Bing says rebuilding Detroit is 20-year task

[duktigttänkande]

I am an urban developer in Philadelphia, and metro-Detroit seems more screwed up than any other major metro area I have seen. I don't mean this as an insult, because the city is actually quite beautiful. Most U.S. big cities have made some pretty egregious mistakes in the past, but I would say that as far as planning policies go, Detroiters are paying the price for some pretty bad ones. And yet it seems to me that if you are talking about how to improve the city, you ought to talk about a few things other than bus service, razing priceless, irreplaceable architecture and cracking down on slumlords. Here is the main thing that comes to mind about your city: there has been absolutely no or little attention paid to walkable urban neighborhoods.
I noticed that the areas that seem to have been "redeveloped" are walled off with iron fences and highly suburbanized, in the middle of a sea of blight. That's not exactly fixing the neighborhood, let alone making a new one. Most of the downtown is divied up into isolated fortresses of either corporate offices or parking lots, of which not one iota of thought to the public welfare has been given. The major streets are far too wide and completely desolate, and if all you can muster on any given block is one or two storefronts here or there, you will never revive because that's not how a real city functions. Policy needs to be geared toward walkability [[and not just transit) and density, and every successful city knows this. No offense, but your metro area seems to be almost entirely brainless and, frankly, uncaring about its own vitality or future--otherwise how did you all let yourselves get in this kind of shape? I know you had riots, but even Newark is in twice as good shape as you guys. If you want a happy, healthy society, it's sort of like how you choose to keep your house: make sure that you pick up your clutter, organize your kitchen so you can use it and not have to eat out, throw trash in the garbage can and scrub the accumulated mud off your floors. Detroit has not exactly done its housework, and it doesn't exactly seem inclined to. Detroit: how can you get where you want to go, if you don't know where you want to go? Sorry, just an out-of-towner's perception of your beautiful but horribly mismanaged city.

[DetroitDad]

I am an urban developer in Philadelphia, and metro-Detroit seems more screwed up than any other major metro area I have seen. I don't mean this as an insult, because the city is actually quite beautiful. Most U.S. big cities have made some pretty egregious mistakes in the past, but I would say that as far as planning policies go, Detroiters are paying the price for some pretty bad ones. And yet it seems to me that if you are talking about how to improve the city, you ought to talk about a few things other than bus service, razing priceless, irreplaceable architecture and cracking down on slumlords. Here is the main thing that comes to mind about your city: there has been absolutely no or little attention paid to walkable urban neighborhoods.
I noticed that the areas that seem to have been "redeveloped" are walled off with iron fences and highly suburbanized, in the middle of a sea of blight. That's not exactly fixing the neighborhood, let alone making a new one. Most of the downtown is divied up into isolated fortresses of either corporate offices or parking lots, of which not one iota of thought to the public welfare has been given. The major streets are far too wide and completely desolate, and if all you can muster on any given block is one or two storefronts here or there, you will never revive because that's not how a real city functions. Policy needs to be geared toward walkability [[and not just transit) and density, and every successful city knows this. No offense, but your metro area seems to be almost entirely brainless and, frankly, uncaring about its own vitality or future--otherwise how did you all let yourselves get in this kind of shape? I know you had riots, but even Newark is in twice as good shape as you guys. If you want a happy, healthy society, it's sort of like how you choose to keep your house: make sure that you pick up your clutter, organize your kitchen so you can use it and not have to eat out, throw trash in the garbage can and scrub the accumulated mud off your floors. Detroit has not exactly done its housework, and it doesn't exactly seem inclined to. Detroit: how can you get where you want to go, if you don't know where you want to go? Sorry, just an out-of-towner's perception of your beautiful but horribly mismanaged city.

This has to be one of the best posts on here in awhile.

I was talking about this with family over Thanksgiving; we were talking about how nice some of the neighborhoods are in Detroit [[Corktown, Boston Edison, etc.), but you would never know it from the commercial street that they are hidden behind. Another prime example of this is the grocery store on Saint Aubin and Warren, in Midtown. Inside, the food is fresh, the store is spotless, and is very well kept. They are every bit as good as Farmer Jack was, or Kroger is... on the inside. On the outside the place is a dump. It's not even just that this grocery store is of suburban style, it is that the outside looks run-down, out of date, and unkept. It makes it look horribly unkept, and probably repels many would-be customers.

