Is Downtown at Risk of Going Backwards?

[JonWylie]

I would argue that we are losing families but gaining college grads. Losing more families than gaining grads. Detroit simply needs more jobs and not just tech jobs. We need another quicken/Ford or two to get real again, not an easy task. School of choice could also allow families to live in the city and not be punished by corrupt and horrendous DPS. I think the big gains in MI will be [[and currently are) GR and AA. DET needs to look to these areas for inspiration.

School of choice has also been a big factor in harming districts like Detroit. DPS has really been focused on filling vacancies, hiring qualified teachers, and shoring up building issues left by state oversight. Encouraging people to send their kids elsewhere is not really going to help the problem, it will just push it down the line. Crain's just did a piece on school funding and the discrepancies between districts. We really should be encouraging people to send their kids to DPS and do so with confidence because the city and state are investing in those schools.

[JonWylie]

Here's an article from Crain's pretty much on point with the issue of office space.

"Why does somebody need to pay for all that square footage if they only have half the employees any given time?" Jaafar asked. Employers already are providing employees with desks and other furniture for their homes, she said.

Ricker expects big changes.

"You can imagine a 30 percent reduction in space," he said. Companies will look to downsize once leases expire or repurpose space they own.

The JLL survey tells a different story. It found that 73 percent of the companies surveyed expected to occupy the same amount of space when they return.

Companies need to leave themselves flexibility, Robinson said.

"Spaces are going to have to be a lot more flexible and adaptive," she said "They cannot be fixed. We're planning for the unknown."

Pretty much shows that nobody knows what will happen after this. However, the survey conducted at least shows a desire for most companies to return to the office and work in a similar capacity that they did before.

[intelligentBeing]

School of choice has also been a big factor in harming districts like Detroit. DPS has really been focused on filling vacancies, hiring qualified teachers, and shoring up building issues left by state oversight. Encouraging people to send their kids elsewhere is not really going to help the problem, it will just push it down the line. Crain's just did a piece on school funding and the discrepancies between districts. We really should be encouraging people to send their kids to DPS and do so with confidence because the city and state are investing in those schools.

I am more interested in funding students and not systems. I read the Crain's piece. They selectively compared with southfield but not other surrounding districts. Why? Because most other surrounding districts are on par. DPS has historically struggled with corruption, throwing money at a broken system will not fix it, it only empowers it more. The kids education are more important than DPS and if school of choice allows them to escape and get better education then that should be allowed. The blame is on DPS and their horrible management, not the families that left the shit schools to get their kids a better education. DPS is not some innocent lamb that just needs a bit more funding to get on its feet. I like to think of school choice as food stamps. Food stamps can't only be used at one store, so why don't we do the same for educational funding? Forced corrupt monopoly on education, no wonder families flee to better school districts. But "just send your kids to the shit schools so they can get more funding?" no one is going to do that and rightfully so. Fund the student, not the system.

[intelligentBeing]

You are free to argue whatever you'd like, however, there is nothing to support this is actually happening. Brain drain has not slowed. This Census is going to be a big butt whooping for Detroit, SE Michigan and the state overall.

Population loss will definitely continue but the simple fact that midtown and downtown has gained jobs in the past decade means we are gaining [[or just slowing the loss) young talent that we didnt have before. I can [[half) prove it below, but this is no saving grace for Detroit, as you said brain drain is definitely continuing.

https://datadrivendetroit.org/web_ftp/Census/PlaceProfiles/Detroit_city_MI.pdf
2010 20-29 y/o 13.7% [[7.6%+6.1%) = 97,884
https://censusreporter.org/profiles/...00-detroit-mi/
2018 20-29 y/o 16.5% = 111,079

Now the 2000 numbers are much higher but it is improvement from 2010. Would be interesting to find #/% of residents with college degrees over same time span.

Edit: revised data

[intelligentBeing]

I do not believe any population data or estimates this far removed from official 2010 count. It was proven in 07-09 all the same data was intentionally bogus or just way, way off. Whatever the case, same is happening now and will be revealed to be baloney once again in official 2020 count.

Fair enough.

