Why do so many houses end up abandoned?

[Canadian Visitor]

Why do so many houses end up abandoned?

So I have a couple of ideas on the above question.....

But as I've never seen abandonment on any scale here, or on a similar scale in the U.S., that I can personally recall, I was curious about why and how it happens [[has happened) to the degree that it does?

So to share one supposition, its my understanding that under U.S. law one can abandon a mortgaged property to the lender and then just walk away from the mortgage, is that right?

I know you can't do that under Canadian law, where if you default, and the bank sells your home for less than you owe, you still owe the bank the difference [[the debt is not discharged by merely surrendering the property).

I would imagine, if I've got that right, that this accounts for some difference in 'abandonment' levels.

Though I would wonder why a lender ending up w/such a home wouldn't sell it to someone as a going concern.

Beyond that, however, I still find it difficult to fathom.

I assume, that many abandoned home did not in fact have mortgages on them.

So even if one couldn't afford to pay the routine bills, or just wanted to move; even if the home was low in value, I'd assume you'd want a clean sale to get whatever money you could out of it.

I would equally assume any buyer would either fix-up or demolish rather than just watch a property rot, and value erode.

***

I can think of only one other Canada/US difference that might bear on this, which is that Canada's cities tend to more....hmmmm, invasive about property standards management. ie. [[many Canadian cities will not let your lawn get overgrown, they will warn you once, then mow it for you at 10x market price; don't pay and they add it to your property tax bill, don't pay that, and lose your home).

This sort of intervention would likely diminish any 'abandonment' value.

However, even if that makes some small difference; I wouldn't expect it to account for the scale of abandonment in the Detroit area.

Thoughts?

[Packman41]

Yes, you are correct - in the USA the borrower is NOT personally liable for the mortgaged amount. So if the value of the collateral falls below the amount of the mortgage, then the lender cannot require the borrower to pay the deficiency amount.

In effect the mortgage is a "put" by the borrower, they do not have to come out of pocket to make the lender whole. So there is more of an incentive for borrowers to walk away/abandon a home than there is in Canada.

However IIRC, up until a few years ago the USA tax law required lenders send a 1099 form to the borrower for the dollar amount of the debt forgiven. That amount was considered taxable income and a federal tax had to be paid But. during our housing crash, the politicians decided that taxing the debt forgiven was too painful for the borrower "victim" and did away with that. Thus, the borrower now had more incentive to walk away. That tax loophole MAY have been closed by now - I don't know. But, IMHO that helped in the abandonment of many neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, in Canada you did not have a crash, neither did you have government entity such as our FNMA or GNMA buying up billions of home mortgages.

[DetroitPlanner]

Packman has explained one of the federal policies.

At the State and Local level the property that is abandoned reverts to the local County as a way to help re-coup loss of income taxes. This of course does not help as most properties that are abandoned have very little value left.

Most people here have very little incentive to keep a home if they are underwater in it. At best they will need to wait several years before they could apply for another mortgage, but many of these homes are owned by slumlords or speculators anyways who could care less or paid cash.

[professorscott]

So to share one supposition, its my understanding that under U.S. law one can abandon a mortgaged property to the lender and then just walk away from the mortgage, is that right?

This is not correct. Under U.S. law, people who walk away from homes continue to owe the lender and can be sued. There are ways around this, such as bankruptcy or a negotiated waiver of rights [[sometimes referred to as "cash for keys"). But it is simply false to say that an American borrower can just abandon the house and the debt magically goes away.

Though I would wonder why a lender ending up w/such a home wouldn't sell it to someone as a going concern.

If the homes were marketable for any kind of reasonable price, this whole problem would barely exist. All over metro Detroit you have people who bought homes during the late-1990s to mid-2000s bubble, so let's say you bought a house for $250,000 and now you'd be lucky to get $160,000 for it. If you're planning to walk away, you probably also are letting the property go to ruin, so now perhaps $100,000 to $120,000.

I assume, that many abandoned home did not in fact have mortgages on them.

