How Motor City Came Back From the Brink…And Left Most Detroiters Behind

[313WX]

Obviously I agree with you in general, but I disagree on the specific case of the Livernois median. Livernois was too wide for a urban street, and that width was completely unneeded at its current traffic level. The median is a way to make the scale more appealing to pedestrians, and make crossing the street safer. Now I would be the first to admit that there aren't currently a lot of pedestrians, and I don't know if there ever will be, but I think the median makes it more likely. I don't really see how it makes it more suburban. My biggest concern is that the islands are something else to maintain, and so far they haven't been doing the best job. I suppose they may be cheaper to maintain than roadway.

There was a post either on this forum [[or another forum) about how the business owners along Livernois HATE the median, because it makes it harder for patrons to access their establishments. Specifically, the well-known fish & shrimp houses that were based in the city for decades [[Dot & Etta's, Miley & Miley's, O'Quins, etc.) said they saw a major drop in business after the median was added, and now all of them are closed permanently.

If the goal was to reduce the roadway size [[and I don't think it was, instead it was merely a beautification project, because no other roadways in the city have seen a reduction in their lanes and the southern part of Livernois is still just as wide), they could have done it the Woodward way instead of adding the median.

[Honky Tonk]

There was a post either on this forum [[or another forum) about how the business owners along Livernois HATE the median, because it makes it harder for patrons to access their establishments. Specifically, the well-known fish & shrimp houses that were based in the city for decades [[Dot & Etta's, Miley & Miley's, O'Quins, etc.) said they saw a major drop in business after the median was added, and now all of them are closed permanently.

Who cares, as long as it fits some planners vision of what "nice" should look like? [[sarcasm) The same thing is going to happen on Jefferson on the Southeast side. Already the "GP" looking median is causing left turn and rush hour havoc. That stretch of Jefferson is too narrow for what they did, especially with the size of today's SUV's and trucks.

[Wesley Mouch]

Hmmm...I took that line to mean something different...

Basically, what's happening now is that people [[collectively speaking) who live in the suburbs/rural areas of Michigan but don't actually live nor work in the city of Detroit and won't be impacted by their proposed way of doing things seem to be the ones who are running the show, while actual Detroiters haven't had much say at all in how their government should be run nor the future of the city from a developmental perspective.

A perfect example: The Lighting Authority. That plan was drafted by an individual who associated with a school in Dearborn, who probably lives outside of Detroit proper and probably does most of their business outside of Detroit proper. Thus, they're not living on the blocks that must deal with poorer streetlighting under this plan than before [[despite no notable decrease in crime).

And if that's what Damon Keith meant by his statement, I'm in 100% agreement.

Nobody stopped Detroiters from fixing street lights.

One hand is reaching out. Asking for money to help fix our municipal operations.

The other hand is ready to slap you when you do because you're 'imposing' your views on the world.

Schizophrenic.

Do we want help? Or do we want to call each and every shot exactly the way we want it? Do we want working streetlights? Or do we want to concern ourselves more with exactly how they get fixed.

Geez.

[hortonz]

I think what the article is saying, and I agree wholeheartedly, is that the service economy will never be a meaningful substitute for the old industrial or agricultural economy it replaced. To have meaning, a community must produce things of substance. Moving money around, in the form of subprime mortgages or credit default swaps, doesn't create wealth, it only distributes it from the have-not to the haves. Neither does natural resource extraction, like tar sands or shale deposits, create long-lasting prosperity because the energy output is only a fraction of energy invested. Many western governments have fallen prey to the delusion, especially Canada and the United States, that printing more money will make up for the loss of productive economic activity to places like China. By producing tangible physical goods of value we add value to the country as a whole. A nation that ceases to produce tangible goods with real value will have no value over the long-term and will soon become a nation not worth defending.