Urban Garden where the Lafayette Building once stood

[English]

No, the options were determined by the market. THERE WAS NO ONE WHO WOULD DEVELOP IT and the state was not then and certainly is not now or anytime in the remotely near future going to pony up hundreds of millions to incentivize the rehab. It languished in private ownership and crumbled after it was abandoned to the city.

I don't give a fuck if the building was still technically sound. that is irrelevant. It doesn't change the fact it was going to be empty for another generation. anyone saying otherwise is delusional.

People said that about the B-C, my friend. They said it for my entire lifetime. Revitalizing a hotel on Washington Boulevard was a losing proposition, they said. It will never happen...

You might be right. The optimists might be right. But both of you have ONE thing in common -- no one can predict the future. If you'd painted a picture of today's Detroit, traveled back in time and showed it to people in the 1950s -- or even better, the 1920s -- they would laugh you out of town.

In 30-40 years, neither you, nor I, nor anyone else knows what Detroit will be. We don't know if it will eventually be evacuated and abandoned, or whether it will experience growth. None of our opinions are facts, not even those we believe are reasonably informed. We can be confident of many of our short-term predictions, but forecasting the far future beyond expressing your hopes, dreams, and fears is a losing proposition.