Detroit News poll: Crime drives Detroiters out; 40% expect to leave in 5 years

[drpoundsign]

I am familiar with the New York Metropolitan area. There-Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn came back. It is African American with Lots of challenges, but much better than it was in the Fifties and Sixties. The South BRONX for God's sake did gut renovations of many buildings and rebuilt others from the ground up. Same in much of Harlem.

Ironic that War Zones like those can come back but not the entire City of Detroit which until recent years was not that bac [[or the badness was confined to a few areas). The problem is that 1. it is a one horse town with the horseless carriage that is not made much there anymore. 2. The Freeways let us white folks take the easy way out-along with VHA loans-and helped to clean out the City. 3. The public schools are FUBAR and must be fixed. 4. a whole HECK of a lot of the Crime is Drug Crime. Burglaries, muggings turf wars carjacking the list goes on. No simple solution there, but if Heroin Cocaine and Pot were legal at least for addicts over 21, crime would certainly plummet. What about neighborhood Watch?? If everyone is packing heat down there these days [[which I dont condone) what the Hey? Let them make the rounds two to a care and keep the Punks in check

[Shollin]

Probably the biggest problem is the delusion that Detroit should even be compared to New York. If you're going to aim high, aim for Chicago. Chicago is losing population at a brisk pace but it at least hasn't gone to hell.

[DetBill]

Im a little confused about the comment that Detroit is unwalkable,, I live in Lafayette Park and have been walking everyday that I am home for the last 10 years, approximately 4-6 miles,, and often run, the loop thru greektown, downtown , along the river, up the dequindre cut and back home,, and the vast majority of these areas are pretty well kept. Sorry,, I would call that a walk, or run by any means. Many parts of Detroit are not walkable,, my area most certainly is and I have the years to prove it. I have never been mugged or accosted, I have been asked for money a couple of times but have actually had worse in other cities. Suggest that those who dont live here, but comment on Detroits total unwalkability and total disrepair join me someday. As far as I can tell my vision is fine and the areas are far from a mess. Id like to know what you would call my last 10 years. Those comments make me laugh. You really shouldnt blanket the whole city as a total write off.

[Richard]

On walkability ,could I move to downtown Detroit and have all of my needs met within walking distance? and not be dependent on a car?

It is actually becoming quite popular with all ages,and have seen specialty built buildings where you purchase a per-say condo or apartment with your office included on the ground or second floor as two separate units.

[antongast]

So kids are suppose to walk to bars and restaurants? When my kids were young they played with their friends at the park, rode bikes through the neighborhood, played sports, and hung out at Eastland Mall. Those poor kids. They should've lived in some cramped loft downtown with no park space to play in.

I don't think "walkable" means what you think it means.

[313WX]

On walkability ,could I move to downtown Detroit and have all of my needs met within walking distance? and not be dependent on a car?

Even now, that's next to impossible.

I imagine if you were to survey downtown/midtown residents, the results would show that the vast majority of them still either have to use their automobile on a daily basis [[although Dan Gilbert has relocated his companies downtown, many of the Yuppies still work in Southfield, Auburn Hills, Dearborn or Troy) or shop in the suburbs on a weekly basis.

"Walkable" to me means I can safely and comfortably walk to a Pharmacy, Supermarket, Dry Cleaners, Bar/Lounge, Hardware Store, Flower Shop, Barber/Beauty Shop, Restaurant, Bookstore, Bank, etc. just as quickly as I could simply jump into the car and drive to these places.

[Neilr]

I'm in agreement with DetBill on the walkability of living in Lafayette Park.

and

Even now, that's next to impossible.

I imagine if you were to survey downtown/midtown residents, the results would show that the vast majority of them still either have to use their automobile on a daily basis [[although Dan Gilbert has relocated his companies downtown, many of the Yuppies still work in Southfield, Auburn Hills, Dearborn or Troy) or shop in the suburbs on a weekly basis.

"Walkable" to me means I can safely and comfortably walk to a Pharmacy, Supermarket, Dry Cleaners, Bar/Lounge, Hardware Store, Flower Shop, Barber/Beauty Shop, Restaurant, Bookstore, Bank, etc. just as quickly as I could simply jump into the car and drive to these places.

All the types of places you mention are, for me, within easy walking distance of Lafayette Park with the exception of a bookstore. [[I could walk to John King Books, I just don't.) There's a small, jam-packed convenience store in the Pavilion, a quite nice grocery store in the plaza, and, of course, Eastern Market and Busy Bee Hardware are just through the park.

I also easily walk to the Boll Family YMCA and the Riverwalk during both the day and evening.

For the religiously inclined, there are numerous churches and two synagogues within walking distance.

