Has Detroit ever publicly asked for a regional housing development policy?

[iheartthed]

An op-ed in the Free Press today from an urban affairs professor at Wayne State says that the true cause of Detroit's de-population is what he refers to as Metro Detroit's "housing disassembly line":

They deal only with the symptoms of Detroit's depopulation and financial problems and not its root cause, a deep-seated regional malady I call the "housing disassembly line."

The housing disassembly line is a regional process that perpetually produces an excess supply of housing. In the tri-county metro area since 1950, developers built many more dwellings -- an average of more than 10,000 a year -- than the net growth in households required. Developers built this excess supply because their new suburban subdivisions could successfully compete against the older housing stock located in less-desirable neighborhoods located in jurisdictions like Detroit.

Almost an equivalent number of dwellings were rendered redundant by this excess supply. Most were undermaintained, vacated and eventually abandoned by their owners, because they could find no occupants. They blighted the landscape until eventually demolished, leaving a vacant parcel.

Like some giant conveyor belt, each time a new house is added to the suburban fringe all older houses built on the line drop in value, and one more house -- the least valuable one in the region but typically located in Detroit -- falls off the line because it is no longer worth owning.

http://www.freep.com/article/2013032...ional-solution

I guess that if anyone is truly interested in stopping the population decline in Detroit then this would be the obvious place to start. Did Detroit Works address this at all?

[renf]

So far as I know, there have been few efforts to discourage the building of new homes or apartments in the city of Detroit or the suburban ring. Indeed, most federal, state and local policies strongly encourage the building of new residential units. The metro area's population has hardly grown since 1970 but thousands of new homes and apartments have been built rendering many older units obsolete. The Census Bureau 2011 American Community Survey reported that 29 percent of the residential units in the city of Detroit were vacant. This does not include burned homes. Every candidate for mayor of Detroit has promised to raze abandoned homes but none have found the great financial resources needed to do that. I wonder if EFM Kevyn Orr has a strategy regarding this issue?

[Richard]

Did people leave because they were given a reason to fueling the blight?

DW works and other projects seem to be concentrateing on shrinking the footprint growth fuels revenue through jobs and increased tax base without trying to persay encourage residents to move from the suburbs.

Give a reason and a choice , take away that and you end up with what you have.

Mrs/Miss Riley is starting a series on how the city charter effects each neighborhood,it is important to learn and comprehend this to move the city forward .

[iheartthed]

Did people leave because they were given a reason to fueling the blight?

DW works and other projects seem to be concentrateing on shrinking the footprint growth fuels revenue through jobs and increased tax base without trying to persay encourage residents to move from the suburbs.

Give a reason and a choice , take away that and you end up with what you have.

Mrs/Miss Riley is starting a series on how the city charter effects each neighborhood,it is important to learn and comprehend this to move the city forward .

You should read the article.

[mwilbert]

There is no question that sprawl is a major issue in the region and for the city of Detroit itself. But Detroit might as well ask for a pink unicorn as for a regional housing policy; not only is there no consensus that sprawl is bad, but because of the way municipal finance works in Michigan, sprawl is financially helpful, at least temporarily, to the towns that permit it.

[Richard]

You should read the article.

I did read it, he is saying unchecked sprawl caused the blight of Detroit the city, granted it happened in cities across the country but yet Detroit remains 40 years behind progression , why?

In the last year in Tampa,Orlando and in S Fla.

Blackstone $800,000 per day buying homes for rental.
Silver Bay. $40 million buying 400 homes
Americian homes $80 million on 500 homes
Fundamental $10 million on 90 homes
American homes $ 8 million more then
100 homes again.

Detroit was what 4 mill for how many homes?

All homes range from 20k to 350


So sprawl is what is killing the city? Okay

[iheartthed]

I did read it, he is saying unchecked sprawl caused the blight of Detroit the city, granted it happened in cities across the country but yet Detroit remains 40 years behind progression , why?

In the last year in Tampa,Orlando and in S Fla.

Blackstone $800,000 per day buying homes for rental.
Silver Bay. $40 million buying 400 homes
Americian homes $80 million on 500 homes
Fundamental $10 million on 90 homes
American homes $ 8 million more then
100 homes again.

Detroit was what 4 mill for how many homes?

All homes range from 20k to 350


So sprawl is what is killing the city? Okay

Tampa Metro growth 2000-2010: +16.2%
Orlando Metro growth 2000-2010: +29.8%
Miami Metro growth 2000-2010: +11.1%
Detroit Metro growth 2000-2010: -3.5%

[Richard]

Tampa Metro growth 2000-2010: +16.2%
Orlando Metro growth 2000-2010: +29.8%
Miami Metro growth 2000-2010: +11.1%
Detroit Metro growth 2000-2010: -3.5%

Most of that growth was fueled by Latin and South America
most of Orlando real estate was marketed directly in PR and most of those ereas resemble the country of origin and have become non English speaking,I moved to Orlando 1980 out of the service to raise my family in a safe inviroment,my children are now wanting to raise thier families elsewhere.

