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

[ghettopalmetto]

According to Retroit, the implication is that Detroit hasn't made ANY planning blunders in its history. The current state of Detroit was inevitable, given that it serves as the home of the auto industry [[which I guess goes hand-in-hand with decline? you tell me.).

Y'all just don't get it. People WANTED everything to turn out this way. And if they didn't, it was gonna happen anyway, no matter what anyone did. That's why the lifestyle Detroit offers is far preferable to anything else on the face of God's green earth.

------------------

All I know, is it must be nice to live in a world without consequences--or consequence.

[Detroitnerd]

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.

Maybe that's what you're debating, but it's pointless to do that. How can you say what would happen when something didn't happen? Where's the control? Shit, that's even harder than trying to compare Detroit to New York; at least those both exist for comparison. Comparing two cities that exist to two cities that don't exist is pointless to my mind.

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

But that's not what I'm trying to do here. That list is a fairly comprehensive list of the many major reasons for Detroit's decline, with expressways being just one bullet point. Aww, shit. Well, I'll try to respond anyway.

ON NO ONE SUPERCITY:

Yes, Detroit's decline would have been slowed due to the presence of a greater, more "diverse" voter base.

No, it's not about diversity. It's about a growing region being able to harness all the growth for the greater good. Compare it to the way other cities consolidated [[Boston, New York in the late 1800s) or the way cities have swallowed their suburbs [[Anchorage) to retain the tax revenue of new growth. The main text to read on this point is Rusk's "Cities without Suburbs."

ON GROWTH BOUNDARIES:

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.

Again, I'm not talking about expressways. I'm talking about civic failure. When you have a city that has growth boundaries, like San Francisco [[the tip of a peninsula), Pittsburgh [[hemmed in by mountains), Manhattan [[an island surrounded by water) or Montreal [[same), you find that people don't "use up" land and go on to the next fresh parcel. The land values are such that density is important, and the best transit system to serve densely populated areas isn't the automobile. That sets off another chain reaction in development patterns that preserve land value over spatial growth. And that's not a big IF, that's just practical reality. Nobody can live on the water or on a steep slope.
And then there are growth boundaries. That stops developers from just eating up all the new space [[lower construction costs, more profit, etc.) because it forces them to refurbish, repurpose and redevelop land and buildings that would be considered "used up" if there was endless land to consume. Seems to work pretty well in Portland.

ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ATTITUDE THAT CARS ARE BEST FOR EVERYTHING:

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

First things first: Cars are not best for everything. I'll summarize something I've posted here before. By placing every burden on the car, you make it unsuitable for what it does best: curb-to-curb transit. If you have fully functioning heavy rail, light rail, buses, foot traffic, airports and everything integrated into a plan, you free up the street for emergency vehicles, delivery trucks and taxis. Traffic jams are the result of making automobiles do it all. Instead of helping people with a mode that's well-suited to any activity, we make them use cars for everything.
Also, expressways do not alleviate traffic. They generate it. Every time you build an expressway, it fills up with cars. And then, seeing that as the justification for expanding it, the road is expanded. Then it fills up with more cars. Then you expand it again. This has been proven and demonstrated in urban planning classes. Only in the United States do we ignore this. To some extent, you can say that the reason we have traffic jams is because we have no plan other than laying down concrete and putting more cars on the road.

ON EISENHOWER'S INTERSTATE PLAN:

Passed by the will of the people.

It is a gross oversimplification to say that the highway plan was passed by the will of the people. It was never up for a referendum. The representatives voted for it. And few people knew what it meant. Even Eisenhower didn't realize that they were intending to ram interstates THROUGH American cities. He thought they were supposed to be only from city to city. Anyway, who cares if it was passed with the will of the people, way back then, and most of them dead today? We are the ones who see what it has wrought, so we have just as much say. In a way, we're much better suited to decide if we will what it has wrought.

ON DETROIT DUMPING ITS STREETCARS:

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

Probably not. The development profile for streetcars is different. They travel at a maximum speed of 40 mph. The development they promote is denser, more walkable, more environmentally friendly. Nobody is going to live on Hall Road and take a streetcar downtown. They might live in an apartment building in Birmingham, though, and work downtown.[/quote]

ON THE GI BILL:

By the will of the people.

