SE MI needs another Major City alongside Detroit..Any thoughts?

**Newdetroit** · September-29-10, 04:56 AM

My posting in no way should be misconstrued as abandoning or giving up on Detroit! While we work and hope for the revitalization of Detroit, we should seriously consider something different to change the image and psychology of the region. Would the region not benefit immensely if SE Michigan had another major city [[even larger than Detroit in population) to reinvigorate the region???

Specifically, imagine just 11 cities in Macomb county consolidating [[Utica, Sterling Heights, Warren, Roseville, Centerline, Eastpointe, Fraser, St. Clair Shores, Mt. Clemens, Harrison Township, and Clinton Township), overnight SE Michigan would have another major city: population 575,000 and approximately 160 square miles. For name sake, let's just call it Mt. Clemens.

Add on 10 communities from Oakland county totalling 205,000 [[Madison Heights, Hazel Park, Ferndale, Royal Oak Charter township, Oak Park, Berkeley, Royal Oak, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, and Clawson) which by the way used to be out one time all Royal Oak Charter township, this new city would be 780,000 people with just under 200 square miles. This is smaller in size than Columbus Ohio, and much smaller than cities in Texas and the Southwest...Dallas is 360, and other cities are around 400 sq miles. If you want to add Troy, Birmingham, Auburn Hills, and Pontiac, the population would surpass Detroit.

Thus, my question is would this help improve the image of SE Michigan, attract tourism and investors...etc. There are many twin cities...Minneapolis-St Paul, Dallas-Forth Worth..etc.....Why not a Mt. Clemens-Detroit area??????? Imagine the effect of Mt. Clemens being the 10th largest city in the US. It would be considered one of the safest, cleanest, and educated major city in the US with the exception of San Jose. Would this not change perceptions of SE Michigan...Later, we can can concentrate on the ills of Detroit, but at least the region is reinvigorated. Do people agree????????????? Please serious comments...It is just an analytic approach to our situation, so I hope people do not approach the idea with emotional fuel....Thanks

**Hermod** · September-29-10, 05:13 AM

You can see this in Virginia. To avoid piecemeal annexation attempts by the cities of Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Newport News, the counties surrounding them incorporated the entire county as a city so that the three cities in question are surrounded by non-annexable cities similar to Oakland and Macomb County.

**blackmath** · September-29-10, 05:15 AM

While this is a noble idea, I think that the very name of Detroit is so iconic that doing this wouldn't matter. I understand the sentiment, the "re-branding" in a way though, but I really don't think it would fly. It would almost be like going with L.A. - Anaheim, or New York/Jersey City.

To me, the only real twin cities are Minneapolis/St Paul. Both were founded around the same time, both had great rival baseball teams, both have campuses of the University of Minnesota, both have huge cathedrals that were built in response to each other, etc... Dallas/Ft Worth was a designation made up by the United States Census Bureau in 2003, and they are now calling it the Dallas/Ft Worth Metroplex [[yikes)

**Newdetroit** · September-29-10, 05:25 AM

No other Metropolis has suburbs that act as a city like us. The zoo, silverdome, Palace of Auburn Hills, Chrysler, coroporate offices, shopping and entertainment venues exist in this new proposed city. Also, the density of the population is city-like and not suburban. If downtown Mt. Clemens added 12-15 high rise residential buildings, we would have a respectable skyline. Also, imagine all the districts of this new city....Ferndale, Royal Oak, Birmingham, Utica, Pontiac, Berkeley, and not to forget a new downtown Mt. Clemens...plus Metro Beach.

**Meddle** · September-29-10, 06:19 AM

Hasn't done too much for Flint/Pontiac, Ann Arbor or Toledo.

Warren, Southfield, Livonia or Dearborn either for that matter.

**skyl4rk** · September-29-10, 07:39 AM

No, Detroit Metro should be be known as DETROIT UNIGOV

**ghettopalmetto** · September-29-10, 07:52 AM

Originally Posted by Newdetroit

My posting in no way should be misconstrued as abandoning or giving up on Detroit! While we work and hope for the revitalization of Detroit, we should seriously consider something different to change the image and psychology of the region. Would the region not benefit immensely if SE Michigan had another major city [[even larger than Detroit in population) to reinvigorate the region???

How about instead of worrying about mind games, trickery, and psychobabble, people fix things that are ACTUALLY problems.

