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

[Detroitnerd]

The problem here is much of Detroit itself was built the same time as a lot of the inner ring suburbs and things like GI Bill helped Detroit, especially neighborhoods north of 6 mile.

It helped them get built. But they're low-density too, which leaves behind some pretty hefty costs because they're expensive to administer, and with revenue falling ...

You're talking about federal subsidies and acting as if Detroit funded all those subsidies.

No, I was very clear at the beginning that I was going to leave that question out of it.

You're also missing the point that when these suburbs were built, you had to pay to hook to the city water. It wasn't offered for free. If you passed you kept your well.

Well, I feel a sort of congratulations are in order, Shollin. Not only have you posted one of the least articulate, least compelling posts that show you barely skimmed what I wrote -- that would be achievement enough -- you have managed to show that not even one of my points has penetrated your thick, carefully cultivated skull.

I enjoy discussion ... sometimes heated discussion. I find it stimulating.

If you're going to ignore all the points and just throw shit at a wall in an attempt to get something to stick, what is your excuse, sir? Just to prove that you can jam your fingers in your ears, yell and scream and demonstrate how you utterly intend to never get the point?

That's sad, dude.

[Shollin]

It helped them get built. But they're low-density too, which leaves behind some pretty hefty costs because they're expensive to administer, and with revenue falling ...



No, I was very clear at the beginning that I was going to leave that question out of it.



Well, I feel a sort of congratulations are in order, Shollin. Not only have you posted one of the least articulate, least compelling posts that show you barely skimmed what I wrote -- that would be achievement enough -- you have managed to show that not even one of my points has penetrated your thick, carefully cultivated skull.

I enjoy discussion ... sometimes heated discussion. I find it stimulating.

If you're going to ignore all the points and just throw shit at a wall in an attempt to get something to stick, what is your excuse, sir? Just to prove that you can jam your fingers in your ears, yell and scream and demonstrate how you utterly intend to never get the point?

That's sad, dude.

You made the point that the suburbs should pay for the roads and sewers. I have a relative that lives in southern Sterling Heights and lived there since the 60's. The people on his block paid for the street to be paved. They paid for their water and sewer. If they chose not to pay for the city service, they kept their well.

I don't have any excuse. We all know you're full of them.

[ghettopalmetto]

Not everyone wants to live in an apartment. :fyi:

So don't. End of story.

Not everyone wants to [[or can afford to) live in plastic McMansion in the suburbs, either. Which is why they leave Michigan and set down roots in Chicago, DC, or wherever.

Do you not see the fallacy in your all-or-nothing logic?

[Shollin]

So don't. End of story.

Not everyone wants to [[or can afford to) live in plastic McMansion in the suburbs, either. Which is why they leave Michigan and set down roots in Chicago, DC, or wherever.

Do you not see the fallacy in your all-or-nothing logic?

Boy for everyone leaving Michigan for Chicago there must be 2 people leaving Chicago. The fastest growing cities in the US are Austin, Houston and Dallas. None of those cities would be considered urban and all would be considered sprawl. People are moving to where the jobs are at.

[ghettopalmetto]

Boy for everyone leaving Michigan for Chicago there must be 2 people leaving Chicago. The fastest growing cities in the US are Austin, Houston and Dallas. None of those cities would be considered urban and all would be considered sprawl. People are moving to where the jobs are at.

And those cities are growing for two reasons: 1) oil and 2) Mexicans. No one moves to Houston because it's a lovely place.

If you read the article linked by the OP, you'd have read the statement that Detroit needs to become an attractive place to live. But I suppose you'd rather craft straw men than discuss the salient points of the article.

[Shollin]

And those cities are growing for two reasons: 1) oil and 2) Mexicans. No one moves to Houston because it's a lovely place.

If you read the article linked by the OP, you'd have read the statement that Detroit needs to become an attractive place to live. But I suppose you'd rather craft straw men than discuss the salient points of the article.

Detroit is not going to be a desirable place to live if we build a cute urban experience surrounded by the highest murder and violent crime rate of any city with a population over 200,000. Besides there's also the thing of people needing jobs. We could to 4th on the list which is Raleigh, or Salt Lake City, Seattle, Provo, Phoenix, San Antonio, or Portland. Only Seattle would be considered urban or have any sort of desirable density. Perhaps Portland.

[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?

[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.

[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.

[Bham1982]

It costs more to provide services for people the less densely they're settled. It is more expensive in every way -- environmentally, in terms of consumption of energy, resources, providing emergency services, plowing, fire protection, etc., not to mention the eventual road expansions, freeway expansions, etc.

Assuming this to be true, I guess we should abandon Detroit and move everything to the suburbs, because Detroit is where we have all the excess road capacity, residential capacity, and commercial capacity.

It's really places like Dexter Davison that are inefficiently built these days. In contrast, some sprawly place like Novi is better planned and more fully utilized.

