Macomb Township, the Golden Age of Sprawl.

[iheartthed]

That argument could also apply to the suburbs by just ignoring areas with no houses.

It still wouldn't be higher than Detroit. Looking at the NYT census map from 2010, I can only find 3 census tracts outside of Detroit/Hamtramck in the tri-county that are above 10,000 ppsm. In Michigan as a whole, I'm only able to locate that type of density in 2 census tracts in both Ann Arbor, East Lansing and one census tract in Grand Rapids.

[Scottathew]

[Still trolling]

Detroit - 680,000 people / 138.75 square miles [[land) = 4,900 people per square mile

Clawson - 11,945 people / 2.2 square miles = 5,429 people per square mile

Move to Clawson unless you love all that Detroit SPRAWL!

[/Still trolling]



Then there's where I live, Rochester Hills, 72,283 / 32.82 = 2,202 people per square mile. I guess we need to move to Clawson too so we can be more dense.

[Novine]

48307 is ignoring the fact that most of the places that were listed don't have significant commercial or industrial areas that Detroit has. Also, most of those "suburbs" are either on Detroit's border or originally started as streetcar suburbs of the city or both. If one is trolling, you could call them "sprawl" but they have almost nothing in common with places like Macomb Township.

[Scottathew]

48307 is ignoring the fact that most of the places that were listed don't have significant commercial or industrial areas that Detroit has.

I had to use Google Earth to visually find the suburbs that were bedroom communities. That's why Warren and others didn't make the list, too much industry.

[hortonz]

When I was a kid growing up near Memorial Park, half of the land south of the CPR tracks was used for farming or breeding animals. Places like Lakeshore and Tecumseh were mostly farmland and when people talked about moving to the suburbs they meant South Windsor or Forest Glade.

[jt1]

I guess we need to move to Clawson too so we can be more dense.

You don't have to worry about not being dense

[Hermod]

[Still trolling]

Detroit - 680,000 people / 138.75 square miles [[land) = 4,900 people per square mile

Clawson - 11,945 people / 2.2 square miles = 5,429 people per square mile

Move to Clawson unless you love all that Detroit SPRAWL!

[/Still trolling]



Then there's where I live, Rochester Hills, 72,283 / 32.82 = 2,202 people per square mile. I guess we need to move to Clawson too so we can be more dense.

What is the city of Rochester?

[JenniferL]

I don't see lakes being drained. Folks who can afford it still love lakefront property. There's a lot of boaters who like the lakes too.

Now there's an idea for the most abandoned sections of Detroit's east side... Dig a big hole in the urban prairie, fill it with water, maybe dig a canal or two that goes out to the river, build houses and condos around it, provide docks for boats. Nobody will move to that area as-is, but some adventurous souls might be willing to move there if it was transformed into lakefront property, especially if it's cheaper than what you can get in the suburbs.

[DetroitPlanner]

Now there's an idea for the most abandoned sections of Detroit's east side... Dig a big hole in the urban prairie, fill it with water, maybe dig a canal or two that goes out to the river, build houses and condos around it, provide docks for boats. Nobody will move to that area as-is, but some adventurous souls might be willing to move there if it was transformed into lakefront property, especially if it's cheaper than what you can get in the suburbs.

Like a negative-space version of Dubai!

[hortonz]

Now there's an idea for the most abandoned sections of Detroit's east side... Dig a big hole in the urban prairie, fill it with water, maybe dig a canal or two that goes out to the river, build houses and condos around it, provide docks for boats. Nobody will move to that area as-is, but some adventurous souls might be willing to move there if it was transformed into lakefront property, especially if it's cheaper than what you can get in the suburbs.

That sounds a lot like the canal idea Windsor's mayor had for Windsor's downtown.

[Scottathew]

What is the city of Rochester?

12,900 over 3.83 square miles = 3,370 people per square mile

Not too shabby, but it lacks density due to Bloomer Park, an industrial area, and some undeveloped land.

[ghettopalmetto]

Sprawl isn't just density, though, or lack thereof. Certainly, there are many small towns and villages throughout the U.S. that might have low population density, but wouldn't be characterized as "sprawl".

