About Detroit's future.

[rex]

We discuss current events and trends, sometimes complain. Many of you seem pretty sharp. Problems are clear cut. Poverty, education, blight, debt, interest on the debt, abandonment challenges in leadership. Visually- a lot of town looks hopeless. I dont want to live within city limits presently but I dont want to write Detroit off either. This is more constructive conversation. I'm curious what you folks see in the reasonably near future for Detroit. What does Detroit need? Realistically.What is probably going to happen and what will the effects be. No easy solutions

[syrett4]

Detroit's biggest challenge as I see it is that a city of what, almost 2 million in the 1950s, is now a city of 700,000.

I believe what Bing is doing is the right thing. Focus on developing the good areas of the city. Increase police patrols, fix streetlights, etc...

I see a city with more empty lots and abandoned homes as people start to migrate away from the areas deemed lost, to either the immediate suburbs or into the good areas. I see areas like downtown, LP, Corktown, Midtown and even Brush Park to a point becoming very vibrant and hip places to be, if they aren't already. The best we can hope for is that these good areas would continue to expand and push the riff-raff into the more abandoned areas of the city.

[canuck]

I would like for the city to abandon the idea of abandonment.

Planning a new type of city with business clusters based around transit delivery. Improving ways of lighting and providing security by getting more people to congregate around these business/transit clusters. If you get small town centers to develop in neighborhoods, it will be easier to police.

[DetroitPlanner]

What does Detroit need? My answer now has changed a bit than it would have been a few years back but only in terms of ranking.

1. It needs to have quality police and fire.
2. It needs to have better schools.
3. It needs to have great maintained parks within walking distance of all homes.

Under current budget situations, these are tough nuts to crack. The money is not there to meet the needs. However, if we do not get protection, schools, and parks under control the city will continue to bleed the best people and will only be stuck with those that don't give a crap about anything.

One of the biggest issues with abandoning some areas will be a lack of cohesiveness between neighborhoods. If we can get police, fire, and schools up to par, then those areas could be converted to places that will have some economic vitality [[think golf courses, amusement parks, light industrial centers).

Detroit has a chicken and the egg problem. You need good schools and safe neighborhoods to attract people, yet it has an incredible amount of infrastructure, and carrying costs to deal with that are expensive. It has been the dumping ground for 5 million peoples problems and that is expensive. It has to provide for its retired workers [[like my parents) and that is also expensive. It has to keep the streetlights, roads, water, and sewer running. For sewer and water this is true for a huge area outside of its political district.

[professorscott]

I would like for the city to abandon the idea of abandonment.

Planning a new type of city with business clusters based around transit delivery. Improving ways of lighting and providing security by getting more people to congregate around these business/transit clusters. If you get small town centers to develop in neighborhoods, it will be easier to police.

This is one of the more far-sighted things I've seen on DY in a while. The essential takeaway, to me, is this list:
1. "Business/transit clusters", based on two ideas, both of which are true: first, you can't fix all of the City at once; it's too big and too much of it is broken. Second, if you have high quality transit, there is a natural tendency for activity to concentrate around the major stops.

Detroit has to be re-seeded, not re-sodded. You can't just go and rebuild an entire City this size all at once. If we can plant seeds to give specific neighborhoods a reason to bloom - and a decent transit system would be a great way to do it - the growing transit-based, walkable neighborhoods will spread out, just a little bit, then you have the basis for a sustainable recovery.

It'll take more than JUST this, but this'd be a great start. How do we get actual decision makers talking about this kind of thing though?

[canuck]

This is one of the more far-sighted things I've seen on DY in a while. The essential takeaway, to me, is this list:
1. "Business/transit clusters", based on two ideas, both of which are true: first, you can't fix all of the City at once; it's too big and too much of it is broken. Second, if you have high quality transit, there is a natural tendency for activity to concentrate around the major stops.

Detroit has to be re-seeded, not re-sodded. You can't just go and rebuild an entire City this size all at once. If we can plant seeds to give specific neighborhoods a reason to bloom - and a decent transit system would be a great way to do it - the growing transit-based, walkable neighborhoods will spread out, just a little bit, then you have the basis for a sustainable recovery.

It'll take more than JUST this, but this'd be a great start. How do we get actual decision makers talking about this kind of thing though?

