Excellent article on Maurice Cox, city planner, and his vision for Detroit's future

[SpartanDawg]

Check out some of those renderings, specifically the one involving the future of the riverfront... pretty impressive stuff.. This was a home run hire by Duggan.

http://www.architectmagazine.com/des...coxs-detroit_o

[Hypestyles]

So what does he actually get to do? What all does he really get to greenlight in the way of development projects? What influence, if any, does he have on zoning policy?
What is his relationship, if any, with the DEGC, which seems to always carry all the chips in terms of larger-scale development projects in the city?
I’m sick of having this organization that is extremely vague on transparency constantly saying it’s got the best interests of the city at hand, but most the neighborhoods still look the way that they do.

[hybridy]

He has the mayors ear and lots of influence. If some community decision goes to council they may lobby for one side or the other. Mostly back room dealings...and lots of FaceTime with firms/designers handling larger scale planning projects i.e. Brush park redevelopment & east riverfront master planning among many others I'm sure. I agree it's not at all transparent, tho they are looking out for community at large.

[401don]

"Like Quicken Loans, Little Caesars is moving into town from the suburbs." Good to hear.

[Lowell]

Welcome to Detroit Little Caesars. ha ha. Nice article nonetheless.

I liked this now and 2050 rendering.

[Detroit Stylin]

"Like Quicken Loans, Little Caesars is moving into town from the suburbs." Good to hear.

Thats amazing! Maybe soon we could get Compuware to come to the city and maybe even get GM to move downtown from New Center!

😂😂😂

[Detroitnerd]

These renderings are hilarious.

Who is going to pay to dig out all the polluted dirt at the old factories along the shore and put them on railcars and ship them to Aiken, S.C.?

Pretty pictures. All there to get you lined up behind an unaccountable agency that has zero transparency.

And why shouldn't it work? It has worked for forty years.

[douglasm]

I would like to see a copy of Detroit's Comprehensive Plan, if one is required in Michigan. Here in Washington, cities are required to file one every 5 to 7 years. Basically, what a Comp Plan does is map out growth and development plans and goals for the city in the long term, and is subject to revision as conditions dictate. It is the job of the city planner, with input from council [[among others) to come up with this plan.

I don't know if this is a Comp Plan as presented, or a bunch of planning ideas [[the article doesn't say), but keep in mind that a Comp Plan is NOT cast in stone, but an idea factory of hat you'd like your city to look like 10 years down the road.

[ABetterDetroit]

I would like to see a copy of Detroit's Comprehensive Plan, if one is required in Michigan. Here in Washington, cities are required to file one every 5 to 7 years. Basically, what a Comp Plan does is map out growth and development plans and goals for the city in the long term, and is subject to revision as conditions dictate. It is the job of the city planner, with input from council [[among others) to come up with this plan.

I don't know if this is a Comp Plan as presented, or a bunch of planning ideas [[the article doesn't say), but keep in mind that a Comp Plan is NOT cast in stone, but an idea factory of hat you'd like your city to look like 10 years down the road.

If I may ask, how big of a roll does MRSC play in the Comp Plans?

http://mrsc.org/Home/Explore-Topics.aspx

[p69rrh51]

Even after cursory look at the rendering and I was struck by two observations. First the designers must have driven from the airport got off the freeway at Mack and returned to the airport the same way. They surely did not tour the city. Second, the type neighborhood/block the designers have "created" has existed in Detroit for well over 100 years. There are/were 100's of blocks that the new model copies all over the city. I guess what is old is new again.

[Calltoaction]

What was old IS new again and that's what's so important. For the last half century we have had nothing but failed urban planning in this country. A new focus on walkability, density and public transit is how old, successful, beautiful and desirable cities were built. We're now coming back to that and realizing what a failure auto-centric planning, suburban sprawl and highways have been in this country. Detroit has an opportunity to be a real leader in the new urbanism movement. Developments like Brush Park and Orleans landing are massive improvements.

[douglasm]

If I may ask, how big of a roll does MRSC play in the Comp Plans?

http://mrsc.org/Home/Explore-Topics.aspx

Not a great deal, or a lot depending on your resources. The nice thing about the MRSC is it's wealth of information. The advantage of the MRSC is that they've done a lot of the research into various topics for you, saving much valuable staff time in researching a topic.

Keep in mind though, they are only one tool available to a City Planner or Council. They carry no legal weight, but act like a large Encyclopedia Birtanica [[sp.?) for city and county governments.

[MSUguy]

I great hire imo, he is a big believer in the idea the cities should walkable/bikeable place. We're already seeing seeing some real changes such as new protected bike lanes along Michigan and Livernois. The redoing of the Gratiot/Randolph intersection.

[douglasm]

A question for ABetterDetroit.....

I noted that the MRSC website was for us here in Washington state. A0 how did you find out about it and b) does Michigan have a similar organization?