In its most common usage, sprawl is characterized by automobile dependency, strict segregation of land uses, and highly regimented zoning. Lower densities than traditional urban areas are merely a byproduct of the top-down, by-the-numbers planning that produces these conditions.

[e.p.3]

Moving further out pass 20 Mile Rd. [[The New 8 Mile Rd.) will be their solution. To produce more sprawl.

Is I-275 the New '8 Mile', west?

[Hermod]

Now there's an idea for the most abandoned sections of Detroit's east side... Dig a big hole in the urban prairie, fill it with water, maybe dig a canal or two that goes out to the river, build houses and condos around it, provide docks for boats. Nobody will move to that area as-is, but some adventurous souls might be willing to move there if it was transformed into lakefront property, especially if it's cheaper than what you can get in the suburbs.

Since the 1960s and the advents of the eco-freaks, the Corps of Engineers will not allow new canals like that. What existed then can be maintained, but no new digging.

[Danny]

Is I-275 the New '8 Mile', west?

That's explain the recent sprawl out in Canton, Plymouth and Northville Townships.

[boater4life]

We lived very briefly in Macomb Twsp and ran screaming.

Why is that?

To me, it seems like the sprawl and shift in communities means one thing. All this open land is now becoming the city of detroit. People kept moving out further and further which opened this up. I could see people moving back into the city of detroit, buying large parcels of land for cheap and throwing up their big 4,000 sq ft houses. The sprawl has to stop though it is stupid to see so many wasted and shutdown strip centers on the corners of intersections way out in shelby twp, etc.

[corktownyuppie]

All of this population "growth" is really just population shuffling around the metro area. The population of the MSA has been stagnant for 40 years. Think of all of the money invested in infrastructure that's been left behind, mostly in communities that can no longer afford to maintain all of those streets, sewers, etc.

Spot on.

"Wall the Sprawl". Our state desperately needs a sprawl wall law that prevents any further conversion of farmland or forest into residential or business. At the same time development within incorporated areas, especially declining ones needs to be incentivized.

While I generally agree that development into incorporated areas needs subsidy and incentive, I think the right strategy here is to position that as a solution to a problem....with the problem not being [[oh, poor ______ municipality, please give them extra resources so that they are not so poor), but rather because...if we do not change our systems, the tragedy of the commons will result in thousands of individual actors making decision that result in their own short-term benefit at the expense of all our well-being and greater good.

Time Magazine just did an interesting article on a retired engineer named Charles Marohn, who was actually responsible for much of the urban sprawl in his home state.

From, "The Suburbs Will Die"

Marohn primarily takes issue with the financial structure of the suburbs. The amount of tax revenue their low-density setup generates, he says, doesn’t come close to paying for the cost of maintaining the vast and costly infrastructure systems, so the only way to keep the machine going is to keep adding and growing. “The public yield from the suburban development pattern is ridiculously low,” he says. One of the most popular articles on the Strong Towns Web site is a five-part series Marohn wrote likening American suburban development to a giant Ponzi scheme.

Here’s what he means. The way suburban development usually works is that a town lays the pipes, plumbing, and infrastructure for housing development—often getting big loans from the government to do so—and soon after a developer appears and offers to build homes on it. Developers usually fund most of the cost of the infrastructure because they make their money back from the sale of the homes. The short-term cost to the city or town, therefore, is very low: it gets a cash infusion from whichever entity fronted the costs, and the city gets to keep all the revenue from property taxes. The thinking is that either taxes will cover the maintenance costs, or the city will keep growing and generate enough future cash flow to cover the obligations. But the tax revenue at low suburban densities isn’t nearly enough to pay the bills; in Marohn’s estimation, property taxes at suburban densities bring in anywhere from 4 cents to 65 cents for every dollar of liability. Most suburban municipalities, he says, are therefore unable to pay the maintenance costs of their infrastructure, let alone replace things when they inevitably wear out after twenty to twenty-five years. The only way to survive is to keep growing or take on more debt, or both. “It is a ridiculously unproductive system,” he says.

Where does the solution lie?

Thankfully, my thinking on it is that the political will to stop sprawl will come very quickly once the money stops flowing. And, right now is a turning point on municipal borrowing via municipal bonds.

