Why hasn't Detroit ever owned up to its urban planning blunders?

[ghettopalmetto]

While all you said is true, you've failed to acknowledge that while all these industries were declining, there was a rapidly growing commerce/finance/trade/marketing sector. Detroit did not have this capacity.

How did New York's growing commerce/finance/trade/marketing sector cause people to move to 34 Mile Road?

[crawford]

I presume you don't travel much.

Um, considering I travel about 25% of the time for my job, please "educate" me on my two claims...

1. All American cities have large freeway networks. You seriously are arguing with this statement?

2. Few, or perhaps no American city is as sprawled and emptied-out as Detroit. Again, you are seriously arguing with this claim?

[Retroit]

Original poster's note: I did not mean to imply that freeways are the sole reason for Detroit's decline. I actually would like for there to be a more holistic discussion of all ill-advised urban planning decisions by Detroit, of which freeway construction is only one [[albeit one of the biggest blunders).

I agree that, in hindsight, the surge of expressway construction did not aid in the development of a dense city [[since that appears to be your desired objective). But at the time, expressways weren't as negatively viewed [[and still aren't).

But let's look at Philadelphia. Philadelphia is almost identical to Detroit in geographical size. They both peaked at nearly identical populations, both had similar peak densities... But now Philadelphia is about 500 to 600 thousand residents larger than Detroit. Both had issues of racism. Both had issues of white flight. Both had crime issues. Both had faltering regional economies. Both had extreme levels of divestment by the business community. Yet, Philly's shrink rate is much less stark than Detroit's. I'm not the most knowledgeable about Philly's history, but I do know that they don't have freeways bisecting neighborhoods to the extent that exists in Detroit. [[Philly also has a transit system that is light years ahead of Detroit's.)

Not an expert either, but from viewing the map, the difference in expressway density is not that noticeable. In neither city are you are not much more than 2 or 3 miles from the nearest expressway, and if you ignore the Lodge [[not an Interstate), they are very similar. My guess is that Philly already had more dense multi-family housing and that it had an inflow of blacks and other minorities over a longer period of time, so as to aid in integration. Add to that a broader based economy.

Another thing that I would like to point out is that every city has a transient population. The people who lived in Chicago, NYC and Philadelphia 30 years ago are not necessarily the same residents who live there today. But there are conditions in these places that made those cities attractive to new residents who came in to replace those who moved away. Detroit's problem is that the flow of people is only going one way - out.

Excellent point. NYC, Philly, and Chicago are immigrant destinations. Immigrants replenish the supply of people who have gained the desired ability to move out of the city. Detroit was once an immigrant destination.

[Detroitnerd]

After years and years and years of doing research on cities, Detroit, urban planning, race relations, transit and stuff like that, I'd say my knowledge of cities in general and Detroit in particular is pretty hard-won. You don't spent half your life searching for the facts under the pop mythology without holding it pretty dear.

So, when you first start talking to people who never researched the facts, yes, it's a little frustrating. You take a civil tone and try to explain. You do this again and again.

After the first few years of this, you get frustrated. Why? Because the people you are debating with not only don't know what they're talking about, but they DON'T WANT TO KNOW. Anytime you put your hard-won knowledge out there, they hedge or protest or bring up side issues or complain that ANY comparison to Detroit is an unfair one, unless they feel it suits their purposes.

Go at this for years and years and what finally happens is you get sick of this type of person. And, rather than hate on 'em, you make fun of them. That's what's behind this perceived "incivility."

But is there any worse fault than distorting the truth? This region is so steeped in ex post facto cop-outs and cartwheeling rationalizations when it comes to these issues that it seals our fate. Pushing back against that is important. And if it calls for light ridicule and thick satire, so be it.

[Retroit]

I think the main thing that makes you sound like a 12-year-old is that you have not yet developed the ability to critically examine your own ideas. All that comes out is a torrent of pop mythology. Demonstrate that you can do otherwise and you'll sound more adult.

Or, instead of jamming your fingers in your ears whenever people try to tell you what's wrong with your theses, maybe YOU should use the forum's ignore function. You're already using it in your mind.

*JAMMING FINGERS IN EARS*

Wahhhhhh! People don't agree with my unresearched nonsense!

Wahhhhhh! I wish I was only talking to people who agreed with me!