[JonWylie]

I am more interested in funding students and not systems. I read the Crain's piece. They selectively compared with southfield but not other surrounding districts. Why? Because most other surrounding districts are on par. DPS has historically struggled with corruption, throwing money at a broken system will not fix it, it only empowers it more. The kids education are more important than DPS and if school of choice allows them to escape and get better education then that should be allowed. The blame is on DPS and their horrible management, not the families that left the shit schools to get their kids a better education. DPS is not some innocent lamb that just needs a bit more funding to get on its feet. I like to think of school choice as food stamps. Food stamps can't only be used at one store, so why don't we do the same for educational funding? Forced corrupt monopoly on education, no wonder families flee to better school districts. But "just send your kids to the shit schools so they can get more funding?" no one is going to do that and rightfully so. Fund the student, not the system.

School of choice does not seem to me, like the way to solve the problems. Nobody is going to move to Detroit just to send their kids 10 miles away to a different high school. Regardless of the issues, the investment needs to be in the school system and in competent leaders and teachers.

[ABetterDetroit]

I am more interested in funding students and not systems. I read the Crain's piece. They selectively compared with southfield but not other surrounding districts. Why? Because most other surrounding districts are on par. DPS has historically struggled with corruption, throwing money at a broken system will not fix it, it only empowers it more. The kids education are more important than DPS and if school of choice allows them to escape and get better education then that should be allowed. The blame is on DPS and their horrible management, not the families that left the shit schools to get their kids a better education. DPS is not some innocent lamb that just needs a bit more funding to get on its feet. I like to think of school choice as food stamps. Food stamps can't only be used at one store, so why don't we do the same for educational funding? Forced corrupt monopoly on education, no wonder families flee to better school districts. But "just send your kids to the shit schools so they can get more funding?" no one is going to do that and rightfully so. Fund the student, not the system.

We have had “school of choice” here in Michigan quite a while now. Charter schools for over a couple decades. How long does it have to be in place before intelligent people can judge the results of having it already?

[intelligentBeing]

We have had “school of choice” here in Michigan quite a while now. Charter schools for over a couple decades. How long does it have to be in place before intelligent people can judge the results of having it already?

Not in my perspective. School of choice to me is where the funding follows the student wherever they go Charter/public/private), call it a voucher system. Just like food stamps and similar to funding for college students [[FAFSA). Currently, we have pseudo school of choice.

There is a large trend away from public schools and more too smaller scale, decentralized, remote education.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/317852/...ion-slips.aspx

Decades of centralized, state funded, historically corrupt, horrible literacy and graduation rates [[for DPS)... but the answer is to increase funding and to just send your kids there anyways? How long does it have to be in place before intelligent people can judge the results of having it already?

[wazootyman]

Boosterism is fine, but if you've never been anywhere, your scope is too narrow to grasp what we're competing against, what a thriving growing city looks like, who we're losing families and smart college graduates to.

I'm stating fact, as I'm very much in the automotive electronics industry - one that is very global, and as such, I have seen a lot of travel.

Back to the original point - there is plenty of well-established innovation here. Nothing ever stays the same, but I would not expect the huge volume of automotive R&D that makes up a good portion of our regional economy to go anywhere. Fact is, it's growing [[circumstances of the pandemic excepted).

Per Detroit Regional Chamber [[as of 2017 I think):

- Michigan is home to 2,200 automotive research facilities and 96 of 100 suppliers to North America.
- More than $27B of investment since 2010.
- 117,000 engineers in Michigan.
- Growth of 11.3% in auto-related jobs from 2012-2017, an additional 3% forecasted by 2022 [[as of publishing).
- Michigan is #1 in mobility related patents.

Everything has gone to hell to some degree over the last few months. I'd expect more pain and layoffs, for sure. Locally, nationally and internationally.

You can call it boosterism, but I have a hunch that the Detroit region may fare better than some significant others on the other side of this. But only time will tell, and that is just my optimistic opinion.

[intelligentBeing]

You can call it boosterism, but I have a hunch that the Detroit region may fare better than some significant others on the other side of this. But only time will tell, and that is just my optimistic opinion.

