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

[noise]

But I disagree that it's the primary issue affecting locational decisonmaking. The fastest growing American metros over the last few decades generally have horrible urban amenities.

Oh, I agree with you here.

[ghettopalmetto]

Originally Posted by Bham1982
But I disagree that it's the primary issue affecting locational decisonmaking. The fastest growing American metros over the last few decades generally have horrible urban amenities.

That reminds me of the housing-boom days, when places like Livingston County would claim to be the "fastest growing" in Michigan. Well, what does that mean? Does it mean Livingston County is an economic player, ready to go head-to-head with a large city? Or was it just so sparsely populated that any growth at all resulted in a huge percentage increase in population?

Similarly, when you take what were essentially small cities, like Austin and Raleigh, and then have significant economic growth, does that make them bigger economic players than Detroit? I'd hardly think so. While Detroit may have been established decades earlier, it has 4-1/2 million people. A city like Austin or Raleigh has 1 million. Guess which one wields more economic clout and has more spending power?

Further, adding 1 person to an area the size of Detroit barely registers a blip, while in a town one-tenth the size, that 1 person's impact is magnified ten-fold.

Don't let things like Deltas and Percentages fuck up your interpretation of statistics. Those tools are intended for relative comparison. Overall, more people still live in such "obsolete" and "uncool" places as New York, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Detroit, and Cleveland than in the SunBelt boom cities.

[sumas]

I am feeling tired and grumpy but must weigh in on this. Over the years we have hosted, Candians, Europeans and Asians. Most are amazed at what SE Mi has to offer. They come expecting murder city and leave with a "wow" this area , these folk, have a lot to offer.

I am an avowed city person but our burbs have lots to offer too.

The people make this a special place to be. Go Michigan!

[Don K]

No one is arguing that Detroit hasn't lost many young professionals.

The dispute is over the why. Did they leave because there aren't enough bars filled with sorostitutes, or because the auto industry imploded?

I think the latter is much more relevant.

And, not surprisingly, the population loss has nearly ended, and unemployment has plummeted, just as the auto industry started to recover. It has nothing to do with light rail or attracting frat boys.

True, things have stabilized recently, as it's become clear that the auto companies aren't going to disappear. The Detroit area's problem is that it doesn't have, has never had, and seems incapable of developing, a fallback position, or Plan B, for what supplements or follows the auto industry.

Being wholly dependent on cars and trucks is a recipe for slow decline over time, as cars continue to become a smaller part of the national economy, and global design and engineering means fewer product development jobs here in the Detroit area. The days of an allegedly world-car Escort, with about two parts in common with its European cousin, are over. The future is the Fiesta, Focus, and Fusion/Mondeo, with just enough difference to satisfy U.S. safety and emissions standards.

So the question is what comes next if the Detroit area is not to become the next Johnstown or Scranton. One answer would be to out-compete Indiana, Mississippi, and Alabama for low-value-added, low-wage, no-benefit factory work by enacting a right-to-work law and granting billions in long-term tax abatements. Another answer is to try to attract entrepreneurs who will create the industries of the future.

And no, I don't think entrepreneurs really worry about taxes and regulations too much when they're picking a place to work on their dreams. If they did, then how is it that California and Washington became the tech centers they are today? If the low-tax, low-service, low-regulation prescription was right, then MS, AL, SC, and IN would be high-income powerhouses, instead of the economic backwaters they continue to be. In general, entrepreneurs seem to pick places they'd like to live in [[San Fran, Seattle, Austin, etc.), and let the taxes sort themselves out later.

Finally, while I can hate on fratboys and sorority women as much as anyone, in my experience they're not especially attracted to urban living. Fratboys I knew back in the 80's were perfectly happy living at Muirwood and hanging out at Ginopolis, and didn't particularly pine for the opportunity to live downtown.