Um, not of ALL the people. You'll notice that only fighting men got the G.I. Bill. That means only white men, Retroit. You think African-Americans approved of a measure that subsidized home-buying for whites only and left them in the ghetto? See what I mean? History is important to know and understand.

ON INDUSTRIAL DISPERSAL POLICIES FOR MOVING FACTORIES OUTSIDE CENTRAL CITIES

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

No, these were policies. Based on the pretext of being prepared for nuclear attack, the federal government directed industry to locate its factories in a more dispersed manner. Industry, of course, didn't argue. They were happy to site new factories out by the freeways, in broad-brush zoning and with huge parcels. But it was still U.S. policy.

ON REDLINING:

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

You perceive the same cause, but the fact is that insurers could have been reined in. They redlined to take the most profit, and they should have had heavy fines or sanctions for that. But because U.S. urban policy was essentially "We give up, drop dead," they were free to do what they would.

ON HOME-BUILDING, ROAD-BUILDING & REAL ESTATE LOBBIES:

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

First of all, you have this backwards. The building of the freeways were not necessitated by people moving out. The freeways were built to move people out of the city and to develop the land outside it to make enormous profits. In the beginning, the lobbies didn't get rich because they were doing the people's bidding. They helped grease the wheels of the system for a bonanza of their own making. And it was all made possible with the people's money.

ON THE CITY CATERING TO BIG BUSINESS, NOT MOMS AND POPS:

No difference without expressways.

So? You agree?

ON LEADERS PLAYING THE RACE CARD:

No difference without expressways.

So you agree?

ON DEMOLISH-IT-AND-THEY-WILL-COME:

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

Sounds like agreement. I agree with your statement, for sure.

ON METRO DETROITERS NOT UNDERSTANDING THEIR HISTORY:

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.

I don't think so, Retroit. I think they'd just do what Detroiters have done over the last 60 years: They'd leave. We have a feedback loop here in the Detroit area. People who live here who do want to live in an urban environment and ditch their cars for mass transit do the only thing that works: They leave. They go to New York, they go to Chicago, they go to other cities and other countries that value the urban environment. So what we're left with here are people who not only enjoy living in a crappy, suburban patchwork of cookie-cutter houses, big box stores, pizza shacks and burger huts, megaloplexes and malls, they can't understand people who don't.
And tastes are changing. Research shows that Americans are much less likely to favor that kind of lifestyle than in the past. And trends are toward bikable, walkable, livable places with lots of transit options, entertainment choices, and real diversity. Unfortunately, we're so mired in the mid-20th century [[and so busy praising it and trying to re-create it) that we'll never attract them.
Those blinders we seem to love wearing, about our past, about what people prefer, about where we're headed, are part of the problem. It makes us look ridiculous. You tell any New Yorker that they'd be fine if they took out the subway and replaced Park Avenue with McMansions and see if they don't give you a slightly queer look, friend.

Anyway, your five-word answers make me wonder if you really want a debate at all, or just to preserve your own self-satisfaction.

[Retroit]

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

Where are New York's new residents coming from? Are they coming from the suburbs of New York?

[ghettopalmetto]

Where are New York's new residents coming from? Are they coming from the suburbs of New York?

Does it matter?

[Detroitnerd]

Where are New York's new residents coming from? Are they coming from the suburbs of New York?

Yeah, a certain amount are, and certainly the wealthiest ones. Anywhere from 1/5 to 1/4 of NYC residents are foreign-born, but a lot of coupon-clipper types have moved in as it has gentrified, from the tri-state area.

[Retroit]

According to Retroit, the implication is that Detroit hasn't made ANY planning blunders in its history. The current state of Detroit was inevitable, given that it serves as the home of the auto industry [[which I guess goes hand-in-hand with decline? you tell me.).

Y'all just don't get it. People WANTED everything to turn out this way. And if they didn't, it was gonna happen anyway, no matter what anyone did. That's why the lifestyle Detroit offers is far preferable to anything else on the face of God's green earth.

------------------

All I know, is it must be nice to live in a world without consequences--or consequence.

