The Queen of Corktown: The fight against 1950s Urban Renewal

[begingri]

Ethel Claes and the West Side Industrial Project

On October 9, 1982, a Detroit Free Press obituary declared, "The Queen of Corktown is dead." Ethel Claes, a Corktown resident for over fifty years and longtime president of its homeowners' organization, had passed away at the age of sixty-nine. The neighborhood--or at least what was left of it--partly owed its existence to the co-owner of a Corktown book shop run out of a Victorian house on the corner of Leverette and 11th Street.

http://corktownhistory.blogspot.com/...ndustrial.html

A long and very interesting blog post. I never realized quite how much of Corktown was destroyed by urban renewal until I read this.

[marshamusic]

[[as I posted on the blog)

Absolutely beautiful piece. Thanks for the work.

I can't help but be reminded of the history and destruction of Black Bottom, during the same period, on the other side of town, due to many of the same forces and civic needs - though in that case there is no longer even a remnant community.

Wonderful story.

[Pam]

Yes, nice job. I liked the then and now comparison pics.

[casscorridor]

This article illustrates how much of the urban core really was intentionally destroyed [[opposed to riots/gradual abandonment) by Urban Renewal. Much of the 19th century building stock has been obliterated, and old dense neighborhoods wiped off the map and forgotten. I really wonder what Detroit would be like today if these neighborhoods were never intentionally destroyed.

There would have been much more to develop in relation to an expanding Downtown. In many other cities, dense residential neighborhoods abut the central business districts, without any barriers, but this is not the case in Detroit. It is my suspicion that Downtown Detroit would have been in a much better place had these neighborhoods not been destroyed [[in addition to other obvious factors such as mass transit).

[marshamusic]

This article illustrates how much of the urban core really was intentionally destroyed [[opposed to riots/gradual abandonment) by Urban Renewal. Much of the 19th century building stock has been obliterated, and old dense neighborhoods wiped off the map and forgotten. I really wonder what Detroit would be like today if these neighborhoods were never intentionally destroyed.

There would have been much more to develop in relation to an expanding Downtown. In many other cities, dense residential neighborhoods abut the central business districts, without any barriers, but this is not the case in Detroit. It is my suspicion that Downtown Detroit would have been in a much better place had these neighborhoods not been destroyed [[in addition to other obvious factors such as mass transit).

I felt an overwhelming sense of familiarity in San Francisco, perhaps because I was a small child when at least the remnants of some of Detroit's destroyed neighborhoods still existed. The density of the old housing stock - and even the grandeur of several blocks of mansions - gave me the feeling of deja vu in many SFO neighborhoods.

It is not a co-incidence that the contruction of freeways was greatly curtailed in that city, making for more contiguous communities, as the break up of neighborhoods was clearly a factor in the demise of many communities here.

[Parkguy]

When you look at the old Detroit Edison aerial photos of pre-freeway Detroit, you can see what a different place it was. The 1949 photos of downtown and near east side and Corktown area show an unbroken block pattern, only broken up by the radial avenues, which were part of the fabric of the city rather than barriers. I think it is especially interesting to see how Vernor Ave. relates to the train station, Trumbull, and the area that I-75 wiped out. You can see that Claes was trying to preserve a dense and vital neighborhood. I have some memories of the Clark Park area 10 years later, and even then it was a very dense neighborhood. There were many upper/lower flats, apartment buildings, no driveways [[the neighborhood predated the auto), and houses on the street with another one back by the alley. VERY dense. I saw that Traverse City is debating whether to allow new "auxiliary housing units" or granny flats in some neighborhoods, which are the same thing I remember from that neighborhood. They are starting to allow them in many of the booming cities, but there is a lot of heated debate about it.

I know that these photos have been talked about many times before on the forums. These links are to the high-res versions of the photos, which are about 16 mb pdf format. They take a few seconds to load, but the high res images have a lot of impact. I have trouble viewing in Chrome, so I used IE to view them. You could also download the image and view in your Adobe reader.

