Median Development in Salt Lake City applicable here?

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For the past four years, Salt Lake City has been testing an idea of “median development,” which is pretty much what it sounds like, proposed for an area of town called the Granary District.

Salt Lake City has insanely wide roads, says James Alfandre, executive director of the Kentlands Initiative, which has spearheaded the project. “Brigham Young wanted a team of oxen and a cart to be able to turn around in the street.”


After drawing up some ideas for how to add housing, retail and parks to a median, the Kentlands Initiative used shipping containers to build something called Granary Row, a pop-up version of temporary structures that’s meant to mimic the potential development in scale and use. The group is now working with the city to lease the median for 99 years to permanently build retail and residential space.

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I thought this might be an interesting idea to bring some instant density to parts of some of the 8 lane surface roads around here. Sort of supercharge the blocks that are starting to thrive. Michigan ave from say the lodge to Roosevelt Park... without a stadium there is there really a need for michigan to be 8 lanes? get rid of street parking and you'd still have 4.

http://gizmodo.com/salt-lake-city-wa...-of-1736102058

interesting. We'll see, I guess. I guess the pushback would be concerning all the empty/abandoned storefronts that still exist along some of those strips within Detroit's borders.

I could see this working on West Grand Boulevard in the New Center Area, and on the 9-lane wide East Jefferson coming out of downtown, as well as your suggestion of Michigan Avenue in Corktown. I don't think there will be enough demand on along those radial roads in the outer neighborhoods. Look at Grand River Avenue on the edge of Woodbridge - a lot of empty storefronts.

If those who believe in the downsize concepts,the roads were set up to handle millions of residents and it may be better to look at alternatives.

Other countries actually build storefronts into the berms of the freeways,which makes sense with a lot of wasted space under there.

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Originally Posted by Richard

Other countries actually build storefronts into the berms of the freeways,which makes sense with a lot of wasted space under there.

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Is that done even in Canada and Mexico?

I feel like the roads we have that are wide enough to do that are also roads that actually carry traffic. I do think people over estimate how wide a road needs to be and also over estimate how much space you need to fit a dwelling, so in specific circumstances building in the median is a good idea.

I hope that all large areas, like the brewster-douglass area, that are redeveloped have more narrow streets. I also think there's an opportunity in some areas to convert the alleys of large blocks into new properly scaled roads.

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Originally Posted by bailey

http://gizmodo.com/salt-lake-city-wa...-of-1736102058

I thought this might be an interesting idea to bring some instant density to parts of some of the 8 lane surface roads around here. Sort of supercharge the blocks that are starting to thrive. Michigan ave from say the lodge to Roosevelt Park... without a stadium there is there really a need for michigan to be 8 lanes? get rid of street parking and you'd still have 4.

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I don't know why everyone on this site is so enamored with high density housing and the fantasy of how wonderful riding mass transit would be. Have any of you ever lived like this? Let me tell you, a few months of living with hundreds of people in your building and running for buses in the rain and snow, riding packed subways in the middle of July and missing transfers due to system problems gets really old, really fast.

Detroiters should be very thankful we have something here which a lot of cities don't. That's SPACE. Even during the heyday, the city was a series of suburban-like neighborhoods, schools and shopping areas all of which were very nice. I don't see anything wrong with that being a vision for the future.

Living in a big, overcrowded city isn't the dream a lot of people on here think it is so why try to make Detroit into one?

The only place where I can see it working is Jefferson. They could build housing in the median and connect it to Millender Center and the RenCen.

Not without problems, not without controversy, Ann Arbor is slowly but surely
increasing its downtown density for both retail and housing. This is thought to
be beneficial by city planners and by much of the city administration there
since working businesses and homes contribute to the city coffers. Ann Arbor
did not need to declare bankruptcy during the last downturn partly because of
this.

For a decade or two the Detroit Metro did not have enough retail overall. Now
that the Internet is here and the fraction of retail being claimed by the Internet
is gaining a steady half percent every year, we may have enough retail overall.

Small retail businesses in Detroit need more security and different kinds of
security than other locations do.

Speaking of...how many area downtowns still need work on density a little? I see that downtown Wyandotte still has a couple gaps in it's otherwise-uninterrupted "storefront wall".

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Originally Posted by DetroitBoy

I don't know why everyone on this site is so enamored with high density housing and the fantasy of how wonderful riding mass transit would be. Have any of you ever lived like this? Let me tell you, a few months of living with hundreds of people in your building and running for buses in the rain and snow, riding packed subways in the middle of July and missing transfers due to system problems gets really old, really fast.

