GPP and their Farmers Market smack dab in Kercheval.

[GUSHI]

this tread is a bunch of bs,

[canuck]

Amen. External locus of control. It makes a disappointing life easier to cope with if you convince yourself life is rigged to keep you down.

It doesn't lighten up when a white dude speaks of the success of GPer's as a vengeful thing. You will probably tell me that the % of black folks in GP are responsible for their own success but isn't there more to the story than the ill effects of institutionalized racism? Why is it that we can look at a distant country like Brazil and find easy markers on the residual effects of slavery, but refuse to see the same in our own backyard?
To me, the fact that many businesses run by blacks in Detroit are repetitive, redundant is explained by a relative lack of opportunity in education and connectivity. It's a contemporary aberration that is sad and depressing, but it should not be resumed as an irremediable status quo.

[Dan Wesson]

It doesn't lighten up when a white dude speaks of the success of GPer's as a vengeful thing.

You are so far off the mark in your understanding the phrase.

[gazhekwe]

Here we are again, no one wants to discuss ways to make things better. Everyone wants to defend their privilege by tearing down the ones who lack it. Just pointing out that privilege exists and is a root cause of the problems of racial hostility being about in this thread and suggesting that addressing this and the resulting historic trauma produces a flurry of defense.

The problem as initially stated: 'This is SO insulting to Detroiters to have this market put up as a barrier.' 'This is SO unfair to the GPP folk who just want to give their city a nice walkable place.'

So, how DO you solve the problem? You are still on opposite sides of the Grand Canyon after pages of discussion and sharing of some ideas.

[canuck]

You are so far off the mark in your understanding the phrase.

You are probably right. Just give me a good definition of what you meant by sweet vengeance equals the success of some over others in the context of Detroit, or no.

[Dan Wesson]

You are probably right. Just give me a good definition of what you meant by sweet vengeance equals the success of some over others in the context of Detroit, or no.

Let's try...

In your eyes who is the wronged party as a result of GPP changing a street scape.

[gazhekwe]

Scientists placed a northern pike in an aquarium that had a glass divider separating the pike from a dozen minnows on the other side of the partition. The pike couldn't see the glass when he repeatedly charged the minnows. Time and again, the pike went for a meal of minnows. Each time he slammed into the invisible barrier. Finally, after many days of failure, the pike quit trying. Then the experimenters removed the glass divider that had protected the minnows from being eaten.Guess what? The pike didn't try to devour the minnows even when they got right up to his nose. In psychology, this is called classical conditioning -- conditioning a subject to respond in a particular way.

While classical conditioning was a problem for the pike, it is a real tragedy for us when life conditions us to accept failure.

http://www.wolverton-mountain.com/articles/pike.htm

This is an interesting article, it has lessons on how to avoid being like the pike, once you are already like the pike. It doesn't seem to address the issue of realizing you are like the pike, or how to recognize pike syndrome in others with whom you wish to establish relationships. All the same, it seems to me that addressing the pike syndrome AND the effects of privilege in creating pike syndrome are key to being able to talk at all.

[Dan Wesson]

Scientists placed a northern pike in an aquarium that had a glass divider separating the pike from a dozen minnows on the other side of the partition. The pike couldn't see the glass when he repeatedly charged the minnows. Time and again, the pike went for a meal of minnows. Each time he slammed into the invisible barrier. Finally, after many days of failure, the pike quit trying. Then the experimenters removed the glass divider that had protected the minnows from being eaten.Guess what? The pike didn't try to devour the minnows even when they got right up to his nose. In psychology, this is called classical conditioning -- conditioning a subject to respond in a particular way.

While classical conditioning was a problem for the pike, it is a real tragedy for us when life conditions us to accept failure.

http://www.wolverton-mountain.com/articles/pike.htm

This is an interesting article, it has lessons on how to avoid being like the pike, once you are already like the pike. It doesn't seem to address the issue of realizing you are like the pike, or how to recognize pike syndrome in others with whom you wish to establish relationships. All the same, it seems to me that addressing the pike syndrome AND the effects of privilege in creating pike syndrome are key to being able to talk at all.

Cheese and Rice...

Where did you get the relationship between privilege and pike behavior in that piece?

I suggest you re read all of it.

It was about overcoming negative feelings caused by conditioning and it went on to say that one way is to appear successful and confident.

Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.

Now we are back to that misconstrued phrase, The best revenge is success.


PS Now I am going back and reading your paragraph a few times to see where you are coming from.

[SyGolden48236]

People, you need to stop trying to stir up controversy when none exists. Oy! Stop trying to stoke your ego by bringing up racism where it doesn't belong.

This is a simple farmer's market, nothing else. Why can't you just go there and enjoy buying your fresh produce or just leave it alone. Stop trying to find controversy around every corner. It is tiresome. Such rubbish this all is. Feh!

[gazhekwe]

Privilege creates pike syndrome in those who have it not. They learn not to try to get into places where they have been continually rejected.