[ghettopalmetto]

I like this part:

How does one define "blight"? Common sense factors such as housing defects and crime rate were considered, but the urban planners of the 1950s used more creativity in interpreting the word. They also included indications such as:

• The age of buildings
• The occupants' income
• "Overcrowding" of buildings
• Lack of yard space
• Intrusion of non-residential uses
• Narrow streets
• High traffic volume
• Lack of off-street parking
• "Mixed character" of buildings

In other words, all the characteristics that make a neighborhood--and thus, a city--interesting were systematically and methodically eliminated through the vague blanket term of "blight".

Our grandchildren are going to look back at the period from 1945 to 1968 and wonder what the hell people were thinking.

[Patrick]

I like this part:
[/LIST]

In other words, all the characteristics that make a neighborhood--and thus, a city--interesting were systematically and methodically eliminated through the vague blanket term of "blight".

Our grandchildren are going to look back at the period from 1945 to 1968 and wonder what the hell people were thinking.

I think that is true to a point. I think a lot of people living in that era simply wanted something new and fresh, especially after living through WWII and the depression. I doubt most people back then thought those buildings were worth saving because of history. Most people back then would not have even though of MCS as being "historical"

[Huggybear]

Let me give you the alternative view: Corktown reached the right result.

The blog post above - in the fashion of a lot of people - is to decry urban renewal as some kind of perverse and inhuman desire solely directed at displacing humans. If you are familiar with the blogger's source material, you would understand why from the City's perspective, it made sense at the time - and in an odd way, still does.

1. By 1960, even though its population was in decline, Detroit had no concentrated vacant land on which to build anything that was major economic generator. Detroit also had double-digit unemployment [all of this is also the case now].

2. Years before the riots, Detroit planners concluded that in light of this, the only way to grow the tax base was to redevelop property to a configuration that paid more in taxes and preferably consumed less in services [still true].

3. Where suburbs were successful with commercial/industrial superblocks, where the fastest selling residential property type was on a big lot on a cul-de-sac [[they couldn't slap it up fast enough), and where the migration out validated that this was what businesses and people liked [[Southfield, Warren...), it's hard not to conclude that the "suburban" type of development was the way of the future [and given that suburbs took people from Detroit for the next 50+ years, this was an accurate observation at the time].

4. There was a perception that property occupied by poor people unaccustomed to maintaining houses would be run into the ground [this has been borne out in Detroit's cheapest housing stock, which has been treated as disposable].

5. Lafayette Park was the test case. Nobody was going to stand up for a bunch of poor African Americans, least of all their absentee landlords [[who were probably happy to sell out). When the city discovered that the tax recovery per acre went up more than ten times, with one-third the people, on a superblock with as much as one-third devoted to public space, it was time to go for the next-poorest neighborhood.

6. The federal government was paying big for urban renewal [[I guess out of guilt for redlining, freeway-building and subsidizing suburbanization in a huge way). Black Bottom was wiped out with a federal subsidy of $40 million of today's dollars.

Given the facts, the logic of urban renewal was actually very sound. The displacement of poor people was the part that wasn't really addressed by the small amount of public housing built. But it's also possible that the city couldn't afford to build more at the time.

As to whether this wrecked the neighborhood, subsequent history suggests that Corktown [[and Detroit) may have come out ahead because of it:

1. The West Side Industrial District was a rare major capital investment in an era where people weren't putting money into the city. 1967 did not mark the end of investment; it only made the lack of investment more clear.

2. Given the glut of housing in Detroit, Corktown was actually right-sized. Had it remained a large neighborhood with thousands of residential structures, there is nothing to suggest that there would have been any investment between the 1960s and now that would have kept it up - and we know this because demand and City population were rapidly declining, and housing prices were dropping. You don't have to take my word for it - look at the "good" neighborhoods as of the 1960s - they all have serious challenges [[and have since the 1960s). Given that Corktown was at the bottom end of the market, it probably would have experienced 50 years of creeping decay, abandonment, and arson [[actually, given current experience, a house can be destroyed pretty much in a week's worth of scrapping). Looking like Brush Park or the near east side seems like it would have been the outcome. Cutting Corktown down to its most historic part preserves some part of its past without subjecting it to the indignity of what we would call blight today.