[Detroit Stylin]

I am an urban developer in Philadelphia, and metro-Detroit seems more screwed up than any other major metro area I have seen. I don't mean this as an insult, because the city is actually quite beautiful. Most U.S. big cities have made some pretty egregious mistakes in the past, but I would say that as far as planning policies go, Detroiters are paying the price for some pretty bad ones. And yet it seems to me that if you are talking about how to improve the city, you ought to talk about a few things other than bus service, razing priceless, irreplaceable architecture and cracking down on slumlords. Here is the main thing that comes to mind about your city: there has been absolutely no or little attention paid to walkable urban neighborhoods.
I noticed that the areas that seem to have been "redeveloped" are walled off with iron fences and highly suburbanized, in the middle of a sea of blight. That's not exactly fixing the neighborhood, let alone making a new one. Most of the downtown is divied up into isolated fortresses of either corporate offices or parking lots, of which not one iota of thought to the public welfare has been given. The major streets are far too wide and completely desolate, and if all you can muster on any given block is one or two storefronts here or there, you will never revive because that's not how a real city functions. Policy needs to be geared toward walkability [[and not just transit) and density, and every successful city knows this. No offense, but your metro area seems to be almost entirely brainless and, frankly, uncaring about its own vitality or future--otherwise how did you all let yourselves get in this kind of shape? I know you had riots, but even Newark is in twice as good shape as you guys. If you want a happy, healthy society, it's sort of like how you choose to keep your house: make sure that you pick up your clutter, organize your kitchen so you can use it and not have to eat out, throw trash in the garbage can and scrub the accumulated mud off your floors. Detroit has not exactly done its housework, and it doesn't exactly seem inclined to. Detroit: how can you get where you want to go, if you don't know where you want to go? Sorry, just an out-of-towner's perception of your beautiful but horribly mismanaged city.

I wouldnt take that as an insut. I take that as yes there is validation that someone other than myself knows how to better plan a metro than the idiots that we have constantly re elected in the tri county area over the last fifty....

[tallboy66]

Cutting service won't help anything. My car broke down at 7 mile and Mound on a Saturday years ago, I WALKED to 7 mile and Woodward,[[as no bus passed me) then waited to catch the bus back to midtown, got yelled at for being a "white guy" on the bus, the bus driver pulled over to get some fast food from someone who was meeting at a corner and by the time I got back home it had take nearly 3 hours.

They've had a near 60% tax break for 15 years to entice business and even residential to move into the city but NO ONE wants to live in a non suburban area where you have to park behind razor wire fencing and can't walk more than 2 blocks from home.

Coleman Young is gone, long gone. He did some good things to get public/affordable housing for people who needed it but govt. housing doesn't generate revenue or create jobs and who would really want to live in the Brewster projects anyway, are they even still standing?

*End rant*

Good luck Deeeeetroit, live long and prosper.

[Fury13]

I am an urban developer in Philadelphia, and metro-Detroit seems more screwed up than any other major metro area I have seen. I don't mean this as an insult, because the city is actually quite beautiful. Most U.S. big cities have made some pretty egregious mistakes in the past, but I would say that as far as planning policies go, Detroiters are paying the price for some pretty bad ones. And yet it seems to me that if you are talking about how to improve the city, you ought to talk about a few things other than bus service, razing priceless, irreplaceable architecture and cracking down on slumlords. Here is the main thing that comes to mind about your city: there has been absolutely no or little attention paid to walkable urban neighborhoods.
I noticed that the areas that seem to have been "redeveloped" are walled off with iron fences and highly suburbanized, in the middle of a sea of blight. That's not exactly fixing the neighborhood, let alone making a new one. Most of the downtown is divied up into isolated fortresses of either corporate offices or parking lots, of which not one iota of thought to the public welfare has been given. The major streets are far too wide and completely desolate, and if all you can muster on any given block is one or two storefronts here or there, you will never revive because that's not how a real city functions. Policy needs to be geared toward walkability [[and not just transit) and density, and every successful city knows this. No offense, but your metro area seems to be almost entirely brainless and, frankly, uncaring about its own vitality or future--otherwise how did you all let yourselves get in this kind of shape? I know you had riots, but even Newark is in twice as good shape as you guys. If you want a happy, healthy society, it's sort of like how you choose to keep your house: make sure that you pick up your clutter, organize your kitchen so you can use it and not have to eat out, throw trash in the garbage can and scrub the accumulated mud off your floors. Detroit has not exactly done its housework, and it doesn't exactly seem inclined to. Detroit: how can you get where you want to go, if you don't know where you want to go? Sorry, just an out-of-towner's perception of your beautiful but horribly mismanaged city.

Detroit should hire you as a planning consultant. Thanks for some intelligent insight.

[Detroitnerd]

I love how Bing is the "master of the obvious." There's a shooting near a school? Bing says this is the type of behavior we should not tolerate. Now he says rebuilding Detroit is a 20-year task. Sheesh. Whatever. [[Sure glad Beckham, Jackson et al. are in charge of that project. Ought to go swimmingly.)