I have no data about this, but I doubt it's common. Many homes in Detroit were rentals, and many of the owners mortgaged the houses to the hilt when they could. The only reason somebody would abandon a home owned freely was that there was just no other way to dispose of it. For instance, you live in a very low-value area, where houses routinely sit on the market for months priced at $10,000 or less, and then you get a job in Atlanta. It's hardly worth the trouble to try to deal with selling such a house from afar; much easier to just lock it up, say a prayer and leave.

People find this hard to understand but what we have to bear in mind is that in much of Detroit, vacant land has negative value.

I can think of only one other Canada/US difference that might bear on this, which is that Canada's cities tend to more....hmmmm, invasive about property standards management. ie. [[many Canadian cities will not let your lawn get overgrown, they will warn you once, then mow it for you at 10x market price; don't pay and they add it to your property tax bill, don't pay that, and lose your home).

Detroit has got laws like this but how can they enforce them? Detroit already owns tens of thousands of parcels of land that they don't want and can't figure out what to do with. Wayne County, likewise. So that is somewhat of an empty threat, and everybody knows it, and many behave accordingly.

Detroit's abandonment is based on decades of catastrophic governance. When you fly over Detroit, you can clearly see the Detroit-Dearborn border from the air, even though the actual boundary is merely a line on a map. I have never seen anything like it anywhere else without an intervening war [[Dresden in the mid 1940s, for example).

[Dan Wesson]

The sad fact is no one really owns their property. If you want to find out who owns your property, do not pay your property tax for a few years.

What an incentive!

There's more disincentives out there at work too!

[BankruptcyGuy]

Detroit was also [[unfortunately) ground zero for mortgage fraud in the United States. I saw dozens of situations where a property was worth $10,000 in 2000, got a $70,000 fraudulent appraisal in 2006, was foreclosed upon, is only worth $10,000, was stripped of all the copper wiring and piping, and now is worthless. The Borrower is on the hook for the deficiency, but they are generally nowhere to be found.

When the value of unimproved land is less than the cost to demolish the structure on the land, you'll have a situation where nobody [[owner, lender) will get their money back from completing a demolition. Since lots in Detroit are everywhere and, in some but not all areas, there isn't much demand, the value imbalance I described exists and leads to abandoned houses.

[EastsideAl]

The foreclosure crisis was definitely a huge blow [[as was mortgage fraud), but most Detroit properties became abandoned simply because there was no value left in them. Homeowners who couldn't sell their homes at any price, and landlords who couldn't charge tenants enough [[if there were interested tenants at all) to cover their expenses, often simply found it in their best interests to walk away.

This became a cycle as more homes were abandoned, further depressing property values, and making neighborhoods increasingly unsightly and unsafe. Neighborhoods became emptier, and increasingly dominated by drug sales and crime [[and the drug sellers very often operate from the abandoned homes). So, people understandably wanted to leave these neighborhoods, and, finding their homes valueless on blocks full of already abandoned houses, just closed the doors and left. The houses were then often quickly stripped for the only thing that was of value, their fixtures [[plumbing, wiring, etc.), leaving them even more valueless than before, and effectively ending any hope of ever reusing them.

There are a few other factors too. One of which is that the city tacitly encouraged abandonment in many neighborhoods [[or, at the very least, did absolutely nothing to combat it). Going back to the Young administration there has been a move by the city to "bank" land in certain sections of the city in the service of "future development". As soon as an area began to suffer large-scale abandonment, the city saw it as possibly "bankable" land. Having owners just abandon and walk away from property, and leave it to be taken by the city for taxes, etc. is a whole lot cheaper way to do this than eminent domain.

[Hermod]

Yes, you are correct - in the USA the borrower is NOT personally liable for the mortgaged amount. So if the value of the collateral falls below the amount of the mortgage, then the lender cannot require the borrower to pay the deficiency amount.

That varies from state to state. In a "non-recourse" state, the foreclosure on the security clears the borrower.

In some states, the borrower is personally liable for the deficiency [[assuming he has anything for the bank to pursue).