The Detroit Regional Partnership does a great job too, similar data/stats. We have the highest concentration of engineers in the nation, apparently. I think our biggest downfall is most of that R&D is very company specific. I would like to see these R&D folks [[hopefully I will be one of them as I am a mech engineer) branch off and start new ventures. The technical talent is here, we are just too silo'd, we need more collaboration.

[K-slice]

Do you guys think that as part of "the new normal" office workers going back downtown will normalize the situation? Will the hooligans running amok after dark return to wince they came, afraid of the office workers calling them out, or calling the Police?

Or will fear of Covid and social distancing drive the GM, QL, Meridian, and others to go right home after work, leaving Downtown after 6:00 to those looking for, or to start, trouble?

From the start, and months into the pandemic I would have guessed the former. However now I feel as though the latter is growing ever more likely. What do you think?

[Satiricalivory]

I think this is a really terrible topic for a thread and has a lot of racist undertones.

[Seven&wyo]

Do you guys think that as part of "the new normal" office workers going back downtown will normalize the situation? Will the hooligans running amok after dark return to wince they came, afraid of the office workers calling them out, or calling the Police?

Or will fear of Covid and social distancing drive the GM, QL, Meridian, and others to go right home after work, leaving Downtown after 6:00 to those looking for, or to start, trouble?

From the start, and months into the pandemic I would have guessed the former. However now I feel as though the latter is growing ever more likely. What do you think?

I think so. I think more people will come back downtown than people think and it will get gradually back to normal. As for the shitheads, well, they were ran out once they can be ran out again. Hopefully out of the state next time.

[DeLemur]

Insightful, seeing so many different reasons here for why Detroit's downtown will likely decline. Reminds me of the Cass Corridor thread about Covid and if Midtown would get hurt. F'ing of course, we're on the cusp of a recession, charged up by Covid shutdowns. I don't think the sky is falling for downtown though, let's be honest the number of business establishments and property values are excessive and were due for a trim relative to the population and economics here. This will be a right sizing, and excellent businesses can shine, while others won't. [[its so painful for small bizz owners right now)

What we need in a time of reshaping, is some Detroit character to our downtown and greater emphasis on quality of life issues for Detroiters [[safety, infrastructure, general beauty, city services, city ushered private entertainment). Stop the emphasis on development. Its been 7 non-stop years of pushing development, now's the time to cater to the life people have invested in here. I don't give a f about another building going up. We have near big boy real estate prices now, so foster the quality of life issues.

The summer always brings out young Detroiters being loud and a bit wild. Covid summer has made it much worse, being that their families are the most hurt by downturns [[while the wealthy Detroiters spend the summer up north) and it feels like DPD is just entirely absent, as if they're protesting the protesters. [[Mike Duggan needs to do something ASAP about Craig and DPD because they're mediocre at best.)

I have never cared about this stuff and actually enjoyed it until I had a child. Now the blasting music and 4 wheelers on the sidewalk pisses me off. Since we've pushed and subsidized so much development pricing in the city is more than the suburbs, so I'm faced with not only paying more to live in Detroit but getting a more risky education concoction. Now I have to take 2 hits to live in Detroit. I would have handled one, but two, no thanks.

Trash is for sure a problem in Detroit, but not a huge culprit. There needs to be a "Don't Mess with Texas" style campaign. Funny enough my wife made me a logo once of "Don't Trash Detroit," because I wanted to tackle this problem years ago.

[Gistok]

^^

Do you read the development threads? Midtown is still growing, downtown has 3 cranes in the air, 2 at Hudson's and 1 at TCFs new headquarters. Just last week a new announcement of a $50 million luxury Hilton Hotel rehabbing of the 13 story Park Avenue Building at Park & Montcalm. The Eddystone is being worked on, and other developments are progressing.

Granted that restaurants, bars and entertainment venues are in serious trouble, but life is continuing.

[DeLemur]

True, there are developments penned before this downturn. Still a lot of building, we can keep it at that. Also, the stimulus money has been pretty good for the country. Stock market is up, ect...That doesn't mean we're going to avoid a recession though. Pretty clear that it'll happen.