[Trainman]

Cutting service won't help anything. My car broke down at 7 mile and Mound on a Saturday years ago, I WALKED to 7 mile and Woodward,[[as no bus passed me) then waited to catch the bus back to midtown, got yelled at for being a "white guy" on the bus, the bus driver pulled over to get some fast food from someone who was meeting at a corner and by the time I got back home it had take nearly 3 hours.

They've had a near 60% tax break for 15 years to entice business and even residential to move into the city but NO ONE wants to live in a non suburban area where you have to park behind razor wire fencing and can't walk more than 2 blocks from home.

Coleman Young is gone, long gone. He did some good things to get public/affordable housing for people who needed it but govt. housing doesn't generate revenue or create jobs and who would really want to live in the Brewster projects anyway, are they even still standing?

*End rant*

Good luck Deeeeetroit, live long and prosper.

It won't be long before NEW regional taxes bail out DDOT and relieve Detroit in over $70 Million per year.

The Transportation Riders United will make sure Detroit will keep Moving Forward by bailing out Lansing, Detroit and Livonia with NEW high

[Trainman]

Cutting service won't help anything. My car broke down at 7 mile and Mound on a Saturday years ago, I WALKED to 7 mile and Woodward,[[as no bus passed me) then waited to catch the bus back to midtown, got yelled at for being a "white guy" on the bus, the bus driver pulled over to get some fast food from someone who was meeting at a corner and by the time I got back home it had take nearly 3 hours.

They've had a near 60% tax break for 15 years to entice business and even residential to move into the city but NO ONE wants to live in a non suburban area where you have to park behind razor wire fencing and can't walk more than 2 blocks from home.

Coleman Young is gone, long gone. He did some good things to get public/affordable housing for people who needed it but govt. housing doesn't generate revenue or create jobs and who would really want to live in the Brewster projects anyway, are they even still standing?

*End rant*

Good luck Deeeeetroit, live long and prosper.

It won't be long before NEW regional taxes bail out DDOT and relieve Detroit in over $70 Million per year from the city's general fund, if we believe all the hype from transit tax advocates and political leader’s hell bent on raising taxes instead of getting good jobs to locate in Detroit and Michigan.

It's coming soon thanks to MDOT, SEMCOG and the Transportation Riders United.

Also coming soon in 2011 are the large Monster Multi Billion Dollar NEW freeway lanes, if you vote YES next August to pass the SMART property tax renewal.

Are we Moving Forward yet?

Or, maybe we should all vote NO next August and stop the bulldozers.

First Livonia got bulldozed and soon Detroit will get bulldozed. Or, maybe NEW Countywide sales taxes on fast food will save DDOT and Detroit?

[English]

I am an urban developer in Philadelphia, and metro-Detroit seems more screwed up than any other major metro area I have seen. I don't mean this as an insult, because the city is actually quite beautiful. Most U.S. big cities have made some pretty egregious mistakes in the past, but I would say that as far as planning policies go, Detroiters are paying the price for some pretty bad ones. And yet it seems to me that if you are talking about how to improve the city, you ought to talk about a few things other than bus service, razing priceless, irreplaceable architecture and cracking down on slumlords. Here is the main thing that comes to mind about your city: there has been absolutely no or little attention paid to walkable urban neighborhoods.

I noticed that the areas that seem to have been "redeveloped" are walled off with iron fences and highly suburbanized, in the middle of a sea of blight. That's not exactly fixing the neighborhood, let alone making a new one. Most of the downtown is divied up into isolated fortresses of either corporate offices or parking lots, of which not one iota of thought to the public welfare has been given. The major streets are far too wide and completely desolate, and if all you can muster on any given block is one or two storefronts here or there, you will never revive because that's not how a real city functions. Policy needs to be geared toward walkability [[and not just transit) and density, and every successful city knows this. No offense, but your metro area seems to be almost entirely brainless and, frankly, uncaring about its own vitality or future--otherwise how did you all let yourselves get in this kind of shape? I know you had riots, but even Newark is in twice as good shape as you guys. If you want a happy, healthy society, it's sort of like how you choose to keep your house: make sure that you pick up your clutter, organize your kitchen so you can use it and not have to eat out, throw trash in the garbage can and scrub the accumulated mud off your floors. Detroit has not exactly done its housework, and it doesn't exactly seem inclined to. Detroit: how can you get where you want to go, if you don't know where you want to go? Sorry, just an out-of-towner's perception of your beautiful but horribly mismanaged city.