For municipal bond investors [[and, please, far-leftys, do not equate this to "evil wall street"...most municipal bond investors are risk-averse investors...whether they be wealthy individuals or local pension funds) have been willing to keep the money flowing because municipal bonds were seen as ultra-safe, never-going-to-go-bankrupt, and usually-insured-by-a-third-party investment that could never going wrong.

When I started my career in managing money, bond investors had two questions: [[1) Is it AAA-rated? [[2) Is it insured? If yes, then invest the money.

Those days are long over. Muni investors are looking into every detail about local communities now, almost to the point of absurdity. And insurance companies like Synocora, which insured Detroit municipal debt, are about to take billions of dollars in losses to pay out to investors. This, in turn, now weakens the insurance company's ability to insure and pay out other bonds...and it's making investors not even care about whether bonds are insured anymore. Bond insurance companies can go bankrupt, too.

I'm not anticipating a giant cataclysmic crash of the municipal bond market by any means. But I am anticipating that "the easy money" to borrow is disappearing fast.

As the Detroit bankruptcy approaches completion, and as it makes its way through appellate courts, municipalities are feeling major heat to take on pension reform [[many munis nationwide are less than 30% funded). And Detroit pensioners came out pretty well...there is no "Grand Bargain" coming for cities like Flint and smaller cities like Inkster. These are not politically fun times for them, and what will eventually happen is that developers looking to continue building outward will find it difficult to do so when potential homebuyers start looking at what will likely be the increased property tax assessments to cover the infrastructural costs.

Moreover, we will inevitably get a regionalized water system here in SE Michigan, and when it happens, many of the more financially conservative governmental officials -- the ones who are calling for better water collection rates, for example -- will also start looking at the per capita costs of expanding the infrastructure footprint. They're going to exert pressure politically, too, as officials from Oakland County aren't going to be thrilled with the idea of them subsidizing the per capita costs of Macomb's or Wayne's sprawl. And, certainly, if they are all sprawling together, it's going to be harder and harder to "just blame Detroit" when they're at the steering wheel of the water department.

This doesn't mean that sprawl won't still happen...but the costs of doing so will be borne more and more by the ones sprawling, instead of being subsidized by the entire population. Which means it will likely still happen for the wealthy and ultra-wealthy, but it'll price out the middle and mass markets.

Lastly...

Oh, certainly. I lived at 10 & Gratiot for a year not too long ago, so I know all about it. Definitely, Eastpointe, South Warren, and parts of Roseville classify as decayed. I think you're also right about Northeast Detroit. Sometimes I'd visit the 7 Mile & Van Dyke area out of curiosity, and it's hard to see areas like that surviving unless there is a massive turnaround in the habits of the average Metro Detroiter.

For one, after moving out of Michigan, I can now see just how bad racial segregation in Metro Detroit is. 8 Mile, 7 Mile, and McNichols are just NUTS. It's disturbing, really, how off-limits white people treat those areas, and how the black population has responded to such discrimination.

We need to face some brutal realities. It's not just white people or suburbanites treating 7 Mile and Van Dyke as "off-limits". It's multi-generational Detroiters moving out, too. This isn't 2000 anymore...in the last 15 years the sheer majority leading the exodus out of the city is the middle- to upper-middle class black population.

Hell, I grew up in 48205 and 48224 for 23 years, moved away, them moved back 5 years ago. Are you going to blame me for treating 7-mile and Van Dyke as "off-limits", too?

The move from 21 mile to 28 mile is hard to rationalize. The move from 7 mile to 12 mile is pretty justifiable.

tl:dr? Suburban sprawl will slow down, and eventually only be for the very financially well-off, because the money will stop flowing. The "suburban" sorting by socio-economic class won't go away, but it will be lessened and mixed. You won't have poor living side-by-side with the rich in the same neighborhoods. But you'll likely have both poor neighborhoods and rich neighborhoods in the same electoral districts, which will be better for all of us in the long run.

[ddaydetroit]

My family moved to 21 and Shelby in 71 I grew up in a rural area and loved it but now with the sprawl I cant stand it. I started looking at houses in 1995 I wanted what I had in the 70's but the drive was to far so I moved over by the nautical mile in Saint Clair Shores and I love it and have no intentions of moving from the area and the traffic is not have as bad as Macomb TWP.