Wahhhhhh! I don't want to do any research or reading!

Wahhhhhh! Wahhhhhh! Wahhhhhh!

I'll leave it to others to decide who has done a better job of getting their point across. I have no desire to engage you in childish antagonism. If you would like to discuss the issue at hand, please do so.

[Detroitnerd]

Haha. Somebody call the waaaahhhhmbulance.

[Retroit]

Haha. Detroit had its own stock market, one of four in the nation. It was the fourth-richest city in the United States. It had and still has huge marketing companies, advertising firms and all the other appurtenances of a financial center. Again, you are making points without any knowledge to back them up. Aren't you tired of this yet?

"Detroit HAD a stock market." Key word: HAD. Did the stock market move out because expressways were built?

"Detroit WAS the fourth-richest city." And General Motors was once the largest corporation in the world with Ford and Chrysler not far behind. Much of their manufacturing capacity was also more centered in and around Detroit when Detroit was #4. They moved much of that capacity out of the city due to factors unrelated to the expressways.

"Detroit STILL HAS huge marketing companies, advertising firms and all the other appurtenances of a financial center." How can that be? I though the expressways forced everyone out of the city? Surely a business would not want to locate anywhere other than along a light rail line.

[Retroit]

How did New York's growing commerce/finance/trade/marketing sector cause people to move to 34 Mile Road?

I'll assume you are implying that since Detroit did not have the commercial sector that New York had/has, that there would be no need to move far away from downtown? [[Please confirm before debating.)

I would argue just the opposite: it is because Detroit does not have the commercial sector that NY has that encourages people to live further from downtown.

Again, thread topic: the expressways [[or the "lack of proper civic planning", as they call it) facilitated this sprawl, they didn't cause it.

[Detroitnerd]

"Detroit HAD a stock market." Key word: HAD. Did the stock market move out because expressways were built?

Haha. Nice effort to be slippery, Retroit. But you note that your original statement was this: "While all you said is true, you've failed to acknowledge that while all these industries were declining, there was a rapidly growing commerce/finance/trade/marketing sector. Detroit did not have this capacity."

I'm pointing out that Detroit DID have this capacity. This is where you would normally perceptively note that and say, "Oh, I wasn't aware of that. That's interesting. That goes against my personal wisdom."

But no. Now you want to daisy-chain that argument onto something else, bringing up side points and barely relevant stuff, but never acknowledging the correction. In short, you are yammering away, doing your best to spin your rhetorical wheels. But you ain't got no traction. In short, you ain't got shit there. Thanks for playing.

[crawford]

Haha. You guys don't know your history or your present. You never heard of Brooklyn Navy Yard? Or the Camden Yards? Or any of the factories that used to be Soho? You perhaps think Manhattan was always just a forest of office towers? The shores of Jersey, Manhattan and Brooklyn were a keyboard of piers, with refineries, tanks, factories and shipbuilders. It wasn't near enough the copper or the coal for steel works, but it made millions of pounds of exportable goods for years and years. And manufacturing has always been part of the city, and is a vital part of it today, lighter and more diversified.

Take it from a guy who lived there and studied the history. You have no right to say what New York never had.

I live here in NYC [[part-time) and you are simply wrong. NYC was NEVER a mighty industrial center.

I never said NYC had NO industry; obviously every place on earth has industry. There is industry off Telegraph in Bloomfield Township, would you then say Bloomfield is an industrial center?

The Brooklyn Navy Yard was only a huge shipbuilding center during WWII wartime production, and then immedately shut down afterwards. Prior to that, it had not been a shipbuilding center for over a century.

Camden Yards is in Baltimore, so I don't know what you're referring to.

Soho was made up of factories at one time, but never heavy-industry. It was primarily small-scale manufacturing and garment industry uses.

Very few refineries existed within city limits [[in Staten Island). There were [[and are) more refineries in NJ, though. And if one looks at the metropolitan area as a whole, then NJ certainly had its share of industry. However, relative to the other cities under discussion, NYC was never remotely as tied to industry, heavy or otherwise.

During peak manufaturing decades, NYC had roughly half the proportion of workforce employed in industry as in Chicago. NYC was always more white-collar and trade/commerce oriented than production-oriented.

