History of Southfield becoming the commercial and business hub of Metro Detroit?

[48009]

I didn't grow up here and Southfield has always fascinated me. Who spearheaded Southfield [[of all places) becoming this commercial and business hub?

And then did Troy start getting developed after? And then in the 80s Auburn Hills got in the action?

[Kathleen]

Just took a Southfield Midcentury Modern bus tour yesterday.

The transition from rural Southfield Township into the city of Southfield during the 1950s was the context for the tour...development of Northland in the early 1950s...spearheaded by Hudson's...spawned both commercial and residential development. Some amazing architecture!!!!

Check these out these resources:

http://history.sfldlib.org/history/L...ibrary/37..pdf

https://www.cityofsouthfield.com/Por...s_6-Mar-12.pdf

https://www.cityofsouthfield.com/Por...MidCentMod.pdf

[gazhekwe]

You went right by my house! I saw the bus around 2:45 pm. When I saw your post just now I was going to refer to that tour, and Ken Siver who may have narrated the tour. He wrote a book on the history of Southfield.

The thing is, Southfield was cottage and small farms country right on into the 50s. It was incorporated in 1958 and they set right out to attract business and high end residential. Our neighborhood was on the tour, and was developed beginning in the 20s. It really took off in the early 60s when well off Jewish executives built custom homes. Southfield was really fashionable right through the 70s to the mid 80s, when people started building those huge McMansions out in rural Oakland and Macomb. Enter Farmington, then Novi, the new home magnets out I-96.

[Kathleen]

You went right by my house! I saw the bus around 2:45 pm. When I saw your post just now I was going to refer to that tour, and Ken Siver who may have narrated the tour.

Which subdivision do you live in? I'm going to drive the tour route sometime soon with my husband so that I can take more photos as we were not able to get off the bus except for 3 stops.

Yes, Ken was the tour guide!!!

[gazhekwe]

Washington Heights. Look for red chairs on the porch and come in for a good cup of espresso. My street has some classic MCM houses, but mine is one of those ubiquitous colonials.

[48009]

You went right by my house! I saw the bus around 2:45 pm. When I saw your post just now I was going to refer to that tour, and Ken Siver who may have narrated the tour. He wrote a book on the history of Southfield.

The thing is, Southfield was cottage and small farms country right on into the 50s. It was incorporated in 1958 and they set right out to attract business and high end residential. Our neighborhood was on the tour, and was developed beginning in the 20s. It really took off in the early 60s when well off Jewish executives built custom homes. Southfield was really fashionable right through the 70s to the mid 80s, when people started building those huge McMansions out in rural Oakland and Macomb. Enter Farmington, then Novi, the new home magnets out I-96.

"custom built homes"...in Southfield, or you're referring to nearby Franklin and Farmington Hills?

[Bham1982]

I didn't grow up here and Southfield has always fascinated me. Who spearheaded Southfield [[of all places) becoming this commercial and business hub?

It's pretty easy. Southfield is the geographic center of the region, it's where the highways all come together, and it's the closest commercial area to the biggest concentration of management-level types in MI.

[Bham1982]

"custom built homes"...in Southfield, or you're referring to nearby Franklin and Farmington Hills?

I don't think there are too many custom homes in Southfield. A handful near the Rouge tributaries, but not compared to Franklin, Bingham Farms, Beverly Hills, and Bloomfield. Southfield, at least east of Telegraph, is characterized by mid-century subdivision sprawl.

[Zacha341]

Right, I worked in F'Hills and they really do have some nice brick two story etc. homes similar to what you could find in Detroit. Franklin has some gems too!

"custom built homes"...in Southfield, or you're referring to nearby Franklin and Farmington Hills?

[gazhekwe]

Yes, they are custom built, in Southfield. Three neighborhoods were featured on this tour, Northland Gardens, Washington Heights and I forget which other one, Evergreen and Winchester area. You should check out Northland Gardens, there are some really top end homes in there. North of Eight Mile, east of Southfield.

People who don't come to Southfield much tend to dismiss it for whatever reason, but it really was THE place to move to in the 60s and 70s, just like newer developments were in the 90s. If one only focuses on the new and trendy, one will miss the true gems. Some in Detroit are now having a resurgence after being forgotten for a time, like Lafayette Park. Well, Southfield has some equal gems.

This booklet tells the story of Southfield's MCM development. Residential starts on page 41, with examples of some designer homes following:

https://www.cityofsouthfield.com/Por...s_6-Mar-12.pdf

[Kathleen]

Yes, they are custom built, in Southfield. Three neighborhoods were featured on this tour, Northland Gardens, Washington Heights and I forget which other one, Evergreen and Winchester area.

The 3rd subdivision was Cranbrook Village, located n of Twelve Mile Rd., e of Evergreen.