[mwilbert]

This is not correct. Under U.S. law, people who walk away from homes continue to owe the lender and can be sued. There are ways around this, such as bankruptcy or a negotiated waiver of rights [[sometimes referred to as "cash for keys"). But it is simply false to say that an American borrower can just abandon the house and the debt magically goes away.

This depends upon state law. Most states, including Michigan, are what are called "recourse" states, where the lender has recourse to pursue the borrower if they abandon a property and stop paying their mortgage. However there are a number of states, including California, where if the borrower stops paying all the lender can do is take back the property, and has no recourse to the buyer, hence they are called "non-recourse" states.

However as far as I can tell, even in recourse states most of the time lenders don't pursue the borrowers because there isn't much to recover.

[Detroitnerd]

Just to open up the aperture of this discussion a bit ...

"geography, local government structure, and social forces created a housing development system that produced sprawl at the fringe and abandonment at the core."

http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15027.html

[davewindsor]

So to share one supposition, its my understanding that under U.S. law one can abandon a mortgaged property to the lender and then just walk away from the mortgage, is that right?

I know you can't do that under Canadian law, where if you default, and the bank sells your home for less than you owe, you still owe the bank the difference [[the debt is not discharged by merely surrendering the property).

I would imagine, if I've got that right, that this accounts for some difference in 'abandonment' levels.

I think you misunderstand what's going on in Canada. In Canada if you miss your bank payment, the bank can elect to proceed by either Power of Sale or Foreclosure. Power of Sale is like a Short Sale in the US--having a realtor sell the property for less than the debt without the bank having title. On the other hand, in a foreclosure, the bank gets title to the property for the mortgage. If the bank gets title to the property by foreclosure in Canada, the bank cannot come after the former homeowner for the difference if they sell the property for less than the mortgage. They can only do that in a power of sale.

In Canada, foreclosures are very rare as Ontario's mortgage laws are bent to make foreclosures a very costly legal process vs power of sales where the legal cost to process it is a lot less and much quicker. If you lose the house by power of sale, the bank can come after you. But, then you can just file for bankruptcy and that's the end of it.

As P.Scott noted, in the US the bank can come after you for the difference, so the mortgage laws on the bank recalling their mortgage when a payment is missed sound exactly the same in Michigan vs. Ontario.

So that can't be the answer.

I can think of only one other Canada/US difference that might bear on this, which is that Canada's cities tend to more....hmmmm, invasive about property standards management. ie. [[many Canadian cities will not let your lawn get overgrown, they will warn you once, then mow it for you at 10x market price; don't pay and they add it to your property tax bill, don't pay that, and lose your home).

Nope, the laws are the same in Detroit, but there's no money for the city to front the lawn mowing as a lot of properties end up going on tax sale with that municipal debt getting wiped out.

Thoughts?

Yes, the mess in Detroit is due to several reasons: 1) Rampant crime in the city vs. the suburbs due to underfunded policing; 2) Lots of bureaucratic red tape and municipal corruption; 3) City level income taxes introduced in the 1960s by Mayor Cavanaugh vs. no city level income taxes in the suburbs. If you're a high income earner, why live in the city instead of Troy or some other suburb without it? And, 4) the continued hostility towards regional amalgamation of metro Detroit to balance out the costs of managing the poor citizens of the city doesn't help much either.

Just look at the amalgamated Super city of Los Angeles which rules over 503 square miles vs the City of Detroit, which is 142 square miles. If the cities of Oakland county and the other suburbs of metro Detroit and the City of Detroit were all ruled by one big super city of Detroit just like the Super city of Los Angeles, there would be better equalization of city services and Detroit proper would look a lot nicer. I guess that would be up to Governor Snyder to step in and force an amalgamation, which is a pipe dream as voters in the suburbs would be very unhappy with that.

[EastsideAl]

If the cities of Oakland county and the other suburbs of metro Detroit and the City of Detroit were all ruled by one big super city of Detroit just like the Super city of Los Angeles, there would be better equalization of city services and Detroit proper would look a lot nicer. I guess that would be up to Governor Snyder to step in and force an amalgamation, which is a pipe dream as voters in the suburbs would be very unhappy with that.