3. The West Side Industrial Zone is an area that was established, acquired, cleared, and infrastructured when the money was available to do it, and eminent domain still existed. Today, it would be pretty much impossible to do - which could put a crimp in industrial redevelopment [[Detroit is awash in brownfields and abandoned factories - the Corktown area has very sound stock by comparison). The siting is actually quite good: near I-75 and I-96, not far from train tracks, and no far from the bridge. It's not as if it were dropped in the middle of Sherwood Forest.

As someone else pointed out, what was torn out may not have been considered historic at the time. Would you consider a boarding house built in 1950 to be historic? - because it's the same analysis that was probably in play then.

We look at things with 20/20 hindsight, a contemporary worldview, and unrealistic assumptions about what might have happened [[especially compared to what actually did happen).

Given economic logic behind 1950s futurism in Detroit, I would speculate that the future of Detroit will look a lot more like those projects - with major consolidations and realignments of land uses - than an attempt to preserve structures that are old but not historically significant. My grandchildren [[if I have them) might wonder what the hell happened between 1968 and 2013 and why Detroit didn't get the job done earlier.

HB

[gnome]

That Corktown blogger guy really does an exceptional job with his research and his use of concrete language. I have no idea what he does in real life, but whatever it is, he does not let a smidgen of his professional jargon get in the way.

lawyers are regretfully handicapped by their own obtuseness. Doctors are almost illiterate. Real estate folks were all sired by helium huffers. Each profession has its own methods of communication and many times those methods ooze into everyday life.

this guy writes clearly and without pretense. Good job.

[marshamusic]

Let me give you the alternative view: Corktown reached the right result.

The blog post above - in the fashion of a lot of people - is to decry urban renewal as some kind of perverse and inhuman desire solely directed at displacing humans. If you are familiar with the blogger's source material, you would understand why from the City's perspective, it made sense at the time - and in an odd way, still does.

1. By 1960, even though its population was in decline, Detroit had no concentrated vacant land on which to build anything that was major economic generator. Detroit also had double-digit unemployment [all of this is also the case now].

2. Years before the riots, Detroit planners concluded that in light of this, the only way to grow the tax base was to redevelop property to a configuration that paid more in taxes and preferably consumed less in services [still true].

3. Where suburbs were successful with commercial/industrial superblocks, where the fastest selling residential property type was on a big lot on a cul-de-sac [[they couldn't slap it up fast enough), and where the migration out validated that this was what businesses and people liked [[Southfield, Warren...), it's hard not to conclude that the "suburban" type of development was the way of the future [and given that suburbs took people from Detroit for the next 50+ years, this was an accurate observation at the time].

4. There was a perception that property occupied by poor people unaccustomed to maintaining houses would be run into the ground [this has been borne out in Detroit's cheapest housing stock, which has been treated as disposable].

5. Lafayette Park was the test case. Nobody was going to stand up for a bunch of poor African Americans, least of all their absentee landlords [[who were probably happy to sell out). When the city discovered that the tax recovery per acre went up more than ten times, with one-third the people, on a superblock with as much as one-third devoted to public space, it was time to go for the next-poorest neighborhood.

6. The federal government was paying big for urban renewal [[I guess out of guilt for redlining, freeway-building and subsidizing suburbanization in a huge way). Black Bottom was wiped out with a federal subsidy of $40 million of today's dollars.

Given the facts, the logic of urban renewal was actually very sound. The displacement of poor people was the part that wasn't really addressed by the small amount of public housing built. But it's also possible that the city couldn't afford to build more at the time.

As to whether this wrecked the neighborhood, subsequent history suggests that Corktown [[and Detroit) may have come out ahead because of it:

1. The West Side Industrial District was a rare major capital investment in an era where people weren't putting money into the city. 1967 did not mark the end of investment; it only made the lack of investment more clear.

