Growing Detroit

[1953]

I am concerned that the conversation in Detroit today is focused on remedial measures, rather than the kind of resiliency-building strategies needed to grow and strengthen our community. As such, I am thinking about how to organize a change in the conversation, and how to create an infrastructure for advancing a new agenda.

Building demolition, community gardening, and new parking lots are remedial strategies, in my opinion. They are meant to solve short term problems like blight caused by a single, structurally deficient house on a block, or the need to fill and utilize a single vacant lot in a neighborhood.

In conversation, at least, these measures are taken as whole-city strategies. The Mayor, Dan Gilbert, the media, and many residents are promoting wholesale and widespread demolition of buildings; many neighborhood leaders think covering the whole of the city in farms is key to our future success.

A better, longer term strategy, I would argue, would be to focus on attracting residents and businesses, filling empty properties, promoting beautification, and leveraging the potential for walkable urbanism that exists in a place built for high density development. In this approach, empty buildings are existing assets to be redeveloped, rather than destroyed.

It feels like this city has given up on trying to grow, trying to be a healthy CITY, and it is instead focused on mitigating the problems that are overwhelming it.

I am reminded, however, of something that billionaire Mark Cuban once said - he said that you find out what a customer needs from your customer, but you don't let them prescribe the solution; it is your job to develop a visionary solution. For example, if Steve Jobs had listened to his customers, he might have just gussied up the walkman.

A nonprofit I was working with recently gave me a list of their funding needs. On it was a large number budgeted for purchasing and demolishing buildings around their facility. This, to me, is an example of what Mark Cuban was talking about; the problem that my customer identified was vacant buildings, but they also tried to prescribe the solution: demolition. It took me, an outsider, to see how demolition would just further undermine their center, which was already in an empty neighborhood.

With all of that said, we need to change this conversation. Anyone who is serious about growing and improving Detroit knows it needs more people, more businesses, more buildings, and more of everything to become a healthy, viable community where crime, blight, and decay are not the norm. I am considering organizing a group to begin this conversation in a meaningful way in our city, and welcome the thoughts and opinions of members from this forum on this topic.

[Wheels]

Your a day late and a dollar short. Most of the empty buildings in Detroit become immediately stripped or burned out beyond recognition. Maybe a better way to spend your time would be to find a way to stop the uncontrolled scrapping that continues to plague the city?

[jaytheory]

You are right but, growing the population doesn't = increased GDP and in turn wealth.

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/job...c-growth/5860/


with that said, what we can do, is Number 1 Demolish all dangerous structures, of no historic significance.

2 any company who wants to build a new building should first be offered tax credits to redevelop an existing structure that may fit there needs

3. increase walk ability and beatification, by fixing main roads, planting simple low mainenance grasses in vacant lots, fixing sidewalks, adding bike lanes.

4. Following the DFC work on urban farming in those demonstration areas

5. Streetlights, [[number 1?)

6. Small business incubators outside downtown and midtown.First place I think of is some of the commercial space on 6 mile near U of D. redevelop and give space for cheap to entrepreneurs and help them get started, not just retail. start up companies as well

7. pair the start ups with renovated housing. entrepreneurs can be given vacant homes near the hubs for free, al they need to do is opay tax and renovate, talk tot he local banks on loans. 20k loan goes a long way on a Detroit house and the bank makes some money and the owner has a very small mortgage

8. Lower property tax and increase collection. lower the millage to something in a comparable community, but increase the collection effort. slumlords who dont pay should be prosecuted or sued in civil court. tie them up and kill them in court fees.

9. Choose a demonstration area for a new city within a city. Pick a neighborhood and rehab or build everything from scratch including the retail [[pie in the sky i know)

10. Pay neighborhood kids minimum wage to cut grass clean up trash. or dont pay them anything, but set up a college fund through U of D and WSU to get these HS kids super discounted tuition for hours they give to community service. Doesnt ahve to be just kids either, a laid off auto worker or a single mom would apply.

there just a few things I thought of

[1953]

Thanks for proving my point, first two responders.

1953

[313WX]

Thanks for proving my point, first two responders.

1953

I'm not exactly sure what your point is.

The fact is, as it stands now, Detroit only has [[optimistic estimate) 700,000 people remaining, 1/3 of which live below the poverty line. The city simply can't maintain the infrastructure for 2 million people given that fact.