SyGolden, this is not about racism. It is about recognizing something that is endemic in our society and having adverse impact on our ability to communicate at all.

By the by, I am glad your wife has no trouble buying her own cars. I do not have trouble either, but there is a whole different atmosphere when my DH is with me. Respect, if I garner any at all, is transferred to him, and all my decisions are run by him for his approval. So obvious.

[SyGolden48236]

Privilege creates pike syndrome in those who have it not. They learn not to try to get into places where they have been continually rejected.

SyGolden, this is not about racism. It is about recognizing something that is endemic in our society and having adverse impact on our ability to communicate at all.

By the by, I am glad your wife has no trouble buying her own cars. I do not have trouble either, but there is a whole different atmosphere when my DH is with me. Respect, if I garner any at all, is transferred to him, and all my decisions are run by him for his approval. So obvious.

Then you should find a different dealership at which to purchase your automobiles. I submit to you that the treatment my wife receives is the norm rather than the exception. It is now 2014. It is not the 1950s any longer.

And like I said before, please quit trying to find the negative in everything and enjoy what the world has to offer today. You will be all the happier if you do. I am confident that you are a good person. Please try to lighten up and enjoy life.

It is not 1938, it is not kristallnacht anymore and nor is it the 1920s in the deep south. People are not being strung from trees.

Further, if you don't like the way GPP does things, purchase or rent property there and establish residency there and speak your mind to the city council. Right now, as an outlier, your opinions carry no weight.

Oy! Such nonsense this is. Feh!

[Honky Tonk]

Scientists placed a northern pike in an aquarium that had a glass divider separating the pike from a dozen minnows on the other side of the partition. The pike couldn't see the glass when he repeatedly charged the minnows. Time and again, the pike went for a meal of minnows. Each time he slammed into the invisible barrier. Finally, after many days of failure, the pike quit trying. Then the experimenters removed the glass divider that had protected the minnows from being eaten.Guess what? The pike didn't try to devour the minnows even when they got right up to his nose. In psychology, this is called classical conditioning -- conditioning a subject to respond in a particular way.

While classical conditioning was a problem for the pike, it is a real tragedy for us when life conditions us to accept failure.

http://www.wolverton-mountain.com/articles/pike.htm

This is an interesting article, it has lessons on how to avoid being like the pike, once you are already like the pike. It doesn't seem to address the issue of realizing you are like the pike, or how to recognize pike syndrome in others with whom you wish to establish relationships. All the same, it seems to me that addressing the pike syndrome AND the effects of privilege in creating pike syndrome are key to being able to talk at all.

GPP is now putting up a glass wall on Kercheval???

[gazhekwe]

Nope. The glass wall has been there for decades and decades and decades. Maybe it is gone now but the pike can't tell.

[canuck]

GPP is now putting up a glass wall on Kercheval???

Oy veh! In Detroit Meshuga no less. They will call it Kristallvant. And of course, some thugs will break it.

[cjd]

Nope. The glass wall has been there for decades and decades and decades. Maybe it is gone now but the pike can't tell.

Here's a tip: Take off the glasses. There's a great big world out there with beautiful people and fantastic places. You're free to go anywhere and be anything in today's world, thanks to some wonderful people in the past. Honor them by doing just that. And leave the negativity at home, it's a much lighter trip.

[48202]

Scientists placed a northern pike in an aquarium that had a glass divider separating the pike from a dozen minnows on the other side of the partition. The pike couldn't see the glass when he repeatedly charged the minnows. Time and again, the pike went for a meal of minnows. Each time he slammed into the invisible barrier. Finally, after many days of failure, the pike quit trying. Then the experimenters removed the glass divider that had protected the minnows from being eaten.

An apocryphal story doesn't carry the same weight as a scientific study. Have any any evidence that this was a real experiment?

[Honky Tonk]

Oy veh! In Detroit Meshuga no less. They will call it Kristallvant. And of course, some thugs will break it.

More than likely spraypaint "GASM" on it and call it "art". Detroiters seem to find their way into GP to steal cars, rob homes, stick-up nuns @ gun point, and strangle victims with electrical cords for their I-Phones and laptops. I think Detroiters are smarter than pike.

[EASTSIDE CAT 67-83]

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this...how would you suggest they have done it differently?

Jeez-o-pete this person needs to get over herself and shame on the M C Muckraker for really mucking it up beyond muckability...Really Cynthia " No Coloreds" I thought that term went away with the Johnson administration. What twisted world do you live in thinking that You and those who share the same pigment will be excluded from shopping at this marketplace. My My what a sad victim existence life you must live. If her comments weren't so sad it would almost be laughable. I'll see you at the Marketplace Cynthia.

“I want to say I’m shocked,” Cynthia Jackson, who lives near Alter in Detroit, said. “But this has been happening for as long as I remember. Might as well put up a sign that says, ‘No coloreds.’”