Another benefit I'd like to add that I don't think has been mentioned yet is that living in LP puts me within an easy walk of many of my friends and to me it's much easier to nurture friendships when people live in proximity to each other. While LP is perhaps the most diverse* neighborhood in metro Detroit, I am still surrounded by neighbors with whom I share many similar values.

I do have a car and I do drive when I need to to Meijers, Costco, the DMC, wherever. I am not claiming that I could give up my car. Not at all; but many days I can carry on all my functions of daily living, shopping, and socializing by walking to wherever I need to go.

* In Detroit, "diversity" seems to default to just black/white; but it's really a much broader concept in LP [[and Elmwood Park). It includes age, income, race, sexual orientation, religious preference, family composition and country of origin, and so on. There may even be some Republicans living here, but I'm not sure.

[iheartthed]

New York area has 19 million people. Basically 11 million people don't live in New York city. The metro New York region is growing faster than New York City. Chicago has had a steady decline in population yet a rapidly growing metro area. Suburban areas are growing at a faster pace than urban cities, yet, baffingly, you think people prefer dense urban cores.

New York MSA only slightly outpaced NYC in growth between 2000-2010, 3.1% vs 2.1%. However, to look at it another way, roughly one third of the NY Metro area total growth [[+574,107 residents) occurred in New York City itself [[+166,845 residents).

Even if you take the Chicago, most of the new residents who are not native to Chicagoland become residents of Chicago city. Chicago suburbs have grown almost solely by attracting former city residents.

[poobert]

I don't think "walkable" means what you think it means.

I'm done with him. He has only derision for people who want something besides living in Metro Detroit suburbs. Cities have parks. Cities have domiciles that aren't lofts. You can walk to places besides bars. You think you've got it made in Roseville? Fine, very happy for you. It is a free country. Your way of life is not the way for everyone, though.

And I sure as fuck want better for my kids than having to hang out at Eastland Mall.

[Hermod]

And I sure as fuck want better for my kids than having to hang out at Eastland Mall.

Like loiter at the local gas station and bum money?

Like hang out in front of the local liquor store with the hoodrats?

[gameguy56]

Like loiter at the local gas station and bum money?

Like hang out in front of the local liquor store with the hoodrats?

Seriously, what the fuck is this shit? Have you ever been to a major city outside of Detroit? Right, the only thing to do in chicago or new york is to loiter in front of the liquor store.

[Hermod]

Seriously, what the fuck is this shit? Have you ever been to a major city outside of Detroit? Right, the only thing to do in chicago or new york is to loiter in front of the liquor store.

Seattle
San Jose
San Francisco
Denver
Tucson
El Paso
Fort Worth
New Orleans
Atlanta
Orlando
Fort Lauderdale
Richmond
Norfolk/Portsmouth/Virginia Beach
Washington
Louisville
Milwaukee
Dayton
Philadelphia
Boston

NY/Chi/LA I have only been to when I changed airplanes. The others, I have lived in or visited frequently on business.

Overseas, I have lived in Saigon, Stuttgart, and Frankfurt.

Detroit I have lived in [[1940-1954 and again in 1961) where as a 6 year old, I could walk six blocks to and from school by myself in perfect safety.

[iheartthed]

Seattle
San Jose
San Francisco
Denver
Tucson
El Paso
Fort Worth
New Orleans
Atlanta
Orlando
Fort Lauderdale
Richmond
Norfolk/Portsmouth/Virginia Beach
Washington
Louisville
Milwaukee
Dayton
Philadelphia
Boston

NY/Chi/LA I have only been to when I changed airplanes. The others, I have lived in or visited frequently on business.

Overseas, I have lived in Saigon, Stuttgart, and Frankfurt.

Detroit I have lived in [[1940-1954 and again in 1961) where as a 6 year old, I could walk six blocks to and from school by myself in perfect safety.

So you've never been to a city larger than Detroit?

[Hermod]

So you've never been to a city larger than Detroit?

Wasn't Philly bigger than Detroit?

[iheartthed]

Wasn't Philly bigger than Detroit?

Depends on when you went...

[poobert]

In response to your query, gameguy, as to what the fuck is their manfunction, I think this is pretty telling:

Detroit I have lived in [[1940-1954 and again in 1961) where as a 6 year old, I could walk six blocks to and from school by myself in perfect safety.

Your average bitter old man harkening back to the "good old days." Well, they were good, I guess, if you were white, male, and Protestant, anyway. He also bitches about Hispanics and other ESL folks on other threads, to give you Methuselah's worldview.

