woodward whenever possible. People are moving into these neighborhoods because they want an urban experience, but developers seem to drag their feet on meeting the change in market demand because their neighbor Joe in Bevery Hills is worried about where he'll park.

Well, you get the kind of design talent that you fund. Governments and businesses exclusively fund buildings with curb cuts and parking in front, and that's the design mentality you get.

And when contractors work out in greenfields, they can't even figure out how to shoehorn a construction site into a block. They'll ask you to rip down a building for a mere "staging area."

When governments do things to change the skill set, that is when the skill set changes. It can be passive, like making rules on historic districts, so smaller companies get bids for refurbishing and renovating and prosper and grow. Or it can be active, like subsidizing major projects to grow that particular set of skills.

We subsidize demolition and new, suburban-style construction almost exclusively. And that's what we get.

You can't blame somebody who builds parking lots and big boxes on greenfields for not knowing any other way to approach a project. They don't know it and haven't seen it and nobody funds it.