Can a city improve with less residents, less tax base but more supporters?

[Hermod]

Why have a hundred different school districts and police and fire districts?

Some of the worst school districts lay blocks away from the best.

I was reading a study on-line a couiple of weeks ago talking about consolidation of school districts. You get economies of scale with consolidation up to a certain size. Once you get a school district larger than that size range, you begin to introduce bureaucratic inefficiencies [[Detroit textbook storage for example) which takes away from any economies achieved by scale.

A 'school district" should consist of two [[or as a max three) high schools and their feeding elementary and middle schools. The elected school board should be voluntary and not career positions with no salaries and no staff [[just small expense accounts). All of the administrators and most of the teachers should know each other.

You could have regional "education authorities" to run a consolidated vo-tech program and provide for central purchasing to get the best deal by making quantity buys.

[DetroitDad]

The problem is that Detroit will have to continue streamlining services and shrinking the DPS year after year. It's almost like a managed withdrawal or wind-down. There won't be an and to the cutting if people keep leaving the city and they will keep leaving.

Yes, but tides change just as the moon cycles through phases, and the lines in the sand are inevitably washed away.

[DetroitPole]

"Can a city improve with less residents, less tax base but more supporters?"

No. That has essentially been the problem for the past 50 years. Detroit has been bleeding population and tax base, but never seems to have a shortage of cheerleaders. Look where we are. D hat wearing will not save us.

[fryar]

Yeah, but Detroit, as a city, didn't keep up with the times and adjust to the shrinkage. It can totally be a dense city of 500k-1M surrounded by some farmland.

If Detroit drops the parts of itself that are "crappy suburbs", and shrinks down to the city parts and keeps the more viable neighborhoods, it totally works out. There's little reason for someone to move to the "crappy suburbs" parts when they can just go live in an actual suburb, but if you're looking for city living in metro Detroit, your options outside of Detroit are pretty limited.

It didn't have to be this way. Decades ago, society could have chosen to confront and overcome its ills, but that milk was spilled long ago. I don't think my analysis of where Detroit is competitive, regionally, and where it is not results from any particularly new developments.

And if you live in one of the "crappy suburb" parts, I don't mean to offend you or anything. You may have a beautiful 1920's house, or something else that does not innately suck. But some of these places may not be viable; it's a lot of ground for the police to cover, a lot of wiring for AT&T to replace, and so on, and if the money isn't there, all you can do is suck it up and deal with the consequences. According to the threads on here, some parts of Detroit are really, really far gone, and sometimes you just have to be realistic and settle for second best because it is feasible.

So there you go, fewer residents + less tax base = smaller, smarter city. Some of the historical roots of this are Us-vs-Them type stuff, so getting external supporters on board is clearly also important. But the smaller, smarter city will convert some of them to residents, and the rest to "tourists" [[i.e. ball park attenders, DIA visitors, etc) anyway, so they will do more than just wear D hats. :-)

[fryar]

It's almost like a managed withdrawal or wind-down.

Yes, it's basically a managed withdrawal. A lot of people will be sad to see their neighborhoods go, but if the writing's on the wall, all you can do is respond intelligently.

I realize a lot of people are from around here and may have emotional ties to things, but I don't think it is justifiable to continue with the status quo. On this board, I have read that criminals are stripping and looting abandoned and foreclosed homes with very little delay, and in an organized fashion. I can only imagine the hopelessness it must engender in the people who live in those neighborhoods, or who are growing up there. It makes for a messed up frame of reference, a messed up view of what life is like. I can think of no feasible plan for overcoming these burdens, unless somebody on the outside wants to throw a couple billion dollars at the issue. I can only imagine that if you're 12 and living there, your whole family [[provided they still live in Detroit), including your grandparents, have witnessed decade after decade of decay and ruin, which of course does something unhappy to a person.

Basically, and this is going to sound comical [[except you're all already familiar with the idea), but why not let's have all of those folks move into apartments or smaller homes close to the DIA and such, is the main idea. I don't know that that generates a lot of jobs, though it might generate some, but it would be a sustainable situation that holds out the promise of things improving, despite the fact that you have fewer residents than in the 1950's and less of a tax base. The lower Woodward corridor has had so much successful development and money thrown at it, it's not going anywhere. It will continue to enjoy some basic level of city services, as a result of maybe an unhappy fact of life about the world. The point being, the police is a lot likelier to patrol the neighborhood, even if somewhere a house was foreclosed on [[said house now being more valuable, of course) than if the neighborhood is miles away from the nearest precinct and has been slowly reverting to wilderness.