This is why I gave up with those two. They have no interest in anything except demeaning any way of life that differs from their own. Everything now is shit and everything you value is nonsense, "a fad", you "yuppie". You want a walkable environment? Why? To loiter and be drunk and disorderly? You want to live in a city? Your kids will be miserable, unlike MINE, MINE got to hang out at Eastland, YOURS will be at liquor stores.

Fuck that noise. Like I said, Metro Detroit can keep guys like this. I'll leave and take overeducated "yuppie" [[why yes I am young, urban, and a professional) ass elsewhere.

[Detroitnerd]

Like loiter at the local gas station and bum money?

Like hang out in front of the local liquor store with the hoodrats?

Lewis Mumford once suggested that in areas where actual cities were supplanted with "urbanoid tissue" typified by car-only transport and low density, people would cease to remember what cities are, or why they exist. Perhaps they would think they were mere agglomerations of people assembled tightly to do certain tasks, like make automobiles. Perhaps they would think they were ghettoes to fill poor people with. Perhaps they would think they were Potemkin Villages set up to sate their leaders' lust for glory. Perhaps they would think they were relics of a bygone age before the "magic carpet for all mankind" freed us from its bounds.

Of course, none of this is true. Cities existed for thousands of years because they were on a human scale, much like a lot of old Detroit. Also because they were at the crossings of trade routes, as Detroit undeniably is.

It is this combination of density and centrality that creates enduring cities. They are at the crossroads, where goods and skilled workers pass through. The people who live there don't need to travel far to get a wide assortment of goods for daily life. Eastern Market is a good example of that, for instance.

But we have sacrificed all that for the "urbanoid tissue" Mumford wrote about. Areas that were developed without much thought or history but just because we could develop them, thanks to the car. Places like Warren, for instance, where, for the most part, instead of walking to the local central market one has to get in one's car and drive to procure the necessities of life.

Notice how in the classic city, one walks to the market and goes shopping on foot. That is because a broad variety of goods and services are packed into a dense location that gives all people access to them.

Notice how in the "urbanoid" area, one must drive to various stores that are dispersed over the region in order to procure the broad variety of goods and services one needs, because they are not packed into a dense location. And, since one must drive, not all people have equal access to them.

On top of all this, we must remember that no cities were organized like Warren until the 1920s. Before then, transit and walkability were considered a normal part of city planning. The last 90 years have, essentially, been a big experiment.

Now, try to gaze 100 years into the future. Look at someplace like Detroit, with good bones, right on the river, accessible to commerce, an excellent crossing point on the Great Lakes, rich with 400 years of history. Even if gas were $20 a gallon, Detroit would likely be inhabited.

Now, similarly, look a century into the future at someplace like south Warren. With history going back 150 years, designed at a time gas was 35 cents a gallon, with wide roads that are hard to maintain, no natural vistas, inaccessible to commerce ...

Tell me where the hood rats are going to be hanging out then?

[michimoby]

In response to your query, gameguy, as to what the fuck is their manfunction, I think this is pretty telling:



Your average bitter old man harkening back to the "good old days." Well, they were good, I guess, if you were white, male, and Protestant, anyway. He also bitches about Hispanics and other ESL folks on other threads, to give you Methuselah's worldview.

This is why I gave up with those two. They have no interest in anything except demeaning any way of life that differs from their own. Everything now is shit and everything you value is nonsense, "a fad", you "yuppie". You want a walkable environment? Why? To loiter and be drunk and disorderly? You want to live in a city? Your kids will be miserable, unlike MINE, MINE got to hang out at Eastland, YOURS will be at liquor stores.

Fuck that noise. Like I said, Metro Detroit can keep guys like this. I'll leave and take overeducated "yuppie" [[why yes I am young, urban, and a professional) ass elsewhere.

Here's the sad thing: I know people our age that espouse the same attitude. My 26 year-old ex-girlfriend, resident of a certain undisclosed suburb, berated me for wanting to remain a Detroit resident because she didn't want to "be at home alone with the kids" in my Midtown condo if I was gone on business for a few days.

[Detroitnerd]

Here's the sad thing: I know people our age that espouse the same attitude. My 26 year-old ex-girlfriend, resident of a certain undisclosed suburb, berated me for wanting to remain a Detroit resident because she didn't want to "be at home alone with the kids" in my Midtown condo if I was gone on business for a few days.

Yeah, and the mid-city area is culturally very rich, full of restaurants and bars, has dry cleaners, hair shops and groceries within walking distance, and the best police service in the city, and yet there's this Fort Apache mentality about it.

DTMFA?

[antongast]

Here's the sad thing: I know people our age that espouse the same attitude. My 26 year-old ex-girlfriend, resident of a certain undisclosed suburb, berated me for wanting to remain a Detroit resident because she didn't want to "be at home alone with the kids" in my Midtown condo if I was gone on business for a few days.