Should we remove the desirable, full and growing area, or the half-empty, undesirable and emptying area?

[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).

[Detroitnerd]

Assuming this to be true, I guess we should abandon Detroit and move everything to the suburbs, because Detroit is where we have all the excess road capacity, residential capacity, and commercial capacity.

It's really places like Dexter Davison that are inefficiently built these days. In contrast, some sprawly place like Novi is better planned and more fully utilized.

Should we remove the desirable, full and growing area, or the half-empty, undesirable and emptying area?

No. Detroit is still denser than the suburbs and a lot of other cities. And it has good bones to be rebuilt densely. You couldn't get streets as narrow as some of Detroit's built today; they'd have to be grandfathered like Detroit.

[Eber Brock Ward]

No. Detroit is still denser than the suburbs and a lot of other cities. And it has good bones to be rebuilt densely. You couldn't get streets as narrow as some of Detroit's built today; they'd have to be grandfathered like Detroit.

This is correct. We are at 5,142 people per square mile. For reference, the other top cities in population, in order.

NY - 27,012
LA - 8,092
Chicago - 11,842
Houston - 3,501
Philly - 11,379
Phoenix - 2,798
San Antonio - 2,880
San Diego - 4,020
Dallas - 3,518
San Jose - 5,359

As my wife, a non-native of the region, remarked to me the other day: "Even on its knees, Detroit is still quite an impressive city."

Food for thought.

[Shollin]

No. Detroit is still denser than the suburbs and a lot of other cities. And it has good bones to be rebuilt densely. You couldn't get streets as narrow as some of Detroit's built today; they'd have to be grandfathered like Detroit.

The problem is, the density isn't neatly spread out over the entire landscape. The density is grouped in clusters all over the city. At Warren and Chalmers my aunt owns the only occupied house on the entire block. Maintaining a street for one person is spreding the resources thin. This isn't Sim City where we can just restart and build and design a new city. I liked the earlier plan of trying to move people into already dense and stable areas.

[Detroitnerd]

The problem is, the density isn't neatly spread out over the entire landscape. The density is grouped in clusters all over the city. At Warren and Chalmers my aunt owns the only occupied house on the entire block. Maintaining a street for one person is spreding the resources thin. This isn't Sim City where we can just restart and build and design a new city. I liked the earlier plan of trying to move people into already dense and stable areas.

Density needs to be spread out all over the place? [[That's a mindbender there.) No, not necessarily. Cities are generally denser in the center and less dense on the outskirts. And the fact that there are areas with lots of vacancies and empty lots only means that the city has much greater density from place to place that the figures would at first suggest.

As for areas where not many people live: Those people aren't really getting a whole lot of services. Many of them have to mow their own block, dig out their own sewers, cut down nuisance trees, put in their own outdoor lighting, and gravel their own alleys. This idea that these ghost blocks are resource sucks is, I think, a bit overstated. [[And the redevelopment prospects are very interesting. You'll never see street grids like that again.) We shouldn't be blaming hangers-on for living in depopulated areas. We should be thanking them. In fact, if anything, I think much of the lack of redevelopment is due to speculators who've bought up large areas of the Lower East Side and are sitting on the land, hoping to build something much larger that wipes out that precious street grid. In any event, getting people to move will probably be too expensive to pursue.

And don't forget that there are places like that in the exurbs too. Places where only a few homes were built and there are fields of gas and power hookups getting overgrown. Nobody is calling emergency meetings about that. And yet that would seem to be the place most likely to be returned to greenbelt or agriculture as the region shrinks.

[Bham1982]

And don't forget that there are places like that in the exurbs too. Places where only a few homes were built and there are fields of gas and power hookups getting overgrown. Nobody is calling emergency meetings about that. And yet that would seem to be the place most likely to be returned to greenbelt or agriculture as the region shrinks.

But these are the places people actually want to live. Those vacant sites are being developed like crazy right now, with endless 350k homes.

In contrast, the vacant areas of Detroit are emptying out faster than ever, and are heavily correlated with the parts of Detroit that have the narrow streets and traditional "urban" infrastructure. The most suburban parts of Detroit are actually the densest and most filled out.

And the "center" of the region, practically speaking, is somewhere in the suburbs. That's where you have the jobs, the population, and, increasingly, the density.

[Detroitnerd]

But these are the places people actually want to live. Those vacant sites are being developed like crazy right now, with endless 350k homes.

In contrast, the vacant areas of Detroit are emptying out faster than ever, and are heavily correlated with the parts of Detroit that have the narrow streets and traditional "urban" infrastructure. The most suburban parts of Detroit are actually the densest and most filled out.

Which brings us back to the original point of the thread:

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

[Detroitnerd]

But these are the places people actually want to live. Those vacant sites are being developed like crazy right now, with endless 350k homes.