[gazhekwe]

Makes sense. From what Ken said, it seems he was working from that booklet I posted above. He mentioned several of the same buildings, and the house on Custis in our neighborhood, as particular stops. Also the one in Northland Gardens and several in Cranbrook Village. The Ravines is another particularly nice neighborhood, and the one north of Shaarey Zedek.

[D_Town]

I think the area around Sherwood Village has quite a few custom builds. Also there has been quite a few remodels of homes in that area in the last few years. Growth of Southfield was because of the mass exodus of people/businesses leaving the city and the location of freeways. Southfield seems to be like 15/20 minutes away from everything in metro Detroit.

[Hermod]

I think the area around Sherwood Village has quite a few custom builds. Also there has been quite a few remodels of homes in that area in the last few years. Growth of Southfield was because of the mass exodus of people/businesses leaving the city and the location of freeways. Southfield seems to be like 15/20 minutes away from everything in metro Detroit.

Southfield was to Detroit as Tyson's Corner was to Washington DC.

[Detroitdave]

@ Kathleen and gazhekwe thanks for all the info , really interesting stuff .
As a student of architecture I really like a lot of the mid-century homes , however ,what made mid century office buildings and malls the draw away from the center city , are not aging well at all . All the ugly parking , just a sea of parking lots . I was around the fox 2 wjbk tv stations and around northland and providence hospital and it's not aging well , the homes and neighborhoods are solid , but there are some major "cracks" in the business area.

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's horrible, they have plenty of businesses in the area , but there are big skyscrapers that are empty, I guess this is a sign that even inner ring suburbs are showing their age .

The thinking when they were being built was put loads of parking so people can drive right from their subdivision right to work with no thought of workers going out for lunch without using their cars.

My feeling was it takes away from the sense of social and civic interaction, which is the problem they are having now with inner ring burbs .
The thought of just going from your house to the mall and work and that's it, no interaction with the city at all .
Newer suburbs are trying to address this by building "lifestyle" centers ,for a sense or to mimic a downtown feel . I guess imitation is the best form of ,well you know . :-)
but great info thanks !

[iheartthed]

I don't think there are too many custom homes in Southfield. A handful near the Rouge tributaries, but not compared to Franklin, Bingham Farms, Beverly Hills, and Bloomfield. Southfield, at least east of Telegraph, is characterized by mid-century subdivision sprawl.

There are plenty of custom built homes in Southfield east of Telegraph. I have relatives who live just south of 10 Mile and east of Evergreen. Many of the houses in that area were custom built, including theirs.

[1953]

Not to be a hater, but Southfield seems to me an awful place...

[Novine]

I don't consider Southfield to be "inner ring". Those are places like Ferndale, Allen Park, etc. that mostly developed in the 1920s and followed the more traditional development patterns that had started in Detroit. For the most part, Southfield followed the traditional post-1950s suburban development patterns that you also saw in Livonia and Warren and later in the second tier of suburban communities like Canton, Farmington Hills, Novi, West Bloomfield, Rochester Hills, Sterling Heights and Macomb Township. Livonia, Warren and Southfield, all of which started to boom in the 1950s are having to deal with the obsolescence of the 1950s suburban model.

[EastsideAl]

Southfield's growth into a business and commercial center in the Detroit area is relatively easy to explain. To begin with, it was along the first expressway built out to the north of Detroit [[which was itself built along the route of an already major highway - Northwestern/James Couzens). And in the '50s it was directly adjacent to the newest and most prosperous section of Detroit on the northwest side. Both of which spurred Hudson's and their partners to build one of the first major suburban shopping centers in America there, Northland. Add in lots of reasonably inexpensive, previously agricultural, open land, and - presto! - boom town.

The later development of Troy was quite similar - spurred by the building of I-75, 2 major shopping centers [[Oakland Mall & Somerset), and the availability of lots of flat empty land along major roads.

One of those custom house subdivisions in Southfield, though I'm not quite sure which one, was partially built on land owned by members of my family. It had been the small farm of my great-grandfather's brother. My great uncle, who was a rather low-level Oakland County employee with some, ummm, difficult personal habits, ended up owning that land. He made a significant amount of money selling it off along with his neighbors and watched through the '50s and '60s as he was surrounded by then-snazzy custom-built homes. He had enough to replace the old house [[which had burned down) with his own custom house, with a sunken living room, big brick fireplace, glass sliding doors, built-in hi-fi and TV, light wood trim everywhere, and many of the other hallmarks of high mid-century style. His new neighbors were all doctors and lawyers and some local celebrity newspaper writers and broadcasters.

