I'm disappointed. I was expecting another bubba spraycheese coment from you.
All these cities with walkable downtowns and dense urban cores have one thing in common. Their downtowns all have jobs and all are the center of that urban area economy.
The jobs may be there but are people moving there from across the country? I see the early 40s and under crowd going to DC, NY, Boston, Atlanta not Oklahoma City. Although Detroit may have the 2nd highest job growth in the Midwest people still aren't willing to come here. There has to be more than a check. I don't get why this is so hard to understand. It's not all about money and a job for everyone.
There's much more at work than that. Subsidies have been offered, for people to live there, and for businesses to go in. Specific restrictions on what kinds of businesses exist in some buildings. And then you have the generational shift that favors places like Midtown [[walkable! bike-friendly! human scale! bars! restaurants!).
This simply isn't SimCity, Shollin. People don't just need jobs, a Kroger and an Applebee's. I can't imagine that you really have such a simplistic view of things. I think it's your hostility to urbanity and cities that blinds you to what other people truly value and want.
And if you've got blinders on, why should anybody want to listen to you?
Since everybody thinks that "walkability" and "urbanity" are the prime drivers in life, how do you explain the phenomenon of an oil strike, a gold strike, or a major construction project happening in some godforsaken ghost town in the middle of nowhere which suddenly becomes a mecca for workers wanting to cash in? They will come and double up in a cheap shack, live in a travel trailer, erect a tent, anything to be near a source of income. Big bucks make up for a lot of life struggle.
I don't have a problem with urbanity. Walkability is the least of Detroit's concerns. How can these stores in this walkable city be supported if people don't have jobs? Where are these people getting money? Downtown and Midtown developed has been driven by an increase in employment.
No this isn't Sim City. You can't just put some street level shops and a light rail. People need jobs to support themselves. You talk about my hostility towards the city, yet I see quite a bit of hostility towards the suburbs. If people truly value these urban cores, why are suburban areas growing at a faster rate than urban cities? Why is Chicago losing population virtually ever decade and its suburbs gaining? Most of the fastest growing cities from 2000 to 2010 wouldn't be considered walkable http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2012/...ies/index.html
I re-read the article and nowhere did it mention people leaving due to walkability. Overwhelmingly, it was crime and safety. Second was economy.
OKC is a small metropolitan area. Smaller metros tend to always perform better than larger metros on fastest growing lists, when measuring by growth rates. But the majority of the country's growth occurs in large metropolitan areas. So even though OKC's growth rate was far above NY Metro's during 2000-2010, NY Metro expanded by an amount equivalent to nearly half of OKC's total population. OKC expanded by an amount that wouldn't even fill a Manhattan neighborhood.
Also, sprawl or no sprawl, there is a pretty clear link between long term declining central cities/urban centers and declining metropolitan area economy.
313WX and MidTownMs are both correct. As a resident in my 30s and someone to has chose to stay here I do ask myself. Why? Staying in a city should not be a labor of love when you pay taxes in it. We will never get anywhere if the only hope for this city is attracting martyrs. The majority of people are not involved nor do they want to get involved. They want to enter into an enjoyable environment. It's like being upset that someone that wants a car that gets them from point A to B won't shop at your car lot full of rare classic cars that need complete restoration. Yes the classic cars will be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars once restored but the common person isn't willing or interested in doing it. They just want a car to get in and go.
Under rare and special circumstances, job growth will drive investment and population growth. The early auto boom in Detroit, the gold rush in California, the computer breakthroughs in Silicon Valley, and the oil booms in Texas are all examples of rare situations where large quantities of important resources were discovered, or major technological advancements were made, which then drove job and population growth. In all of these situations, massive job growth followed, which of course, brought massive population increases and increased wealth to the area.
These types of special circumstances where major breakthroughs lead to massive job growth, which then drives population growth and investment, are very rare.
In a normal economy, job growth is driven by investment in situations and environments that give investors and entrepreneurs a reason to believe that their marginal rate of return will be greater in one location opposed to an other.
In said normal economic situation, which Detroit/Michigan has been in for the last few generations, job growth is largely a result of investment, not a driver of investment.
This brings me back to the original point of my post... The debate should not be about public safety and basic city services versus walkability and quality urban structure. If we have one without the other, Detroit will continue to be unattractive to the vast majority of investors, entrepreneurs, and residents. It is only when we have the combination of a quality urban environment, coupled with quality city services that our city will become attractive to widespread and sustained investment.
Crime is the number one factor me, where it is coupled to the economy or as a stand alone factor. Staying ahead of the crime wave is getting tougher, be it breaking and entering, car theft, assaults or worse, until crime is fully addressed IN ADDITION to the other issues more people will leave... having become a victim of crime or weary of have to expend so much energy, adaptation and effort to not become a victim.
Yes, even the rationalization of 'crime is everywhere' has grown thin. Sure crime is 'everywhere' but the high percentage, daily grind of it here is wearing. I go in an out of the city all the time; the contrast of services and amenities is striking.
I rarely get my gas in the city at this point. I just don't put myself in that kind higher risk situation if possible...
I also believe once they closed most of the projects and moved those people out and they moved into the city at large ,it hurt housing in the city.
Most of the people who moved in those area could not afford to keep the homes they moved into , the areas they moved into suffer, because of that .
Also when people move from one area[[lower middle class) into a solid housing area [[middle, upper middle class), people tend to notice and don't want to live in the same area.
Also I know not all , but when people move from a [[lower middle class)into [[middle,upper lass area) they tend to invite problems with them i.e noise, cars, loud family members , loud visiting family members, crime , drugs .
I'm pretty sure this is true if it wasn't 90% of the city won't look the way it does today.
I'm not saying these are the only reasons, race, the housing bubble, newer homes ect also plays a role , but I believe the above mention is the bigger problem .
Along with building freeways , new malls ect and the civil unrest in the 60's didn't help .
Having decades of mayors they were very hostile to the state and visa, versa .
A city council that has/had no idea what they were / are doing , driving people away , a poor school district .
The poor auto industry , the list goes on and on. There were plenty of signs , but the leaders of the city look the other way and many just took advantage of the city using the city as their personal piggy bank.
After all of this it's pretty clear what can happen
hey I lived in Rome too ! I lived in the Marconi area off of the blue subway line .
Pizza de Radio area ! I went to school [[university) there right off the tiber river , Im sure you may know the name ;-) [[JCU)
Don't worry Detroit is still here and STILL the same , well some new stuff has/is opening , so when you return a couple new places will have open !
Enjoy ROME !! I loved it ! I wish I could live there ! Living there for a year was the BEST ! Get out drink in all of Rome , who knows when you will go back !
Over the years, housing policy by the well-intended have disproportionately hurt Detroit. The whole idea of the 'projects' was a mistake from the start. Then the next 'well-intended' idea was that you needed to 'mainstream' the poor. They 'feel bad' about being segregated into those project we built for them. So let's apply yet another fix. We'll get it right this time. Sure. Or maybe we can follow my friend John's advice, and 'get the hell out of the way'.