Detroit won't force residents to move in city's reshaping From The Detroit News: htt

[Hermod]

With that last post [[#73) in mind, isn't the job of the mayor to act as chief executive officer [[CEO) of the city? Why is the CEO coming back to the board of directors and stock holders [[voters), asking us non-experts what he [[expert, or coordinator of experts) should do? Does anyone else find that a little odd? Isn't identifying problems, their solutions, a team to carry out those solutions, and possible ramifications of all risk factors and decisions what we hired him to do? I know community feedback is important, but after the job is done. Will he be presenting us with all relevant information for us to make a decision?

Is this not how it is supposed to work.

1. Mayors do not have the power that most CEOs have.

2. City councils/commissions are a lot more active and jealous of their prerogatives than most company BODs.

[canuck]

With that last post [[#73) in mind, isn't the job of the mayor to act as chief executive officer [[CEO) of the city? Why is the CEO coming back to the board of directors and stock holders [[voters), asking us non-experts what he [[expert, or coordinator of experts) should do? Does anyone else find that a little odd? Isn't identifying problems, their solutions, a team to carry out those solutions, and possible ramifications of all risk factors and decisions what we hired him to do? I know community feedback is important, but after the job is done. Will he be presenting us with all relevant information for us to make a decision?

Is this not how it is supposed to work.

I think more not less citizen participation is needed in Detroit. The cliché disenfranchisement of the population in regards to past mistakes needs to be counterbalanced by ideas that make a better city for the people, not the corporate landowners. It is not a popular sell in Michigan maybe to stop development, any development because anything new is definitely more promising than nothing at all. But I think neighborhood re-sizing and connectivity in transit solutions and rehabs like proper streetlighting on a vast scale, well-lit bus shelters would make a big difference as mentioned by other posters. People in Detroit need to be more demanding, more nagging, need to input a lot more in order to get what they need. There is a better chance of getting more attention from Washington it seems, if the clamor is loud enough, but definitely, on a civic level there are projects to promote on behalf of the people, and others to demote. The mayor may be a visionary or a bland administrator but he must answer to residents first and foremost.

[JJD]

I, a city resident, am all for the right sizing plan. I see no way to make it happen though given conventional politics. I agree that if you tear up the streets and let them grow over, it will not be a mecca for crime any more than a corn field an hour north is. The city would have to run new water lines to the remaining areas, there are so many difficulties in achieving this plan, that I think the flight and arsonists will end up being more efficient at right-sizing than the city. The city can't even keep up with demolishing what has burned. There is no fix all solution for Detroit, so we keep trying new things. I say keep trying to make it better and hpefully the culmination of many different efforts will be a slow return to functioning city.

[Detroitnerd]

Just keep demolishing.
And the city will return.
Like a surgeon
Cutting cancers
Until nothing is left
Of your body
But your bones

[Fnemecek]

Sure, saving money on streelighting will not make the difference between providing great services elsewhere and not. And I think this kind of rigorous evaluation needs to take place before any decisions are made.

That being said, how can you deny that it would not be easier to provide services in a smaller area?

I agree completely. It's a lot easier to provide services in a smaller, denser area than in a large, sparsely populated one.

My point is simply that we need to keep in mind that we are talking about the neighborhoods of Detroit. There's very little services being delivered in those areas to begin with.

There is fundamentally no difference between not providing services to a large area and not providing them to a small area.

[fryar]

The thing is, "right-sizing" has been the de facto policy in Detroit for decades. Many areas of the city have received almost no services at all, thereby encouraging people to leave.

The current efforts simply formalize the matter.

You might be on to something here. Maybe they are thinking of just cutting off or greatly reducing city services to certain areas, and leaving it at that, perhaps in exchange for a partial or complete property tax reduction.

[Fnemecek]

Fnemecek said: "In theory, that's a great idea. The problem that everyone seems to gloss over is that those sparsely populated areas of the city receive very little services to begin with."

What services are these sparsely populated areas not getting, Fnemecek?

Take your pick.

Police response time is 8 times the national average, when they even show up in the first place.

Streets aren't maintained.

Thousands of street lights are out any given night.

Fnemecek said: "That would work, if the City of Detroit were still cutting the grass at vacant lots in those areas."

The fact that the city may not be cutting vacant lots in some areas may be true. However, from a quality of life point of view, a smaller Detroit would mean no more vacant lots because you would now have denser neighborhoods. People would feel better about their neighborhoods because these vacant lots will no longer be an issue. The feelings associated with living in an "urban prairie" would be gone.

Agreed.

However, my comment was in response to your earlier remark that the City of Detroit could save money by discontinuing a service that had already been discontinued.

Fnemecek said: "The City of Detroit only allocates $901,077 in tax dollars for street lighting for the entire city. How much do you think will be saved by shrinking the footprint of what we light?"