That's a very nice summing up post. But this last point is impossible. Beyond being obviously a pipe dream given the politics of the situation, Michigan, like the majority of U.S. states, is what is known as a "home rule state" and the governor or the state government do not have the power to force any amalgamation, consolidation, or annexation of municipalities. That can only happen through a majority vote of the voters of each of the municipalities involved.

In any event, Detroit and Los Angeles grew historically into such large cities through almost exactly the same process - annexation of nearby rural land and smaller villages in the early decades of the 20th century. The way the cities got the citizens of those areas to agree to annexation was to promote the provision of city services - particularly water [[ever see the movie Chinatown?). There comes a point though when, for a number of reasons, annexation and consolidation stop. For Detroit it was in 1926. In L.A. major annexations ended a few years later, around 1932. Most major American cities have a similar history, and some are still growing this way today, but Detroit and L.A. were arguably the 2 major boom towns of the 20th century in the U.S., and thus have surprisingly similar histories.

[Hermod]

Just look at the amalgamated Super city of Los Angeles which rules over 503 square miles vs the City of Detroit, which is 142 square miles. If the cities of Oakland county and the other suburbs of metro Detroit and the City of Detroit were all ruled by one big super city of Detroit just like the Super city of Los Angeles, there would be better equalization of city services and Detroit proper would look a lot nicer. I guess that would be up to Governor Snyder to step in and force an amalgamation, which is a pipe dream as voters in the suburbs would be very unhappy with that.

Dave, the voters in Detroit would never approve this because the Detroit clownsil members would just be insignificant back benchers in the mega-city legislative body and no Detroiters would ever be elected mayor. Even if the voters did approve, the politicians could stall it indefinitely with the fed civil rights folks because it diluted minority voting power.

[Detroitnerd]

Dave, the voters in Detroit would never approve this because the Detroit clownsil members would just be insignificant back benchers in the mega-city legislative body and no Detroiters would ever be elected mayor. Even if the voters did approve, the politicians could stall it indefinitely with the fed civil rights folks because it diluted minority voting power.

Just say it, Hermod. "Metropolitan Detroit will never exist as a political entity because of people like me. And I say that with great pride."

[Canadian Visitor]

I think you misunderstand what's going on in Canada. In Canada if you miss your bank payment, the bank can elect to proceed by either Power of Sale or Foreclosure. Power of Sale is like a Short Sale in the US--having a realtor sell the property for less than the debt without the bank having title. On the other hand, in a foreclosure, the bank gets title to the property for the mortgage. If the bank gets title to the property by foreclosure in Canada, the bank cannot come after the former homeowner for the difference if they sell the property for less than the mortgage. They can only do that in a power of sale.

In Canada, foreclosures are very rare as Ontario's mortgage laws are bent to make foreclosures a very costly legal process vs power of sales where the legal cost to process it is a lot less and much quicker. If you lose the house by power of sale, the bank can come after you. But, then you can just file for bankruptcy and that's the end of it.

As P.Scott noted, in the US the bank can come after you for the difference, so the mortgage laws on the bank recalling their mortgage when a payment is missed sound exactly the same in Michigan vs. Ontario.

So that can't be the answer.

Hmmm,

I'm not an expert, and stand corrected; but I was always under the impression that it was easier for a Canadian bank to make a debtor's life hell than it was for a U.S. one.........after a quick scan online, I stumbled on former MP's [[member of parliament) Garth Turner who summed up the differences thusly:

US lenders have a weaker covenant than in Canada. If you welch on a mortgage, the bank must elect to chase you, or simply to take the house. In all but a few cases, they go for the keys.............

In all of Canada but Alberta [[figures), the lender has you by the shorts. Our mortgages are called “recourseâ€� loans, which simply means the banker has full recourse to collect not only on the debt, but the costs of the debt. If you execute a standard mortgage document, and miss mortgage payments during the term, or fail to fully pay it off at the end of the term, or do not refinance it satisfactorily, then…

• The lender can legally gain title to the property, and sell it, and

• sue you for the difference between the mortgage amount and the sale proceeds, and

• sue you for costs, including all legal activity, real estate commissions and taxes, and

• if you cannot pay this amount, get a court order to garnishee your wages for the rest of your miserable life.