With rare exceptions, the Detroit area is devoid of the kind of stable, established urban neighborhoods that are commonplace in, e.g., Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Seattle, to mention just cities with which I'm at least somewhat familiar. Around here, the choices pretty much are suburbia, near or far, or urban pioneering, and even those who choose to live in the city end up being chained to their cars, unless they want to rely on the increasingly dysfunctional DOT. I know people who live in Philly and in Boston, and while they have cars for certain missions, they like having the option of using a bus, trolley, or subway for other trips.

[poobert]

Is it really a good post? Is there any question that many young professionals and upwardly mobile citizens have left and are continuing to leave Detroit?

We don't need them frat boy assholes with their Miller Lite and their whores! Tell them to take them and their fancy learnin' degrees back to Chicago! And stay of my lawn...it's all I have...

Seriously, way to completely denegrate someone you have never met before. I am in my late 20's and can't wait to get out of here -and you may not believe me, but it isn't for Miller Lite and whores. I guess agism works both ways. When you spin wanting to live in a vibrant, walkable environment with other young professionals to telemarketers, bars and whores, you're really sending a clear message as to how this region feels about young people, transit, and walkability. We greet these things with not just skepticism but hostility.

Unfortunately in this region angry, shrieking, fear-mongering, complacent people like Hemrod, who may actually be L. Brooks Patterson, are the ones running the show...so I'm running the fuck out of here as soon as I get the chance.

I don't know where people are coming up with excuses that the auto industry was some kind of magnet for young professionals. Has their even been such a good old boys club? And regardless, they're never going to replace all the jobs lost in the past decade so can we just get over them already??

[p1acebo]

We don't need them frat boy assholes with their Miller Lite and their whores! Tell them to take them and their fancy learnin' degrees back to Chicago! And stay of my lawn...it's all I have...

Seriously, way to completely denegrate someone you have never met before. I am in my late 20's and can't wait to get out of here -and you may not believe me, but it isn't for Miller Lite and whores. Unfortunately in this region angry, shrieking, fear-mongering, complacent people like Hemrod, who may actually be L. Brooks Patterson, are the ones running the show...so I'm running the fuck out of here as soon as I get the chance.

Cool story bro.


There is way too much animosity on this thread. It's the internet... chill out.

[Hermod]

Unfortunately in this region angry, shrieking, fear-mongering, complacent people like Hemrod, who may actually be L. Brooks Patterson, are the ones running the show...so I'm running the fuck out of here as soon as I get the chance.

I am certainly complacent. I am 73 years old, retired, and secure.

Angry and shrieking, hardly. I am more amused at the collection of SimCity players on this site trying to tell others what to do with their money in terms of what buildings to rehab and what stores to open and where.

Am I Brooks Patterson? Not much of a chance. I left Detroit in November 1961 ad have only been back for visits since. Twenty-eight years of following the flag for Uncle Sam and living in a lot of places around the world not necessarily of my choosing.

I would venture to say that I have not done much in the way of running Detroit since I was 22 when I left.

Should you want to leave town, be my guest.

[Detroitnerd]

I am certainly complacent. I am 73 years old, retired, and secure.

Angry and shrieking, hardly. I am more amused at the collection of SimCity players on this site trying to tell others what to do with their money in terms of what buildings to rehab and what stores to open and where.

How is that different from being an limited-access expressway designer and telling which businesses and residents to move so you can build a road out of town where taxpaying citizens used to live?

[ghettopalmetto]

I am more amused at the collection of SimCity players on this site trying to tell others what to do with their money in terms of what buildings to rehab and what stores to open and where.

I think you've been reading a different thread, then, because there haven't been any such things on this one.

This is a discussion about how my generation seeks to fix the very expensive problems your "Fathers Knows Best" generation handed to us.

[SteveJ]

One person is blaming a 73 year old and he doesn't even live in Detroit, he lives in Hamtramck. The other guy is blaming him yet turns his eye into the ghetto culture that has taken over the city. Blame old people. Don't blame the people who shot up the bus station today.

