Commercial streets in Detroit.

**canuck** · May-10-12, 07:45 PM

While I was making my fingers do the driving in Chaldean Town on Seven Mile road, it occured to me that many main roads in Detroit were almost entirely dedicated to business frontage, with little or no residential presence. I thought of how Los Angeles main roads are often like this, zoned exclusively for one or two storey buildings. The bulk of residential is situated on side streets whether apartment buildings or cottages and bungalows. The smaller roads do have a mix, but the McNicholls, the eight Miles, the Woodwards for the most part dont.

That could explain partly how a suburban mindset developed that would favor shopping malls and automobile use since a lot of sidestreets are long and not densely populated. I noticed this as opposed to Chicago where the mix of housing to commercial is much higher for instance. In Montreal and Toronto's older hoods, the commercial streets also have residents.

I hadnt noticed this before, something I couldnt put a finger on until today. Any thoughts on this?

**DetroitPlanner** · May-10-12, 07:50 PM

Most of the two story buildings have apartments over the stores.

Who said old zoning did not allow mixed use?

In most cases having retail along the main roads meant you did not have to walk more than a half mile to get basic products. Today with the advent of superstores, this distance to travel has increased dramatically and put the smaller stores at an economic disadvantage.

**313WX** · May-10-12, 08:06 PM

Originally Posted by canuck

While I was making my fingers do the driving in Chaldean Town on Seven Mile road, it occured to me that many main roads in Detroit were almost entirely dedicated to business frontage, with little or no residential presence. I thought of how Los Angeles main roads are often like this, zoned exclusively for one or two storey buildings. The bulk of residential is situated on side streets whether apartment buildings or cottages and bungalows. The smaller roads do have a mix, but the McNicholls, the eight Miles, the Woodwards for the most part dont.

That could explain partly how a suburban mindset developed that would favor shopping malls and automobile use since a lot of sidestreets are long and not densely populated. I noticed this as opposed to Chicago where the mix of housing to commercial is much higher for instance. In Montreal and Toronto's older hoods, the commercial streets also have residents.

I hadnt noticed this before, something I couldnt put a finger on until today. Any thoughts on this?

For anyone familiar with Detroit's history, this is not quite true.

THe INNER city streets of Detroit did feature multi-level mixed-use buildings [[there were apartments above the businesses), similar to what you see along the commercial streets of Chicago. Of course they're long gone now since these areas have depopulated.

Some of the buildings I believe were forced to cut down on their heights because of restrictions.

Seven Mile, given that it's runs along the edge of the city, would be the least likely street to have this type of development.

Think streets such as Mack, Chene, Mt. Elliot, Kercheval etc.

**gazhekwe** · May-10-12, 08:20 PM

There were a lot of little commercial districts from one to maybe four or five stores mixed into neighborhoods of homes in the 40s and 50s. You can still see a few of them hanging on.

**Bham1982** · May-10-12, 08:42 PM

I think your premise is wrong. Detroit's retail strips weren't really that different than those of, say, Chicago, or Toronto. They were pretty similar, really.

The difference is that Detroit's older neighborhoods were generally much harder hit by decline, and so the retail strips have largely been destroyed, while other cities have preserved more of these strips.

Examples include 14^th Street, Dexter & Linwood. These were very dense strips, filled with large 4-6 floor apartment buildings and retail below 2^nd/3^rd floor apartments.

8 Mile Road and the like are newer postwar retail strips, and their equivalents in other cities look pretty much the same.

**canuck** · May-10-12, 08:48 PM

Well, I just checked main business streets in Montreal's north shore suburb of Laval and they are almost identical to any other in Detroit. I just hadnt noticed how much from the fifties on, the mix had disappeared from the landscape.

It is also funny how a lot of the businesses are geared to automotive repair, parts, sales, detailing, washing, refuelling and later on drive-in services of all kinds. I wonder what the stats are about the proportion of real estate dedicated to automotive services on our streets.

**Hermod** · May-11-12, 04:50 AM

It was very common, both in Detroit and in smaller towns to build a store with two apartments above the store. The store owner would live in one apartment and rent the other out. When the store owner began making enough money, he would buy a house and then rent out both apartments.

One of my friends while I was growing up in Detroit told me they lived above his father's bakery on Harper till they bought the house in our neighborhood.

**canuck** · May-11-12, 09:33 AM

Yes Hermod, that was my grandfather's case. He bought a corner grocery in the east end of Montreal in the early thirties which my mom and her brother ran until 1977. Her mom lived in the flat upstairs until her death and my mom then rented to a friend. In their case there was only one apartment. She sold the property that transformed into a Portuguese community center.

**Detroitnerd** · May-11-12, 09:54 AM

Hamtramck is an interesting case because there'll often be little stores or bars tucked into neighborhoods. But they are the exception, not the rule...

**Hermod** · May-11-12, 11:01 AM

Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

Hamtramck is an interesting case because there'll often be little stores or bars tucked into neighborhoods. But they are the exception, not the rule...

Yes, growing up in the northeast, all of the stores, churches, gas stations, etc were on Whittier, Houston, Harper, and Kelly and the side streets were all residential.

**iheartthed** · May-11-12, 11:17 AM

Originally Posted by Bham1982

I think your premise is wrong. Detroit's retail strips weren't really that different than those of, say, Chicago, or Toronto. They were pretty similar, really.

The difference is that Detroit's older neighborhoods were generally much harder hit by decline, and so the retail strips have largely been destroyed, while other cities have preserved more of these strips.

Examples include 14^th Street, Dexter & Linwood. These were very dense strips, filled with large 4-6 floor apartment buildings and retail below 2^nd/3^rd floor apartments.

8 Mile Road and the like are newer postwar retail strips, and their equivalents in other cities look pretty much the same.

Yeah, this. The older inner areas of Detroit look pretty similar to the inner areas of other cities that were large in the pre-WW2 era.