• And, by the way, you will get sued, even if you have little in assets and your mortgage was CMHC insured. The banks have whole floors of lawyers. Not pretty.

Of course, you can avoid this by declaring personal bankruptcy. In that case, the bank gets the house and you get a black mark that lasts for several years. It can mean no credit cards, no loans, no new mortgage, no new car, no running for the school board or political office, a big problem with credit checks, more difficulty finding almost any white collar job and even hassles renting

http://www.greaterfool.ca/2009/09/26/your-mortgage/

[Canadian Visitor]

Yes, the mess in Detroit is due to several reasons: .

I appreciate that Detroit faces a number of challenges; but I'm not starting any thread, as a guest and visitor just to invite un-ending criticism of its present or past [[that would be rather rude!)

I understand many of the broad challenges; and dealt w/the amalgamation question in a different thread.

Like amalgamation this is one of those that I just don't fully get. Some dubious mortgages, check, some tough economic challenges, check. Got it.

But if I were to look at Windsor, ON for instance, which had among the highest rates of unemployment in the province in recent years, peaking at over 10%, you don't see anything comparable[[on a smaller scale); and I don't remember seeing it elsewhere in Canada. [[Home abandonment)

I would, of course, accept that there is also no comparable devaluation of property that I'm aware of; still, it boggles the mind a bit.

Of course it also boggles the mind that a typical middle-class resident of Ontario could probably pay cash for home or five in Detroit; and yet redevelopment seems to have been largely absent outside of downtown and midtown.

[Hermod]

Just say it, Hermod. "Metropolitan Detroit will never exist as a political entity because of people like me. And I say that with great pride."

Did I say that I would vote against it? I was saying that the people of the current city of Detroit would vote against it because it would seriously dilute their political power. While such a consolidation might mean more financial resources and better services to the current city, it would come at the price of losing political clout. Reading before knee-jerking might be a wise move on your part.

[canuck]

Did I say that I would vote against it? I was saying that the people of the current city of Detroit would vote against it because it would seriously dilute their political power. While such a consolidation might mean more financial resources and better services to the current city, it would come at the price of losing political clout. Reading before knee-jerking might be a wise move on your part.

What is your wish for Detroit metro Hermod? It might help if you put your first person wishlist here, not just 3rd person plural.

Personally, I hope against hope that there will be a well intentioned and well devised amalgamation soon enough to reverse the effects of the city's decline.

The whole region needs a comprehensive transit scheme that can compete with other large metros, and amalgamation is the best tool to get the job done. The city vs suburb thing in Detroit does not bode well for the future, it needs to transform into the enthusiasm for new possibilities.

[davewindsor]

Hmmm,

I'm not an expert, and stand corrected; but I was always under the impression that it was easier for a Canadian bank to make a debtor's life hell than it was for a U.S. one.........after a quick scan online, I stumbled on former MP's [[member of parliament) Garth Turner who summed up the differences thusly:


http://www.greaterfool.ca/2009/09/26/your-mortgage/

No, it's the same thing. I know this from personal experience and Garth Turner is an investment adviser and politician, not a lawyer. I've spent a lot of money on lawyers. I had a private lender who held a first mortgage on one of my buildings in a corporation elect foreclosure instead of power of sale and the building had a lot of equity in it still and they did not want to give me a dime of that equity. I stalled the foreclosure for over 8 months with motions and adjournments until I found another buyer for the building. In a power of sale, I wouldn't have been able to stall it like that.

I'm also a retired realtor. Garth is wrong. The banks don't get title in a power of sale in Ontario like a foreclosure; they just get control over the sale and can force a sale once a realtor brings them a valid offer, but the lender cannot buy it for themselves in a power of sale [[as that is the difference between a power of sale and a foreclosure). It was made clear to me a number of times by my lawyers that I had nothing to lose by stalling it in a foreclosure while I tried to find a buyer, so Garth is wrong if he's saying they can come after you for the difference in a foreclosure in Ontario.

