History & Future of Regional Planning in SE Michigan

The two questions I want to ask is what is the history of regional planning in SE Michigan? And what is the future?

A few more questions that arise would be:

-Does anyone have any resources where this could be found?
-What are some books out there that might delve into this question or discuss it?
-Has there ever been any concerted effort in curbing urban sprawl?
-What is the role of MDOT in regional planning? Why is auto-centricity so important to invest in? Do these people ever leave Michigan for conferences?
-What is the role of SEMCOG in regional planning?

I remember reading an early SEMCOG report, probably from the early 70s, and it estimated that the region's population growth would continue to rise so that by the year 2000, it would be around 7 million. Of course, that never happened. How they estimated this is beyond me.

With the demise of people like L. Brooks Patterson and the Frank Rizzos of the region, how do we start to have a real conversation about regional planning that doesn't involve the suburbs bashing Detroit or Detroit bashing the suburbs? Perhaps this thread can be a start?

Infrastructure [[roads, bridges, energy, and water & sewage) and public transit are two most discussed "regional" issues.

What about public education? I remember reading on Newspapers.com a Freep news article, also from the 70s, about a plan to regionalize the school system. It seemed incredibly forward thinking for the time. School districts [[or maybe just the high schools?) would've been grouped together. I forget how, but something to the effect of SE Oakland would've been one school district. East Side Detroit, Harper Woods, and the Grosse Pointes another. And still Troy, Avon Township, and Bloomfield Hills together, and so on. I'm paraphrasing but you get the idea.

I anticipate this thread to have heated discussions. But when I look around this region, we are not doing anything right. Or are we doing anything right? We need a cohesive plan to work together and no one seems to be doing anything. At least, not as far as I'm aware of.

So let's discuss.

Schools were one of the largest drivers of suburban migration during the late 70s and early 80s.

The issue was court ordered busing.

It was an issue that drove many financially advantaged people out of Detroit. It was the main reason regional school districts were never accepted during that time period. It is one of the reason there are so many small suburban school districts. Courts aren't able to force students of one district to go to a school in another district.

I believe the gerrymandering political idiocy damaged any real possibility of a true cohesive Regional Strategy on any large infrastructure projects.

you must not have looked very hard

DFC 139
EESA
DRIC
DIFT
Non-Motorized Plan
2040 Regional Transportation Plan
2040 Freight Plan
Regional Transit Feasibility

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Originally Posted by hybridy

you must not have looked very hard

DFC 139
EESA
DRIC
DIFT
Non-Motorized Plan
2040 Regional Transportation Plan
2040 Freight Plan
Regional Transit Feasibility

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No, not really. That's the point of the discussion is to bring these resources together. So thank you.

I know the RTA well and I also know SEMCOG's 2040 plan. Except it seems they have plans every 10 years and who knows what is being done with them. As I stated in my post, that "plan" from the early 70s was wayyyyyy off. So what is the point of them if they're not being followed or used as a lesson.

What is the regional SEWER plan - an Interceptor system of 50 years ago ?
Build more asphalt, parking lots, impervious surfaces, etc, etc, and ram rod the rain into small pipes ? SERIOUS flooding already occurred, crippling the region for days.

We have FRESHWATER, and shit in it daily - along with a slew of chemicals no one monitors, because there are somewhere between 50,000 to 80,000 chemicals in commerce within the USA. Retention basins are not true waste water treatment plants, they merely hold the stuff - temporarily.

SEWAGE into the Rouge River -- just lately 2019
The 2-plus million gallons dumped into various parts of the lower and middle Rouge River in late February, or the more than 6 million dumped less than two weeks ago during a major water event.

https://www.wxyz.com/news/millions-of-gallons-of-sewage-flowing-into-rouge-river

The whole "problem with "regionalism" is that to most of the populace outside the city limits of Detroit, it just means "send us your money".

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Originally Posted by Hermod

The whole "problem with "regionalism" is that to most of the populace outside the city limits of Detroit, it just means "send us your money".

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Which is what needs to be addressed and deconstructed. It isn't about "send us your money", it's about how to do we build a region that has both a healthy central city and a healthy region. And how we work together to advance "Metro Detroit", not just Oakland County, or Canton, or Downtown.

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Originally Posted by Hermod

The whole "problem with "regionalism" is that to most of the populace outside the city limits of Detroit, it just means "send us your money".

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It’s a lot more complicated than what you just said. To a good number of the populace inside the city limits of Detroit it just means “they’re trying to take away our jewels”, “gentrification”, and “they’re trying to take away our jobs/control”. It goes both ways.

According to SEMCOG, the population of Metro Detroit would have been well over 5 million by now if you look at their 2020 plan.

An excellent summary of post World War II planning is presented in the
book by June Thomas, Revitalization and Race in Post-War Detroit.

The cities of Toronto and Indianapolis more or less incorporated much of their suburban ring after World War II and Columbus Ohio annexed much of the potential suburban ring. Would the residents of Detroit and the ring now enjoy a higher quality of life and lower taxes if the city of Detroit and Wayne County had merged in 1946?

Here is a future regional planning for Michigan FIX THE D--- ROADS! That would the greatest internal improvement plan ever.

There is a lot of history to planning efforts in southeast Michigan, with not a lot to show for it.

I know that the first use of a computerized traffic model was for metropolitan Detroit, in the early 1950s. These massive calculations were one of the first civilian uses of a computer, and I think it was an analog computer. Remember UNIVAC? Before that, elaborate street plans were made for Detroit as early as the 1930s based on counts of vehicle flows. Some old threads on this board covered these publications and the early freeway plans.

Around 1965, Detroit Edison hired Constantinos Doxiadis to prepare a prediction of development trends for the region. This yielded a 2- or 3-volume set of flashy hardbound books, but not much in the way of accurate forecasts. These may still exist in some libraries or archives.

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Originally Posted by Sandhouse

...I know that the first use of a computerized traffic model was for metropolitan Detroit, in the early 1950s....

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I can believe that. In the 70s we learned a massively complex program that ran on IBM 360s called GPSS. I still have some of the fat paper manuals that came with it. It could simulate simple things like traffic through a gas station. Vehicles were generalized into things called "transactions." I wanted to simulate a nuclear chain reaction but they wouldn't let me for fear it would break something. LOL!

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Originally Posted by Sandhouse

...Remember UNIVAC?....

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Why, yes. Yes I do! The 1100 had a weird quirk where a zero could have either a plus or a minus sign. If you didn't account for that it could cause a major problem. At the Wikipeda article they show a few images of the Sperry Star logo. We used to bend its corners into a swastika when we thought the company was getting too repressive. LOL!

Thanks for the memories!