[Retroit]

After years and years and years of doing research on cities, Detroit, urban planning, race relations, transit and stuff like that, I'd say my knowledge of cities in general and Detroit in particular is pretty hard-won. You don't spent half your life searching for the facts under the pop mythology without holding it pretty dear.

So, when you first start talking to people who never researched the facts, yes, it's a little frustrating. You take a civil tone and try to explain. You do this again and again.

After the first few years of this, you get frustrated. Why? Because the people you are debating with not only don't know what they're talking about, but they DON'T WANT TO KNOW. Anytime you put your hard-won knowledge out there, they hedge or protest or bring up side issues or complain that ANY comparison to Detroit is an unfair one, unless they feel it suits their purposes.

Go at this for years and years and what finally happens is you get sick of this type of person. And, rather than hate on 'em, you make fun of them. That's what's behind this perceived "incivility."

But is there any worse fault than distorting the truth? This region is so steeped in ex post facto cop-outs and cartwheeling rationalizations when it comes to these issues that it seals our fate. Pushing back against that is important. And if it calls for light ridicule and thick satire, so be it.

So what does all this self-praise and self-pity have to do with expressways in Manhattan? Yes, I get tired of arguing also. On those days, I don't click on my "DetroitYES Forums" Favorite button. Don't feel obligated to defend your beliefs against every DetroitYES poster. Detroit will exist [[or continue to decline to exist) with or without "ill-informed" DetroitYES posters.

As far as NOT WANTING TO KNOW, I am completely willing to listen to any counterargument that you may have, but I reserve the right to determine whether or not your counterargument would justify me changing my beliefs. Sorry we are not all clones of you.

[Detroitnerd]

Yes, you never said NYC had NO industry. You said NYC *NEVER* had a particularly large manufacturing or industrial base relative to other Northeastern or Midwestern cities. And that is a categorical statement. And it's nonsense. Never is what we call a Long Fucking Time, including every decade since the big bang. Can you say that New York wasn't a major manufacturer relative to other cities in the areas you designate ALWAYS? In the 1780s? Or the 1820s? Or the 1860s? You see where I'm going with this? History didn't begin in 1914, Jack.

Heck, even after World War I, New York was a major industrial center. You know what was on the shore of what's now called Williamsburg? Look at your old maps. You'll see it ringed with piers and rail lines, with the tanks of the Standard Oil company. You'll see tanks dotting the playfields and along Newton Creek. That is distinctly blue-collar. And the Brooklyn Navy Yard wasn't a big industrial installation. Naw, it just had a bunch of foundries, warehouses, machine shops, dry docks and shit like that. Really just sort of a big yacht club. And Camden Yards is obviously wrong [[good catch). I mean Hoboken.

Let's face facts: The white-collar, trade-oriented employment is a factor in New York, but the idea that New York NEVER was a center of manufacturing is silly. For many points in its history, Chicago didn't exist and Detroit was a tiny frontier town.

[Detroitnerd]

So what does all this self-praise and self-pity have to do with expressways in Manhattan?

I'm not sure. [[hahahaha) This is what happens when we start to discuss the reasons for Detroit's decline. Mention expressways, and how New York fought back against them in the 1960s, and you get into these side debates about why we can't talk about New York. Mention industrial dispersal and its effect on city tax revenue and density, and then somebody brings up New York just to talk about how New York diversified successfully. Mention racial segregation as a cause for Detroit's decline, and people will talk about how segregated New York was, or how diverse New York is. Mention this or that and, as usual, we all wind up arguing about New York, or whether we should compare ourselves to New York, or why we must. It's a kind of deflection that goes on. And Crawford is pretty talented at drawing it out and hoping to exhaust people, I think.

If you're curious, here's the laundry list of what caused and hastened Detroit's decline, from an urban sociology perspective.

1) Never consolidated its many cities into one supercity.
2) Never had natural growth boundaries [[or instituted artificial ones)
3) Psychological attitude that cars are best for moving everything; only other alternative is air transportation
4) Eisenhower's highway act
5) Detroit converting its streetcars to buses
5) G.I. Bill subsidizes move to the suburbs for whites
6) Industrial dispersal policies mean moving factories outside city to suburbs
7) As the city becomes blacker and poorer, insurance industries redline Detroit
8) Established home-building, road-building and real estate lobbies' impact on local political decisions.
9) City leadership eager to cater to exigencies of short-sighted business community at expense of residents.
10) To stay in power, elected officials play race cards.
11) Demolish-it-and-they-will-come development "strategy."
12) People here do not know their history, and subscribe to an alternative history of the city that does not conform to facts

Off the top of me head, that's the dirty dozen.

