Roosters come home to roost in Rochester Hills [City Signs Oil Exploration Lease]

[Scottathew]

Oh, and you don't care about the environment. You can say anything you want. But your actions speak WAY louder than your words. I know the lifestyle of the average Rochester Hills resident, and environmentally friendly isn't the term that comes to mind.

You can debate points, but don't debate what is in my mind.

Not everything is black and white. I care about the environment, I just care about my family more. Some priorities conflict with each other and you end up having to decide what's more important.

I drive small, fuel efficient, used cars. We recycle, a lot. We use our smallest vehicle to go places most of the time when we don't need the cargo capacity of the mini-van.

Just because I chose to live in Rochester Hills doesn't entitle you to make a lot of large, sweeping generalizations about who I am and what I must be, and what prejudices I must have.

I'm not addicted to school test scores, but it's one of a few things I have available to determine what schools are good, and which ones are not.

If you feel like sharing, I'm curious to know where you settled [[don't feel like this is a challenge for you to reveal personal informal, I'm just curious). I can think of a few places that would meet your rigorous requirements, such as NYC, some parts of Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Boston, some parts of LA, and few other big cities that I missed.

[Cliffy]

This board is seriously brought down by militant threads like these. Ok, we can discuss the oil but to start ripping on Rochester Hills makes you look like a big fool. Its America. People can choose where they want to live. Get over it.

[nain rouge]

You own, it appears, at least one car per adult. One is a minivan. BUT YOU RECYCLE [[though most of the stuff we recycle is stuff we didn't truly need in the first place, but bought for convenience). Hats off to you.

It's OK to not care about the environment. That's your choice, and it's not illegal. Just don't live in denial.

I live in Richmond, Virginia at the moment, and I didn't leave Detroit for environmental reasons. America is a wasteful country. Being urban or rural is only part of the solution. Although I will say, you'd be surprised how tons of regions much smaller than Metro Detroit have a significantly larger amounts of walkable neighborhoods. Metro Detroit is an area where the hardcore suburbanites have won almost completely. There are almost no competing viewpoints. Those sort of people left a long time ago.

[nain rouge]

Ok, we can discuss the oil but to start ripping on Rochester Hills makes you look like a big fool. Its America. People can choose where they want to live. Get over it.

And we can also discuss the merits of cities like Rochester Hills. Perhaps even passionately. It's America. Get over it.

[ABetterDetroit]

TAX gasoline, 25 cents a gallon a year for 15 years running at the federal level, then return it to the individual states by use. If you want to change behavior and make alternatives economically more viable, it is the only way. You can have politicians talk about green ideas all day every day. It doesn't change a damn thing. [[Jenny and the windmills) And in the mean time, DRILL BABY DRILL because I am sick and tired of watching young people come home in coffins because we are dependent on the world oil supply. The fact remains that if that supply gets interrupted right now and the price of Oil jumps overnight to 300+ dollars a barrel, the depression that would set in would make the last one look like a picnic.

[Hermod]

Now I grew up in Detroit and went to Denby High School which had a gigantic list of curriculum options and magnificent facilities. After the 9th grade, my father moved to Rochester [[actually Avon Twp/Rochester Hills). Rochester High School was ancient, small, and very backward compared to the magnificence of Denby. There was a very limited curriculum. I graduated from Rochester High School.

My father ran a small factory down on the south end of Rochester from 1955 to 1963. It was an easy commuted. From 1963 to 1978, he commuted from near the Rochester Road/Orion Road junction to 13 Mile and Stephenson. He had twelve acres and loved to walk around the property and stock his bird feeders.

Seven members of my family [[including my mother and father) are buried in the Mount Avon Cemetery.

[GUSHI]

we're actually looking to move to rochester from shelby due to rochester downtown, I would love to move to detroit, but my daughter and wife are more important to me then detroit. Sorry , oh my the way Utica Esinhower was voted one of the best schools in America by USA today.

[believe14]

This board is seriously brought down by militant threads like these. Ok, we can discuss the oil but to start ripping on Rochester Hills makes you look like a big fool. Its America. People can choose where they want to live. Get over it.

Problem is many people can't live wherever they want. Many people are stuck, especially in very low income rural areas and our inner-cities. Hence the animosity of the OP.