[davewindsor]

But if I were to look at Windsor, ON for instance, which had among the highest rates of unemployment in the province in recent years, peaking at over 10%, you don't see anything comparable[[on a smaller scale); and I don't remember seeing it elsewhere in Canada. [[Home abandonment)

I would, of course, accept that there is also no comparable devaluation of property that I'm aware of; still, it boggles the mind a bit.

Of course it also boggles the mind that a typical middle-class resident of Ontario could probably pay cash for home or five in Detroit; and yet redevelopment seems to have been largely absent outside of downtown and midtown.

It hasn't been at 10% in Windsor for a while.

The unemployment rate in Windsor is 6.9% as of January 2014, which is below the national average of 7.2% and several other large cities in Ontario. http://blogs.windsorstar.com/2014/02...t-in-a-decade/

In Toronto, the unemployment rate was 8.9% as of December 2013 and there's another report saying it's 10.1%. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/01...n_4601849.html

Here's an article from 2010 that says according to Detroit News Detroit's unemployment rate in 2010 was 50% http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/1..._n_394559.html

And it's still somewhere around 17.7% in Detroit, which is over two and a half times that of Windsor. Plus there's an ongoing exodus of people from the reasons I cited above. Thus, you have your reasons for the massive housing devaluation and abandonment in Detroit vs. Windsor.

[EastsideAl]

I appreciate that Detroit faces a number of challenges; but I'm not starting any thread, as a guest and visitor just to invite un-ending criticism of its present or past [[that would be rather rude!)

I understand many of the broad challenges; and dealt w/the amalgamation question in a different thread.

Like amalgamation this is one of those that I just don't fully get. Some dubious mortgages, check, some tough economic challenges, check. Got it.

But if I were to look at Windsor, ON for instance, which had among the highest rates of unemployment in the province in recent years, peaking at over 10%, you don't see anything comparable[[on a smaller scale); and I don't remember seeing it elsewhere in Canada. [[Home abandonment)

I would, of course, accept that there is also no comparable devaluation of property that I'm aware of; still, it boggles the mind a bit.

Of course it also boggles the mind that a typical middle-class resident of Ontario could probably pay cash for home or five in Detroit; and yet redevelopment seems to have been largely absent outside of downtown and midtown.

Detroit may be the largest and most glaring case, garnering the most media attention, but it is hardly alone in suffering mass population loss and abandonment. Many other midwestern industrial cities have suffered nearly as badly or worse from the deindustrialization and suburbanization waves that have been breaking since at least the early '60s. A few cities, like Youngstown OH, suffered an even greater percentage population loss over this period than Detroit. And many cities all over the U.S. [[including for some time NYC) have suffered from significant abandonment of homes, apartment buildings, and businesses starting in the 1970s. In recent years though, the foreclosure crisis and persistent unemployment, along with some degree of racial difficulty, have exacerbated it in this part of the country.

[Hermod]

What is your wish for Detroit metro Hermod? It might help if you put your first person wishlist here, not just 3rd person plural.

Personally, I hope against hope that there will be a well intentioned and well devised amalgamation soon enough to reverse the effects of the city's decline.

The whole region needs a comprehensive transit scheme that can compete with other large metros, and amalgamation is the best tool to get the job done. The city vs suburb thing in Detroit does not bode well for the future, it needs to transform into the enthusiasm for new possibilities.

"3rd person plural [[or collective)" is certainly an appropriate way to express an observation or a prediction as to what others would be likely to do.

My personal "wish" would be to restore the old interurban lines in a modern form [[plus some lateral lines like along the I-696 corridor and the M-59 corridor. I would restore city streetcars, but try to make them work in a way that would contribute to their safety and to traffic safety.