2. Given the glut of housing in Detroit, Corktown was actually right-sized. Had it remained a large neighborhood with thousands of residential structures, there is nothing to suggest that there would have been any investment between the 1960s and now that would have kept it up - and we know this because demand and City population were rapidly declining, and housing prices were dropping. You don't have to take my word for it - look at the "good" neighborhoods as of the 1960s - they all have serious challenges [[and have since the 1960s). Given that Corktown was at the bottom end of the market, it probably would have experienced 50 years of creeping decay, abandonment, and arson [[actually, given current experience, a house can be destroyed pretty much in a week's worth of scrapping). Looking like Brush Park or the near east side seems like it would have been the outcome. Cutting Corktown down to its most historic part preserves some part of its past without subjecting it to the indignity of what we would call blight today.

3. The West Side Industrial Zone is an area that was established, acquired, cleared, and infrastructured when the money was available to do it, and eminent domain still existed. Today, it would be pretty much impossible to do - which could put a crimp in industrial redevelopment [[Detroit is awash in brownfields and abandoned factories - the Corktown area has very sound stock by comparison). The siting is actually quite good: near I-75 and I-96, not far from train tracks, and no far from the bridge. It's not as if it were dropped in the middle of Sherwood Forest.

As someone else pointed out, what was torn out may not have been considered historic at the time. Would you consider a boarding house built in 1950 to be historic? - because it's the same analysis that was probably in play then.

We look at things with 20/20 hindsight, a contemporary worldview, and unrealistic assumptions about what might have happened [[especially compared to what actually did happen).

Given economic logic behind 1950s futurism in Detroit, I would speculate that the future of Detroit will look a lot more like those projects - with major consolidations and realignments of land uses - than an attempt to preserve structures that are old but not historically significant. My grandchildren [[if I have them) might wonder what the hell happened between 1968 and 2013 and why Detroit didn't get the job done earlier.

HB

I wish this forum had a "like" button, so that I could "like" this post.

MM

[ghettopalmetto]

HuggyBear, you paint a picture of a desperation Hail Mary pass by the City of Detroit. Given that you've cited no sources for your historical assessment, I question whether the scenario you describe is accurate.

You say that there was no land for new projects that generate economic activity. But as we've seen in Detroit's recent history, "projects" don't generate economic activity--PEOPLE do. Other large industrial cities then-in-league with Detroit--notably Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York--have since been able to grow their economies, despite limitations provided by geography. Detroit never built upward. This was an option never explored in Detroit. If Detroit was doing "the right thing" in the 1960s, then why has it fallen so much further behind its peer cities [[and regions)?

You talk about the need to produce taxpaying property without costing money. But homeowners pay taxes. Large-scale public housing projects and Cobo Hall do not. Nor do you consider demolition costs for all of the "slum clearance" that took place.

[DetroitHabitater]

My favorite part is when they said there was "Pattern Deficiency". Ironically now planning departments have "Anti-Monotony rules" for developers.

What a great loss. Half of the west side industrial area today stands empty. Bastards.

[Bham1982]

I think it was a really well-written article, and the pics were really evocative and a bit depressing.

I also think that Huggybear's response post was spot-on. The actions of "city planners" back then seem crazy at face value, but when you look at the timeframe and specific context, I think their decisionmaking can be defended, even when so much was lost.

It is an interesting "what if". If nothing had happened, and the full Corktown remained, would the city have retained these industrial jobs somewhere else, and would the intact neighborhood have thrived? I have no doubt that if the neighborhood remained intact until the present day, it would be quite valuable, but maybe it would have been destroyed in the interim. Who knows...

[Bham1982]

Other large industrial cities then-in-league with Detroit--notably Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York--have since been able to grow their economies, despite limitations provided by geography?

The industrial bases in Chicago, Philadephia and New York were all absolutely devastated over the last 50 years. None of these cities retain a meaningful fraction of the industrial jobs they once had.

In NYC, in particular, the transition to a service and knowledge-based economy is almost 100%.

My point is that all these cities were hard-hit by industrial losses, though the overall economic picture varied quite a bit in each of the four cities [[including Detroit).