See, for me the silver lining of Detroit's extreme spatial segregation is that people like this mostly stay out in the suburbs where I don't have to interact with them. If I moved to, say, Lincoln Park in Chicago, I'd get a nice walkable neighborhood with good public services and lots of amenities, but I'd also have to deal with all manner of dudebro College Libertarians in backward baseball caps loudly deriding residents of less-well-off parts of the city. Here, they're inexplicably afraid of my decidedly non-scary city neighborhood, which is perfectly fine with me.

[Bham1982]

Im a little confused about the comment that Detroit is unwalkable,, I live in Lafayette Park and have been walking everyday that I am home for the last 10 years, approximately 4-6 miles,, and often run, the loop thru greektown, downtown , along the river, up the dequindre cut and back home,, and the vast majority of these areas are pretty well kept. .

I agree that the areas you described are all walkable, but that's like 2% of the city. Obviously Downtown, Lafayette Park, and Midtown are all walkable. The enclave-type neighborhoods are all walkable.

But 90% of the city isn't walkable, at least not from a practical standpoint. The vast majority of the city has poorly kept pedestrian rights-of-way, safety issues [[especially at night), lighting issues, and is generally hostile to the pedestrian.

[Bham1982]

New York area has 19 million people. Basically 11 million people don't live in New York city. The metro New York region is growing faster than New York City.

I agree with your general points, but NYC is something of an exception.

I believe NYC proper is actually growing faster than the NYC metro area as a whole.

Also, a lot of suburban NYC is actually quite urban and walkable. There are tons of hard-core urban cities like Jersey City, Hoboken, Newark, Yonkers and the like, and many of the suburbs are semi-urban railroad suburbs [[pretty much anything on a rail line within an hour or so from Manhattan, so places like Scarsdale, Greenwich, Summit, Montclair, etc.).

But NYC area is an outlier. Generally speaking, most Americans live in auto-oriented suburban areas, and those areas appear to be growing the fastest in most parts of the country.

I will agree that there is something of a "walkability premium" though. Locally, I do notice that the older suburban parts of Oakland County seem to have more stable property values than the newer, less walkable parts.

Just anecdotally, it seem to me that places like Birmingham and Huntington Woods have kept their values better than places like Novi and Oakland Township. I find some of my neighboring sales shockingly high for what you get. Birmingham isn't all that.

[michimoby]

See, for me the silver lining of Detroit's extreme spatial segregation is that people like this mostly stay out in the suburbs where I don't have to interact with them. If I moved to, say, Lincoln Park in Chicago, I'd get a nice walkable neighborhood with good public services and lots of amenities, but I'd also have to deal with all manner of dudebro College Libertarians in backward baseball caps loudly deriding residents of less-well-off parts of the city. Here, they're inexplicably afraid of my decidedly non-scary city neighborhood, which is perfectly fine with me.

Here's the burn, though: she loved the city...going to Tigers games, Cliff Bell's, the view from my loft. She even volunteered at the homeless shelter in Cass Corridor...but when it came to the non-flashy, the mundane...woah, step back.

I get the sense that a lot of suburbanites seem to enjoy Detroit when it's their playground, but when it comes to actually investing in it, remaining present...well, THAT's where the line is drawn. Unfortunately, I'm just not cut from that cloth.

[iheartthed]

I agree that the areas you described are all walkable, but that's like 2% of the city. Obviously Downtown, Lafayette Park, and Midtown are all walkable. The enclave-type neighborhoods are all walkable.

But 90% of the city isn't walkable, at least not from a practical standpoint. The vast majority of the city has poorly kept pedestrian rights-of-way, safety issues [[especially at night), lighting issues, and is generally hostile to the pedestrian.

Lighting and crime doesn't negate that an area is physically walkable. If that were the case then New York wasn't walkable in the 70s and 80s.

[Bham1982]

Lighting and crime doesn't negate that an area is physically walkable. If that were the case then New York wasn't walkable in the 70s and 80s.

I wasn't around in that time period, but I really do think Detroit is on another level than NYC back then.

Non-yuppie Detroit is very, very difficult to traverse from a pedestrian's perspective, IMO. I have tried, as I enjoy urban exploration, but there are too many wild dog packs and potential human confrontations, and just horribly crappy sidewalks, crossings and lighting. You always have to have your guard up.

NYC, even in its worst years, was always pedestrian and transit oriented, so I think the pedestrian realm, perhaps by default, was not quite as daunting. Most people walked, because that's how you get around. In Detroit, most have a car, and a pedestrian is kind of a sitting duck.