No, I'm not suggesting that it was inevitable and would have happened anyway. I'm suggesting that it happened because it is how people wanted it to happen or made it happen due to the circumstances beyond their individual control. You seem to think that everything has been and has to be controlled by the Urban Planning Authority and that people have no free will to decide how they want to live.

Frankly, I'd be willing to bet that most superbanites are quite happy with their world, cars and expressways included. It sound like most of the dissatisfaction on this forum is from people who want to live in a Manhattanized Detroit and just can't bring themselves to accept Detroit as it is.

[Detroitnerd]

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?

I never said urban planning blunders destroyed the stock market. I never said Detroit's stock exchange had equal significance to New York's. Do these debate tactics usually work for you?

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.

The wealth was tied to auto executives, who used it to build huge mansions outside the city and build new factories outside the city. Capital flight was always much more severe in Detroit than population flight, believe it or not.

As for those comments about "bad blacks," keep digging, mister. Read Sugrue's book for an account of "block-busting."

[ghettopalmetto]

Frankly, I'd be willing to bet that most superbanites are quite happy with their world, cars and expressways included. It sound like most of the dissatisfaction on this forum is from people who want to live in a Manhattanized Detroit and just can't bring themselves to accept Detroit as it is.

Are your people happy with traffic jams and congestion? Are they happy that their taxes always increase? Are they happy that their kids can't afford to live in the same town in which they grew up? Are they happy that waterways are so full of E. coli bacteria, that the beaches are closed for half the season?

Yeah, it's most certainly the role of government to manage fiscal outlays of public monies in a prudent manner, and to preserve property values. The creation and preservation--By Any Means Necessary--of continued suburbanization and easy motoring throughout the metropolis on the part of Detroit and the State of Michigan hasvebeen a colossal failure in this regard.

[Detroitnerd]

Frankly, I'd be willing to bet that most superbanites are quite happy with their world, cars and expressways included. It sound like most of the dissatisfaction on this forum is from people who want to live in a Manhattanized Detroit and just can't bring themselves to accept Detroit as it is.

Haha. Are you happy to accept Detroit as it is? A disinvested, decaying inner city surrounded by a built environment that probably can't survive another 50 years? Ho-ho-ho. That's rich.

[Eric]

ON EISENHOWER'S INTERSTATE PLAN:
It is a gross oversimplification to say that the highway plan was passed by the will of the people. It was never up for a referendum. The representatives voted for it. And few people knew what it meant. Even Eisenhower didn't realize that they were intending to ram interstates THROUGH American cities. He thought they were supposed to be only from city to city. Anyway, who cares if it was passed with the will of the people, way back then, and most of them dead today? We are the ones who see what it has wrought, so we have just as much say. In a way, we're much better suited to decide if we will what it has wrought.

Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk addressed this in Suburban Nation- The Rise and Decline of the American Dream: “The Federal highway planners of the fifties actually knew better than to bring highways into center cites, but they were out-lobbied by the big-city mayors, who wanted the U.S. highway money spent in their jurisdictions.” As a result, over six thousand miles of urban highway was added to the Federal Highway Act. Unfortunately American cities [[not just Detroit) have not learned their lesson because this is still happening.

[Retroit]

Maybe that's what you're debating, but it's pointless to do that. How can you say what would happen when something didn't happen? Where's the control? Shit, that's even harder than trying to compare Detroit to New York; at least those both exist for comparison. Comparing two cities that exist to two cities that don't exist is pointless to my mind.

Well then, tell that to Ihearthed, because that was the premise of this thread: that if Detroit hadn't built expressways like Moses wanted to do in NY, we would have been better off.

As for your other points, you've strayed far off topic. I tried my best to prevent that, but oh well, I'll respond anyway:

ON NO ONE SUPERCITY:
No, it's not about diversity. It's about a growing region being able to harness all the growth for the greater good. Compare it to the way other cities consolidated [[Boston, New York in the late 1800s) or the way cities have swallowed their suburbs [[Anchorage) to retain the tax revenue of new growth. The main text to read on this point is Rusk's "Cities without Suburbs."