**rb336** · September-29-10, 09:24 AM

better would be to pull a Toronto

**blackmath** · September-29-10, 09:26 AM

Originally Posted by skyl4rk

No, Detroit Metro should be be known as DETROIT UNIGOV

What if we called it the "Detroit Awesomeplex"

MrSam · September-29-10, 09:50 AM

How about the easiest and fastest way to fix this declining region is for us all to work together rather than keep working apart for the betterment of Detroit, by just annexing all of Wayne county and all the way up to Pontiac and build a mass transit system, like all the other international cities have done to remain great and plan for a more technology diverse, better educated local economy without the unions and auto industry. I'm sure that would inject a new since of pride and energy into the region. I'm also sure the irresponsible racist media in this region wouldn't be so quick to exploit the poverty and the poor folks self preservation foolishness just for a cheap quick national story anymore, since those news editors and managers would live in the city and feel its pain.

I'm sure they would begin to speak on the positive more, crime would go down since there would be equal funding for schools [[less dropouts) and the mass transit would get the once hopeless to the jobs. Pride, self discipline, and accountability would come from a 9-5, so anything other than these sensible suggestions is just a band aid on a gun shot wound.

Ravine · September-29-10, 09:54 AM

Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto

How about instead of worrying about mind games, trickery, and psychobabble, people fix things that are ACTUALLY problems.

Was your post meant to be logged into another thread, or was it written as a response to a post which was deleted after yours was logged?

**MCP-001** · September-29-10, 09:59 AM

I really don't see how this would possibly work.

Each and every one of those cities that you've mentioned above is facing their own problems.

Combining them together into one "Unigov", dilutes indivual representation, and makes government less responsive, exasperating the current problems.

**fryar** · September-29-10, 10:28 AM

Newdetroit, you have posted some stimulating ideas. But I don't really see this idea as attractive. All you're doing is re-branding the suburbs as the suburbs. You could take anything and call it a city, like they did in Phoenix, but those suburbs do not have city-like characteristics. Walkability, density, all that. So you're left with the suburbs, reinvented as the suburbs.

You might as well start a branding campaign for OC or SE Mich, and it would be less of an uphill climb.

**jt1** · September-29-10, 10:30 AM

Originally Posted by Newdetroit

My posting in no way should be misconstrued as abandoning or giving up on Detroit! While we work and hope for the revitalization of Detroit, we should seriously consider something different to change the image and psychology of the region. Would the region not benefit immensely if SE Michigan had another major city [[even larger than Detroit in population) to reinvigorate the region???

Specifically, imagine just 11 cities in Macomb county consolidating [[Utica, Sterling Heights, Warren, Roseville, Centerline, Eastpointe, Fraser, St. Clair Shores, Mt. Clemens, Harrison Township, and Clinton Township), overnight SE Michigan would have another major city: population 575,000 and approximately 160 square miles. For name sake, let's just call it Mt. Clemens.

Add on 10 communities from Oakland county totalling 205,000 [[Madison Heights, Hazel Park, Ferndale, Royal Oak Charter township, Oak Park, Berkeley, Royal Oak, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, and Clawson) which by the way used to be out one time all Royal Oak Charter township, this new city would be 780,000 people with just under 200 square miles. This is smaller in size than Columbus Ohio, and much smaller than cities in Texas and the Southwest...Dallas is 360, and other cities are around 400 sq miles. If you want to add Troy, Birmingham, Auburn Hills, and Pontiac, the population would surpass Detroit.

Thus, my question is would this help improve the image of SE Michigan, attract tourism and investors...etc. There are many twin cities...Minneapolis-St Paul, Dallas-Forth Worth..etc.....Why not a Mt. Clemens-Detroit area??????? Imagine the effect of Mt. Clemens being the 10th largest city in the US. It would be considered one of the safest, cleanest, and educated major city in the US with the exception of San Jose. Would this not change perceptions of SE Michigan...Later, we can can concentrate on the ills of Detroit, but at least the region is reinvigorated. Do people agree????????????? Please serious comments...It is just an analytic approach to our situation, so I hope people do not approach the idea with emotional fuel....Thanks

I support it only if we can use that city for the dumping ground of the poor, homeless, mentally ill, etc that SE Michigan has used Detroit for it. Hell, let's start your mega awesome city and the first step will be to move all of the group homes from Detroit to the new city. Or will this be a 'city' that can still dump their problems on Detroit?