I really think that urban planning that looks at how smaller cities have managed to not only keep their downtowns healthy but have improved them over the years can give us some answers. The reason I say this is that a lot of small to medium sized cities suffered from sprawl more than their largewr counterparts. Shopping malls decimated once lively downtowns and those cities are obviously off the tourist map, not to mention the investment map. Cities where the cores are bustling centers of business and leisure could influence how to reconnect neighborhoods.

Parks are also important elements in the feel of the city. There may be ways of designing tree lined streets and parkland that dont require as much maintenance as what the city now has. I am thinking of ordinances where certain varieties of plant life would be favored over others, non invasive ground covers that would not require much watering and weeding, that sort of thing.

When led lighting becomes a viable alternative, the lesser cost of energy for using it will help Detroit recover lost ground too, I suppose.

[royce]

Abandonment does not have to mean something negative. In war you sometimes abandon a battlefield in order to regroup with other forces to make your forces stronger so that when you face your enemy again you'll have a better chance of winning. I see the same thing for Detroit when abandonment is discussed. Relocate people to stronger areas of the city and you save millions. Police, fire, EMS and other services aren't spread thin and can actually do some good despite the smaller manpower.

It is futile to believe every area of Detroit will be repopulated. Now if there was a natural disaster of epic proportions, like an earthquake sinking California into the Pacific Ocean or a huge hurricane wiping out NYC and most of the eastcoast, then Detroit might become the place of refuge and see future growth but unless that happens, Detrot won't see a return of two million, let alone, a million people.

The task of relocating people is daunting. I think DetroitWorks is doing an excellent job of addressing this issue. The problem is no one wants to accept their suggestions, especially if it affects them. The NIMBY mentality has to stop if Detroit has any hope of turning things around.

[corktownyuppie]

The problem is no one wants to accept their suggestions, especially if it affects them. The NIMBY mentality has to stop if Detroit has any hope of turning things around.

And this is why -- at some point -- we will eventually have some kind of unilateral emergency manager, either:

[[1) A full-blown EM who has the power to unilaterally force people to move or
[[2) A bankruptcy judge, who will eventually suspend unaffordable city services to entire swaths of the city.

Pick our poison...but we have to stop pretending that people will just agree to make the necessary changes on our own volition.

[louis]

Detroit needs to provide better schools and protection to the inner city neighbor hoods [[as in LP, corktown, midtown, downtown) for one simple reason. Young people, the young are nice enough but the second they have a child will they stay? no, at least half of them will up and leave for the suburbs from whence they came. economics and adventure brought them here and it will take sustainable schools and protection to get them to stay

[socks_mahoney]

Detroit needs a full fledged public works program to rebuild the vacant buildings and demolish the ones that can not be saved. We need this public works program to hire teachers to staff our schools...no more 40 student or even 30 student classrooms. Not to mention to employ that thousands of un[[der)employed workers.

Detroit needs the power to take the deed from absentee landlords who let their property rot, turn it over to the public works rebuilding authority, which then sells it at a fair market rate to buyers who plan to OCCUPY it, not sit on it for decades.

Detroit needs real mass, rapid, public transit.

To do all this Detroit needs a tax base and a functioning government. And in order to grow the tax base and develop a functioning government...and this here is the bottom line...Detroit needs a tri county regional policy and tax authority to run public services which unite the region such as: education, public transit, property tax policy, emergency services, and economic development.

Is that too much to ask?

[Wheels]

Detroit needs a full fledged public works program to rebuild the vacant buildings and demolish the ones that can not be saved. We need this public works program to hire teachers to staff our schools...no more 40 student or even 30 student classrooms. Not to mention to employ that thousands of un[[der)employed workers.

Detroit needs the power to take the deed from absentee landlords who let their property rot, turn it over to the public works rebuilding authority, which then sells it at a fair market rate to buyers who plan to OCCUPY it, not sit on it for decades.

Detroit needs real mass, rapid, public transit.

To do all this Detroit needs a tax base and a functioning government. And in order to grow the tax base and develop a functioning government...and this here is the bottom line...Detroit needs a tri county regional policy and tax authority to run public services which unite the region such as: education, public transit, property tax policy, emergency services, and economic development.

Is that too much to ask?

Is it to much to ask what Detroit will bring to the table?

[socks_mahoney]

Is it to much to ask what Detroit will bring to the table?