[ghettopalmetto]

I also think that Huggybear's response post was spot-on. The actions of "city planners" back then seem crazy at face value, but when you look at the timeframe and specific context, I think their decisionmaking can be defended, even when so much was lost.

I think the post-World War II planners knew exactly what they were doing. Cities had existed for thousands of years--and most of them grew in a similar fashion for that entire duration. As educated people, the planners would have known this.

These folks, having just come back from winning WWII, thought they could establish a technocracy, where only bean-counting and number-crunching mattered. They thought they could impose military-style demolish-and-conquer techniques to the urban environment. Need a road to move lots of people? No problem--plow down this neighborhood that no one will miss. Need a base of operations? Clear out an area over here. And, most importantly--get it all done QUICKLY before anyone asks questions.

It was good enough thinking to defeat Hitler. It was good enough to defeat our own cities too. Sadly, the places we paid to rebuild in Europe are far more functional and attractive.

[Huggybear]

HuggyBear, you paint a picture of a desperation Hail Mary pass by the City of Detroit. Given that you've cited no sources for your historical assessment, I question whether the scenario you describe is accurate.

GP -

The blogger actually links to a report with the background points I cited. Go to the "pattern deficiency" picture in the blog post and click on the link for the source. It will take you to a scan of the 1962 report of the city planning commission to what is now FHA.

The first few pages set out a summary of how the city assessed the situation. There was a significant amount of conservation contemplated [[80% of the city's area), but the report reflects the fiscal "Hail Mary" situation [[as they saw it) and why the bottom end of the housing market [[and taxable value) became the target.

The solution was very radical - but looking at what we know now about Detroit at the time, Detroit had high unemployment [[20% in 1958 - seriously depressing income tax collection), was landlocked by home rule cities and charter townships, and had a couple of neighborhoods with good locations and disappointing tax revenues [[residential property takes more than it pays - and the lower-end in value, the bigger the gap).

[[And as to your other cities question - I'd give this possible explanation for why Detroit did what it did: no other city was quite in this boat, let alone with such a cyclical major industry or so many single family homes to police and protect.)

Cobo and public housing projects didn't figure into this planning commission report; the plans in the report primarily reflect market residential, commercial, and institutional zones.

Although people might get upset at the highly flexible definition of "blight" in the report, it's really used to stand in for an estimate of future revenue performance. Regardless of potential analytical misuse then, it was a surprisingly good predictor of what would not make it to the 21st century. The apocalypse of small frame houses and Brush Park are good examples.

Not being a fan of these wholesale neighborhood wipeouts, I was very surprised by the report, which provided a glimpse into city thinking. I always thought the problem was caretaker leadership; reports like this put us in the minds of the city back then - and although we can debate the wisdom of decisions, the economic thinking was not as insane as we want to believe. The social justice aspect is a different story.

I'm not going to defend decisions made decades before I was born, but at the same time, I think that thinking Detroit was somehow run by idiots for fifty years is off the mark. Detroit had its own vision of the future. I don't know that in the final analysis, any renewal project in that report actually failed [[ones that were built). The real sin was that after 1967, the city seemed to have stopped trying new things.

HB

[ghettopalmetto]

Not being a fan of these wholesale neighborhood wipeouts, I was very surprised by the report, which provided a glimpse into city thinking. I always thought the problem was caretaker leadership; reports like this put us in the minds of the city back then - and although we can debate the wisdom of decisions, the economic thinking was not as insane as we want to believe. The social justice aspect is a different story.

I'm not going to defend decisions made decades before I was born, but at the same time, I think that thinking Detroit was somehow run by idiots for fifty years is off the mark. Detroit had its own vision of the future. I don't know that in the final analysis, any renewal project in that report actually failed [[ones that were built). The real sin was that after 1967, the city seemed to have stopped trying new things.

HB

As I stated above, the planners back then knew precisely what they were doing. On that, we agree. They may not have foreseen every unintended consequence, but they knew damn well what they were doing. And yes, as you've noted, they were focused on sheer bean-counting rather than trying to improve the lot of the people of the city.