[bailey]

Let's face facts: The white-collar, trade-oriented employment is a factor in New York, but the idea that New York NEVER was a center of manufacturing is silly. For many points in its history, Chicago didn't exist and Detroit was a tiny frontier town.

How about we agree that at no time during Detroit's 60 year slide from functioning and prosperous city to what we have now, was New York City a "center of manufacturing"? Seems to me that was jist of the comment in the first place.

[Retroit]

Haha. Nice effort to be slippery, Retroit. But you note that your original statement was this: "While all you said is true, you've failed to acknowledge that while all these industries were declining, there was a rapidly growing commerce/finance/trade/marketing sector. Detroit did not have this capacity."

I'm pointing out that Detroit DID have this capacity. This is where you would normally perceptively note that and say, "Oh, I wasn't aware of that. That's interesting. That goes against my personal wisdom."

But no. Now you want to daisy-chain that argument onto something else, bringing up side points and barely relevant stuff, but never acknowledging the correction. In short, you are yammering away, doing your best to spin your rhetorical wheels. But you ain't got no traction. In short, you ain't got shit there. Thanks for playing.

Actually, I was already aware that Detroit had a stock market. In fact, I learned it right here at DetroitYES! I just don't believe that the Detroit stock market was anywhere close to the stock markets of New York as a source of economic/industrial/residential staying power. Maybe from your vast wealth of hard-won knowledge, you could compare the number of people employed, the shares traded, the number of companies listed, etc. and convince us that I am wrong.

[Detroitnerd]

How about we agree that at no time during Detroit's 60 year slide from functioning and prosperous city to what we have now, was New York City a "center of manufacturing"? Seems to me that was jist of the comment in the first place.

Like I said, NEVER is a long time. I can't believe anybody would say that New York was NEVER a center of manufacturing. Their manufacturing tripled after they built the Erie Canal. Anyway, I'm so fucking sick of talking about New York.

[Detroitnerd]

Actually, I was already aware that Detroit had a stock market. In fact, I learned it right here at DetroitYES! I just don't believe that the Detroit stock market was anywhere close to the stock markets of New York as a source of economic/industrial/residential staying power. Maybe from your vast wealth of hard-won knowledge, you could compare the number of people employed, the shares traded, the number of companies listed, etc. and convince us that I am wrong.

Well, let's get back to basics, shall we? You said that industry declined in Detroit, but Detroit was never a financial center. [[How can you have just learned that Detroit had a stock exchange and then say something like that? Come on!) Then you say that, well, yeah, Detroit had a stock exchange, but it just wasn't as big as New York as a source of economic-industrial-residential staying power. [[That's quite a list of things to add on after your simple statement gets flipped on you, but, fine, we'll work with that.)

How important does the wealth and trading be for a city to have a stock market like that? It has to be monumental. There has to be so much concentrated wealth, frantic buying and selling and profits galore to, well, to set up a stock exchange. It's not like Lucy Van Pelt just went out to Larned and Griswold and set up a cardboard box that said STOCK MARKET. The wealth in Detroit was [[and, to a large extent, is) massive.

The big question is what happened to that wealth. Why did Detroit experience capital flight? Why did the industry leave the city? Why didn't the residents stay?

The answer is in those dirty dozen problems.

[DetroitPlanner]

If you're curious, here's the laundry list of what caused and hastened Detroit's decline, from an urban sociology perspective.

1) Never consolidated its many cities into one supercity.
2) Never had natural growth boundaries [[or instituted artificial ones)
3) Psychological attitude that cars are best for moving everything; only other alternative is air transportation
4) Eisenhower's highway act
5) Detroit converting its streetcars to buses
5) G.I. Bill subsidizes move to the suburbs for whites
6) Industrial dispersal policies mean moving factories outside city to suburbs
7) As the city becomes blacker and poorer, insurance industries redline Detroit
8) Established home-building, road-building and real estate lobbies' impact on local political decisions.
9) City leadership eager to cater to exigencies of short-sighted business community at expense of residents.
10) To stay in power, elected officials play race cards.
11) Demolish-it-and-they-will-come development "strategy."
12) People here do not know their history, and subscribe to an alternative history of the city that does not conform to facts

Off the top of me head, that's the dirty dozen.