[Mind field]

I like the Rochester area. Yes it's in the middle of sprawl, but it has a great downtown, and the Paint Creek Trail is great to walk on.

As for drilling for oil or natural gas, I hope Rochester Hills does not allow this to happen. These drilling companies are supposed to properly dispose of contaminated fracking fluids, but I GAURANTEE more times than not they don't dispose of the toxic chemicals properly, and a lot of these chemicals would end up in groundwater and/or area waterways. The people that run these drill rigs couldn't care less about doing the right thing, the citizens of Rochester Hills, or doing what is right for the environment. If it's cheaper or easier to just dump the contaminated crap somewhere, then they'll do it.

[Scottathew]

You own, it appears, at least one car per adult. One is a minivan. BUT YOU RECYCLE [[though most of the stuff we recycle is stuff we didn't truly need in the first place, but bought for convenience). Hats off to you.

It's OK to not care about the environment. That's your choice, and it's not illegal. Just don't live in denial.

I live in Richmond, Virginia at the moment, and I didn't leave Detroit for environmental reasons. America is a wasteful country. Being urban or rural is only part of the solution. Although I will say, you'd be surprised how tons of regions much smaller than Metro Detroit have a significantly larger amounts of walkable neighborhoods. Metro Detroit is an area where the hardcore suburbanites have won almost completely. There are almost no competing viewpoints. Those sort of people left a long time ago.

Thanks for sharing. I've never been to Richmond, but from a few quick searches it looks much more walkable than most Detroit suburbs. The little bit I looked up reminds me of Spokane, WA. I visited there once. The neighborhood I was in was very walkable with local grocery shopping and stores integrated into residential neighborhoods.

Yes, we do have two vehicles, no more. I'll never own a third until my children come of driving age. My wife and I work different hours, so a single vehicle isn't feasible. We also need to have the ability for either one of us to pick up the children in the event of illness.

I would love to live in NYC, which I imagine is one of the most environmentally sustainable cities; where people can grow up never obtaining a drivers license, get fresh food and immediately consume it daily etc... My wife doesn't like the "big city", she grew up out in the country driving 20 miles to the nearest grocery store in their F-150.

Your point does have merit that. Cities that require less driving are better for the environment. Rochester Hills is further away from the urban core, but I would argue that the urban core is rather hollow and proximity to it isn't something that's incredibly miraculous. I hope that changes, but for now, the reality is that proximity to Detroit doesn't always matter.

There are many other things that we can do to reduce our energy usage, I do quite a few of them. I do acknowledge that working in Detroit and living in Rochester Hills isn't super-awesome for the environment, but a lot of other choices I make are good for the environment.

I guess I just don't think there should be a zip-code litmus test to caring.

[Scottathew]

I like the Rochester area. Yes it's in the middle of sprawl, but it has a great downtown, and the Paint Creek Trail is great to walk on.

As for drilling for oil or natural gas, I hope Rochester Hills does not allow this to happen. These drilling companies are supposed to properly dispose of contaminated fracking fluids, but I GAURANTEE more times than not they don't dispose of the toxic chemicals properly, and a lot of these chemicals would end up in groundwater and/or area waterways. The people that run these drill rigs couldn't care less about doing the right thing, the citizens of Rochester Hills, or doing what is right for the environment. If it's cheaper or easier to just dump the contaminated crap somewhere, then they'll do it.

Rochester does have a nice downtown, and it's been doing rather well lately. They're working on promoting density. They'll soon be replacing some surface lots with parking lots in order to achieve better downtown density.

Rochester Hills not only has the Paint Creek Trail, but there is also the Clinton River Trail which turns into the Macomb Orchard Trail. There is a connector that goes from the Clinton River Trail to downtown and the library. My family has gone on bike rides with the kids where we go down a nature trail and stop at the library and it's a lot of fun. Bloomer Park is an amazing place for hiking and jogging. Spencer Park is a 120 acre park with a giant lake in the middle of it.

As to the fracking fluid concern, that is one I share. The half of the city of Rochester is on a municipal well. Rochester had an uproar when they considered signing similar leases and they told the oil companies to take a hike.

However, now Rochester Hills is leasing property in Rochester to the oil company. It's a big slap in the face to our neighbors that are mostly surrounded by Rochester Hills.