Well, if that amount is all that is allocated for lighting, then at least in a shrunken city that money might go towards repairing the smaller amount of lights that would exist.

Agreed, there is some benefit to shrinking Detroit. I'm simply arguing that those benefits have been drastically oversold and that there is a better way.

Fnemecek said: "BOTTOM LINE: It would be extremely optimistic to presume that right-sizing Detroit will yield improvements as large as
3.5% - 4%. A 1.25% - 2% improvement is more realistic."

Well, we'll never know what the improvement percentage will be if we never make the attempt at right-sizing.

I disagree. We already know what the benefits will be to shutting down portions of Detroit because much of the city has already been shut down to any services. What the Bing Administration proposes is to move people from one part of the city where services aren't being performed to another part where they similarly won't be performed.

Fnemecek said: "In my opinion, it seems far more prudent to take the resources currently allocated towards right-sizing Detroit and put them directly into improving city services. For example, instead of shrinking the amount of land that our street lights have to light, install a more energy efficient street light."

Well, Fnemecek, improving city services is admirable, but improving Detroit overall involves more than just improving city services. Right-sizing could improve the image of the city because outsiders will see it as a lively city, active with people in the new, more dense neighborhoods. The image of an improved quality of life for Detroit citizens can also go along way as a result of right-sizing. Again, right-sizing, in my opinion, is the most logical approach to improving the quality of life for Detroit citizens for the future. Anything else is futile.

There's no way that any effort can improve Detroit's image until you have real improvements to the actual conditions in Detroit. Improving those conditions means having city services that are at least close to national averages.

Increasing the density of people who live in an area with little to no city services does help somewhat. This, of course, was the basis for my prediction above.

However, such an increase does carry with certain costs. Meeting the costs for right-sizing means that we won't be able to improve the services Detroiters depend on.

As a result, I believe that it is far more efficient to put our limited resources directly into improving services rather than improving the efficiency of not delivering them.

[Fnemecek]

Whoever came up with this "right-sizing" concept should be fired.

I wasn't sure what to say when I first saw this comment. After a bit of thought, I have to say that I disagree - at least in part.

I wouldn't fire whoever it was that came up with the concept of "right-sizing" Detroit. Instead, I would simply require him or her to live in one Detroit's most abandoned areas and pay the same taxes that the rest of us pay.

Perhaps then he or she will understand that making it more efficient to do nothing doesn't really accomplish anything.

[Fnemecek]

I, a city resident, am all for the right sizing plan. I see no way to make it happen though given conventional politics. I agree that if you tear up the streets and let them grow over, it will not be a mecca for crime any more than a corn field an hour north is. The city would have to run new water lines to the remaining areas, there are so many difficulties in achieving this plan, that I think the flight and arsonists will end up being more efficient at right-sizing than the city. The city can't even keep up with demolishing what has burned. There is no fix all solution for Detroit, so we keep trying new things. I say keep trying to make it better and hpefully the culmination of many different efforts will be a slow return to functioning city.

You pack a lot into this post.

First, there's a lot that goes into why someone commits a crime. At least a portion of the reason of why there is less crime an hour north of Detroit is that, cornfields or not, if you call the police they show up and they show quickly.

DPD has critical staffing shortage. Converting portions of Detroit into farmland will not change that.

Second, cutting off services to sections of the city is hardly something new. We've been doing it for years.

[kraig]

I wonder if anyone has considered the concept of expanding out instead of shrinking in. It would be much easier for the City to provide land and homes to people than take away. A lot less expensive too. After all, Detroit is only 139 square miles. That's really not that big when given some thought.

[malmarson]

Hey-about not moving in certain areas:

I have seen new faces around Farnsworth and Moran-urban pioneers? And the barber shop at Chene and Palmer's done more than a little renovation to their part of Chene.

And I know Chene & Ferry, Mt Elliott and E Grand. Want a history lesson? Jo-Ge's!

Gee, because I'm not scared of where I live, and want to get ideas how to get people back-I get the feeling from this thread that I'm naive!

[[ I did see a news report about Mt Elliot and Palmer being the fifth worse place for crime in the US last spring. I think it was a a US News & World Report internet article. )

Okay-so, how do we make things better? Or, am I in the wrong thread to ask this?

[DetroitDad]

Hey-about not moving in certain areas:

I have seen new faces around Farnsworth and Moran-urban pioneers? And the barber shop at Chene and Palmer's done more than a little renovation to their part of Chene.

And I know Chene & Ferry, Mt Elliott and E Grand. Want a history lesson? Jo-Ge's!

Gee, because I'm not scared of where I live, and want to get ideas how to get people back-I get the feeling from this thread that I'm naive!

[[ I did see a news report about Mt Elliot and Palmer being the fifth worse place for crime in the US last spring. I think it was a a US News & World Report internet article. )

Okay-so, how do we make things better? Or, am I in the wrong thread to ask this?