Sounds like Chicago to me. Its much more cut up by freeways and balkanized than we are. However, they have been able to rip down buildings and replace them with new ones. No one sheds a tear about losing the old there, but then again they typically get something better to replace it with. The question is not that we have all of this because many other places do too, but of how did we get the rug pulled out from under us? Why did we not diversify when we had chances to? I can recall not too long ago when you could walk around Chicago and see banks such as Comerica, NBD, on the streets and when Marshall Fields was bought by Hudsons. Somewhere we allowed ourselves to become non competitive and die.

[Detroitnerd]

Sounds like Chicago to me. Its much more cut up by freeways and balkanized than we are. However, they have been able to rip down buildings and replace them with new ones. No one sheds a tear about losing the old there, but then again they typically get something better to replace it with. The question is not that we have all of this because many other places do too, but of how did we get the rug pulled out from under us? Why did we not diversify when we had chances to? I can recall not too long ago when you could walk around Chicago and see banks such as Comerica, NBD, on the streets and when Marshall Fields was bought by Hudsons. Somewhere we allowed ourselves to become non competitive and die.

Your post is a terrific answer to this thread. You really show the way, DetroitPlanner.

[iheartthed]

How about we agree that at no time during Detroit's 60 year slide from functioning and prosperous city to what we have now, was New York City a "center of manufacturing"? Seems to me that was jist of the comment in the first place.

I wouldn't even say that much. When NYC was hemorrhaging population from the 1950s - 1970s, it was pretty much a direct result of manufacturing across the country was going down the tubes [[take note that this is also about the time that Detroit began to take on massive population losses). Areas like Park Slope, Brooklyn and Sunset Park, Brooklyn and Red Hook, Brooklyn took major hits and were also the areas where significant parts of the population were blue collar workers. These neighborhoods are only just recently recovering from this -- Park Slope a bit ahead of the others -- by replacing former blue collar residents with non-blue collar residents. And NYC, like everywhere else in the country, was scheming up urban renewal projects to reinvent itself. Some projects were just more misguided than others...

[Retroit]

I'm not sure. [[hahahaha) This is what happens when we start to discuss the reasons for Detroit's decline. Mention expressways, and how New York fought back against them in the 1960s, and you get into these side debates about why we can't talk about New York. Mention industrial dispersal and its effect on city tax revenue and density, and then somebody brings up New York just to talk about how New York diversified successfully. Mention racial segregation as a cause for Detroit's decline, and people will talk about how segregated New York was, or how diverse New York is. Mention this or that and, as usual, we all wind up arguing about New York, or whether we should compare ourselves to New York, or why we must. It's a kind of deflection that goes on. And Crawford is pretty talented at drawing it out and hoping to exhaust people, I think.

LOL, you got that right! We are a curious bunch! The New York comparisons [[similarity comparisons, that is) always bother me because I wonder how anyone can make such comparisons. Our cities are so different.

I'd agree that threads seem to meander off course, and I am often guilty of it, but I thought Iheartheds initial post was fairly well-defined. That is why I've chosen to partake in such extensive debate. There is a pernicious belief among many DetroitYESers that if only we didn't build expressways like Manhattan, we would be just like them. Well, let's think about this. If you had 2 identical 1950 Manhattans and you built expressways in one and not the other, would the one without really be that adversely affected? If you had 2 identical 1950 Detroits and you built expressways in one and not the other, would the one without really be a whole lot better than the one with? I think that is what we are debating on this thread.

So let's examine your list and see whether they would have been any different if expressways had not been built:

If you're curious, here's the laundry list of what caused and hastened Detroit's decline, from an urban sociology perspective.

1) Never consolidated its many cities into one supercity.

Yes, Detroit's decline would have been slowed due to the presence of a greater, more "diverse" voter base. But a lack of expressways would not have prevented the growth of one super-city, just like it didn't in the pre-expressway era.