Instead of everything around you going to heck all the time in a manner consistent with the life experiences of those around you.

[DetroitDad]

Yeah, but Detroit, as a city, didn't keep up with the times and adjust to the shrinkage. It can totally be a dense city of 500k-1M surrounded by some farmland.

If Detroit drops the parts of itself that are "crappy suburbs", and shrinks down to the city parts and keeps the more viable neighborhoods, it totally works out. There's little reason for someone to move to the "crappy suburbs" parts when they can just go live in an actual suburb, but if you're looking for city living in metro Detroit, your options outside of Detroit are pretty limited.

Just so we are all on the same page, the areas out side of the Grand Boulevard Loop in many parts, saw the least amount of population lose, and in some cases saw growth from 1950 to 2005, as illustrated below.

Attachment 6674

The "suburban" areas of the City of Detroit are not viewed a s a problem by many, are what we some are talking about abandoning in parts, or are what [[I have to assume) people are talking about turning into large commercial scale farms.

It is the central city, the area within or adjacent to the Grand Boulevard Loop that are the center of attention, and the target of many of the programs and bizarre ideas we have been hearing about. The neighborhood stabilization and demolition plans on the other hand, are in large part, targeting areas outside of Downtown and the Grand Boulevard Loop, as shown below.

Attachment 6675

[Hermod]

Just so we are all on the same page, the areas out side of the Grand Boulevard Loop in many parts, saw the least amount of population lose, and in some cases saw growth from 1950 to 2005, as illustrated below.

Attachment 6674

The "suburban" areas of the City of Detroit are not viewed a s a problem by many, are what we some are talking about abandoning in parts, or are what [[I have to assume) people are talking about turning into large commercial scale farms.

It is the central city, the area within or adjacent to the Grand Boulevard Loop that are the center of attention, and the target of many of the programs and bizarre ideas we have been hearing about.

Truly amazing that the waterfront along the Detroit River has been abandoned over the last 50+ years. In most areas, riverfront would be a premium for development.

[Novine]

"Truly amazing that the waterfront along the Detroit River has been abandoned over the last 50+ years. In most areas, riverfront would be a premium for development."

Uh, where? Most of the areas that one could call abandoned were in active use for industrial purposes within the past 20 years.

[fryar]

Well, I definitely learned something there. But what about the last 10 years? I understand what you're saying, DetroitDad, but I wonder if the statistics wouldn't look very different for 2000-2010 [[I guess we may know soon enough). It seems really quite counterintuitive to me.
The reason being that Detroit is stigmatized in any number of ways, and land/property in the suburbs is not prohibitively expensive, from a middle class perspective. I can tell you why I would move to a dense Woodward corridor - to engage in some "urbanite" stuff like walking to a bistro/cafe type joint next a park in order to enjoy a saturday morning's brunch of brie and cranberry preserves on french bread with some kind of delectable coffee. If that's not important to me, if I want to drive to a cheesecake factory, I don't think I move to Detroit. And I think getting the whole french bread thing set up in downtown Detroit is going to be much, much easier than fixing all of that other stuff up, and downtown/midtown has a competitive advantage. Some of what I saw just north of 8 Mile was only very marginally nicer than immediately south of 8 Mile, but it probably passed as providing better services. I think walking to a Tigers game, to the Fox, to Cliff Bell's or Buzz Bar, is an easier sell to a different demographic [[and I'll just have to picnic in Harmonie Park for now :-).
Can an argument be made that those areas had the least density to begin with, that the time frame shown is precisely the time frame during which urban sprawl played out, and that it may have played out longer and more forcefully in the home of the automobile than in some other places?
For what it's worth, I like that whole ambling to french bread with brie and cranberry preserves kind of thing, I think it's pleasant. I don't look down on people who go to Denny's as meatheads, I also go to places like that sometimes, and I have bought some of my weird fancy-shmancy junk [[as well as shampoo) at Wal-Mart and Target. If I was married with kids, that whole bag would be at the top of my list of things to cut out, it's a self-indulgent bit of ridiculousness, I admit, but its pleasant.
The waterfront can be redeveloped, notwithstanding its industrial past; certainly up to Belle Isle and beyond to the GP's has potential.

[Hermod]

The waterfront can be redeveloped, notwithstanding its industrial past; certainly up to Belle Isle and beyond to the GP's has potential.

The problem is that the Corps of Engineers and the environmentalists won't let you carve backyard canals into the land from the river any more. With some massive urban renewal and some canal digging, everything east of E. Grand Boulevard from Mack to the river could be high end residential property with Mcmansions, swimming pools, and boat docks pouring taxes down the rathole [[oops, I mean into the city coffers)..