[Gistok]

True, there are developments penned before this downturn. Still a lot of building, we can keep it at that. Also, the stimulus money has been pretty good for the country. Stock market is up, ect...That doesn't mean we're going to avoid a recession though. Pretty clear that it'll happen.

I agree with that... and Michigan does not fare well during recessions.

I was looking at a state by state map last week that shows how state economies fared during the pandemic...

https://wallethub.com/edu/state-econ...navirus/72631/

[DeLemur]

Interesting, that they put MI in the middle of the pack. They say MI is one of the most prepared for a digital economy, but then I see it is about state government, not private sector. Yeah I'd agree that Lansing has gotten its online platform together.

[ABetterDetroit]

Not in my perspective. School of choice to me is where the funding follows the student wherever they go Charter/public/private), call it a voucher system. Just like food stamps and similar to funding for college students [[FAFSA). Currently, we have pseudo school of choice.

There is a large trend away from public schools and more too smaller scale, decentralized, remote education.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/317852/...ion-slips.aspx

Decades of centralized, state funded, historically corrupt, horrible literacy and graduation rates [[for DPS)... but the answer is to increase funding and to just send your kids there anyways? How long does it have to be in place before intelligent people can judge the results of having it already?

With all due respect, you’re just pushing a false narrative. The money follows the kid here in Michigan. They do head counts. Detroit kid ‘chooses’ Royal Oak schools over Detroit, Royal oak gets the tax money. Same with charters. The only exception is private schools. Private means exactly that, private. They can pick and choose and offer their own plate. Religious, academic, a bunch of rich kids, whatever. Wanting tax dollars for private schools is another argument altogether. Too much wanting cake and eating it too. There is nothing ‘private’ about a school that wants to write its own admission rules and then help itself to our public education tax dollars.

Peace out. There is enough thread jacking going on in this one already and we are just piling on discussing the finer points of John Engler’s charter schools will fix everything plan like it is some new concept around Detroit and hasn’t been implemented.

[JonWylie]

Companies only care about the bottom line, so they're going to exploit the chance to slash costs and downsize office space. It's a no-brainer. And worker bees are going to get used to not having to commute into the city, dealing with traffic and parking -- at the very least used to not having to do it 5 days a week.

As they stated in the Crain's article, at least 3/4's of employers foresee keeping the office space they have now. There's really no indication that we will see huge cuts in leased space. Detroit has very high occupancy rates and a small cut likely will not have a detrimental effect on the downtown.

We are still waiting on various developments that will bring more employees downtown and I have not heard that any of them have been cancelled. The reason to come downtown is to attract talent and COVID doesn't really change that reasoning.

[Seven&wyo]

Ford about to cut 1,000 white collars...
https://www.freep.com/story/money/ca...an/3453113001/

Yeah genius it’s a called a recession for a reason, Just type in “recession” in google and there are a ton of layoffs.

[intelligentBeing]

With all due respect, you’re just pushing a false narrative. The money follows the kid here in Michigan. They do head counts. Detroit kid ‘chooses’ Royal Oak schools over Detroit, Royal oak gets the tax money. Same with charters. The only exception is private schools. Private means exactly that, private. They can pick and choose and offer their own plate. Religious, academic, a bunch of rich kids, whatever. Wanting tax dollars for private schools is another argument altogether. Too much wanting cake and eating it too. There is nothing ‘private’ about a school that wants to write its own admission rules and then help itself to our public education tax dollars.

Peace out. There is enough thread jacking going on in this one already and we are just piling on discussing the finer points of John Engler’s charter schools will fix everything plan like it is some new concept around Detroit and hasn’t been implemented.

Ok. You are misinterpreting my intentions. Again, if the kids education was the most important, just as a food stamp, getting the person fed is most important, then the kid would be able to take that funding anywhere, including private. You seem biased against private schools and maybe you don't not want to see funding go to them for whatever personal reason. But the focus, in my opinion, should be how do we get the best education for the kids? How do we provide the most educational opportunity? Vouchers would allow lower income folks to take advantage of private school, or homeschool groups or whatever they feel is the best way to educate their children. If that idea bothers you I would challenge you to think why private school or homeschool bothers you so much? Is it because its not inclusive enough, maybe you don't agree with the schools perspective? If the focus is on the individual student then it doesn't matter. Private school and homeschools are state regulated and must meet standards.