I know hindsight is always 20/20, but I believe that is so we can learn from our past mistakes. In hindsight, how has the previous strategy worked for the long run?

[gnome]

I think the post-World War II planners knew exactly what they were doing. Cities had existed for thousands of years--and most of them grew in a similar fashion for that entire duration. As educated people, the planners would have known this.

These folks, having just come back from winning WWII, thought they could establish a technocracy, where only bean-counting and number-crunching mattered. They thought they could impose military-style demolish-and-conquer techniques to the urban environment. Need a road to move lots of people? No problem--plow down this neighborhood that no one will miss. Need a base of operations? Clear out an area over here. And, most importantly--get it all done QUICKLY before anyone asks questions.

It was good enough thinking to defeat Hitler. It was good enough to defeat our own cities too. Sadly, the places we paid to rebuild in Europe are far more functional and attractive.

good post, the WWII mindset of getting stuff done cannot be discounted. those folks were experts at moving a lot of men and equipment quickly and with a minimum of debate.

At the time the horizons were clear, the future bright and old was bad. You see the same thinking in the facadectomies up and down every downtown in America. Nice shiny aluminum to cover that old tired brick. Tear off the doodads from the David Whitney and dozens of others.

It was a time for the future, JFK told us so when he said, "..the torch has been passed to a new generation..."

[ghettopalmetto]

good post, the WWII mindset of getting stuff done cannot be discounted. those folks were experts at moving a lot of men and equipment quickly and with a minimum of debate.

At the time the horizons were clear, the future bright and old was bad. You see the same thinking in the facadectomies up and down every downtown in America. Nice shiny aluminum to cover that old tired brick. Tear off the doodads from the David Whitney and dozens of others.

It was a time for the future, JFK told us so when he said, "..the torch has been passed to a new generation..."

The criminal irony is, how many decades later, we now shop at Partridge Creeks and vacation at Disney to get any semblance of a real town or neighborhood--no matter how canned, contrived, and cartoony it may be. Aside from a handful of places, that's all we have left. Our culture has been reduced to a giant cartoon.

Whereas, after World War II, the Europeans reconstructed their bombed-out cities EXACTLY THE WAY THEY WERE. If you compare photos of modern-day Warszawa and Detroit, you'd think the war was fought on our turf.

This is what people mean when they talk about American arrogance.

[Bham1982]

Whereas, after World War II, the Europeans reconstructed their bombed-out cities EXACTLY THE WAY THEY WERE.

That isn't really true, though. The bombed-out European cities were typical rebuilt in a modernist/bauhaus manner.

If you look at pretty much any German city, the prevailing building form is ugly, boxy 50's-style functionalist blocks. There are some restorations, and a ton of recreations, but the overall atmosphere is very 50's.

And while they didn't build urban freeways, they widened tons of arteries and built ring roads around most of the downtowns. It's very obvious if you visit, say, Hamburg, or Cologne.

I don't think it was urban renewal, per se, that destroyed most American cities. It didn't help, but I don't think Detroit would be vastly different if it never took urban renewal money.

And I don't even think Detroit was a "leader" in urban renewal. There are U.S. cities that built housing projects and new districts on a grand scale. Detroit didn't really do that.

[ghettopalmetto]

That isn't really true, though. The bombed-out European cities were typical rebuilt in a modernist/bauhaus manner.

If you look at pretty much any German city, the prevailing building form is ugly, boxy 50's-style functionalist blocks. There are some restorations, and a ton of recreations, but the overall atmosphere is very 50's.

And while they didn't build urban freeways, they widened tons of arteries and built ring roads around most of the downtowns. It's very obvious if you visit, say, Hamburg, or Cologne.

I don't think it was urban renewal, per se, that destroyed most American cities. It didn't help, but I don't think Detroit would be vastly different if it never took urban renewal money.

And I don't even think Detroit was a "leader" in urban renewal. There are U.S. cities that built housing projects and new districts on a grand scale. Detroit didn't really do that.