Great point!

How about coming up with a root cause analyses? Try tracking your problem back to it's beginning.

This would be a great project for this evening or tomorrow [[Sunday). Anyone want to meet up at the Campus Martius to strategize? I should be out and about this evening.

[mwilbert]

Maybe it would be helpful to look at this in the opposite direction. Let's assume no services were being provided now.

If we started providing services to a small part of the city, it would cost a lot less than providing services to the whole city. Some people would think that it would be nice to have services, they could move to that small part of the city. You would have more density, and the more people who lived there, the more people would enjoy those services. When that area started getting filled up, you might expand the area where there are services a bit, and gradually that part of the city would have both density and services. Other parts of the city would lose people and still have no services.

It seems to me that it resembles a lot what is happening in midtown [[and downtown to a lesser extent). They have better police protection, streetlights, trash pickup, etc. The only thing that isn't better in those areas is the schools. Fixing that problem is something I have bored everyone with often enough. There are other areas that have somewhat better services as well. I don't see a lot of broken streetlights and uncollected trash in the University District.

My point though is that while this policy is already somewhat in effect, it isn't explicit. I'd like it to be really clear-cut, so that people could make sensible decisions about where to live and invest. To my way of thinking, the whole reshaping or right-sizing idea is about taking more control of the process and making it more predictable. But I believe that the underlying phenomenon is happening already.

[fryar]

My point though is that while this policy is already somewhat in effect, it isn't explicit. I'd like it to be really clear-cut, so that people could make sensible decisions about where to live and invest. To my way of thinking, the whole reshaping or right-sizing idea is about taking more control of the process and making it more predictable. But I believe that the underlying phenomenon is happening already.

I agree completely.

[Fnemecek]

If we started providing services to a small part of the city, it would cost a lot less than providing services to the whole city. Some people would think that it would be nice to have services, they could move to that small part of the city. You would have more density, and the more people who lived there, the more people would enjoy those services. When that area started getting filled up, you might expand the area where there are services a bit, and gradually that part of the city would have both density and services. Other parts of the city would lose people and still have no services.

There are a few problems with this.

First, and foremost, the City of Detroit would have to start providing services to this targeted area. More importantly, they would have to maintain those services once started.

Second, while some residents of under-served might move into the targeted area, it's likely that an even larger amount of them will leave Detroit entirely. Outside of Detroit, they can get services equal to or better than what they would get in the targeted area, but with lower taxes. As residents continue leave, the City of Detroit collects less in taxes, which makes it more difficult for them to maintain the services in the targeted area.

This, in many ways, is what we are currently seeing. Downtown and a few other areas were targeted for improvements. Other areas were allowed to suffer. People in those other areas left, taking their tax dollars with them. Now, we don't have enough money for the targeted or non-targeted areas.

I simply don't think there's enough of a change in the "right-sizing" plans to produce a significant difference. [[Yes, there will be some improvement as I've pointed out above, but I don't believe it will be anywhere close to what has been talked about.)

[Hypestyles]

what's going to be done with those high-rise abandoned project tenements near the base of I-75 across from Ford Field..?

[LeannaM]

I see Detroit has quite a few urban gardens. Are there any plans to turn any of the abandoned empty lots into farms? St. Patrick's Center in St. Louis has a 15-week gardening program to teach their patients [[homeless, drug addicts, mentally ill) how to garden and take care of plants. Their site reports that most of the patients graduate and 65% of the graduates get jobs. A lot of gardens are also planted at schools and used as part of the curriculum.

Some of that may be going in Detroit as well, but maybe it could be expanded. That seems better than empty lots or parking lots anyway. At least the land would be productive.

[ferntruth]

Yes, but you would probably be treated like a rural resident [[slow responses, poor city services, etc.).

Isn't this what some city residents experience now?

[DetroitDad]

There are a few problems with this.

First, and foremost, the City of Detroit would have to start providing services to this targeted area. More importantly, they would have to maintain those services once started.

Second, while some residents of under-served might move into the targeted area, it's likely that an even larger amount of them will leave Detroit entirely. Outside of Detroit, they can get services equal to or better than what they would get in the targeted area, but with lower taxes. As residents continue leave, the City of Detroit collects less in taxes, which makes it more difficult for them to maintain the services in the targeted area.

This, in many ways, is what we are currently seeing. Downtown and a few other areas were targeted for improvements. Other areas were allowed to suffer. People in those other areas left, taking their tax dollars with them. Now, we don't have enough money for the targeted or non-targeted areas.

I simply don't think there's enough of a change in the "right-sizing" plans to produce a significant difference. [[Yes, there will be some improvement as I've pointed out above, but I don't believe it will be anywhere close to what has been talked about.)

Are you advocating gentrification?