The future of housing in Detroit

What, exactly and if any, is the future of housing in Detroit? The rise of downtown and midtown has given me thought of what's going to come. Once we reach a critical mass, are we going to see the building of towers and apartment rows?

While I know the challenges Detroit is facing, I think we reached bottom around this time last year and things can only get better, albeit the Matterhorn to normalcy in front of us. But we are still trekking.

And what about the neighborhoods surrounding? Corktown, Woodbridge, North End, West Village, and Brush Park have the most to gain from the CBD's rise. But they contain many housing holes. Will developers look to build there? And if so, what? Houses, apartment buildings?

I don't want to say one is better than the other, but Detroit's housing was heavily invested in single family housing which wasn't the best idea.

I want to hear your thoughts, let's try to keep it to a dull roar. :)

Another thing I missed are the rehabs the neighborhoods are going to have to undertake to attract developers and new residents. Both in the houses and buildings currently there and the aesthetics of the street.

There will be an increasing demand for housing in Detroit only if there is a substantial increase in employment. There are positive developments in the city with regard to some elements of employment - Dan Gilbert's efforts downtown and the many attempts to promote entrepreneurial activities. However, there is no clear trajectory toward job growth in Michigan, the Detroit area or the city itself. About 18 percent of the state's workers are employed in manufacturing. Labor force productivity in manufacturing steadily increases by about 4 percent each year. And - quite surprisingly - the rate of increase in health sector employment is still positive but it has slowed
substantially in the last two years. I do not mean to be pessimistic but there is very little evidence of a fundamental turn around in employment trends in Michigan. The state gained back some of the jobs lost in the Great Recession but there is no much evidence of new industries coming to Michigan or old industries expanding their employment substantially.

The city on the whole is, and will always be, completely disfunctional. The only way you can have a new development is to make it a gated community with it's own security.

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Originally Posted by unclefrank

The city on the whole is, and will always be, completely disfunctional.

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Maybe. "Always" seems rather a stretch.

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The only way you can have a new development is to make it a gated community with it's own security.

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This seems false, since there are new developments that aren't gated.

The future of housing everywhere will be defined by several factors:

- Increased cost of energy will mean condos will eventually be the norm. Condos are much cheaper to heat not to mention maintain over single family homes.

- Housing needs access to transportation. Due to the prevalence of people now working from homes, transportation is a bit less important to work. However most jobs will continue to rely on transporting goods, services and people. People are still going to want to be social and require trips to buy stuff. Again technology will mean fewer trips, but it won't mean total abandonment of retail as we know it, just a lot less square footage devoted to it. Again energy is a factor here too and will lead to more non single occupancy vehicle trips.

- Greying of America. Our nation is growing older by the day. Seniors need access to transportation. They also desire to have most of their living done on one floor which will mean high-rises or ranch style living. Ideally these will also be condos due to the decreased cost and time needed for maintaining. Unfortunately for the rest of the family ranch living in Michigsn comes with gigantic basements so your parents will become pack rats! [[Take it from experience).

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Originally Posted by mwilbert

Maybe. "Always" seems rather a stretch.


This seems false, since there are new developments that aren't gated.

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What you fail to understand is that outside of the City Center the neighborhoods continue to be fairly dangerous places. With the exceptions of townhouses, nearly all of the new housing in the Central City has some form of gating. Entrances of lofts and apartments are locked and monitored. Nearly every town home will have some sort of added protection be it alarms, double deadbolts, and other form of less obtrusive gate.

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Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

What you fail to understand is that outside of the City Center the neighborhoods continue to be fairly dangerous places. With the exceptions of townhouses, nearly all of the new housing in the Central City has some form of gating. Entrances of lofts and apartments are locked and monitored. Nearly every town home will have some sort of added protection be it alarms, double deadbolts, and other form of less obtrusive gate.

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First, I am surprised you would think that I don't understand the status of the neighborhoods, both because I can't imagine why you would think that, and because of its irrelevance, as I didn't make any comment about that status. I suggested that the idea that the city would be dysfunctional "always" was a stretch, but that isn't a comment on the state of any part of the city currently.

Second, in what possible way does what you say contradict my point? There are townhouses, quite a few of them. Apartments may well have security, but that doesn't make them "gated communities" as that term is generally understood. Lots of houses have alarms and deadbolts, and possibly gates, yet somehow they aren't gated communities even if they have more than one person living in them. I wasn't claiming there were lots of developments in the city without locks.

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Originally Posted by mwilbert

First, I am surprised you would think that I don't understand the status of the neighborhoods, both because I can't imagine why you would think that, and because of its irrelevance, as I didn't make any comment about that status. I suggested that the idea that the city would be dysfunctional "always" was a stretch, but that isn't a comment on the state of any part of the city currently.

Second, in what possible way does what you say contradict my point? There are townhouses, quite a few of them. Apartments may well have security, but that doesn't make them "gated communities" as that term is generally understood. Lots of houses have alarms and deadbolts, and possibly gates, yet somehow they aren't gated communities even if they have more than one person living in them. I wasn't claiming there were lots of developments in the city without locks.

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You answered the question posed. City as a whole was the key part of that phrase you commented on. You also have a very narrow definition of a gate. Mine is broad. Larms, deadbolts, steel doors are in fact gates. They keep people out in a less obtrusive way. If you look at the majority of the City's land area and population you will find poverty has left its mark on everything from the types of businesses are in the neighborhoods, to the quality of the schools, the quality of the parks, the police response, and the educational system. You also cannot assemble large areas for a major condo or single family home development that will appeal to the general consumer within the Center City. This means that these will have to be built in places like Brightmoor, the East Side, etc. ou see this in Warrendale where Herman Gardens is being redeveloped as a semi-gated community. Not everyone wants to live in a high rise, in fact if you look at the population as a whole, very few people want to live in one.

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Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

The future of housing everywhere will be defined by several factors:

- Increased cost of energy will mean condos will eventually be the norm. Condos are much cheaper to heat not to mention maintain over single family homes.

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This is true, but probably not a major factor in the long term. First, because energy costs aren't going to rise indefinitely as the falling cost of solar places a long-term cap on electricity costs--and you don't need much electric storage to do electric heating and cooling, as you can store heat and cold directly, second because people will adopt more efficient home designs if operating costs are too high. I suspect people wanting to avoid time and money being spent on doing routine maintenance will be more salient. Also, a lot of people will probably just rent, and they are way more likely to rent apartments than houses.

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Again technology will mean fewer trips, but it won't mean total abandonment of retail as we know it, just a lot less square footage devoted to it. Again energy is a factor here too and will lead to more non single occupancy vehicle trips.

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This is probably wrong. With the constantly increasing efficiency of cars, automated vehicles will be much more significant in changing travel and vehicle usage patterns than energy costs. I'm not sure how much retail will be left, unless you count restaurants and other kinds of food vendors. I suspect clothing stores may eventually be automated away, but we don't seem to be close to that yet. I don't know what else survives. Maybe vintage stuff. Not a lot.

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- Greying of America. Our nation is growing older by the day. Seniors need access to transportation. They also desire to have most of their living done on one floor which will mean high-rises or ranch style living. Ideally these will also be condos due to the decreased cost and time needed for maintaining. Unfortunately for the rest of the family ranch living in Michigsn comes with gigantic basements so your parents will become pack rats! [[Take it from experience).

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This should be true, but so far there seems to be less of it than I would have expected. Possibly it will become more true as there are more seniors, or possibly we will get better at creating technology that lets people remain in their homes.