I would like to see the continues autonomy of the little cities [[maybe break up Detroit into smaller, more governable cities. Unfortunately, what I would "like" or "wish" for stumbles on the reality of what Detroit [[and the metro area) is and is not today. Tri-county consolidation into the mega city of "Semi" may be the best and only way to move resources to Detroit. I could envision a "Semi" with a governing center near the geographic center and subdivided into "districts" of 10-30 square miles [[don't have to all be the same size) to permit some form of local governance, easy response to citizen requests, and easy access to government for the individual. These "districts" could follow current political boundaries as far as possible. Current Detroit would be divided into several districts [[e.g. "Eastside" would be Connor to Morross between Mack and I-94).

Still would have to flesh out the details, but that is my first person singular "wish" or "think". In the third person plural sense, I do not think it will happen.

Does that answer your question?

[finster]

It's not only a Detroit thing but when you have several members of the Detroit City Council and I think the U.S. Congress intentionally defaulting on their loans in a premeditated manner WHEN they can easily afford to do the right thing what message does that send to the rest of the population and outsiders other than that it is ingrained in the culture. Scammers like George Cushionberry who walked away from several homes and allowed them to be stripped with impunity because he did not give two shits about the house, the neighborhood or the people in it just give justification to everyone else down the food chain to try to get away with everything you can just because you can.

[canuck]

"3rd person plural [[or collective)" is certainly an appropriate way to express an observation or a prediction as to what others would be likely to do.

My personal "wish" would be to restore the old interurban lines in a modern form [[plus some lateral lines like along the I-696 corridor and the M-59 corridor. I would restore city streetcars, but try to make them work in a way that would contribute to their safety and to traffic safety.

I would like to see the continues autonomy of the little cities [[maybe break up Detroit into smaller, more governable cities. Unfortunately, what I would "like" or "wish" for stumbles on the reality of what Detroit [[and the metro area) is and is not today. Tri-county consolidation into the mega city of "Semi" may be the best and only way to move resources to Detroit. I could envision a "Semi" with a governing center near the geographic center and subdivided into "districts" of 10-30 square miles [[don't have to all be the same size) to permit some form of local governance, easy response to citizen requests, and easy access to government for the individual. These "districts" could follow current political boundaries as far as possible. Current Detroit would be divided into several districts [[e.g. "Eastside" would be Connor to Morross between Mack and I-94).

Still would have to flesh out the details, but that is my first person singular "wish" or "think". In the third person plural sense, I do not think it will happen.

Does that answer your question?

It certainly does.
It makes sense to divide it up maybe in the spirit of what Toronto was before its latest round of amalgamation. The large cities that Canadian Visitor described in his other thread transacted on a regional level and are now large boroughs. I appreciate the fact you want some type of cohesiveness for the region, and I also like that you have a strong opinion about reintroducing streetcars and suburban rail in a timely fashion. Let's hope more people think that way and that leaders wake up to the possibilities!!!

[Hermod]

It certainly does.
It makes sense to divide it up maybe in the spirit of what Toronto was before its latest round of amalgamation. The large cities that Canadian Visitor described in his other thread transacted on a regional level and are now large boroughs. I appreciate the fact you want some type of cohesiveness for the region, and I also like that you have a strong opinion about reintroducing streetcars and suburban rail in a timely fashion. Let's hope more people think that way and that leaders wake up to the possibilities!!!

Toronto is divided into three districts: urban, suburban, and turban.

Do i think that the three mile "parking shuttle" currently in progress in Detroit will lead to a comprehensive streetcar network? No, I think it will just be a linear "people mover". In my not so humble opinion, they should have started the three miles in Pontiac and built towards Detroit. You might have more political and financial support in getting it completed to downtown Detroit that way.

As far as highways are concerned, I believe that I-275 should be completed north from its current terminus to a junction with I-75 to the northwest of Pontiac. With the route west of Detroit given the I-75 designation and current I-75 up the Fisher to the Chrysler then north to Pontiac given the I-275 "loop" designation. Do what we can to get some of the through truck traffic out of Detroit. I also believe that we need to extend M-59 west to the new interstate and east to I-94.