The main benefit of a Detroit supercity is that it would force the Detroit Shitty Clown Show out of office because the superbanites wouldn't put up with their incompetence.

ON GROWTH BOUNDARIES:
Again, I'm not talking about expressways. I'm talking about civic failure. When you have a city that has growth boundaries, like San Francisco [[the tip of a peninsula), Pittsburgh [[hemmed in by mountains), Manhattan [[an island surrounded by water) or Montreal [[same), you find that people don't "use up" land and go on to the next fresh parcel. The land values are such that density is important, and the best transit system to serve densely populated areas isn't the automobile. That sets off another chain reaction in development patterns that preserve land value over spatial growth. And that's not a big IF, that's just practical reality. Nobody can live on the water or on a steep slope.

Does this apply to Detroit, and if not, why are we discussing it?

And then there are growth boundaries. That stops developers from just eating up all the new space [[lower construction costs, more profit, etc.) because it forces them to refurbish, repurpose and redevelop land and buildings that would be considered "used up" if there was endless land to consume. Seems to work pretty well in Portland.

Would this be feasible in Detroit? Isn't Portland surrounded by hills and forests? [[It's been a while since I was there, but that is how I remember it.)

ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ATTITUDE THAT CARS ARE BEST FOR EVERYTHING:
First things first: Cars are not best for everything. I'll summarize something I've posted here before. By placing every burden on the car, you make it unsuitable for what it does best: curb-to-curb transit. If you have fully functioning heavy rail, light rail, buses, foot traffic, airports and everything integrated into a plan, you free up the street for emergency vehicles, delivery trucks and taxis. Traffic jams are the result of making automobiles do it all. Instead of helping people with a mode that's well-suited to any activity, we make them use cars for everything.
Also, expressways do not alleviate traffic. They generate it. Every time you build an expressway, it fills up with cars. And then, seeing that as the justification for expanding it, the road is expanded. Then it fills up with more cars. Then you expand it again. This has been proven and demonstrated in urban planning classes. Only in the United States do we ignore this. To some extent, you can say that the reason we have traffic jams is because we have no plan other than laying down concrete and putting more cars on the road.

A car-based city can be "planned" to work just as well as a non-car based city. Actually, Detroit works quite well. The lack of a large downtown prevents a rush hour as bad as other cities.

ON EISENHOWER'S INTERSTATE PLAN:
It is a gross oversimplification to say that the highway plan was passed by the will of the people. It was never up for a referendum. The representatives voted for it. And few people knew what it meant. Even Eisenhower didn't realize that they were intending to ram interstates THROUGH American cities. He thought they were supposed to be only from city to city. Anyway, who cares if it was passed with the will of the people, way back then, and most of them dead today? We are the ones who see what it has wrought, so we have just as much say. In a way, we're much better suited to decide if we will what it has wrought.

Expressways are extensively used by people to get around within the city. Travel times would be greatly increased without them.

ON DETROIT DUMPING ITS STREETCARS:
Probably not. The development profile for streetcars is different. They travel at a maximum speed of 40 mph. The development they promote is denser, more walkable, more environmentally friendly. Nobody is going to live on Hall Road and take a streetcar downtown. They might live in an apartment building in Birmingham, though, and work downtown.

If you believe this, you might as well scrap your plans to replace expressways with rail transit. People are not going to move from Hall Road to go live near a rail line.

ON THE GI BILL:
Um, not of ALL the people. You'll notice that only fighting men got the G.I. Bill. That means only white men, Retroit. You think African-Americans approved of a measure that subsidized home-buying for whites only and left them in the ghetto? See what I mean? History is important to know and understand.

I don't deny there was racism. In fact, I listed racism as one of the main contributors to white flight.

ON INDUSTRIAL DISPERSAL POLICIES FOR MOVING FACTORIES OUTSIDE CENTRAL CITIES
No, these were policies. Based on the pretext of being prepared for nuclear attack, the federal government directed industry to locate its factories in a more dispersed manner. Industry, of course, didn't argue. They were happy to site new factories out by the freeways, in broad-brush zoning and with huge parcels. But it was still U.S. policy.

Those factories that were built in the manner you described were built in addition to the factories that existed in the city, not as a replacement of.

