Are suburbanites aware of how unattractive living in Metro-Detroit is to outsiders?

[swingline]

I'm not sure how you get from Point A to Point B.

Your first point is that 21 year olds typically don't buy homes in sprawling suburbs, but rather rent in more urban communities, which should be blindingly obvious and has probably always been true.

Your second point is that their parents don't want to subsidize the DIA, which is apparently ironic, because their offspring don't have three kids and a mortgage yet.

Those same parents were mostly living in more urban communities when they were 21. The Summer of Love wasn't in Canton Township. And their kids will eventually have their own kids and buy a place. That place probaby won't be on Fenkell & Greenfield.

Bham, Point A is far from blindingly obvious to too many SE Michigan baby boomers [[and older) for whom living in anything other than a conventionally designed suburban neighborhood is inconceivable.

You whiffed on Point B.

[TexasT]

Bham, Point A is far from blindingly obvious to too many SE Michigan baby boomers [[and older) for whom living in anything other than a conventionally designed suburban neighborhood is inconceivable.

You whiffed on Point B.

This is my experience. Upon telling older people from SE Michigan that we're moving to Detroit, the first question is, "Which city?" When I tell them actual Detroit, the next comment is "But have you looked at Farmington Hills/Plymouth/Grosse Pointe/Ferndale etc". The in-laws who all live in the burbs are confused as to why we want to live in the city. I'm 29, he's 30, we have no kids, and we live in Wicker Park currently. Should be obvious but it really is a generational thing.

[Bham1982]

Bham, Point A is far from blindingly obvious to too many SE Michigan baby boomers [[and older) for whom living in anything other than a conventionally designed suburban neighborhood is inconceivable.

Well I don't know these people. Most folks of my parents' generation [[and my generation, for that matter) rented small apartments after college. Small rental apartments are overwhelmingly located in older communities.

I never heard of folks buying homes immediately after college, which would make postcollegiate residence in the exurbs exceedingly rare. You don't rent a one bedroom in Oakland Township. You do in Royal Oak or Detroit.

And I still don't get Point B. If the parents had higher taxes to support culture, then their kids wouldn't move to urban areas, and would join them in the exurbs?

[Detroitnerd]

And I still don't get Point B. If the parents had higher taxes to support culture, then their kids wouldn't move to urban areas, and would join them in the exurbs?

Having the option or urban living, in a historical urban core, with a sense of place and identity, doesn't only benefit the urban core. It benefits the people who work there but may not live there. It benefits the parents who don't have to only see their kids over the holidays. It benefits the region by conferring upon it a better reputation. Surprisingly, it will make the nearby suburban housing worth more.

Bham, I'm sure you agree with this idea: "Once the economic downturn ends, Americans will resume their 20th-century thrust outward and seek ever newer greenfield homes on plots of land further and further from the city, transporting themselves back and forth on longer and longer commutes by means of the automobile."

The evidence of generational shifts in taste, the staggering oversupply of that kind of housing, the rising cost of fuel and materials, the increasingly fragile household economy of the average American family, all point to that not being true.

That economic activity has to happen somewhere. Nobody is going to get a job building Pulte homes in Shelby Township anytime soon. Isn't it a fair alternative to rehab houses in Detroit neighborhoods for deal-seeking and hardy urbanites? Or would you sacrifice that economic activity because it doesn't dovetail with what you would like to see or think will happen?

[townonenorth]

Having the option or urban living, in a historical urban core, with a sense of place and identity, doesn't only benefit the urban core. It benefits the people who work there but may not live there. It benefits the parents who don't have to only see their kids over the holidays. It benefits the region by conferring upon it a better reputation. Surprisingly, it will make the nearby suburban housing worth more.

Bham, I'm sure you agree with this idea: "Once the economic downturn ends, Americans will resume their 20th-century thrust outward and seek ever newer greenfield homes on plots of land further and further from the city, transporting themselves back and forth on longer and longer commutes by means of the automobile."

The evidence of generational shifts in taste, the staggering oversupply of that kind of housing, the rising cost of fuel and materials, the increasingly fragile household economy of the average American family, all point to that not being true.

That economic activity has to happen somewhere. Nobody is going to get a job building Pulte homes in Shelby Township anytime soon. Isn't it a fair alternative to rehab houses in Detroit neighborhoods for deal-seeking and hardy urbanites? Or would you sacrifice that economic activity because it doesn't dovetail with what you would like to see or think will happen?

There is nothing worse than oversimplifying a situation, but I will try anyway.