During the boom most of my middle and upper class Coustmers sold out and got out,I think in the next ten years there will be a reverse population shift and whatever city is prepared for it will Bennift from it.

I think Orlando ranks in the top on sprawl uncontrolled but mostly because big devolpment is a powerfull force as they do not make money unless they build.

[Detroitnerd]

An op-ed in the Free Press today from an urban affairs professor at Wayne State says that the true cause of Detroit's de-population is what he refers to as Metro Detroit's "housing disassembly line": I guess that if anyone is truly interested in stopping the population decline in Detroit then this would be the obvious place to start. Did Detroit Works address this at all?

That's CRAZY! You're talking about shackling the job creators! We need sprawl because it's really called growth! What do you want? To live under communism that forces you to live in a GHETTO? *head explodes*

[Hermod]

That's CRAZY! You're talking about shackling the job creators! We need sprawl because it's really called growth! What do you want? To live under communism that forces you to live in a GHETTO? *head explodes*

Everyone should be forced by law to live downtown in Soviet style high-rise workers flats [[except, of course, the nomenklatura like Nerd who would have their own dachas).

[Detroitnerd]

Getting back to the point, though, you'll notice that the only thing that stops the inexorable process of homebuilders overbuilding and sapping energy from the core is geography.

Manhattan is an island blessed with heavy bedrock for building up.

San Francisco is hemmed in by bay and mountains.

Pittsburgh has rugged terrain that limits developers' ability to build broad-brush environments on the outskirts.

[Shollin]

Getting back to the point, though, you'll notice that the only thing that stops the inexorable process of homebuilders overbuilding and sapping energy from the core is geography.

Manhattan is an island blessed with heavy bedrock for building up.

San Francisco is hemmed in by bay and mountains.

Pittsburgh has rugged terrain that limits developers' ability to build broad-brush environments on the outskirts.

San Francisco is one continuous sprawl all the way down to San Jose and back around to Oakland. The SF area has a population over 7 million while Detroit is about the same size as SF and has a metro population of 4.5 million. New York sprawls all the way out on Long Island and into Connecticut and New Jersey. New York is 8 million and the metro area is 19 million. That's twice the amount of people than the entire state of Michigan.

[Detroitnerd]

San Francisco is one continuous sprawl all the way down to San Jose and back around to Oakland. The SF area has a population over 7 million while Detroit is about the same size as SF and has a metro population of 4.5 million. New York sprawls all the way out on Long Island and into Connecticut and New Jersey. New York is 8 million and the metro area is 19 million. That's twice the amount of people than the entire state of Michigan.

The point of the article is something called a "housing disassembly line." Did you read the article? Did you even read the summary? Or are you so hurt and huffy that you just want to try to flame wherever I post?

If the land is rugged or has geographical limits, then the center has to build UP. As in Manhattan. And as in San Francisco. And as in Pittsburgh.

These extremely dense cities throw off so much economic heat that the surrounding areas develop and are linked to transit to carry workers into the central city. As a result, they become denser too.

The more rugged the surrounding territory, the more integrally transit is involved, the less likely the land near a city is going to be quarter-section swaths of Pulte homes and the more likely it will be historic development around transit. The denser the city center, the greater the geographical limits, the less likely it will build and maintain huge freeways to favor car commuters over transit commuters.

These areas tend to "hold together" better, and resist the abuses of greedy developers who want to make more money by building out instead of up, which leaves us all with a tremendous cost as a region.

Does that make sense?

Race! BOO!

[iheartthed]

Getting back to the point, though, you'll notice that the only thing that stops the inexorable process of homebuilders overbuilding and sapping energy from the core is geography.

Manhattan is an island blessed with heavy bedrock for building up.

San Francisco is hemmed in by bay and mountains.

Pittsburgh has rugged terrain that limits developers' ability to build broad-brush environments on the outskirts.

Ed Glaesser did a study in the late 1990s/early 2000s that linked the high housing costs in New York and California to the regulations on new housing construction. Even though a place like Manhattan does have geographic restrictions, it's actually the regulations on building in the region that push up the land values. Manhattan itself could overcome its geographic limitations by allowing more high rise construction but this is heavily opposed by home owners because of the potential to depress property values.

The high housing prices may pose a high bar for entry but it also keeps the core stable in a slow growing region like New York.

Thus, we can better compare the self-reported value of a house with the cost of building a home from scratch. When combined with the Means data, the American Housing Survey allows us to examine housing prices in a wide range of cities as well as the gap between these prices and new construction costs.
These data suggest that America can be divided into three
broad areas. First, there are a number of places where housing
is priced far below the cost of new construction. These areas are primarily central cities in the Northeast and the Midwest, such as Detroit and Philadelphia. In these places, which were the subject of our previous work [[Glaeser and Gyourko 2001),
there is almost no new growth. In general, these places had
significant housing price appreciation over the 1990s, but
values are still below construction costs.

