Quote Originally Posted by Bham1982 View Post
How do you figure this?

During the 1970's-80's, downtown got a 7 tower complex, including a luxury shopping mall, the tallest hotel in the world, and six office towers. Detroit completely rebuilt the two main shopping corridors, and added a new mall and department store in New Center. Oh, and an elevated rail system alongside a street-running trolley.

During the 1980's-90's, downtown got multiple trophy office buildings [[including one by Hines, the gold standard in higher end commercial space) a shopping mall in Greektown, three highrise residentials, multiple new hotels, and two huge riverfront developments along Jefferson.

During the 1990's-00's downtown got two new HQ buildings, three massive casinos, two new stadia, renovated its largest abandoned tower to a luxury hotel, major expansion at Wayne State.

You can have stuff get built and still struggle. A city as big as Detroit will have development, even if the overall narrative is decline. "But stuff is being built" isn't really a reasonable response to whether or not the city is still declining. Stuff is always being built, whether cities are growing or shrinking.
And here is my post destroying your rebuttal.

The luxury shopping mall failed within 10 years of opening because the downturn was already happening. And we all know the Rennaissance Center did nothing to improve the older urban core of downtown, it was a failure. But now we have Moosejaw, John Varvatos, Kit + Ace, Nike all opening up during an upswing in development and growth in downtown Detroit. Plus new shopping districts like Midtown with Shinola being the anchor.

Trapper's Alley was hardly a shopping mall comparable to Northland, Oakland, or Somerset. It was a gimmick.

The People Mover failed and the Washington Boulevard you keep mentioning probably to piss me off was not in any sense of the imagination an attempt to true mass transit, it was a heritage trolley line for tourists, so stop f---ing mentioning it.

No I don't think you keep building stuff if you are struggling. Remember John Madden lost all his money building 150 W. Jefferson. One Detroit Center was supposed to be two towers. A billionaire doesn't build a new wing on his mansion while becoming a pauper. And despite having these new buildings, downtown was still a dead zone, even during the day. You cannot say the same about today.

I would say the renovation of the Book Cadillac was the catalyst of what has happened today.

We all know stadiums and casinos don't do much for a city looking to revamp things, and they really didn't. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm taking about the fact that is seems that Metro Detroit finally gets that if it wants to survive, a healthy urban core with a vibrant business, social, culture, and transportation life is key. And that is what is beginning to happen.