Detroit's whole problem has been crime. From the starting shot of urban flight to the present day, crime has been the leading cause of flight out of the city.
Midtown flourishes because of Wayne State. Absent that institution and it's police force, you would be looking at a hugely less successful area. Attracting college students and young professionals to any given area depends on ensuring that their lives and property are secure.

Detroit has failed in any measure of police protection since the late 70's. So, the loss of population based on a want or need to go farther and farther out to live, just for fun, is rather mawkish. It's not really a racial issue for me, although you will probably say that's the case. I'm an equal opportunity crime victim, having been broken into, robbed, and stolen from from both blacks and whites. The common denominator in all that is that the police did nothing. No arrests, and no improvement in crime.

To expect that people should move back to the city without any improvement in crime and policing is like hitting yourself in the head with a bat, expecting that it won't hurt the next time.

Now comes the fun part. The State legislature, in their infinite wisdom, is gutting the personal property tax for business as I write this. The pile of ugliness that action will unleash on cities across the state will be astounding. We are being led by idiots. Police and fire, libraries, and city governments, all will take another hit. Detroit will too.

[iheartthed]

So another thing that Metro Detroiters [[both urban and suburban) have tendency to do... They put too much emphasis on attracting residents/patrons/visitors from the suburbs as the panacea to save the city. Sure, the city could use residents and money from almost any source, but the suburbs will not save the city. Again, THE SUBURBS WILL NOT SAVE THE CITY. The suburbs will never be a large source of future residents for the city. NEVER. EVER. Until the end of fucking time! So stop saying shit like "if Detroit had a 0% crime rate everyone from Troy to Canton would just rush back into the city". They won't and it's unfair to expect them to do that.

Detroit's survival rests SOLELY on its ability to attract fresh new faces to the metropolitan area. If Detroit cannot do that then Detroit is dead. Detroit has not been able to do that for half a century, which is why Detroit is on life support.

[Richard]

So another thing that Metro Detroiters [[both urban and suburban) have tendency to do... They put too much emphasis on attracting residents/patrons/visitors from the suburbs as the panacea to save the city. Sure, the city could use residents and money from almost any source, but the suburbs will not save the city. Again, THE SUBURBS WILL NOT SAVE THE CITY. The suburbs will never be a large source of future residents for the city. NEVER. EVER. Until the end of fucking time! So stop saying shit like "if Detroit had a 0% crime rate everyone from Troy to Canton would just rush back into the city". They won't and it's unfair to expect them to do that.

Detroit's survival rests SOLELY on its ability to attract fresh new faces to the metropolitan area. If Detroit cannot do that then Detroit is dead. Detroit has not been able to do that for half a century, which is why Detroit is on life support.

That about sums it up. But it still becomes a catch 22 of sorts when it comes to attracting new faces of any age group which is pretty much covered here anyways ,and still looking for solutions.Robbing from peter to pay paul never worked in the past.it will take a strong city and suburbs for the best case desirability.

[townonenorth]

So another thing that Metro Detroiters [[both urban and suburban) have tendency to do... They put too much emphasis on attracting residents/patrons/visitors from the suburbs as the panacea to save the city. Sure, the city could use residents and money from almost any source, but the suburbs will not save the city. Again, THE SUBURBS WILL NOT SAVE THE CITY. The suburbs will never be a large source of future residents for the city. NEVER. EVER. Until the end of fucking time! So stop saying shit like "if Detroit had a 0% crime rate everyone from Troy to Canton would just rush back into the city". They won't and it's unfair to expect them to do that.

Detroit's survival rests SOLELY on its ability to attract fresh new faces to the metropolitan area. If Detroit cannot do that then Detroit is dead. Detroit has not been able to do that for half a century, which is why Detroit is on life support.

And Detroit can't attract you either, so yep, it's dead. So you can quit posting now, huh?

[iheartthed]

And Detroit can't attract you either, so yep, it's dead. So you can quit posting now, huh?

I'm from Detroit so I shouldn't really be the person Detroit is targeting, as I said in my post.

[Detroitnerd]

So stop saying shit like "if Detroit had a 0% crime rate everyone from Troy to Canton would just rush back into the city". They won't and it's unfair to expect them to do that.

Haha. Good point, iheart. I also like how this is usually paired with the admonition: "But Detroit has to do this on its own. It shouldn't expect a penny of my money to get that job done. But once Detroit has pulled itself up by its bootstraps ..."

Yeah. Har-de-har-har...

[internet_pseudopod]

...They put too much emphasis on attracting residents/patrons/visitors from the suburbs as the panacea to save the city. Sure, the city could use residents and money from almost any source, but the suburbs will not save the city. Again, THE SUBURBS WILL NOT SAVE THE CITY. The suburbs will never be a large source of future residents for the city.....

