Post from the past... you be the judge [[transit)

[professorscott]

This was posted, never mind by whom [[although I bet you smart DYers can figure it out) several years ago when people were still going back and forth about what Woodward light rail would or wouldn't be, or would or wouldn't do:

"There's absolutely no reason to believe businesses would develop in areas they already left just because of improved transit. It works for areas of new development, but not infill."

Curious, now that we have the benefit of hindsight, what some of y'all think.

[EGrant]

Has anyone been able to attribute development directly to the QLine? Or is the development we've seen since this post a result of other factors?

[professorscott]

Has anyone been able to attribute development directly to the QLine? Or is the development we've seen since this post a result of other factors?

That's a great question. Strictly speaking, it usually isn't possible to establish causation with great certainty because the scientific processes you'd like to employ aren't available. [[You know: create two hundred Detroits circa 2005, build the QLine in half of them, don't build the QLine in the other half. It's the same reason climate science is so difficult; there's only one Earth.)

My surmise is that QLine was a critical factor though certainly not the only one. In fact, the reason QLine attracted so much private funding is precisely because the funders believed it would have a strong, positive effect on market forces in the area. [[That's why they aren't so concerned about ridership numbers. Their real estate holdings increased dramatically, which is what they were after; they got their money's worth.)

But that's just surmise

[gnome]

"There's absolutely no reason to believe businesses would develop in areas they already left just because of improved transit. It works for areas of new development, but not infill."

Will there be a prize for guessing the original poster?

I’m guessing it is a Detroit-skeptic who knows how to use punctuation. Their supposition was that businesses that had just left would not return, they didn’t say that new business wouldn’t rise up to fill the gaps; hmmm, me thinks:

DetroitPlanner

Edit: DetroitPlanner wasn’t a Detroit skeptic, just a realist with a solid understanding of how things work.

[Meddle]

That's a great question. Strictly speaking, it usually isn't possible to establish causation with great certainty because the scientific processes you'd like to employ aren't available.

Compare development where planning was started after the system was announced. Does new development start and stop ONLY along the route? Or is there nearly equal development beyond the limits of the route?

[gnome]

As a guy who put a little money into one of the projects on/near Woodward; I can say with absolute certainty that the Imaginary Choo-Choo to Nowhere was the deciding factor in making the investment.

[RO_Resident]

Will there be a prize for guessing the original poster?

I’m guessing it is a Detroit-skeptic who knows how to use punctuation. Their supposition was that businesses that had just left would not return, they didn’t say that new business wouldn’t rise up to fill the gaps; hmmm, me thinks:

DetroitPlanner

Edit: DetroitPlanner wasn’t a Detroit skeptic, just a realist with a solid understanding of how things work.

DetroitPlanner died 4 years ago this week. Gilbert was still in the first phase of buying and improving buildings downtown.

I'm sure he would have been pleasantly surprised how wrong he was about infill. The tower crane at 1 Campus Martius and work at the Hudson's site are nice to see.

[mwilbert]

I'm guessing Bham, but I don't know without looking, which I think is clearly cheating. [[after I posted I checked, and I was wrong.)

And I think its impossible to say how important the QLine is; it isn't like the Woodward corridor isn't a logical place for stuff to be redeveloped in a period of redevelopment. I'm sure it didn't hurt.