You are confusing the City of Detroit and DETROIT, the greater community and economy. You see, this is why we need a regional government....Detroit, admittedly, doesn't have much to bring to the table. It's broke. It contains less population that the areas that are "Detroit" but are not in "The City of Detroit". The mentality that somehow the future of the City of Detroit and Greater Detroit are separate must end. In a regional arrangement the "City" would lose some sway in the way things go, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Greater Detroit needs to work together. For example we don't need mass transit in the "city" of Detroit, we need mass transit across Greater Detroit.

I've said it here before and I'll say it again. The City of Detroit is a rotten tooth...unless the whole body is willing to get it fixed it's just going to spread to the rest of the mouth.

Regional tax and policy authority are step 1, without that nothing else will truly be solvent in the long run.

[DetroitPlanner]

Is it to much to ask what Detroit will bring to the table?

Cheap workers. Many workers lack good mobility to get to job centers other than downtown Detroit. Allowing people to work leads to more taxes generated and less people living off government subsidies.

In addition Detroit offers cultural and entertainment centers that few suburbs have. The improvement of transit means a better market for suburban hotels because many may choose to stay at them if they can get to the City Center with few hassles by transit. It is a win-win for all.

[Wheels]

You are confusing the City of Detroit and DETROIT, the greater community and economy. You see, this is why we need a regional government....Detroit, admittedly, doesn't have much to bring to the table. It's broke. It contains less population that the areas that are "Detroit" but are not in "The City of Detroit". The mentality that somehow the future of the City of Detroit and Greater Detroit are separate must end. In a regional arrangement the "City" would lose some sway in the way things go, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Greater Detroit needs to work together. For example we don't need mass transit in the "city" of Detroit, we need mass transit across Greater Detroit.

I've said it here before and I'll say it again. The City of Detroit is a rotten tooth...unless the whole body is willing to get it fixed it's just going to spread to the rest of the mouth.

Regional tax and policy authority are step 1, without that nothing else will truly be solvent in the long run.

So you want to feed more tax revenue to the city and leave the current government in place? The entire county couldn't support Detroit on those terms!

[socks_mahoney]

So you want to feed more tax revenue to the city and leave the current government in place? The entire county couldn't support Detroit on those terms!

Nah bro. I wanna replace the current government with a regional governing body. Think City Council but for the tri-county area.

[Strong]

such a nice thread from an outside, at least I suspect an outsider.
I'm known here as a positive thinker, or some might say a day dreamer.
So I'll respond this way.
1) Check out my threads, like Downtown all lit up, or What happen to our downtown, or The Detroit Swag.
2) Check out my thread on Connect in Detroit under The Great Detroit? documentary
3) Attend a meetup.com group Drunken Historical Detroit [[probably not the correct name but you find it)
4) This is The Great Detroit? and definitely a beautiful city, with beautiful people, with great things happening.
5) If you decide to move here, find a neighborhood that fits your lifestyle, find a school for your kids [[assuming you have some), and it won't be hard to find the kind of friends you'll like, they're here.
6) Check out facebook groups, search under Detroit and there are many like Detroiters at Heart, Detroit Can Come Back If, they are filled with good postings.
7) Finally don't believe all the negativity.

[DetroitPlanner]

So you want to feed more tax revenue to the city and leave the current government in place? The entire county couldn't support Detroit on those terms!

An authority would NOT leave the current structure in place. A regional/state board would run it. Lots of savings are to be had in coordinating the two services. More savings if heaven forbid we could ever get one transit entity instead of the several we have now [[DDOT/SMART/AATA/DTC).

[canuck]

I get your drift Royce and I know there are difficult choices to be made in order for the city's vital forces to regroup. I guess that abndonment in the wider sense of the word to me would mean ceasing to leave behind what was once valued for something new and for which you don't have an emotional attachment.

The road to recovery will point to attachment and a need to restore the community spirit, and as socks and DP emphasized, a regional authority can steer this big ship to a better shore. In fact, I dont see how a better police and transit and other stuff will come about without the combined wealth of the region, nevermind the goodwill.

[DetroitPlanner]

Canuck, unfortunately there are too many around here with a "I got mine, screw you" attitude around here.

[softailrider]

And this is why -- at some point -- we will eventually have some kind of unilateral emergency manager, either:

[[1) A full-blown EM who has the power to unilaterally force people to move or
[[2) A bankruptcy judge, who will eventually suspend unaffordable city services to entire swaths of the city.

Pick our poison...but we have to stop pretending that people will just agree to make the necessary changes on our own volition.[/FONT][/COLOR]

Both those options are poison, that's a pretty good way to put it. A lot of people are going to be unhappy. I think you're right though, the city is too FU'ed, I can't see it going any other way.