In 2000 or 1990 I would have certainly agreed with that viewpoint but currently we have a new suburban population that doesn't have an irrational hatred of Detroit or the silly racial hatreds of the past. In fact most of these people were relatively happy being in Detroit in the 1990's and early 2000's. Then the bottom dropped out.

The beginnings of any comeback that Detroit has involves some of these people being drawn back by improvements made to city finances and services. The long term does depend on drawing people to the region for both jobs and quality of life but first we have to pick the low hanging fruit.

[iheartthed]

In 2000 or 1990 I would have certainly agreed with that viewpoint but currently we have a new suburban population that doesn't have an irrational hatred of Detroit or the silly racial hatreds of the past. In fact most of these people were relatively happy being in Detroit in the 1990's and early 2000's. Then the bottom dropped out.

The beginnings of any comeback that Detroit has involves some of these people being drawn back by improvements made to city finances and services. The long term does depend on drawing people to the region for both jobs and quality of life but first we have to pick the low hanging fruit.

Well, when I say that Detroit will not be saved by the suburbs I'm speaking more of the nature of cities in general. NYC, for example, has a net negative migration of native residents but manages stabilization/growth by attracting out-of-region migrants to offset the losses. This is how cities have always worked. Detroit once worked like this too.

[Detroitnerd]

There is nothing worse than oversimplifying a situation, but I will try anyway.

Detroit's whole problem has been crime. From the starting shot of urban flight to the present day, crime has been the leading cause of flight out of the city.

People have left Detroit for many reasons.

My grandfather, for instance, left Detroit in 1924 or so, getting a lot in what is now Dearborn and building a house on it. He could do that because he had a personal automobile, allowing him to live wherever he wanted. For a while, Detroit could solve the problem of residents who left by simply expanding its borders, but by 1929 it was stopped along all major thoroughfares by cities it could not annex.

The flight from the city accelerated in the postwar period, 1945-1965. This was when Detroit was considered a model city. Was "crime" the major reason for people moving out of Detroit to the suburbs during this time? Not really. There were lots of inducements for people, mostly white people, to move out: GI Bill, freeway construction, etc. This is a compelling story well told in Thomas Sugrue's book The Origins of the Urban Crisis.

Finally, the death knell was the 1967 riot, which was less a race riot than an uprising by black residents of disinvested neighborhoods protesting a police force that was practically an institution of white supremacy. Finally, many of the last white holdouts left.

What happens to a city when the people of means, the homeowners, the people with strong local institutions, churches, money, equity, good jobs, educations, leave a city? When it becomes a city of largely poor, uneducated, poorly socialized people? Then you start to see a lot of crime, my friend.

And so, as a kind of rationalization for abandoning the city, a whole generation of people blamed the criminals living in the city for driving out good people -- even though people had been leaving the city since they could buy a motorcar.

We talk a lot about this on this forum, townone. Feel free to ask some questions about the history, or to read Sugrue's book. You'll find that it is, as you well know, a lot more complicated.

[townonenorth]

People have left Detroit for many reasons.

My grandfather, for instance, left Detroit in 1924 or so, getting a lot in what is now Dearborn and building a house on it. He could do that because he had a personal automobile, allowing him to live wherever he wanted. For a while, Detroit could solve the problem of residents who left by simply expanding its borders, but by 1929 it was stopped along all major thoroughfares by cities it could not annex.

The flight from the city accelerated in the postwar period, 1945-1965. This was when Detroit was considered a model city. Was "crime" the major reason for people moving out of Detroit to the suburbs during this time? Not really. There were lots of inducements for people, mostly white people, to move out: GI Bill, freeway construction, etc. This is a compelling story well told in Thomas Sugrue's book The Origins of the Urban Crisis.

Finally, the death knell was the 1967 riot, which was less a race riot than an uprising by black residents of disinvested neighborhoods protesting a police force that was practically an institution of white supremacy. Finally, many of the last white holdouts left.

What happens to a city when the people of means, the homeowners, the people with strong local institutions, churches, money, equity, good jobs, educations, leave a city? When it becomes a city of largely poor, uneducated, poorly socialized people? Then you start to see a lot of crime, my friend.

And so, as a kind of rationalization for abandoning the city, a whole generation of people blamed the criminals living in the city for driving out good people -- even though people had been leaving the city since they could buy a motorcar.

We talk a lot about this on this forum, townone. Feel free to ask some questions about the history, or to read Sugrue's book. You'll find that it is, as you well know, a lot more complicated.