When I was a kid, we went out there a few times to play "in the woods" which then adjoined the foundations and frames of the rising houses. My grandfather, a life-long east side Detroiter, really hated those trips, and constantly complained about "going all the hell ways out there in the sticks." He always predicted disaster for my great uncle's venture, for Northland, and for all the other development in Southfield. "There just can't be enough people who'll want to come way the hell out here in the middle of nowhere to shop to make this crap work" or "Who the hell would want to live way the hell out here in the country?" are the kinds of things he would always say.

It didn't occur to me until years later that some part of his disbelief, anger, and resentment, came from the fact that he had sold off his and my grandmother's portion of that land cheaply to my great-uncle, believing it to be so far out of the city that it was practically worthless.

[Detroitnerd]

"There just can't be enough people who'll want to come way the hell out here in the middle of nowhere to shop to make this crap work" or "Who the hell would want to live way the hell out here in the country?" are the kinds of things he would always say.

For all the talk about "Why would anybody want to live down in Detroit?" we'd do well to remember that, historically, the predominant question was why anybody would want to live in the "middle of nowhere." This complaint was voiced back when Grand Boulevard was proposed in the 1870s. "Why do they want to build a road in the middle of nowhere?"

[Onthe405]

. . Both of which spurred Hudson's and their partners to build one of the first major suburban shopping centers in America there, Northland.

Al, thanks for both your interesting narrative and also for qualifying the factual history of Northland. While certainly a significant player in the overarching postwar trend in retail and suburban land development, the oft-repeated myth of Northland being "the first suburban shopping center" [[including Mr Silver's materials) is simply not true.

Offhand, Lakewood Center preceded it by two years--and there is probably another center older than that.





http://www.mallhistory.com/californi...nter-mall.html

[Detroitnerd]

IIRC, Southfield has the second-largest amount of commercial office space in Michigan. Troy is third.

Detroit, of course, is first.

[D_Town]

Southfield's growth into a business and commercial center in the Detroit area is relatively easy to explain. To begin with, it was along the first expressway built out to the north of Detroit [[which was itself built along the route of an already major highway - Northwestern/James Couzens). And in the '50s it was directly adjacent to the newest and most prosperous section of Detroit on the northwest side. Both of which spurred Hudson's and their partners to build one of the first major suburban shopping centers in America there, Northland. Add in lots of reasonably inexpensive, previously agricultural, open land, and - presto! - boom town.

The later development of Troy was quite similar - spurred by the building of I-75, 2 major shopping centers [[Oakland Mall & Somerset), and the availability of lots of flat empty land along major roads.

One of those custom house subdivisions in Southfield, though I'm not quite sure which one, was partially built on land owned by members of my family. It had been the small farm of my great-grandfather's brother. My great uncle, who was a rather low-level Oakland County employee with some, ummm, difficult personal habits, ended up owning that land. He made a significant amount of money selling it off along with his neighbors and watched through the '50s and '60s as he was surrounded by then-snazzy custom-built homes. He had enough to replace the old house [[which had burned down) with his own custom house, with a sunken living room, big brick fireplace, glass sliding doors, built-in hi-fi and TV, light wood trim everywhere, and many of the other hallmarks of high mid-century style. His new neighbors were all doctors and lawyers and some local celebrity newspaper writers and broadcasters.

When I was a kid, we went out there a few times to play "in the woods" which then adjoined the foundations and frames of the rising houses. My grandfather, a life-long east side Detroiter, really hated those trips, and constantly complained about "going all the hell ways out there in the sticks." He always predicted disaster for my great uncle's venture, for Northland, and for all the other development in Southfield. "There just can't be enough people who'll want to come way the hell out here in the middle of nowhere to shop to make this crap work" or "Who the hell would want to live way the hell out here in the country?" are the kinds of things he would always say.

It didn't occur to me until years later that some part of his disbelief, anger, and resentment, came from the fact that he had sold off his and my grandmother's portion of that land cheaply to my great-uncle, believing it to be so far out of the city that it was practically worthless.

Thanks for the story.

The northland area is definitely cracking. Surprised that mall hasn't been torn down yet and turned into a big box center like wonderland.

Also if you drive down the Northwestern/Lodge service drive the office abandonment is creeping further up to evergreen/10 mile.

[D_Town]

IIRC, Southfield has the second-largest amount of commercial office space in Michigan. Troy is third.

Detroit, of course, is first.

Do you know the figures for each city? I would imagine Southfield being significantly more than Troy.

[Bham1982]

IIRC, Southfield has the second-largest amount of commercial office space in Michigan. Troy is third.

Detroit, of course, is first.

By commercial space, do you mean office space?

Southfield actually has considerably more office space than Detroit.

If you mean "commercial" as in office-industrial-flex space, then I'm sure it would be Detroit, because it's the biggest city. Some place like Warren might actually be #2, because of all the industrial and flex buildings. Southfield doesn't have a big industrial sector, though it does have flex.