[Fnemecek]

So the question I pose to the board is: Can a city ever improve with a declining population, declining tax base but a large number of supporters that live outside the community.

No, they can serve as an extremely important supplement to what is happening in the city. Nothing, however, can replace residents and a tax base - unless, we're talking about tens of millions of supporters/visitors each year.

Tourist towns were mentioned above as an example of where his already works. The problem there is that tourist towns don't have 138 square miles of land nor do they have a population of 900,000 to service.

[Islandman]

Sumas, HOAs are Home Owner Associations...read: cult/neighborhood watch on steroids. Some HOAs are more benign while others can approve/deny what you can do to your own house, what kind of garbage bags you can use for trash [[AMHIK), improvements to your home, etc.

Back to the topic. While all of these things are great ideas, how are any of these things going to improve the current educational state of the city, primarily the illiteracy rate? Is the assumption that it will just work itself out?

[fryar]

Back to the topic. While all of these things are great ideas, how are any of these things going to improve the current educational state of the city, primarily the illiteracy rate? Is the assumption that it will just work itself out?

A revitalized city offers a future and gives everyone a stake in the wider world/reduces the number of disenchanted and alienated individuals, which incentivizes staying on track with your education? I'm not trying to blame the victim here, or to foster cries advocating individual accountability either, but it seems almost like a simple mechanical cause-effect type thing to me.
So yes, basically it will just work itself out. What else do you propose, a bunch of federal funding? A public education campaign with airtime volunteered by TV stations to educate people on what makes sense in the world, so they don't elect people named reverend?
Stick him or her, with family, in one of those $10,000 HUD-owned condos in the Lafayette area [[yeah, that's out there). Everything is so cheap right now.

It's either all shot to hell and we all move one with our lives, or we build on what makes sense. I don't have a plan what to do for a kid surrounded by zero expectations in a land of liquor, I mean party, stores and worse that I have no confidence in finding 500k people to populate, except to get him or her the hell outta there as soon as possible. If things get better, it will lift everyone [[and everyone's spirits).

[oladub]

Nobody's going to want to live anywhere they don't feel safe. City, suburb or rural. Gated communities and HOAs seem to be the way to go. They're even gating established neighborhoods in rough areas.

Large gated communities would be the way to go with some of their own neighborhood or HOA governance. Detroit won't be revived until people with money feel safe from crime and have quality schools to sent their kids to. Mayor Bing is talking about abandoning some areas of the city to increase the efficiency of City services. Instead of having crime infested 'green spaces', how about accomodating large gated communities of say 10,000 residents. That would be enough of a population to have it's own internal stores and schools. Invite the developers to start spending their money in Detroit instread of elsewhere. If the community could work our something with DPS - fine. If not, there would be enough people to establish their own private schools where their kids could get a quality education and walk home safety.

This would be a win-win for Detroit. It would bring in construction jobs, service jobs, and tax revenue. New residents would stimulate the demand for additional services in greater Detroit. To the extent that private schools were established, the residents of the community would still be paying Detroit property taxes to prop up DPS funding.

[Detroitnerd]

Large gated communities would be the way to go with some of their own neighborhood or HOA governance. Detroit won't be revived until people with money feel safe from crime and have quality schools to sent their kids to. Mayor Bing is talking about abandoning some areas of the city to increase the efficiency of City services. Instead of having crime infested 'green spaces', how about accomodating large gated communities of say 10,000 residents?

That's an interesting idea. Unfortunately, it is the exact opposite of what a city is. Next...

[Islandman]

While this does seem like a good idea, the same plan has been implemented for years in my home island of Puerto Rico. Some gated communities have anywhere from 1 to 4 security gates.

While you may feel safe at home, anything outside of your house is still quite lawless. The overall community needs to be part of the plan for it to work. Sectioning parts of the city to the more affluent is right out of Robocop.

[fryar]

I agree with Detroitnerd that that's not a great plan for resuscitating the city overall, but I understand where Kathy2Trips is coming from. It addresses some of the financial issues and such. But it ultimately results in being disconnected from the city, like those Riverview towers [[or river-something, at any rate), which I would never move into precisely because they're so gated. Then again, FWIW, those have to be some of the most expensive apartments in the city.
I still think the whole cool city for 20-somethings is feasible. Schools are perceived to be a problem in very many cities, even successful ones, fixing those would be like fixing all of Detroit, a gargantuan accomplishment. Building a fun playground for college graduates is a well-trodden road.