[maverick1]

I think Detroit has to lower crime, attract business, and stabilize/invest in neighborhoods worth investing in at the same time. Some parts of the city should just be let go. We won't get the money to relocate people so maybe we can let them stay in those neighborhoods tax free. All this has to be done quickly. We have a president for a another 4 years that may work with the city/region and we should take advantage of it. I think Detroit and Metro Detroit failed miserably at making the most of Clinton's years in office. B/w Snyder and Obama I think if the region could get on the same page we could see drastic improvements quickly.

[maverick1]

You are confusing the City of Detroit and DETROIT, the greater community and economy. You see, this is why we need a regional government....Detroit, admittedly, doesn't have much to bring to the table. It's broke. It contains less population that the areas that are "Detroit" but are not in "The City of Detroit". The mentality that somehow the future of the City of Detroit and Greater Detroit are separate must end. In a regional arrangement the "City" would lose some sway in the way things go, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Greater Detroit needs to work together. For example we don't need mass transit in the "city" of Detroit, we need mass transit across Greater Detroit.

I've said it here before and I'll say it again. The City of Detroit is a rotten tooth...unless the whole body is willing to get it fixed it's just going to spread to the rest of the mouth.

Regional tax and policy authority are step 1, without that nothing else will truly be solvent in the long run.

I think a regional government isnt a bad idea. It will help diminish the "I don't want my tax money going to those idiots in Detroit", the "I got mine you get yours", and the "I don't want my money going there if I have no say so" arguments. Or maybe we can just wait for everyone with this mentality to die and make the necessary changes. lol.

[nain rouge]

Alright, I'm going to try and be as honest as possible with my answers. This is what I REALLY think would be necessary to save Detroit, even if I probably wouldn't like to see some or most of it happen:

1. Schools that cater to affluent Detroiters and say "SCREW YOU" to the rest. I'm talking magnet schools that would purposely only admit children from well-to-do parents in neighborhoods like Corktown or Midtown. A lion's share of the funding would have to go to such schools, while the rest of the schools would be spun off to private contractors and run like prisons, as the dying neighborhoods around those schools are quickly killed of.

It's the only way affluent parents would feel like they have control of their child's education, keeping them in their hip neighborhoods. Little Johnny needs to be cultured, you know!

2. NEW BUILDINGS. When we decided to put most of the new skyscrapers in Southfield and Troy, we basically bet against Detroit. Detroit needs new buildings [[like it or not, Americans LOVE new) to fill in all the cracks, and perhaps more demolishing of older structures. By forcing the business class into the center city, you do a lot of good.

For example, I'd demolish Michigan Central Station and put shiny new mixed use buildings there. We'd all hate it, but in time, yuppies would move in like crazy. And don't worry, some of the old columns could be put in a nearby park.

I've noticed that black, middle class Detroiters tend to flock to any new housing developments in the inner ring suburbs - put up some proper new housing in a stabilized Corktown, for example, and affluent blacks would gobble it up right along with the yuppie whites. Middle class blacks typically have a lot of ties to the city and would like to remain in the area.

Hopefully, we'd also eventually see the skyscrapers in Southfield and Troy turned into low-income housing for all the people fleeing the failed neighborhoods in Detroit, or torn down. In the future, gas will be prohibitively expensive, and the suburbs will turn into slums as we move back into the dense city centers.

3. LIGHT RAIL. The Motor City needs to reimagine itself as the Light Rail City. While we have some great engineers here, the future isn't in the automobile. We need to become a hub for light rail technology. With much of historic Detroit originally built around the streetcar, we're in a unique infrastructural position. We can make the transition better than cities like Atlanta, L.A., and Dallas, and by leading in this field, the loss of the automotive industry shouldn't hurt us a bit!

Eventually, we would likely see new developments branching out into the cornfields that will soon butt up against neighborhoods like Midtown and Corktown. It'll look like the new buildings in Royal Oak, and yuppies will LOVE it.

4. DISINVEST in doomed neighborhoods. Cut the lights, let the trash pile up, and hand out trumped up evictions like candy. Condemn buildings everywhere except where people with money want to live. Just throwing that facet of the plan out there for those that missed the subtext so far.