[Detroitnerd]

One person is blaming a 73 year old and he doesn't even live in Detroit, he lives in Hamtramck. The other guy is blaming him yet turns his eye into the ghetto culture that has taken over the city. Blame old people. Don't blame the people who shot up the bus station today.

Thanks for the insightful post, SteveJ. By the way, I live in Detroit. And I'm teasing Hermod, not blaming him. And, given our past exchanges, I think Hermod's aware of that, even if you aren't.

[townonenorth]

Thanks for the insightful post, SteveJ. By the way, I live in Detroit. And I'm teasing Hermod, not blaming him. And, given our past exchanges, I think Hermod's aware of that, even if you aren't.

Dnerd lives in Hamtramck Heights. Sprawlville, in other words.

[Hermod]

How is that different from being an limited-access expressway designer and telling which businesses and residents to move so you can build a road out of town where taxpaying citizens used to live?

Well, considering that I was a newly minted Civil Engineer, hired by the city a week after graduation, and given the most boring, mind-numbing tasks drawing earthwork diagrams for the construction of the Ford-Chrysler interchange, I don't think that i had a whole lot of say in where the expressway went as it meandered through Detroit.

I did read a lot of the planning documentation and the rationale behind various location decisions while gaining data I needed to do my drawings and I have tried to share these insights with the group when the why and when of the freeways was discussed.

When I went into the Army for my two year obligated tour [[ROTC), I began to think of getting out and going back to driving downtown every day from Gratiot and 7-Mile to the Water Board Building [[or taking the bus) and spending eight hours a day on that damn drawing board. I decided to just keep on going in the Army where I was out of doors with something new to do every day and responsible for a platoon of soldiers.

[Detroitnerd]

Dnerd lives in Hamtramck Heights. Sprawlville, in other words.

No, townone, I do not live in Hamtramck Heights. Sorry ...

[Hermod]

Thanks for the insightful post, SteveJ. By the way, I live in Detroit. And I'm teasing Hermod, not blaming him. And, given our past exchanges, I think Hermod's aware of that, even if you aren't.

I am aware of that. I am just a little miffed over Poobert's rather insulting and ignorant description of me

[Detroitnerd]

Well, considering that I was a newly minted Civil Engineer, hired by the city a week after graduation, and given the most boring, mind-numbing tasks drawing earthwork diagrams for the construction of the Ford-Chrysler interchange, I don't think that i had a whole lot of say in where the expressway went as it meandered through Detroit.

I did read a lot of the planning documentation and the rationale behind various location decisions while gaining data I needed to do my drawings and I have tried to share these insights with the group when the why and when of the freeways was discussed.

When I went into the Army for my two year obligated tour [[ROTC), I began to think of getting out and going back to driving downtown every day from Gratiot and 7-Mile to the Water Board Building [[or taking the bus) and spending eight hours a day on that damn drawing board. I decided to just keep on going in the Army where I was out of doors with something new to do every day and responsible for a platoon of soldiers.

Yeah, I know you weren't calling the shots. But it's interesting to me that you joke about some of the posters here as gaming on Sim City, as if we desired some sort of top-down control of the city. But the only person I think I know at all who has ever been involved with any institution with dramatic top-down control over who has to move and what buildings must go is ... well ... you.

And that's kind of funny.

[Detroitnerd]

I am aware of that. I am just a little miffed over Poobert's rather insulting and ignorant description of me

I can only imagine Poobert must have had you confused with somebody else. You are certainly one of the more dispassionate posters on DetroitYES!

[Detroitrobert]

I am aware of that. I am just a little miffed over Poobert's rather insulting and ignorant description of me

You don't live in Detroit. You don't live in Metro Detroit. You don't live in the region. You don't even live in the state of Michigan. You haven't contributed anything to the above in over 50 years so tell us again why we should give a shit about what the fuck you have to say on the matter?

[Richard]

Its funny when I was in the service I learned more about WW2 sitting on a park bench next to an elderly gentleman in England then I ever learned in school.