In the second category of housing, in large areas of the
country, costs are quite close to the cost of new construction.
These places generally have robust growth on the edges of
cities, where land is quite cheap. These areas represent the bulk of American housing, although they seem to be somewhat
underrepresented in the AHS.

Finally, there is a third category of cities and suburbs where
the price of homes is much higher than the cost of new
construction; Manhattan and Palo Alto are two examples.
Indeed, many of these places are in California, but the 1990s
saw an increase in such areas in the Northeast and South as
well. Although there are a number of such places with
extremely expensive homes, they do not represent the norm for America.

...

As a whole, our paper concludes that America does not
uniformly face a housing affordability crisis. In the majority of
places, land costs are low [[or at least reasonable) and housing
prices are close to [[or below) the costs of new construction. In
the places where housing is quite expensive, building
restrictions appear to have created these high prices.

http://app.ny.frb.org/research/epr/03v09n2/0306glae.pdf

[Detroitnerd]

Ed Glaesser did a study in the late 1990s/early 2000s that linked the high housing costs in New York and California to the regulations on new housing construction. Even though a place like Manhattan does have geographic restrictions, it's actually the regulations on building in the region that push up the land values. Manhattan itself could overcome its geographic limitations by allowing more high rise construction but this is heavily opposed by home owners because of the potential to depress property values.

The high housing prices may pose a high bar for entry but it also keeps the core stable in a slow growing region like New York.

Interesting! Thanks!

[Detroitnerd]

A friend was telling me about one of her friends who grew up behind the Iron Curtain and had a fondness for what she called "filing cabinet buildings." I guess you can grow to like anything!

[maverick1]

Good article. One thing that baffles me is why are some folks so against having a walkable urban environment in the core city? Outside of Detroit there is more than enough suburban living. Nothing wrong with that. But why are people so against those of us that want a dense, walkable, vibrant, urban environment in Detroit? Not in Troy, not in Roseville, but in Detroit. Why can't the suburbs stay suburbs and Detroit be an actual city?

[ghettopalmetto]

Good article. One thing that baffles me is why are some folks so against having a walkable urban environment in the core city? Outside of Detroit there is more than enough suburban living. Nothing wrong with that. But why are people so against those of us that want a dense, walkable, vibrant, urban environment in Detroit? Not in Troy, not in Roseville, but in Detroit. Why can't the suburbs stay suburbs and Detroit be an actual city?

I suspect it's for the same reason there are other elements in our society that seek to ban everything with which they disagree: they don't understand it, don't subscribe to it, aren't empathetic, and are scared by its very existence, as if it somehow poses a threat to their way of life.

[Hermod]

Good article. One thing that baffles me is why are some folks so against having a walkable urban environment in the core city? Outside of Detroit there is more than enough suburban living. Nothing wrong with that. But why are people so against those of us that want a dense, walkable, vibrant, urban environment in Detroit? Not in Troy, not in Roseville, but in Detroit. Why can't the suburbs stay suburbs and Detroit be an actual city?

Plenty of sidewalks in Detroit. Just walk up a storm. Plenty of density too. Of course the commercial buildings and storefronts may be empty, but that is because you would rather trek out to Somerset than to spend your money in the D. If there was money to be made there, a business friendly [[and honest) municipal government, and a safe environment, stores would be opening there all the time [[and never would have left in the first place).

[mwilbert]

I'm not sure they are against it so much as many people don't understand it. They don't want it themselves, and they don't recognize how many people do. And some who understand it may not feel that it is a viable form of development in Detroit, either because the city is too far gone or because they don't think that there are enough people in Detroit [[as opposed to say NYC or Boston) who want it.

I think those people are wrong, but even the densest current parts of Detroit really don't provide good examples of walkable urbanism. I think that we may reach critical mass in midtown or possibly downtown in the near future, but I don't think anyone could say it is there yet. The cool thing is that once it exists in Detroit and people can see it, it will be a lot easier for people to understand and accept.

[oladub]

From Detroitnerd post#43:You don't think that had anything to do with the predatory lending and mortgage meltdown? Seems to me most of the new building I see is between New Center and downtown, and it's all multi-unit.

You are onto something but "predatory lending and mortgage" practices haven't ended.

This article makes the point that government and Fed policies were/are intended primarily to profit the TBTF banks. Building in the suburbs where better schools, lower crime, better governments, and lower taxes are found just makes sense to a lot of people with money to spend. The downtown condos are each gated communities able to better address a couple of these issues. However, I notice that in Minneapolis where the downtown condo scene is more developed, condo residents tend to move out when their kids attain school age unless they want to pay for Montessori. Those young yuppie parents are also petitioning the Minneapolis school district to build a downtown public school for their own [[mostly white) kids.
Why The Government Is Desperately Trying To Inflate A New Housing Bubble

[canuck]

Bham1982, I think the idea is; Novi is hurting Novi and Dexter Davison-like areas by considering the latter worthless. It is like waking up in the morning and not looking at yourself in the mirror because it will remind you you need a shave. Keep doing that for a coupla days in a row and guess what happens.

You could of course raze whole neighborhoods again or try to curb growth on a regional basis.