I suppose that one person writing a book has all the insights in the world. But nothing like living the history of personal experience to drive the truth. Crime drove my parents, and I, out of Detroit. If it weren't for that, there would be a shitload more people paying taxes in the city. But keep believing your Pied Piper, DN. Believe it or not, the city empied out from the core outward due to crime. The police did nothing to help matters.

Now I'd love for you to think about something outside of your "pied piperish" zone, for a second. Explain to me how Hamtramck didn't suffer the same fate as other areas in the city, up till recently. Was it better civic governance? Better people? Or a functioning police force?

[Detroitnerd]

I suppose that one person writing a book has all the insights in the world. But nothing like living the history of personal experience to drive the truth.

Well, Thomas Sugrue was born in Detroit in 1962. He grew up in Detroit, just as all these changes were happening. So I think he knows a thing or two first-hand about Detroit in the 1960s and 1970s. Then he spent years studying Detroit, researching Detroit, looking at actual facts and trying to get past the mythology that is built up about "we left Detroit because of the riots" or "we left Detroit because of the crime." It turns out that it's a lot more complicated than the stories people who moved out tell.

Would you like to read it? Expand your mind a bit? Learn what people other than your parents have to say? Shouldn't be a problem if you really are an intelligent and open-minded person. Sounds like he's one of your peers.

Crime drove my parents, and I, out of Detroit. If it weren't for that, there would be a shitload more people paying taxes in the city. But keep believing your Pied Piper, DN. Believe it or not, the city empied out from the core outward due to crime. The police did nothing to help matters.

I didn't deny that, by the late 1970s, there was a great deal of crime in Detroit. But you claim crime was the only thing driving people out of the city, from the core outward. You know, that's really not borne out by the facts -- and facts are not some mythical pied piper. [[I'm not even sure what that means.) People moved out of Detroit because of a variety of factors, many of them inducements: automobiles freeing up people to live away from transit lines, GI Bill-subsidized home loans, freeways to carry them farther away, lower taxes. And when people of means leave a city, they leave the people who cannot leave: the poor, the uneducated, the poorly socialized.

Then there's also the matter of white-black relations, and how conservative white Detroiters' faith in the city collapsed with the reform of the Detroit Police Department.

See, there's a lot of history there, if you would only examine it. It might force you to re-examine what you think you know already, though. In which case I imagine you'll likely want to stick to your simple, almost mythological view of what happened rather than look more closely at the history.

Explain to me how Hamtramck didn't suffer the same fate as other areas in the city, up till recently. Was it better civic governance? Better people? Or a functioning police force?

Traditionally, Polish people have been an outlier in Detroit. Unlike a lot of the Southerners who moved north for work, or the later immigrants who showed up to make money in the plants, Poles were super-invested in their communities. When you pour money into building a cathedral, community centers, social halls, parochial schools, veterans' halls, fraternal organizations, etc., you are less likely to pull up stakes and go when times get tough. In fact, behind blacks and Latinos, Poles are still a distant third ethnicity in the city of Detroit. When good people don't leave, everybody gets the benefit of their stewardship, and bad guys get watched by grandmas from behind their curtains. Neighborhood cohesion is easier. Frankly, all this makes it easier for the police to do their job.

Also, Hamtramck has been a great place to go through the immigrant experience because the Poles paved the way for new immigrants. Hamtramck has Bangladeshi people, Yemeni people, Catholic Albanian people, Bosnian people, etc. And more arrive all the time, replacing the ones who move out to Warren and Sterling Heights when they gather enough capital.

And it doesn't just end at the city line. The areas around Hamtramck in Detroit tend to be more populated, more diverse and denser. And I would say it has a lot to do with how the Poles, unlike the rest of Detroit, didn't pull up stakes and leave Hamtramck to the poor and uneducated.

[Hermod]

The flight from the city accelerated in the postwar period, 1945-1965. This was when Detroit was considered a model city. Was "crime" the major reason for people moving out of Detroit to the suburbs during this time? Not really. There were lots of inducements for people, mostly white people, to move out: GI Bill, freeway construction, etc. This is a compelling story well told in Thomas Sugrue's book The Origins of the Urban Crisis.

There was also the fact that by 1952, there was very little vacant land in the city. From 1946 to 1952, there was a building boom on any vacant lots in the city as intense as that going on in Warren.

[Detroitnerd]

There was also the fact that by 1952, there was very little vacant land in the city. From 1946 to 1952, there was a building boom on any vacant lots in the city as intense as that going on in Warren.

Yes, but when you go through a city directory of the time, you really notice vacancies in the back of the book, where you look through the addresses, in the older parts of the city. Starting in 1946, you start to see "vacant" ... "vacant" ... "card not returned" ... "vacant" ... "vacant" ... "vacant" ...