5. FARMS, FARMS, FARMS! The areas around neighborhoods like East English Village should be turned into hotbeds for experimental agriculture. Poor Detroiters could work on these farms for minimum wage [[any talks of unions would be grounds for firing), their deteriorating homes sitting on the rich, mildly toxic farmland like old shacks on the Mississippi Delta. Families from affluent families could pay to pick vegetables with their children, or take tours to see how the other half lives.

6. Finally, we need more MEN IN BLUE! A provision should be made in the city charter that all city income taxes will go to the police force, which will have a permanent state-appointed manager.

Alright, that's all for now, folks!

[401don]

I think Detroit has to lower crime, attract business, and stabilize/invest in neighborhoods worth investing in at the same time. Some parts of the city should just be let go. We won't get the money to relocate people so maybe we can let them stay in those neighborhoods tax free. All this has to be done quickly. We have a president for a another 4 years that may work with the city/region and we should take advantage of it. I think Detroit and Metro Detroit failed miserably at making the most of Clinton's years in office. B/w Snyder and Obama I think if the region could get on the same page we could see drastic improvements quickly.

The 2nd term will be all about deficit reduction through spending cuts and very minor tax increases worked out with the Republicans. Detroit will be lucky to get its measly 25 million for the 10 block choo choo.

[p69rrh51]

Alright, I'm going to try and be as honest as possible with my answers. This is what I REALLY think would be necessary to save Detroit, even if I probably wouldn't like to see some or most of it happen:

1. Schools that cater to affluent Detroiters and say "SCREW YOU" to the rest. I'm talking magnet schools that would purposely only admit children from well-to-do parents in neighborhoods like Corktown or Midtown. A lion's share of the funding would have to go to such schools, while the rest of the schools would be spun off to private contractors and run like prisons, as the dying neighborhoods around those schools are quickly killed of.

It's the only way affluent parents would feel like they have control of their child's education, keeping them in their hip neighborhoods. Little Johnny needs to be cultured, you know!

2. NEW BUILDINGS. When we decided to put most of the new skyscrapers in Southfield and Troy, we basically bet against Detroit. Detroit needs new buildings [[like it or not, Americans LOVE new) to fill in all the cracks, and perhaps more demolishing of older structures. By forcing the business class into the center city, you do a lot of good.

For example, I'd demolish Michigan Central Station and put shiny new mixed use buildings there. We'd all hate it, but in time, yuppies would move in like crazy. And don't worry, some of the old columns could be put in a nearby park.

I've noticed that black, middle class Detroiters tend to flock to any new housing developments in the inner ring suburbs - put up some proper new housing in a stabilized Corktown, for example, and affluent blacks would gobble it up right along with the yuppie whites. Middle class blacks typically have a lot of ties to the city and would like to remain in the area.

Hopefully, we'd also eventually see the skyscrapers in Southfield and Troy turned into low-income housing for all the people fleeing the failed neighborhoods in Detroit, or torn down. In the future, gas will be prohibitively expensive, and the suburbs will turn into slums as we move back into the dense city centers.

3. LIGHT RAIL. The Motor City needs to reimagine itself as the Light Rail City. While we have some great engineers here, the future isn't in the automobile. We need to become a hub for light rail technology. With much of historic Detroit originally built around the streetcar, we're in a unique infrastructural position. We can make the transition better than cities like Atlanta, L.A., and Dallas, and by leading in this field, the loss of the automotive industry shouldn't hurt us a bit!

Eventually, we would likely see new developments branching out into the cornfields that will soon butt up against neighborhoods like Midtown and Corktown. It'll look like the new buildings in Royal Oak, and yuppies will LOVE it.

4. DISINVEST in doomed neighborhoods. Cut the lights, let the trash pile up, and hand out trumped up evictions like candy. Condemn buildings everywhere except where people with money want to live. Just throwing that facet of the plan out there for those that missed the subtext so far.

5. FARMS, FARMS, FARMS! The areas around neighborhoods like East English Village should be turned into hotbeds for experimental agriculture. Poor Detroiters could work on these farms for minimum wage [[any talks of unions would be grounds for firing), their deteriorating homes sitting on the rich, mildly toxic farmland like old shacks on the Mississippi Delta. Families from affluent families could pay to pick vegetables with their children, or take tours to see how the other half lives.

6. Finally, we need more MEN IN BLUE! A provision should be made in the city charter that all city income taxes will go to the police force, which will have a permanent state-appointed manager.

Alright, that's all for now, folks!

Not bad something to piss off everyone!