Detroiters should be very thankful we have something here which a lot of cities don't. That's SPACE. Even during the heyday, the city was a series of suburban-like neighborhoods, schools and shopping areas all of which were very nice. I don't see anything wrong with that being a vision for the future.

Living in a big, overcrowded city isn't the dream a lot of people on here think it is so why try to make Detroit into one?

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Because we are a country of individuals,some like density,some do not,who are we to judge.

Personally I like density verses sprawl,I like being able to have every thing I need within a 3 mile circle.Been to Orlando? 3 hours to go twenty miles on a freeway because of low density sprawl.

I moved and saved $800 per month just by doing so,lots live in New York and Philadelphia,etc and never owned a car in their life,car that does not start in the winter,sitting in an A/C bus relaxing verses cussing everybody out and the stress etc.

It has always been downtown dense and the further out you go the less density,something for everybody.

A interesting solution for Salt Lake City when they are flat out of vacant land to build on and the average home price is $339,000. http://www.realtor.com/local/Salt-La...UT/home-prices

Vacant property Detroit does have in abundance almost everywhere waiting for development, serious infill would be nice before we jumped inside the curbs.

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Originally Posted by ABetterDetroit

A interesting solution for Salt Lake City when they are flat out of vacant land to build on and the average home price is $339,000. http://www.realtor.com/local/Salt-La...UT/home-prices

Vacant property Detroit does have in abundance almost everywhere waiting for development, serious infill would be nice before we jumped inside the curbs.

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Tell them about it. It sure is no big city dream to be living in one of those apartments in the center of the street with the bedroom window open sucking in bus and truck fumes and listening to garbage trucks rock the streets in the morning. You'll be wishing for a backyard with a chain link fence in no time!

Here's a video from LA from those fighting the high density housing snow job being sold by the 'experts' :

http://youtu.be/3bDrTyg8bak

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Originally Posted by DetroitBoy

Tell them about it. It sure is no big city dream to be living in one of those apartments in the center of the street with the bedroom window open sucking in bus and truck fumes and listening to garbage trucks rock the streets in the morning. You'll be wishing for a backyard with a chain link fence in no time!

Here's a video from LA from those fighting the high density housing snow job being sold by the 'experts' :

http://youtu.be/3bDrTyg8bak

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Not so fast.

I moved from the "quiet Montreal suburb" of Pointe-Claire in January last year to a house close to downtown in a high density nabe. I noticed in the fall of that year how much quieter than our old place the newer one was. The buzz of a freeway two blocks away is no more noisy than the one in the burbs, the school buses and regular ones were fewer, the noise of planes from the airport we no longer suffered, nor the buzz of lawnmowers and chainsaws. My wife and I have saved hundreds of hours of daily commutes, we save on gas and mileage which gives us more time at home. My sons are into cars, and they miss not having a garage. That is a downside. I could build one which would take up what is really a sweet looking backyard. I can easily do without it. I still use the car too frequently,for most errands, I can walk to a Public Market, a major mall in less than ten minutes, two subway stations in 4 and 6 minute walks. I don't miss anything about the suburbs. The excitement of downtown is a seven minute walk up a tunnel under the freeway into fairly peaceful old streets of Victorian rowhouses and towers, and opens up to humdreds of shops and restaurants on a major commercial street. It's more fun, more cosmopolitan, and I got to know more neighbors in 11/2 year than the previous 20 in the burbs.

Yeah, Detroit has a real shortage of land and a major housing crisis. Since there's no vacant land left, and modest bungalows in Warrendale all go for seven figures, obviously we need to built dense housing on roadway medians...

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Originally Posted by Bham1982

Yeah, Detroit has a real shortage of land and a major housing crisis. Since there's no vacant land left, and modest bungalows in Warrendale all go for seven figures, obviously we need to built dense housing on roadway medians...

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That was about my thought when I read this thread.

In our situation, I feel like it would be better to just narrow the street. It would have to be completely rebuilt anyway and even the the areas experiencing growth have plenty of empty space available.

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Originally Posted by bailey

but yeah, fuck doing anything...or even just spit balling about it... because there are empty store fronts and houses on 6 mile.

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Actually yeah, that's exactly the point. You can't compartmentalize these issues. The fact that Detroit has too much land, not too little, is largely why Detroit shouldn't be investing in expensive and inefficient efforts at maximizing land use. You can't create dense, thriving urban environments without the necessary conditions for such environments. Detroit currently lacks such environments, for the most part. The problem in Detroit isn't overly wide roads or poor urban planning per se, it's that Detroit doesn't currently have the necessary conditions for desirable urbanity, and it approaches everything backwards. Rather than creating the conditions for urbanity to germinate, Detroit prefers to subsidize the urbanity before the conditions have been created.