The mayor keeps saying "no fracking" when fracking is the very method they use for recovery. The contract says no "high volume" fracking, while not defining what volume of fracking solution is consider "high volume". There will be fracking, there will be crap pumped underground, and I hope to goodness it doesn't contaminate Rochester and Oakland Township's water table.

[Scottathew]

Problem is many people can't live wherever they want. Many people are stuck, especially in very low income rural areas and our inner-cities. Hence the animosity of the OP.

And conversely many folks work very hard to get out of poverty situations to get a better life and end up living in places like Rochester Hills. My wife is one of them. She grew up in a working-welfare house on a 40 acre farm on the Jackson County\Hillsdale County border.

My wife didn't want to have to work her arse off in factories like her parents and she took off for college. She's got a ton of college debt still, but we've made it to a good place and we're happy.

My wife was the first in her family to get a college degree. Both of her brothers also fled the poor farmhouse they lived in, one ending up in Spokane, WA and the other in San Antonio, both in the USAF.

We want our kids to live in a safe neighborhood with good schools, as we build a college fund to set them up for what we hope to be a life of hard work and great success. That's one of the reasons why we live at 21 and John R, instead of 9 and Mound.

Nain Rouge, you mention you were from the south end of Warren, and you should know that it's changed a lot during the recession. Test score are plummeting. Crime is up. The city financials are not secure. This isn't me being scared by the neighborhood becoming more diverse, my kids will be going to an elementary in Rochester where Caucasians only make up 46% of the student population.

[Hermod]

I live in Richmond, Virginia at the moment, and I didn't leave Detroit for environmental reasons. America is a wasteful country. Being urban or rural is only part of the solution. Although I will say, you'd be surprised how tons of regions much smaller than Metro Detroit have a significantly larger amounts of walkable neighborhoods. Metro Detroit is an area where the hardcore suburbanites have won almost completely. There are almost no competing viewpoints. Those sort of people left a long time ago.

Richmond? Walkable? Maybe if you live in the Fan District. You must not wander out into Chesterfield or Henrico counties very often. I lived in Colonial Heights 1973-1985 and it was "walkable" but not outside the city limits.

[nain rouge]

Richmond? Walkable? Maybe if you live in the Fan District. You must not wander out into Chesterfield or Henrico counties very often. I lived in Colonial Heights 1973-1985 and it was "walkable" but not outside the city limits.

Oh, I'm painfully aware of how auto-oriented Greater Richmond is outside of the city. Metro Detroit suburbs are better than Greater Richmond suburbs in that sense.

As for Richmond itself, the city is on the upswing and has many dense old neighborhoods. From the Fan on the west end to Church Hill on the east end, you have miles and miles of historic, intact urban neighborhoods. We're talking about a 9 mile east-west by 2 mile north-south area that's really happening and walkable. Plus, there some substantial neighborhoods south of the river that offer the walkability and landscape of Midtown. The rest of the city is dotted with early, pretty compact suburbs that you would never find in Detroit because it would be near McNichols and thus decimated.

Metro Detroit has its walkable areas, but it's all spread out. You'll have a mile or 2 of urban development [[sometimes less) followed by miles and miles of suburbs. Really, besides Midtown, what's left are all just early suburbs that felt the need to have an urban-style commercial district, since that was what was still popular.

But, you know, I didn't move to Richmond in search of the penultimate urban city. It's more the case that I've been pleasantly surprised. Given Richmond's population level, I thought it'd be like a southern version of Grand Rapids, but it's so much more than that. And it makes me upset that Metro Detroit is so hellbent on its central city being crappy. That we pin so much of our urban hopes on cities as far out as Rochester [[with its rural-style downtown) says it all. By the time you finish up the Paint Creek Trail in Lake Orion, you're practically in Greater Flint.

48307: Thanks for being gracious in your replies. I like phrasing my arguments in blunt terms, which someone in this topic pegged as "militant". Maybe. It obviously doesn't endear certain people to me. Which is OK.

For the record, I'm not from South Warren. I was simplifying where I lived, but I'll spell out the gory details really quick. I spent my earliest years at 14 & Ryan, technically living on the Sterling Heights side. Then I moved to 12 & Ryan. Finally, I lived at 10 & Hayes [[the latter being my choice as an adult, as I refused to move farther north). Over that time, I watched a lot of areas I'd frequented as a kid decline. It was, from my vantage, the result of a hundred little prejudices adding up.