[Detroitnerd]

You don't live in Detroit. You don't live in Metro Detroit. You don't live in the region. You don't even live in the state of Michigan. You haven't contributed anything to the above in over 50 years so tell us again why we should give a shit about what the fuck you have to say on the matter?

Why don't you tell him how you really feel?

Hermod has some good memories of the old days to post, and you can tell he's a heavy reader and, if sometimes infuriatingly stubborn, he is at least thoughtful in his remarks. Frankly, he's no more contrarian that I am.

[Hermod]

You don't live in Detroit. You don't live in Metro Detroit. You don't live in the region. You don't even live in the state of Michigan. You haven't contributed anything to the above in over 50 years so tell us again why we should give a shit about what the fuck you have to say on the matter?

I grew up in Detroit. I was educated in the Detroit Public Schools. Most of my family still live in an arc from Ann Arbor through Oxford to New Baltimore. I am also quite an afficionado of the Detroit area streetcar and interurban systems. I feel that I have contributed to many of the discussions here regarding the history of public transit and the highway systems of the area.

[Detroitrobert]

Why don't you tell him how you really feel?

Hermod has some good memories of the old days to post, and you can tell he's a heavy reader and, if sometimes infuriatingly stubborn, he is at least thoughtful in his remarks. Frankly, he's no more contrarian that I am.

That's great. He's got stories from those couple of years of his adult life that he lived in the area. I'm sure those stories are absolutely fascinating. Maybe he can write a book titled, "Detroit: Those handful of years that I lived there in the late 50's". Better yet, start a fucking thread on his enthralling tales and he and Tponetom can duke it out over who has the better yarns. I'll tell you what he SHOULDN'T do...he shouldn't go around telling the people that live here, work here, pay taxes here, invest here and try to improve things here that they are a bunch of Sim City players. A guy whose sole contribution to the state in the last 50 years has been filling up his gas tank on the way through shouldn't be criticising the people that actually do contribute, even if it's from Hamtramck Heights.

[stromberg2]

Dude, chill out, Hermod is a good guy. Don't take it so seriously.

Stromberg2

[Detroitnerd]

That's great. He's got stories from those couple of years of his adult life that he lived in the area. I'm sure those stories are absolutely fascinating. Maybe he can write a book titled, "Detroit: Those handful of years that I lived there in the late 50's". Better yet, start a fucking thread on his enthralling tales and he and Tponetom can duke it out over who has the better yarns. I'll tell you what he SHOULDN'T do...he shouldn't go around telling the people that live here, work here, pay taxes here, invest here and try to improve things here that they are a bunch of Sim City players. A guy whose sole contribution to the state in the last 50 years has been filling up his gas tank on the way through shouldn't be criticising the people that actually do contribute, even if it's from Hamtramck Heights.

What is up with Hamtramck Heights today? Sounds sweet! Maybe I'll move there.

I hear you and I understand the frustration. I guess people have all sorts of motivations for posting here. And some post here to blast the city, to attack perceived enemy ideologies, to make fun of city residents, etc. In comparison, Hermod's free-market purism is pretty mild, I think.

The funny thing about disagreeing with people is that it often forces you to articulate exactly why you think they're wrong. And while it can be annoying, it can also be personally rewarding.

Anyway, I like your fire, Detroitrobert. You're going to fit right in here.

[Patrick]

That's great. He's got stories from those couple of years of his adult life that he lived in the area. I'm sure those stories are absolutely fascinating. Maybe he can write a book titled, "Detroit: Those handful of years that I lived there in the late 50's". Better yet, start a fucking thread on his enthralling tales and he and Tponetom can duke it out over who has the better yarns. I'll tell you what he SHOULDN'T do...he shouldn't go around telling the people that live here, work here, pay taxes here, invest here and try to improve things here that they are a bunch of Sim City players. A guy whose sole contribution to the state in the last 50 years has been filling up his gas tank on the way through shouldn't be criticising the people that actually do contribute, even if it's from Hamtramck Heights.

Is this JT1 or homeboy East Detroit in another name?