Originally Posted by
Bham1982
I'm no Gilbert fan, and definitely a DYes skeptic when it comes to Detroit, but IMO your problem isn't with Gilbert or Detroit; it's with cities.
Metro Detroiters have a very suburban mentality. They supposedly want a revitalized downtown, but don't really want anything in downtown except for parking garages, sports stadia and theme restaurants. Exhibit A- effort to move courts and jail out of downtown.
Center cities are only successful when they're open, democratic places for all people. This includes dummies who may occasionally punch each other out. I've seen this behavior in NYC, SF, Paris and London, BTW [[saw basically a whole street brawl last time I was in Paris, right by Sacre-Coeur). This is what happens, occasionally, when millions of people are in close contact. Chaos is an occasional byproduct of successful urbanity.
But people in this area are so used to suburban isolation that they don't get what makes cities vibrant. The streets need to public and open to all, not privatized spaces with mall-like security and suburbanized norms.
Yeah, the behavior is anti-social and should be discouraged. No, it isn't a major issue, and anyone who is "scared" to come downtown because of this doesn't really want an urban setting anyways.