[kathy2trips]

Ugh...fuck that.

Why? Your argument descends to the level of "don't mean squat", if you can't defend it. Why can't a "master planned community" be created within existing boundaries, grandfathering in existing homeowners? Trying to think out of the box, here. BTW: HOA = Home Owner's Association. Not exactly like, but similar to, a neighborhood association.

[kathy2trips]

Truly amazing that the waterfront along the Detroit River has been abandoned over the last 50+ years. In most areas, riverfront would be a premium for development.

Absolutely, that area is screaming for redevelopment and a controlled access environment would protect that area from surrounding crime areas. And, maybe someday there won't be a need for gates, but until then.......

[Detroitnerd]

Absolutely, that area is screaming for redevelopment and a controlled access environment would protect that area from surrounding crime areas. And, maybe someday there won't be a need for gates, but until then.......

Conversely, as long as the gates are up, there will be no need to control crime.

I understand where you're coming from, but I strongly argue that the best environments to build for a city are ... urban environments.

Detroit has good bones to build on. If, in the name of attracting investment, we are willing to get rid of street grids, history, buildings and start from nothing, then we'll build something without any history to it. And you can find that easily enough -- an oversupply, in fact -- in the exurbs.

[fryar]

Absolutely, that area is screaming for redevelopment and a controlled access environment would protect that area from surrounding crime areas. And, maybe someday there won't be a need for gates, but until then.......

I think there's some gated development down there already, actually. Harbortown or something? They have a shopping center on Jefferson. Yeah, okay, there's probably something to your idea, actually.

[Detroitnerd]

I think there's some gated development down there already, actually. Harbortown or something? They have a shopping center on Jefferson. Yeah, okay, there's probably something to your idea, actually.

I used to deliver pizza from a store there. My dad was actually one of the carpenters who built the place. According to him, it was classic work from the boom-box-and-six-pack school of construction. He actually had to go through when they were done and cut holes for the vent fans in the kitchens on almost all the crescent condos. They just slapped vents over drywall and went on their merry way. "F*[[k it up, cover it up, head for the hills."

[oladub]

While this does seem like a good idea, the same plan has been implemented for years in my home island of Puerto Rico. Some gated communities have anywhere from 1 to 4 security gates.

While you may feel safe at home, anything outside of your house is still quite lawless. The overall community needs to be part of the plan for it to work. Sectioning parts of the city to the more affluent is right out of Robocop.

As kathy points out, remaining residents could be grandfathered in to the new community. Also, a condition of providing a percentage of 'affordable housing' could be required of the developer. Anyway, why have all the affluent folks living off in the burbs when they could be paying Detroit property taxes instead and creating a demand for private businesses? Would you prefer to continue listening to crickets in 'open spaces' instead? Detroit doesn't have the money to be properly managing many square miles of green spaces. Better that some new residents come in somewhat on their terms and start paying taxes for police, fire, school, and other City services which are now on life support.

Think of RenCen as being a walled off gated community right now. GM doesn't allow just anyone in there. How does RenCen's existence offend your sense of an urban environment? If RenCen was a big condo development instead of a corporate headquarter, would you say it was right out of Robocop?

[Detroitnerd]

Why have all the affluent folks living off in the burbs when they could be paying Detroit property taxes instead and creating a demand for private businesses?

Believe it or not, we have some very affluent people living in Detroit right now. It's just that they appreciate what the city has to offer. Trying, at great expense, to knock down Detroit and turn it into an ahistorical exurban environment sounds counterproductive to me. I mean, if they want that stuff, why would they want to pay a premium for a house built new in Detroit when you can buy the same sorts of houses foreclosed in Macomb or Clinton Township?

[oladub]

Believe it or not, we have some very affluent people living in Detroit right now. It's just that they appreciate what the city has to offer. Trying, at great expense, to knock down Detroit and turn it into an ahistorical exurban environment sounds counterproductive to me. I mean, if they want that stuff, why would they want to pay a premium for a house built new in Detroit when you can buy the same sorts of houses foreclosed in Macomb or Clinton Township?

Detroit could use more wealth. You hit on a good point though. Those people will do the deciding if they have an option. Just because it isn't your cup of tea, shouldn't make you get in the way of what they might want. I envision communities of 10,000 plus with a high percentage of urban multiple story condo development with a lot of walking options and affordable units. Some existing neighborhood building might be rehabilitated as part of the mix. The burbs are typically more spread out and car dependent. Take care of your crime problem and the gates would probably eventually come down. Even if they didn't, so what? There are a lot of neighborhoods in Detroit where strangers don't go now anyway.