[Danny]

We need to face some brutal realities. It's not just white people or suburbanites treating 7 Mile and Van Dyke as "off-limits". It's multi-generational Detroiters moving out, too. This isn't 2000 anymore...in the last 15 years the sheer majority leading the exodus out of the city is the middle- to upper-middle class black population.

Hell, I grew up in 48205 and 48224 for 23 years, moved away, them moved back 5 years ago. Are you going to blame me for treating 7-mile and Van Dyke as "off-limits", too?

The move from 21 mile to 28 mile is hard to rationalize. The move from 7 mile to 12 mile is pretty justifiable.

tl:dr? Suburban sprawl will slow down, and eventually only be for the very financially well-off, because the money will stop flowing. The "suburban" sorting by socio-economic class won't go away, but it will be lessened and mixed. You won't have poor living side-by-side with the rich in the same neighborhoods. But you'll likely have both poor neighborhoods and rich neighborhoods in the same electoral districts, which will be better for all of us in the long run.


Suburban sprawl [[ Like Macomb TWP.) will never stop. Farmlands will be gone, forests will be turned into neighborhoods. People will drive their vehicles to Wal-Mart. Freeways will connect from the homes to cities. All because they want to get far away from Detroit as possible so they don't have to look at poor miserable folks in the ghetto. It will be a urban nightmare

Wall the Sprawl, Now! That's enough developers in Macomb TWP. and other ex-urban communities. 26 Mile Rd. will be your limit. The rest will leave is farmlands and wooded forests.


That's enough developers of Canton, Plymouth and Northville Townships. Napier Rd. will be your limit. The rest will be farmland and wooded forests.

That's enough Lyon, Milford, Commence Waterford, Independence and Orion Townships. Great Lakes Crossing Mall is your limit. Leave the rest of the land to farming and animals.

Stop sprawl and fix up our old historic inner city neighborhoods and live there.

[Shai_Hulud]

Thankfully, my thinking on it is that the political will to stop sprawl will come very quickly once the money stops flowing. And, right now is a turning point on municipal borrowing via municipal bonds.

Very insightful post, and I believe/hope you are right. With the the factors you mentioned, plus escalating fuel and infrastructure costs the will to cannibalize old suburbs for new suburbs every two decades may die out. It may take another twenty years, but I do think it will happen.

[corktownyuppie]

It may take another twenty years, but I do think it will happen.

It probably will take 20 years. But it's becoming clearer and clearer that the pendulum has swung way too far with sprawl.

Here's a headline from most recent Detroit News. It's not the last time, either. These are only gonna get worse and worse as aging infrastructure needs exceed normal maintenance costs and require replacement and capital investment.

From The Detroit News:
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz39CoPFTo2

===========

August 2, 2014 at 1:00 am
Macomb County voters face millage requests

Officials from Eastpointe and Mount Clemens are urging residents to support millage issues Aug. 5 that they say could stave off financial crises in the two Macomb County cities.

[Novine]

It remains to be seen. I read an article this morning about a developer who wants to build 1,800 homes on 450+ acres in Northfield Township, north of Ann Arbor. Most of the area is farmland and there's not currently water and sewer service to the land. But the township officials appear to be on board with the idea because they believe that it will generate "growth" in the township.

[Danny]

Unless Northfield TWP. gets water from Detroit, those 1800 Levittown-esque ex-urban village will never happen.

[oladub]

US population is expected to reach 438M by 2050 twenty-six years from now. That's a 39% population increase. At present immigration rates, 82% of the growth is expected to be due to immigration. All these extra people have to live somewhere. Detroit isn't the best example of a growing population sprawling but across the country it is a primary factor behind sprawl. 39% more transportation, housing, recreational space, and everything else will be needed.

[canuck]

US population is expected to reach 438M by 2050 twenty-six years from now. That's a 39% population increase. At present immigration rates, 82% of the growth is expected to be due to immigration. All these extra people have to live somewhere. Detroit isn't the best example of a growing population sprawling but across the country it is a primary factor behind sprawl. 39% more transportation, housing, recreational space, and everything else will be needed.

Detroit is on its way back. It needs to gel more and get rid of the crime. All realizable stuff. Other cities have reached lower murder rates. Montreal used to have two to three times the murders in the seventies and eighties that it does now. Detroit will be back for good.