[e.p.3]

Never understood people who want to do business in towns or with business where they don't feel welcome. I have heard countless people tell me they've felt "profiled" at Nordstrom. And yet they continue making the drive to 16 Mile to give them more money!

I'm also not sure why any Detroit resident feels entitled to have a say in what a neighboring community develops.

[EASTSIDE CAT 67-83]

Well, that's a much nicer way to go. If it works out it, it sounds like it could actually be a real asset to the entire area. I take it then that they are not going to be erecting the George Wallace building originally planned to block Kercheval there?

Almost spit coffee all over my desk when I read that one...Nice humor Eastside Al...I dig it

[Dan Wesson]

Gazhekwe your pike analogy just reinforces my post about the 2 segments of a population.
The one that got your attention.

It seems the pike is not the "priveleged". It also seems you and canuck have put the cart before the horse.

[EASTSIDE CAT 67-83]

And I understand that you feel that way. But perhaps in your impatience to dismiss the connotations the market presents, you miss the way this is certain to alienate and disturb Detroiters. Detroiters, especially African-American Detroiters, have a long history of being faced with walls and barriers to hem them in. In the case of the Grosse Pointes, the barriers were often social -- a "points system" employed by real estate agents to keep out ethnic whites, Jews and blacks -- as well as the physical blocking-off of through streets.

Might I suggest that this is an opportunity to explore that history and perhaps develop a sensitivity to these issues that will help bridge these divides, rather that waving them away in the interest of leaving a stubborn problem unexamined?

Det Nerd
Well I guess the ultimate test will be whether or not they accept food stamps at said marketville, if they do well its frickin Kumbaya land and all is right in the world...if not it becomes highly suspect and we turn the clock of progress backwards.

[swingline]

The “who me?” exclamations from the GPP leaders denying any crime prevention motivation to the closing of Kercheval resemble the “wink/nudges” that GOP state legislators give when they claim that making it more difficult for Democrat voters to get to the polls plays no part whatsoever in their zeal to enact their blatantly unnecessary voter fraud legislation.

But the race angle, ugly as it is, is arguably eclipsed by the stupidity of the project from a planning perspective. All the uninformed talk from GPP leadership about creating a walkable, pedestrian oriented experience begs the reality that the GPP core already has one of the highest walkability scores in the region. GPP has created a solution that is seeking a problem.

If you want problems though, you can create them for your business owners by closing streets to vehicles. http://www.placemakers.com/2012/07/09/pedestrian-malls/ This is a highly discredited planning tool that only works in very unique circumstances [[e.g., massive amounts of tourists, existing transit accessibility, existing traffic gridlock). Right now, the finely grained street grid of GPP ensures easy access to the GPP “downtown” by foot, bike and car. Retail needs this flow in order to thrive. A lot of that vehicle flow comes from the west [[i.e. Detroit). It’s just not smart to block that flow. It’s not smart for a small scale retail/commercial district like Kercheval in GPP to essentially insist that shoppers take a circuitous route to a parking lot and then get out and walk to a storefront. Merchants with zero lot line storefronts want their customers to be able to easily drive past their store. Vehicle calmed narrow streets with curb parking that protects sidewalks that have a pedestrian friendly width create the most vibrant and healthy public spaces. GPP has all of this already. The potential for more empty storefronts on Kercheval in GPP to facilitate a 12 Saturdays per year Farmer’s Market is high.

As for the posters on here that perpetuate the rumor that Detroit’s unwillingness to cooperate with Kercheval improvements somehow forced this “solution” on GPP, well, just stop it. Until somebody can come up with actual evidence that this happened [[name some names), stop using a rumor to bolster GPP’s bad planning. Until this awful decision by GPP, Kercheval Ave. had excellent potential to serve as a bridge across the divide. From a street grid perspective, there is a seamlessness to the border between the neighborhoods. Improvements on the GPP side that generated more $$$ and traffic to the area could have bootstrapped investment on the Detroit side. Now there is a physical barrier with its ass-end facing Detroit that will likely cause more disinvestment on that side. Now, no money will ever be invested on Kercheval on the west side of Alter because a Berlin Wall is blocking access to any possibility of Grosse Pointers venturing over. Very sad. Very stupid. And maybe kind of racist too.

[cjd]

For all the pike out there, here is the cheat sheet so that you can get 'through the glass'. Follow the arrows if you are coming from the west by car. Follow the 'pedestrian' markings if you are coming from Detroit on foot.

It looks like they might even have vendors on the *GASP* D-E-T-R-O-I-T side of the farmer's market. So much for the 'ass end' facing the D.

And public bathrooms?? What kind of vagrants are they trying to attract?

[noggin]

Even though I live in the area, I have very rarely gone to the "farmer's" market. Most of the booths that sell food buy it at eastern market. There is only one booth where its manned by a local farmer. The rest of the booths are filled with useless chatski crap.