ON REDLINING:
You perceive the same cause, but the fact is that insurers could have been reined in. They redlined to take the most profit, and they should have had heavy fines or sanctions for that. But because U.S. urban policy was essentially "We give up, drop dead," they were free to do what they would.

Again, I wish there never was racism. And as you rightfully state, the "urban policy " contributed to this, and we should not expect that a current urban policy would also not arbitrarily pick winners and losers

ON HOME-BUILDING, ROAD-BUILDING & REAL ESTATE LOBBIES:
First of all, you have this backwards. The building of the freeways were not necessitated by people moving out. The freeways were built to move people out of the city and to develop the land outside it to make enormous profits. In the beginning, the lobbies didn't get rich because they were doing the people's bidding. They helped grease the wheels of the system for a bonanza of their own making. And it was all made possible with the people's money.

People wanted and want expressways. Whether they were built out of genuine need or as part of some conspiracy is irrelevant. People want them and they got them. You make it sound like we have a bunch of abandoned unnecessary expressways throughout the city.

ON THE CITY CATERING TO BIG BUSINESS, NOT MOMS AND POPS:
So? You agree?
ON LEADERS PLAYING THE RACE CARD:
So you agree?
ON DEMOLISH-IT-AND-THEY-WILL-COME:
Sounds like agreement. I agree with your statement, for sure.

Yes.

...post too long, continued...

[Retroit]

ON METRO DETROITERS NOT UNDERSTANDING THEIR HISTORY:
I don't think so, Retroit. I think they'd just do what Detroiters have done over the last 60 years: They'd leave. We have a feedback loop here in the Detroit area. People who live here who do want to live in an urban environment and ditch their cars for mass transit do the only thing that works: They leave. They go to New York, they go to Chicago, they go to other cities and other countries that value the urban environment. So what we're left with here are people who not only enjoy living in a crappy, suburban patchwork of cookie-cutter houses, big box stores, pizza shacks and burger huts, megaloplexes and malls.
And tastes are changing. Research shows that Americans are much less likely to favor that kind of lifestyle than in the past. And trends are toward bikable, walkable, livable places with lots of transit options, entertainment choices, and real diversity. Unfortunately, we're so mired in the mid-20th century [[and so busy praising it and trying to re-create it) that we'll never attract them.
Those blinders we seem to love wearing, about our past, about what people prefer, about where we're headed, are part of the problem. It makes us look ridiculous. You tell any New Yorker that they'd be fine if they took out the subway and replaced Park Avenue with McMansions and see if they don't give you a slightly queer look, friend.

I disagree with most of this. If a person is leaving Detroit for New York or Chicago, I'd be willing to bet it is not so they can ride the subway/El-train. Most superbanites are quite happy with their lifestyles. Sure there are changes. Bike trails are being put in and such, but these are not fundamental changes to replace cars. It is much easier for people to go from a strong mass transit culture to an auto culture than vice-versa. Once people get used to the freedom, flexibility, and convenience of a car, it is very hard to go back.

Anyway, your five-word answers make me wonder if you really want a debate at all, or just to preserve your own self-satisfaction.

Ha! Five word answers my ass!

[Retroit]

I never said urban planning blunders destroyed the stock market. I never said Detroit's stock exchange had equal significance to New York's. Do these debate tactics usually work for you?

Did you even bother to read the thread title and initial post, or do you just like to barge into the conversation so you can regale us with your "knowledge"?

[Retroit]

The wealth was tied to auto executives, who used it to build huge mansions outside the city and build new factories outside the city. Capital flight was always much more severe in Detroit than population flight, believe it or not.

Certainly, you don't expect auto executives to live in Detroit. They moved out along with [almost] every other white person. Not only were large factories built outside the city, but also many smaller ones due to lack of space within the city limits. Workers at these suburban factories could not all be expected to live within the city of Detroit.

As for those comments about "bad blacks," keep digging, mister. Read Sugrue's book for an account of "block-busting."

Sugrue's book does not cover the recent exodus of blacks from Detroit.

[crawford]

Well then, tell that to Ihearthed, because that was the premise of this thread: that if Detroit hadn't built expressways like Moses wanted to do in NY, we would have been better off.