The voucher system would also give new decentralized education platforms a chance to innovate instead of forcing us between public or expensive private.

[intelligentBeing]

The food stamp angle is not a great argument. Bridge Card balances are blown at corner stores and on junk. Similarly, pupil funding is now blown at awful fly-by-night [[for profit) charters. In both instances, poor are exploited and preyed on.

I trust people to make their own decisions. Not sure what charters you're talking about. All I know is that they perform better than DPS.

https://www.michiganradio.org/post/t...6.1%20percent.
https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2019/9...hind-the-state

Despite this, its not about one system vs the other. I believe in giving people educational autonomy. Individual kid before system. If anyone believes that with the voucher system DPS enrollment would fall, then that shows you believe that DPS is inferior to charter and private. It could inspire them to step up their game and compete with those schools, root out the corruption and inefficiencies. If not, then it was never about the kids to begin with.

[JonWylie]

I trust people to make their own decisions. Not sure what charters you're talking about. All I know is that they perform better than DPS.

https://www.michiganradio.org/post/t...6.1%20percent.
https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2019/9...hind-the-state

Despite this, its not about one system vs the other. I believe in giving people educational autonomy. Individual kid before system. If anyone believes that with the voucher system DPS enrollment would fall, then that shows you believe that DPS is inferior to charter and private. It could inspire them to step up their game and compete with those schools, root out the corruption and inefficiencies. If not, then it was never about the kids to begin with.

It is literally about one system vs the other because there is only a limited number of kids and a limited amount of funds to go around. One system must take from the other system. The article you posted even says it's a zero sum game.

Here's a good review on Charter schools that introduces some interesting points about Michigan.

Also consider Michigan, home state of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. Known as Michigan’s “godmother of school choice,” DeVos has been one of the top funders of Detroit’s charter schools, which, as a New York Times op-ed commented, “even charter advocates acknowledge is the biggest school reform disaster in the country.” As the Times reported, half of Detroit’s charters performed only as well, or worse, than traditional public schools in the city, which are some of the most challenged in the country. [[Last year, only 10 percent of rising high school seniors scored college ready on reading tests.) Some of the worst charters have even added locations. The problem stems largely from Michigan’s plethora of authorizers [[44), most of which allow “just about anyone [who] can raise the money” to open a school, according to The Washington Post.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that for-profit companies run 80 percent of Michigan’s charters, far more than any other state. Finn writes in Crossroads that there’s nothing “reprehensible” about profiting from “public education, any more than a paving contractor that profits from work it does for the highway department.” Charter opponents argue schools shouldn’t be run like businesses — weighing education with efficiencies. Some even see a slippery slope. Says Henderson, “Are we going to have charter police forces, charter fire departments?”

Also, there's the whole things about serving everyone vs. serving the ones that make you money. Kind of like the USPS. Charter schools have a bad reputation of utilizing discipline as a way to get out of serving kids with specialized needs, returning them to public school which decreases the charter's cost and increases the public's.

They contend that charters inadequately serve children with special needs. Charter schools suspend children with disabilities at a higher rate than public schools, and there have been many cases of inadequacy due to a lack of resources, experience, and insensitivity. Nationwide, however, the gap is relatively small: 12.6 percent of public school children have special needs, 10.4 percent in charters. And many charters serve special needs children specifically, such as Utah’s Spectrum Academy for autistic students and Minnesota’s Metro Deaf Charter School.

Here is another article studying the response from schools regarding admittance of children that found Charter schools to be less responsive to kids with special needs.

However, there is a different response rate to messages that signal a child hasa significant special need.Traditional public schools exhibit no differential response rate to these messages, but charter schools are 7 percentage points 3less likely to respond to them than to the baseline message.This result is important because the differential cost of serving students with severespecial needs cited above[[Moore et al., 1988; Chambers, 1998; Collins and Zirkel, 1992, Griffith, 2008).6

[Meddle]

I knew we'd get to Amway Betsy eventually.