The first wave of people - those with the highest incomes - left Warren simply because they wanted a McMansion with a big yard and would pay less taxes in their new neighborhood. They left for no other practical reason. That was in the early to mid-90s. This created a gap that let neighborhoods become more diverse, as Warren was nearly all-white before. In turn, that prompted people that feared diversity and the looming specter of Detroit to distance themselves further from what it represented. These people were solidly middle class and could afford to move because of ballooning real estate values. That's about when South Warren started "changing".

By this point, most shopping centers in Warren were declining as income levels gradually fell and developers kept building up commercial options in northern suburbs at a ferocious rate. The schools weren't quite the same either, as the highest taxpayers had left, and now the schools in the newer suburbs were pretty well established as a result.

Warren kept an unsteady equilibrium after this - not what it used to be, but still basically humming along. That was, until the industrial corridors in Warren started downsizing around the mid-00s. That about did South Warren in [[it wasn't just unpopular, but now *gasp* lower middle class, too), and North Warren was tainted as a result. Because we know how "rot spreads".

Rather than learn anything about urban planning from this, we've just labeled Warren an "armpit" and moved to Whatever Hills or Shiny Township and called it day. My aggravation stems from the fact that so long as we don't learn from our mistakes, we're doomed to repeat ourselves.

And with that, welcome to lovely Metro Detroit!

[Scottathew]

48307: Thanks for being gracious in your replies. I like phrasing my arguments in blunt terms, which someone in this topic pegged as "militant". Maybe. It obviously doesn't endear certain people to me. Which is OK.

I'm guilty of the same thing, but usually I'm painting Detroit with a broad brush. It was a funny feeling being on the other end of it. It was fun to be a part of the population that "needs to be fixed", instead of being the person with little skin in the game shouting out what needs to be done. The most interesting debates are the ones with passionate parties are exchanging ideas.

Your point of view certainly has made me reexamine an reevaluate my decisions. I don't plan on changing where I live, but my 35-40 minute certainly has an environmental impact.

[Hermod]

Nain Rouge: Richmond and Detroit were the two legal test cases as to the authority of the judiciary to forcibly consolidate school districts [[Richmond-Chesterfield-Henrico) to achieve integration. This caused a lot of population disruption [[Judge Merhige is still a swear word in the area). Back in the late 1960s, Broad Street downtown still was a very thriving commercial area [[closing Thalhimer's and Miller & Rhoads killed it). Richmond didn't have the industrial outflow that Detroit had and the presence of the state capitol and the larger banks of the state downtown helped preserve it. The very desirable homes in the western part of the Fan [[west of the Boulevard) and the location of Virginia's Communist University east of the Boulevard helped to stabilize and retain the older homes. The "west end" stayed gentrified and never went through a refurbishment like other gentrified areas.

[nain rouge]

Hermod: Detroit never lacks excuses, eh? Richmond may have had what you say it had, but Detroit was larger and wealthier by orders of magnitude.

[Hermod]

Hermod: Detroit never lacks excuses, eh? Richmond may have had what you say it had, but Detroit was larger and wealthier by orders of magnitude.

Yes, Detroit was very, very wealthy compared to Richmond, but wealth is very mobile and Detroit lost much more of their wealth than did Richmond. Another factor is that oput in the Richmond burbs, the roads were paved over winding cowpaths with narrow rights-of-way. Sprawl had to compete against that while in Michigan you have very straight section line roads with wide rights-of-way for widening.

[RO_Resident]

Saw some crews prepping for seismic testing on Clark Road by the Sumpter Twp landfill yesterday. From what I hear, they are exploring for gas in that location.

Some maps of DEQ's drilling units

Oakland County
Wayne County

[nain rouge]

Hermod: I can tell you right now that the winding nature of Richmond's roads has done little to stop sprawl. Old "cowpaths" are now monstrous 6-laners with giant medians. It's like Hall Road city, with no sidewalks.

Richmond has about 200,000 people, while it's suburbs have about a million. That's SERIOUS sprawl. Richmond's wealth was as mobile as anyone else's.