Huh? Your premise is wrong.

NYC built expressways, just like Detroit built expressways.

Yes, not every single expressway planned for NYC was actually built, but the same holds true for Detroit.

Every American city has expressways. Almost every world city has expressways. Heck Paris is completely ringed by expressways, and Tokyo has them swooping through downtown neighborhoods.

Expressways and urban planning "mistakes" have almost nothing to do with Detroit's current situation. Successful cities can overcome alleged design flaws.

The issues in Detroit are magnified economic problems, increased racial strife, and a strong preference for single family living.

[Retroit]

Are your people happy with traffic jams and congestion?

We don't have traffic jams and congestion out here. That's a Detroit problem.

Are they happy that their taxes always increase?

Detroit has a higher millage than any suburb. We control our tax rates out here.

Are they happy that their kids can't afford to live in the same town in which they grew up?

Kids do live in the same town in which they grew up, unlike Detroit.

Are they happy that waterways are so full of E. coli bacteria, that the beaches are closed for half the season?

And there wouldn't be health problems if 4.4 million people lived in the city of Detroit?

Yeah, it's most certainly the role of government to manage fiscal outlays of public monies in a prudent manner, and to preserve property values. The creation and preservation--By Any Means Necessary--of continued suburbanization and easy motoring throughout the metropolis on the part of Detroit and the State of Michigan hasvebeen a colossal failure in this regard.

According only to the few.

[Retroit]

Huh? Your premise is wrong.

NYC built expressways, just like Detroit built expressways.

Yes, not every single expressway planned for NYC was actually built, but the same holds true for Detroit.

Every American city has expressways. Almost every world city has expressways. Heck Paris is completely ringed by expressways, and Tokyo has them swooping through downtown neighborhoods.

Expressways and urban planning "mistakes" have almost nothing to do with Detroit's current situation. Successful cities can overcome alleged design flaws.

The issues in Detroit are magnified economic problems, increased racial strife, and a strong preference for single family living.

I know that, crawford, but try convincing Ihearthed and his like-minded "urban planners" of that.

[Eric]

A car-based city can be "planned" to work just as well as a non-car based city. Actually, Detroit works quite well. The lack of a large downtown prevents a rush hour as bad as other cities.



Expressways are extensively used by people to get around within the city. Travel times would be greatly increased without them.

I strongly disagree that an auto-oriented city can work just as well as a non-auto based city. A city with highways as the main mode of transportation, like Detroit, Houston or Columbus, will have the problem of induced traffic. That is, adding highways and widening existing roads does nothing to reduce the traffic. Induced traffic is explained by an aphorism among traffic engineers: “Trying to cure traffic congestion by adding more capacity is like trying to cure obesity by loosening your belt.” Basically, the mechanism here is that increased traffic capacity makes longer commutes less of a hassle thus people are willing to live farther and farther from their workplace. As more and more people make similar decisions, the longer distance commute grows as crowded as the inner city, commuters clamor for additional lanes and, the cycle repeats itself. Plus an auto-oriented city concentrates through traffic on as little streets as possible, thus compounding the problem.

Induced traffic does work both ways and this is evident in a study done by the New York Department of Transportation that showed 93% of car trips lost from the collapse of the West Side Highway did not reappear elsewhere. Additionally, a British study found that downtown road removals boost local economies, while new roads lead to higher urban unemployment.

[crawford]

Eric, what does any of this "induced traffic" claptrap have to do with whether or not a city can function on the automobile?

Detroit suburbs generally don't even have to consider these issues. Where's the horrific congestion in Oakland County? It's one of the wealthiest and most successful counties in the nation yet completely wedded to the automobile. How is this possible?

Don't those idiots know that they're supposed to shut down Orchard Lake Road to build a subway?

[Bearinabox]

Where are New York's new residents coming from? Are they coming from the suburbs of New York?

Well, a lot of them come from places like Troy and Farmington Hills. Talked to any college-age metro Detroiters lately? Most of the ones I know, you ask them why they want to leave Detroit, they'll tell you, in so many words, that they want to live someplace with nightlife and subways. Things like crime, blight, and unemployment don't bother them anywhere near as much.

