The DIA Art Millage

[Goose]

Are you sure about Troy being healthy?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1474235.html

5 year projection shows Troy bankrupt in the future... same analysis shows Detroit went bankrupt 25 years ago.......

[Shollin]

Do you think there is a difference between walking down this sidewalk?

Attachment 15071

And walking down this sidewalk?

Attachment 15072

Do you think there is something more going on here than slapping up storefronts and giving things trendy names? Do you see why the future of one environment might be brighter than another? Why one might be more pleasant for walking, while another might be more forbidding?

Discuss.

And yet, the sidewalk in Birmingham is empty. Troy is a source of jobs in the area. More people live and work in Troy, and Troy's population expands nearly 80% due to people commuting to work, a lot from Birmingham.

[Scottathew]

But does Detroit have beautiful strip malls?

Troy\Clawson\Royal Oak are all on the short list for when my wife I and look to move. I grew up in Clawson.

The thing we like a lot about Troy are that the neighborhoods, for the most part, only a have a few entrances to the main roads. Also, nearly every square mile has an elementary school, which means no main road crossings and short walks for my 6 month old and 2 year old when they hit that age.

[dtowncitylover]

And yet, the sidewalk in Birmingham is empty. Troy is a source of jobs in the area. More people live and work in Troy, and Troy's population expands nearly 80% due to people commuting to work, a lot from Birmingham.

Oh please, you know full well hundreds, if not thousands, of more people walk on that Bham sidewalk than the Troy one each week.

[Shollin]

So Birmingham which is smaller than Troy has a busier sidewalk. I'll take Troy and the jobs.

[Shollin]

But does Detroit have beautiful strip malls?

Troy\Clawson\Royal Oak are all on the short list for when my wife I and look to move. I grew up in Clawson.

The thing we like a lot about Troy are that the neighborhoods, for the most part, only a have a few entrances to the main roads. Also, nearly every square mile has an elementary school, which means no main road crossings and short walks for my 6 month old and 2 year old when they hit that age.

Are you sure you don't want to raise your young children in a loft above a restaurant with a catchy name?

[Scottathew]

Are you sure you don't want to raise your young children in a loft above a restaurant with a catchy name?

We can do that in Royal Oak!

[Detroitnerd]

And yet, the sidewalk in Birmingham is empty. Troy is a source of jobs in the area. More people live and work in Troy, and Troy's population expands nearly 80% due to people commuting to work, a lot from Birmingham.

The point was about Troy's long-term prognosis. Not its size. Not the amount of jobs it has. Not its desirability. But its long-term prognosis.

Consider that Troy had to give Kelly Services a whopping tax break to stay in Troy a few years ago. That wouldn't have happened in the 1990s. And as generational tastes shift, it is increasingly difficult to attract young people to places like Troy. They'd rather live in places like Birmingham or Royal Oak or Ferndale or Clawson.

That wasn't a problem 20 years ago. In 1992, people just hopped in their cars and drove to Troy to work in the office space. Gas was a dollar a gallon. That generation loved driving. The mania for larger homes, more secluded subdivisions, ever more drive-throughs was in full swing.

But Troy is facing troubles as the idea of the future changes. Look at places like Tyson's Corners. It was very successful 20 years ago. Now, not so much. They're trying to retrofit the environment for changing tastes. These are the very same challenges Troy is going to face going forward.

Saying Troy has jobs now or people like Troy now is moving the dartboard. I'm saying Troy is going to increasingly face challenges of being built up to suit the late 20th century when things are going in a different direction. That's all.

[poobert]

I'm glad Detroitnerd has injected some - any - humor into such a sterile circular argument.

So you're against taxes to support a museum in principle. We get that, okay? However if anything I think this country - on both sides - is way, way too "principled" that is, totally unwilling to compromise. I realized the other side can be not so bad with Snyder, for example. For something like the DIA I'm glad people were to realize it's importance was greater than petty ideological differences.

Where does it end? Well, there. The sky isn't falling. We all know the Orchestra or Opera wouldn't get a millage to pass, and as a compromise I am okay with that.

The Macomb results are really interesting. I despise the argument that factory workers don't like the DIA - often made by those far removed from factory workers. My father was one and he voted for it. I was raised as blue collar as they come and voted for it. So did all the traditionally blue collar Macomb suburbs, except for Warren, which long ago went from blue-collar to collar-less. They seem content to preserve their low-brow reputation, which is well-earned.

[kenp]

The Macomb results are really interesting. I despise the argument that factory workers don't like the DIA - often made by those far removed from factory workers. My father was one and he voted for it. I was raised as blue collar as they come and voted for it. So did all the traditionally blue collar Macomb suburbs, except for Warren, which long ago went from blue-collar to collar-less. They seem content to preserve their low-brow reputation, which is well-earned.

Good post.
I have been a little miffed at some of the Macomb comments. A lot of the posters are the ones who support unions and blue collar, yet their the same ones who think its funny to rip the people of Macomb county.

[Ltdave]

i live over 60 miles away and ive been in a couple of times in the past couple of years...

give me an address to the museum and ill donate to it so you who dont want to, can feel good that the 'users' are [[at least in part) the 'payers'...