If you're expecting Detroit to be as great as it was in the past [[or a major city again), you're going to be sorely disappointed. The TPTB, judging by their actions so far, are making it very clear that they're perfectly content with just having a respectable mid-size Detroit versus anything close to a 1950s Detroit.

[corktownyuppie]

The TPTB, judging by their actions so far, are making it very clear that they're perfectly content with just having a respectable mid-size Detroit versus anything close to a 1950s Detroit.

The only way we can come anything close to a 1950s Detroit would be for us to re-emerge as the world's leader in some highly innovative technology, be the only city [[or one of the few) in the world that can provide it. Then find some way to eliminate the legacy costs that have been built up over the last 60 years from the fortune which we once created. Then we need to find some way of eliminating all of the people in the area who are unable to directly or indirectly participate in this new economy.

That's how Detroit became what it was in the 1950s. Every business was a giant growth engine, tripling...quadrupling production and profits annually. There's no mature industry that can triple its profits once its the size of GM. Going from $10MM to $30MM is fun. From $30MM to $90MM is lots of fun. From $100B to $300B is impossible.

I am not content becoming a mid-size city. I'm reluctantly accepting that it's all we can be right now. We need to rightsize and stabilize. From that point we can start planting the seeds for the giant growth industries of the next generation.

Solely focusing our efforts on those seeds now would be like planting them in a land filled with toxic waste. Sure, they might grow, but once they look strong enough to be something big, we're going to transplant them to Silicon Valley or Austin, Texas. If we're lucky, maybe Ann Arbor.

This new Detroit is going to be a 30-60 year process. Then, maybe, then, we'll be a top 5 city again.

[illwill]

The only way we can come anything close to a 1950s Detroit would be for us to re-emerge as the world's leader in some highly innovative technology, be the only city [[or one of the few) in the world that can provide it. Then find some way to eliminate the legacy costs that have been built up over the last 60 years from the fortune which we once created. Then we need to find some way of eliminating all of the people in the area who are unable to directly or indirectly participate in this new economy.

That's how Detroit became what it was in the 1950s. Every business was a giant growth engine, tripling...quadrupling production and profits annually. There's no mature industry that can triple its profits once its the size of GM. Going from $10MM to $30MM is fun. From $30MM to $90MM is lots of fun. From $100B to $300B is impossible.

I am not content becoming a mid-size city. I'm reluctantly accepting that it's all we can be right now. We need to rightsize and stabilize. From that point we can start planting the seeds for the giant growth industries of the next generation.

Solely focusing our efforts on those seeds now would be like planting them in a land filled with toxic waste. Sure, they might grow, but once they look strong enough to be something big, we're going to transplant them to Silicon Valley or Austin, Texas. If we're lucky, maybe Ann Arbor.

This new Detroit is going to be a 30-60 year process. Then, maybe, then, we'll be a top 5 city again.

I'm not sure if a new technology can ever solve Detroit's problem. Most technology companies only make a small number of people wealthy. Detroit needs many "different" industries that will offer its residents mass employment that offers living wages. It's gonna be hard to recreate the $5/day assembly line for today's modern times all over again.

But if any city can do, Detroit can.

[illwill]

I was thinking the same thing. Day late, dollar short.
It's time to change the game plan.

[corktownyuppie]

I'm not sure if a new technology can ever solve Detroit's problem. Most technology companies only make a small number of people wealthy.

I think a giant growth accelerator would be improving the "technology" of social work. Make it more effective. Make it more efficient. Make it more repeatable.

We have hundreds of thousands who are in cyclical poverty coming from families who lack the basic skills to function in the modern world. They've suffered from the emotional trauma of dysfunctional families which are now repeating generations.

The 20th century solution to solving social problems was by moving away from it. The 21st century solution will be by finding more and more effective ways of eliminating them.

And if we master that...we can sell that technology all over the country, just like we once sold the Model T.

[sumas]

Hi, 1953 from 1954. Detroit used to have a huge diversity in jobs and industry. All fled between 1948 to present.

Cash is king and greener pastures existed. We need to find imperatives to lure back assorted industries. Strangely, vacant land to be bought cheap and tax incentives may work.