[Fury13]

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.

That's a REALLY simplistic and wrongheaded statement. It was true in some cases, I'm sure, but not the majority of the time. Most white residents left because of one or more of the following reasons: a) new neighbors were not keeping up their property and/or were of questionable or even criminal character [[black OR white); b) manufacturing jobs moved to the suburbs, so they moved to be closer to work; c) higher crime in their neighborhood, including robbery, auto theft, and assault; d) their kids were forced by legal mandate to be bused to schools out of their neighborhood, and those new schools often had lower standards while the kids could no longer walk back and forth to school; e) VA and FHA loans made it easy for homeowners to afford a new single-family home in the suburbs -- again, nearer their job [[and the key words there are NEW and SINGLE-FAMILY; many blue-collar folks were tired of sharing space in an old, cramped, two-family dwelling on a small lot). Finally, yes, there was the "fear factor" instilled by unscrupulous real estate agents that the residents' neighborhood was "going downhill" -- which created a domino effect and caused homeowners to sell for low prices, almost en masse.

[ghettopalmetto]

We don't have traffic jams and congestion out here. That's a Detroit problem.



Detroit has a higher millage than any suburb. We control our tax rates out here.



Kids do live in the same town in which they grew up, unlike Detroit.



And there wouldn't be health problems if 4.4 million people lived in the city of Detroit?



According only to the few.

I-75 isn't congested? I-696 isn't congested? Big Beaver isn't congested? I-275 isn't congested? In my experience, the City of Detroit has LESS traffic congestion than the suburbs, primarily due to massive disinvestment in the city.

You control your tax rates in the suburbs? How do you build all those massive new schools that are required when subdivisions get constructed willy-nilly? Are those free?

Kids in the suburbs live in the towns in which they grew up? Which 20-somethings do you know that are buying houses in Troy and West Bloomfield?

If the region's population were concentrated in Detroit, I can assure you that Lake St. Clair and the northwestern lakes in Oakland County wouldn't be polluted from automobile and agricultural runoff that occurs because every damned acre has been paved with asphalt.

[crawford]

I-75 isn't congested? I-696 isn't congested? Big Beaver isn't congested? I-275 isn't congested? In my experience, the City of Detroit has LESS traffic congestion than the suburbs, primarily due to massive disinvestment in the city..

No, none of these roads are remotely congested. They are all basically free-flowing compared to other major cities around the world.

One can get from downtown Detroit to Troy in 20 minutes. During rush hour, no less.

You control your tax rates in the suburbs? How do you build all those massive new schools that are required when subdivisions get constructed willy-nilly? Are those free?

Yes, it's called home rule. Voters get to decide on their school systems. The State doesn't run the schools, and the Feds don't control the police like in corrupt Detroit.

And no subdivisions are constructed "willy-nilly". Every suburban jurisdiction has a zoning code.

Kids in the suburbs live in the towns in which they grew up? Which 20-somethings do you know that are buying houses in Troy and West Bloomfield?

Yes, they do. I have many friends in their 20's who own homes in suburbs like Troy, Rochester Hills, and Birmingham.

If the region's population were concentrated in Detroit, I can assure you that Lake St. Clair and the northwestern lakes in Oakland County wouldn't be polluted from automobile and agricultural runoff that occurs because every damned acre has been paved with asphalt.

I have no idea how you can "assure" the health of lakes based on some arbitrary development boundary.

Gee, if your Detroit-only 140 square mile scenario were further condensed into a superconcentrated 10 miles approximating the slums of Mumbai, I "assure" you that the Detroit River would be drinkable and moose would roam 6 Mile Road.

[HazenPingree]

I'll gladly bring a shovel.
...
One combatant, identified only as "The Gnome," vowed to "pummel" the bodies of all Detroit mayors after Hazen Pingree [[1890-1897).
...

I would give my vote for sparing Jerome Cavanaugh, he was pretty cool.

[Detroitnerd]

Well, Retroit. I tried. You either are not reading the posts, have no desire to learn anything that challenges your worldview, or just have a really feeble intelligence. If you don't want to have a serious debate, that's fine. I'll just go back to making fun of you.