2) Never had natural growth boundaries [[or instituted artificial ones)

True if you could have stopped people from living where they want, the need for expressways would be less, but that is a big IF.

3) Psychological attitude that cars are best for moving everything; only other alternative is air transportation

And if expressways were not built, the roads would be clogged.

4) Eisenhower's highway act

Passed by the will of the people.

5) Detroit converting its streetcars to buses

If streetcars were kept instead of expressways, would they not have been expanded out to "34 Mile Road"?

5) G.I. Bill subsidizes move to the suburbs for whites

By the will of the people.

6) Industrial dispersal policies mean moving factories outside city to suburbs

Not "policies", but necessities. The factories were outgrown and outdated. No difference without expressways

7) As the city becomes blacker and poorer, insurance industries redline Detroit

Due to the same racial influences that caused people to move out of the city. No difference without expressways

8) Established home-building, road-building and real estate lobbies' impact on local political decisions.

They were able to lobby because they were getting rich from people who moved out and necessitated the building of expressways

9) City leadership eager to cater to exigencies of short-sighted business community at expense of residents.

No difference without expressways.

10) To stay in power, elected officials play race cards.

No difference without expressways.

11) Demolish-it-and-they-will-come development "strategy."

Unfortunately, they are demolishing the wrong things. They should be demolishing the burnt-out or dilapidated homes. No difference without expressways.

12) People here do not know their history, and subscribe to an alternative history of the city that does not conform to facts

The facts are that most metropolitan Detroiters do not desire to live in a high-rise and ride the subway to work. Now, if that is all that we were used to [[like New Yorkers), we may continue to do so. But if you took away the New York subways and replaced the high-rises with single family homes, they would get used to their cars and would laugh at the suggestion that they should go back to "high-density" living.

[ghettopalmetto]

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! That is the most hilarious post I have ever read, Retroit. I busted a gut from top-to-bottom. Thanks for the laughs.

New Yorkers envy Detroit? HA!

[Retroit]

Well, let's get back to basics, shall we? You said that industry declined in Detroit, but Detroit was never a financial center. [[How can you have just learned that Detroit had a stock exchange and then say something like that? Come on!) Then you say that, well, yeah, Detroit had a stock exchange, but it just wasn't as big as New York as a source of economic-industrial-residential staying power. [[That's quite a list of things to add on after your simple statement gets flipped on you, but, fine, we'll work with that.)

How important does the wealth and trading be for a city to have a stock market like that? It has to be monumental. There has to be so much concentrated wealth, frantic buying and selling and profits galore to, well, to set up a stock exchange. It's not like Lucy Van Pelt just went out to Larned and Griswold and set up a cardboard box that said STOCK MARKET. The wealth in Detroit was [[and, to a large extent, is) massive.

I don't deny that Detroit was much more economically significant back then. But how did "urban planning blunders" destroy the stock market? If Detroit's Stock Exchange had equal significance to New York's and if Detroit had a similar equality in all other businesses, would Detroit's "urban planning blunders" have had a detrimental affect on those exchanges and businesses?

The big question is what happened to that wealth. Why did Detroit experience capital flight? Why did the industry leave the city? Why didn't the residents stay?

The answer is in those dirty dozen problems.

The wealth was tied to the auto industry. Factories were moved out of the city. Nothing replaced them. People with capital have no use for abandoned factories [[generally). The factories were outdated and there was not enough clear land to expand. White residents left because they didn't want to live near blacks and it was cheap and easy to built new homes in the suburbs. Black residents left because they didn't want to live near bad blacks and it is cheap and easy to buy homes in the suburbs.

[Retroit]

New Yorkers envy Detroit?

Who said that. I said people get used to a more free way of living. I'd say you'd have as hard a time of convincing a New Yorker who has bought a car and a home out away from the city to give them up and move back into the city as you would convincing a metro-Detroiter to give up their car and go live in a high-rise condo/apartment downtown.

[iheartthed]

Who said that. I said people get used to a more free way of living. I'd say you'd have as hard a time of convincing a New Yorker who has bought a car and a home out away from the city to give them up and move back into the city as you would convincing a metro-Detroiter to give up their car and go live in a high-rise condo/apartment downtown.

Then why is Metro Detroit's migration flow going outbound, while New York is still attracting new residents?