Also, I don't think they are being "developed like crazy right now." There's been a lot of happy talk pumped into the media, but, in this market, unless you're talking about an incredible site on water that's freshly hooked up, I can't see paying the $100,000 premium to build new. A lot of the subdivisions I looked over five years ago still are not even halfway developed.

In contrast, the vacant areas of Detroit are emptying out faster than ever, and are heavily correlated with the parts of Detroit that have the narrow streets and traditional "urban" infrastructure. The most suburban parts of Detroit are actually the densest and most filled out.

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. As for neighborhoods with narrow streets ... You mean, like, Woodbridge, Corktown, Briggs, Brush Park? I get the feeling that I'm talking to somebody who hasn't spent much time in the city lately.

And the "center" of the region, practically speaking, is somewhere in the suburbs. That's where you have the jobs, the population, and, increasingly, the density.

You're a bright guy and you make some good arguments on here. But I think you often go too far and can't back up your assertions.

Can you argue that the center of the region is somewhere in the suburbs? Yes, I guess if you threw a dart at the region, it would land somewhere in the suburbs. But amid this formless repetition of mini-malls, subdivisions, shopping plazas, office and industrial parks, mini-malls, subdivisions, shopping plazas, and office and industrial parks, where is this "center." It's centerless. That's the whole point of it all: There is no center to hold it together. You could drop an atom bomb on half of it and life would go on in the other half, just as usual.

As for jobs, there are jobs all over, yes. I believe that most employment centers should be downtown, and rapid transit should connect downtown to the suburban environments. Heck, the suburbs were originally formed to be bedroom communities so people didn't have to live near the dense area where they worked. It's only in the last 50 years that we've tried to move everything out of the city, including industry and commercial centers. And you know what that did for the region? Not a whole flippin' lot. We just moved stuff around in a way that we got the least synergy out of it. I think we're starting to see that trend reverse.

Now, on this last point, that the suburbs are increasingly denser than the city, you're just flailing here, riding on a mixture of deranged hope and wishful thinking. How could a far-flung exurb of 4,000-square-foot bigfoot houses on half-acre ever be as dense as a healthy Detroit neighborhood? It's freakin' impossible.

[Hermod]

And those cities are growing for two reasons: 1) oil and 2) Mexicans. No one moves to Houston because it's a lovely place.

I dunno, GP. Houston seems to have attracted a significant share of the Vietnamese diaspora

[mwilbert]

But these are the places people actually want to live. Those vacant sites are being developed like crazy right now, with endless 350k homes.

In contrast, the vacant areas of Detroit are emptying out faster than ever, and are heavily correlated with the parts of Detroit that have the narrow streets and traditional "urban" infrastructure. The most suburban parts of Detroit are actually the densest and most filled out.

As was said, it isn't even clear this is true at present. But if it were, that still wouldn't indicate that there aren't a lot of people who would like those neighborhoods if they didn't have other severe defects. The fact that such neighborhoods appear to be quite desirable in other cities makes it seem likely that they could be attractive in Detroit.

[Hermod]

As was said, it isn't even clear this is true at present. But if it were, that still wouldn't indicate that there aren't a lot of people who would like those neighborhoods if they didn't have other severe defects. The fact that such neighborhoods appear to be quite desirable in other cities makes it seem likely that they could be attractive in Detroit.

You answered your own question.

[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

[mwilbert]

You answered your own question.

I doubt it. What question are you referring to?

[TexasT]

And the "center" of the region, practically speaking, is somewhere in the suburbs. That's where you have the jobs, the population, and, increasingly, the density.

Isn't that pretty common? I mean, of Chicago's 10M metro area population, about 25% actually lives in the city. San Fran, 10% in the city. Houston is about 40% but again, it keeps annexing and spreading out. Density-wise, Detroit's about 2-3x that of Royal Oak or Birmingham [[only two suburbs I really know).

People have this notion that it's a bad thing to have more population in the suburbs than in the city. I mean, when businesses move downtown, a common comment I see is "well, they aren't moving down there," almost said derisively. While that'd be nice to have them, it's not really a big deal. They will spend time downtown, eat downtown, pay taxes downtown, give business downtown, get more comfortable downtown. That's a positive, just having people work there.

[canuck]

Isn't that pretty common? I mean, of Chicago's 10M metro area population, about 25% actually lives in the city. San Fran, 10% in the city. Houston is about 40% but again, it keeps annexing and spreading out. Density-wise, Detroit's about 2-3x that of Royal Oak or Birmingham [[only two suburbs I really know).

People have this notion that it's a bad thing to have more population in the suburbs than in the city. I mean, when businesses move downtown, a common comment I see is "well, they aren't moving down there," almost said derisively. While that'd be nice to have them, it's not really a big deal. They will spend time downtown, eat downtown, pay taxes downtown, give business downtown, get more comfortable downtown. That's a positive, just having people work there.

Expect resistance on downtown revival, turn you hand gently like a leaf in the wind, look at the implacability of suburban expansion in the lines of your palm. - Lao Tseu.