Can we get you and some of your buddies to run for City Council in 2012? Better yet, we have a vacancy in the Governor's Office for 2010.

The problem is that for many people in SE Michigan, what you see here is absolutely normal. They can't envision life being any other way. Transgressors usually get their feelings hurt, their dreams shattered, and end up having to move the heck out of Dodge... excuse me, Metro Detroit... to build lives elsewhere.

BTW, I love Philadelphia. When it comes to classic soul music, it is the only city that can hold a candle to the D. Love the people, and the neighborhoods... but I am a Detroiter and a Michigan girl through and through. We'll figure it out soon.

[tatortrumpet]

For all the people saying "master of the obvious", this kind of attitude is exactly what Detroit needs. It needs someone who's going to stare the problem in the face and decide to tackle it rather than run from it or try to cover it up under the rug.

An earlier poster said that it's pointless to cut bus service. What else is there to cut? Detroit barely has the money to keep the lights on at the moment; the only way to keep things rolling is to either let the city slip into receivership and hope that Chapter 9 is the way out, or to shave enough off of city services and petition for federal aid to the point where enough cash and liquidity is injected in that Detroit can start to recover financially.

One of the reasons that Detroit might be 20 years in rebuilding is that it's going to take that long for the people who had memories of the '43 and '67 riots to die off. Callous as that may sound, in 20 years, a generational shift can take place, and the change in mindset can do a lot to help clear out the cobwebs.

A lot of the new people can clearly see a lot of what once made Detroit great: some of the most beautiful architecture in the country, a world-class art museum [[DIA), science center [[DSC), and university [[in Wayne State), an outstanding symphony, two amazing theatrical venues [[the Fox and the Fillmore), top-notch baseball, hockey, and basketball teams [[we're still working on the Lions, sadly), the largest open-air farmer's market in the country and one of the most historic [[Eastern Market), and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I noticed that the areas that seem to have been "redeveloped" are walled off with iron fences and highly suburbanized, in the middle of a sea of blight. That's not exactly fixing the neighborhood, let alone making a new one. Most of the downtown is divied up into isolated fortresses of either corporate offices or parking lots, of which not one iota of thought to the public welfare has been given. The major streets are far too wide and completely desolate, and if all you can muster on any given block is one or two storefronts here or there, you will never revive because that's not how a real city functions. Policy needs to be geared toward walkability [[and not just transit) and density, and every successful city knows this. No offense, but your metro area seems to be almost entirely brainless and, frankly, uncaring about its own vitality or future--otherwise how did you all let yourselves get in this kind of shape? I know you had riots, but even Newark is in twice as good shape as you guys. If you want a happy, healthy society, it's sort of like how you choose to keep your house: make sure that you pick up your clutter, organize your kitchen so you can use it and not have to eat out, throw trash in the garbage can and scrub the accumulated mud off your floors. Detroit has not exactly done its housework, and it doesn't exactly seem inclined to. Detroit: how can you get where you want to go, if you don't know where you want to go? Sorry, just an out-of-towner's perception of your beautiful but horribly mismanaged city.

This. There has to be a way to get people to realize that walling their homes and neighborhoods off is not the way to revitalize Detroit. Does it take being vigilant? You better believe it does, but creating these artificial walls is exactly what got Detroit in this mess, and when people move deep into Detroit and set up their castle [[complete with outer wall and moat) this only reinforces the notion that people who live in the D are either antisocial or xenophobic. The real truth is that they're not!

Maybe I'm a cockeyed optimist, but there's a part of me that thinks boundless, unfettered optimism is what Detroit needs to drag itself out of the hole it's in, and to help redefine what's "okay". Because creating little islands of military-grade security in the middle of Downtown isn't okay.

[sumas]

Thank you Duk for a very fair assessment of Detroit. I too believe that the gated communities along the water do nothing to improve our neighborhoods. It creates a them and us image. The city has ignored the neighborhoods to their own disadvantage. I am fortunate to live in EEV. This community has been targeted for special attention and has delivered. Frankly, all neighborhoods deserve prime services.

Should Detroit go into receivership, one thing will be made obvious. Detroit is just too big in terms of land mass. From 1907 to roughly 1926 the city actively acquired villages and township spurred by an ever expanding street car system.
I do not believe it to be farfetched that many communities will work to actively seek to detach themselves from the city proper. I have the paperwork for this procedure in my files. Lansing will have to work to make this procedure more do able. Council by district is just the first step.

