NY Times - Last Stop on the L Train: Detroit

[Bham1982]

Meanwhile, since we're comparing Detroit to Brooklyn, here's a house for rent in Brooklyn: http://streeteasy.com/building/414-d...et-brooklyn/th. Sure Park Slope is a nice area, but this is on an unappealing block on its fringe, hemmed in by the noise and traffic of Flatbush Avenue on one side and more noise and traffic of 4th Avenue on the other. It's steps from the Barclay's Center and the often unruly crowds it attracts nightly. It reeks of grease from Shake Shack. Burger and pizza joints, like sports bars and bright signage, are emblems of the neighborhood's downward spiral since the arena opened. It costs $15,000 a month, owning nothing. For a year's rent there, what can you buy in Detroit? Is value out of whack?

Maybe most people just don't share your preferences, or biases. You could have just bought the entire Fisher Building for less than some homes in Park Slope.

I'm well acquainted with Park Slope, and not aware of any "unruly crowds", "bright signage" or "reeking of grease". And the neighborhood is one of the hottest urban neighborhoods on the planet, so definitely not on a "downward spiral". The most expensive real estate in the Midwest is dirt cheap compared to Park Slope.

This is the problem with DYes boosters. They're living in fantasyland. The idea that Park Slope, where a [[not particularly large) home that needs work sold for 13 million just this week, is a "grease pit" on a "downward spiral", while Detroit is some booming mecca of creatives, is so out of whack with reality that it's just absurd.

If Midtown Detroit had 5% of Park Slope's appeal people on DYes would be throwing a ticker tape parade. Someone who likes Park Slope isn't going to move to Detroit; they are about as similar as Park Slope and Montevideo.