Just because Detroit was built out doesn't mean people of means at the time wanted to live in a rooming house in Brush Park that had been abused by the Depression and four years of housing war workers ...

Warren really expanded in the 1960s, once Detroit was all built out. And I'd argue that a lot of the movement in or out of the city after 1952 had to do with political battles, federal rulings, blockbusting real estate agents, bussing schemes, etc., right up to the early 1970s. According to my latest research, when the police department was reformed in 1974, that was the last straw for a lot of conservative white Detroiters.

[swingline]

And I still don't get Point B. If the parents had higher taxes to support culture, then their kids wouldn't move to urban areas, and would join them in the exurbs?

To belatedly respond, the irony in the parents' clueless opposition to supporting regional taxes for things like transit and cultural assets lies in the fact that those are the kind of things that attract their college educated children to other urban cities. They consign themselves to complaining about the government trying get them to pay for things they won't use, and about the cost of airfare to San Francisco.

[Bham1982]

To belatedly respond, the irony in the parents' clueless opposition to supporting regional taxes for things like transit and cultural assets lies in the fact that those are the kind of things that attract their college educated children to other urban cities.

I don't think that's true at all. Regionalism isn't a necessary reciepe for success. Nor is public support for high culture.

Successful cities are often less regonalized than those in Michigan. NYC has a metro area that spans four states, and there's no degree of cooperation whatsoever. There are no suburban dollars going to the MET or MOMA. A typical suburbanite in CT or PA would laugh if you asked to raise their local taxes to fund an expansion of the MET.

SF, DC, Boston, etc. all seem to be, if anything, less regionalized than SE Michigan. DC spans three states. the Bay Area is a giant patchwork of competing cities, and Boston is a tiny island in a sea of centuries-old established towns and villages.

Postcollegiate types don't move to Brooklyn or San Francisco because of regionalism or high culture.

They move primary because of jobs, and secondarily, because of the urban environment [[appeals of urbanism itself, massive concentration of dating partners, following their college friends, cities are trendy, etc.).

But, first, they need a job. So, for example, New Orleans is cool and has an interesting urban environment, but without a strong professional market, it doesn't attract many outsiders.

[swingline]

I don't think that's true at all. Regionalism isn't a necessary reciepe for success. Nor is public support for high culture.

Successful cities are often less regonalized than those in Michigan. NYC has a metro area that spans four states, and there's no degree of cooperation whatsoever. There are no suburban dollars going to the MET or MOMA. A typical suburbanite in CT or PA would laugh if you asked to raise their local taxes to fund an expansion of the MET.

SF, DC, Boston, etc. all seem to be, if anything, less regionalized than SE Michigan. DC spans three states. the Bay Area is a giant patchwork of competing cities, and Boston is a tiny island in a sea of centuries-old established towns and villages.

Postcollegiate types don't move to Brooklyn or San Francisco because of regionalism or high culture.

They move primary because of jobs, and secondarily, because of the urban environment [[appeals of urbanism itself, massive concentration of dating partners, following their college friends, cities are trendy, etc.).

But, first, they need a job. So, for example, New Orleans is cool and has an interesting urban environment, but without a strong professional market, it doesn't attract many outsiders.

Of course people don't move somewhere because of regionalism. I didn't suggest that at all. What I did suggest is that only a fool complains about paying for regional assets like transit and cultural attractions and then complains when the absence of such things contributes to their children moving to someplace else, in part, to enjoy such amenities.

As for the concept of regionalism in general, if SE Michigan hopes to compete in this century, regional cooperation on multiple levels will be a necessity. Gorgeous large lot subdivisions in Northville and Oakland Twp. won't attract talent and capital. And the go it alone, pull themselves up by the bootstraps argument directed towards the current Detroit underclass might produce results in say 20-30 years, but probably not. We have to figure something out together even if the solution doesn't directly benefit each one of us individually.

[mwilbert]

SF, DC, Boston, etc. all seem to be, if anything, less regionalized than SE Michigan. DC spans three states. the Bay Area is a giant patchwork of competing cities, and Boston is a tiny island in a sea of centuries-old established towns and villages.

I really think that depends on what you are looking at. For instance, they all have real regional mass transit. I'm most familiar with Boston, where essentially all the transit is run by the MBTA, the local park system is primarily run by the state [[formerly MDC, now DCR), as is the airport and port [[Massport), and the water system [[formerly MDC, now MWRA). The zoo is run by ZooNewEngland. The main art museum is private, as is the main science museum. So I would say that Boston is probably not a good example of your thesis.