I talked to a real estate agent the other day. He was interested in a bank foreclosed home in the area. Ridiculous property taxes are a huge impediment to selling homes in Detroit. In a few short years I will inherit a home in Detroit. The structure is lovely, it is 100 yrs old and well maintained. Next door is a burnt out hulk, as is a house across the street. When I inherit the taxes will be $8049 a year. Given its location I doubt I could sell it for $15,000. I will fight city hall for a fair assessment since I really would like to live in this home but if I lose my battle I will have to make some serious decisions.

[Lorax]

In a system that wasn't broken, your property taxes should not be more than 700 bucks per year.

Detroit has serious issues with taxation, and if these properties are to survive, they need to all be evaluated from a new standard.

If they choose not to do this, then I would support neighborhoods such as EEV, Indian Village, Palmer Woods, University District, etc, splitting off and establishing their own cities.

There is no excuse for not doing something proactive in Detroit, it's years late in coming, and in order to preserve the built environment, new municipalities may need to be established.

[Fnemecek]

Detroit has serious issues with taxation, and if these properties are to survive, they need to all be evaluated from a new standard.

If they choose not to do this, then I would support neighborhoods such as EEV, Indian Village, Palmer Woods, University District, etc, splitting off and establishing their own cities.

It's not just the taxes. It's the combination of high taxes + low public services.

If we don't start seeing some progress made soon, I could easily see everything west of Greenfield saying good-bye to Bingland. Lower taxes. Better services. What's not to like about that?

[Lorax]

I would say to "right-size" Detroit, the new city boundaries should be from the river to Grand Blvd, and everything south of that forming the new boundaries. Basically returning to Detroit's 19th century expansion to the limits of Grand Blvd.

This would render everything north of Grand Blvd separate municipialities, including New Center, Virginia Park, Boston-Edison/Arden Park, Highland Park, Palmer Park/Woods. Traditional neighborhood boundaries west and east would also be recongized and allowed to secede from Detroit.

This is where a regional police, fire, park, transporation, and library systems would come into play. Wayne, Oakland & Macomb counties would share in these services, paid through taxation as a separate line item over and above municipal taxation which would take care of services like water/sewer, garbage collection, road repair, etc.

This would consolidate duplicitous services so each municipality would not have to establish it's own set of separate services. They could however opt to do so if they feel their level of taxation could support it- "The City of Palmer Woods" as an example could encompass everything between McNichols and 8 mile/Woodard to Greenfield, and may be able to support it's own city services without having to opt-in to sharing them with the region.

This would keep those communities who currently have their own services from having to give them up to a regional authority such as the Grosse Pointes, Clinton Twp, St. Clair Shores, Southfield, etc.

Similarly, municipalities could opt-in to some services, and opt out of others, as their tax bases will allow, making it organic in nature.

Certainly to begin with, the park systems, water/sewer, roads, libraries, transportation, could be regionalized as tri-county authorities.

Fire, police, schools could be locally run if taxes are sufficient to do so, if not, they could fall under regional authority as well.

Possibilites are endless, and food for thought.

[Russix]

^If am at Saint Aubin and E Warren, what direction do I need to go to find the grocery store?

[tallboy66]

And instead of bulldozing occupied livable areas to build more freeways, that's what did Brush Park and the whole "black bottom" area in by dividing a once contiguous neighborhood.
Focus on enticing new business into historic buildings, combine it with loft living, more square footage for less money then the people living and working will need services.

Look at Royal Oak, it went from antique stores and grocery to having lofts, bookstores,coffee houses, retail... They did the reverse of Detroit by building buildings on parking lots.

[Trainman]

In a system that wasn't broken, your property taxes should not be more than 700 bucks per year.

Detroit has serious issues with taxation, and if these properties are to survive, they need to all be evaluated from a new standard.

If they choose not to do this, then I would support neighborhoods such as EEV, Indian Village, Palmer Woods, University District, etc, splitting off and establishing their own cities.

There is no excuse for not doing something proactive in Detroit, it's years late in coming, and in order to preserve the built environment, new municipalities may need to be established.

Since Lansing does not care about Detroit and Livonia, maybe we should make our own state and call it Southeast Michigan to include Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties?

Then we can have a regional sales tax to eiliminate the $70 Million dollars from the general fund from Detroit for DDOT and then replace both city and state funds with this NEW tax that will generate $300 Million per year. We could do the same for other government services such as we did with the NEW zoo tax that Detroit used to pay.

The problem is that Lanising wants our taxes but they will not pay for Detroit or Livonia which is why they both now have slums. So, then we are stuck with taxes on top of NEW taxes, unless we actually succeed from Michigan and maybe the U.S.A. with our NEW president trying to raise NEW taxes.

And why not, we have Virginia and West Virginia and North Carolina and South Carolina.

So, why not Southeast Michigan?