You're talking architectural styles. I'm talking about the form of cities. Warszawa has a lot of ugly Soviet apartment buildings. But the folks who live in them don't have to drive 10 miles each way out to Walmart in the suburbs for everything they need. There, you can still walk to meaningful destinations and cross the street without negotiating acres of parking lot or getting run over by cars travelling at 55 miles an hour.

After the War, 75% of Warszawa was rubble, but they rebuilt the Old and New Towns [["New Town" dates to the 13th century) brick by brick. Why? Because they have pride. At the same time, American cities demolished buildings that were 50 or 60 years old because they were "obsolete".

For the wealthiest society that has ever existed on the face of the earth, most of our built environment is utter garbage. We built nicer places when we were a much poorer country.

[DetroitHabitater]

I think the results show how wrong the city planners were. It was a neighborhood of houses for 100 years with citizens who fought their destruction.

As a light industrial area it never even filled in and after three decades is already half empty and rotting. I don't see semi truck drivers staying at the corktown inn and playing shuffleboard in dean savage park that is for sure.

Although I do enjoy rollerblading my dogs through the streets of the west side industrial area....on account there is zero traffic

[Detroitnerd]

I guess it goes to show what happens when you give over city planning to bean-counters and engineers and industrialists. It dovetails neatly with the perception of several old-timers I've talked to who moved out in the 1950s and 1960s, that the city cared more for large firms and big contracts than it did for individual homeowners and mom-and-pop operations.

The real shame of it all is that you probably can't rebuild what was lost due to new requirements on street widths, parking, setbacks etc. Who builds pothole dormers or cornices these days? No, what was lost was lost irretrievably.

[Huggybear]

GP -

On your first question, the urban renewal zones that they actually did turned out quite ok. Lafayette Park has very high income levels [[even in the Metro), the DMC is Detroit's largest employer, and although you might not like what it has done, Wayne State has poured a ton of money into its campus. A couple of them changed use [[for example, one planned residential district became the DTE campus - and the commercial one became the McNamara Building/IRS/public safety complex.

As to the comment that our built environment is "crap," it is not a uniquely American impulse to make things that are spread out. You can see in Raphael's Betrothal of the Virgin what has been called the "ideal city." This was not achievable in Europe, which was constrained by geography, medieval walls, and the distance you could walk. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there was a neoclassical planning style called "city beautiful" - which is directly responsible for why the DIA and the Library are sited the way they are. Washington DC is largely a product of this. And it's not like the Europeans weren't experimenting before the war - witness Mussolini's EUR. Rationalism and the International Style were prewar concepts.

But everything you hate about postwar planning and urban renewal in the United States can be laid at the feet of off-the-boat Europeans: LeCorbusier [[Swiss) [[the patron saint of the American public housing project), Gropius [[German), and Mies van der Rohe [[German). These were the proponents of International Style buildings and superblocks. If you hate shopping malls, consider that they were invented by Victor Gruen, [[Austrian). Garish space-age hotels? Morris Lapidus [[Ukrainian). The Detroit Civic Center plan? Eliel Saarinen [[Finnish). The modern technical-industrial park? Eero Saarinen [[also an emigre). Sprawled modern factories? Albert Kahn [[Prussia) [[though largely prewar). Postwar America was the canvas for repressed prewar European planning and architecture. And as Bham1982 noted, the Europeans did many of the same things. And look at Brasilia or Mexico City if you want to see it in our hemisphere.

But aside from this, Detroit is a place where it could make sense to redo some subdivisions as super-blocks with some higher-rise buildings, even if they are in park-like settings. Not only does the clearing take up extra supply [[really a problem with the 900 square foot wartime and immediate postwar bungalow houses), but changing the housing model can reduce the support costs per resident [[fewer utility connections to make, fewer roads to maintain, fewer miles of frontage to police, more fireproof construction). People will complain about "the urban fabric," but as with a good shirt, you have to optimize your thread count to the climate. And right now, it's a long, hot summer, and we're wearing a 220s dress shirt specified by our great great great grandfather. And yes, you'll need transit to support it, but not any more than you need now with dead retail in the street shells around Detroit's residential subdivisions.

HB