**Hermod** · September-29-10, 10:44 AM

Originally Posted by jt1

I support it only if we can use that city for the dumping ground of the poor, homeless, mentally ill, etc that SE Michigan has used Detroit for it. Hell, let's start your mega awesome city and the first step will be to move all of the group homes from Detroit to the new city. Or will this be a 'city' that can still dump their problems on Detroit?

SE Michigan didn't 'dump" into Detroit. what you have is what is left after the productive folks moved out in disgust.

**ghettopalmetto** · September-29-10, 11:19 AM

Originally Posted by Hermod

SE Michigan didn't 'dump" into Detroit. what you have is what is left after the productive folks moved out in disgust.

Yup, the disgust of the 1950s, when Detroit had a thriving, booming city center, stable middle-class neighborhoods, and a strong school district.

**iheartthed** · September-29-10, 11:27 AM

Moderator, please delete this stupid ass thread.

**Detroitnerd** · September-29-10, 11:42 AM

The only problem is that population statistics and redrawn boundaries do not a city make in the 21st century. This century, a city must have a center with density, surrounded by more neighborhoods, and finally country. It must have walkability, bikability, mass transit, and a city center with a critical mass of businesses and restaurants and bars and places you can walk to and from. It must have excellent services and must be able to collect the taxes to pay for them. It must have diversity -- not just of skin color but of origins and ages and viewpoints and jobs and industries. It must have a variety of built environments to appeal to people. But most of all, a city must have a story, a history, a sense of heritage: You should be able to go to the oldest part of the city and say with pride, this is where those who came before us founded our city. Those natural features that made a city desirable centuries ago are our common heritage we share as residents of a place. In an era choked with the detritus of interstate-fed generica, people are coming to value a place that has a story, the more ancient the better.

On almost all counts, as a city in the 21st century, the new city you propose would offer none of these things. It doesn't have a center, it has extremely limited walkability, bikability and mass transit, its excellent services are under attack by economic forces and anti-tax hardliners [[see Troy library), it's not very well economically and demographically diversified. It doesn't offer a wide variety of built environments. And its history dates back to -- what? -- 1960? Some of the walkable, bikable parts were old streetcar suburbs, but someplace like Troy was almost all beet fields in the 1950s. What kind of history is that?

You can't just gerrymander a new city and leave Detroit out of it. If we were to have one large city with Detroit as its downtown -- and stuff like district voting to ensure local-level representation -- that would be workable in the long run. But the idea of founding a city without a center seems doomed by where things are headed. The places across the country that lack downtowns are suffering the most right now, whereas the cities that have been allowed to annex their suburbs are doing best.

**EastsideAl** · September-29-10, 02:49 PM

Mashing a whole bunch of suburbs together under one government and calling it a "city" does not a real city make. It may reduce duplication in administration, services, etc., and may be something of a start in the sort of regional cooperation and planning that this area so badly needs, but it still won't make it a city in any real sense of the term beyond the merely administrative.

And just where would downtown Mt. Rosepointeopolis Heights be?

**Newdetroit** · September-29-10, 03:40 PM

People were saying that this proposed city has no history and it would comprise of cities from the 1950's. This is not true, but even if it were, so what?? A new city with a new history is maybe what the region needs. Anyway here are the 4 corners of this proposed city.

1.Royal Oak township which comprises of Royal Oak, Madison Heights, Clawson, Berkley, Hazel Park, Oak Park, Pleasant Ridge, Huntington Ridge, and Royal Oak Township was incorporated in 1833. Population density 4000-6000

2. Mt. Clemens was founded in 1813 and incorporated as a city in 1875.

3. Pontiac was recognized by the state legislature in 1837 and incorporated in 1861

4. St. Clair Shores and Eastpoint used to be part of Erin township founded in 1843.

5. Birmingham incorporated as a village in 1864.

So:
Downtown: Pontiac or Mt. Clemens or both. Choose and build it up.
Mass Transit: Light rail up and down Woodward, Metro Parkway, 8 Mile, Gratiot, and Hall Road. Bus grid also.

Bike: Add bike lanes to the roads and many streets have sidewalks. There is a bike path in Pontiac.

Pedestrian areas: Birmingham, Royal Oak, Ferndale, Berkley, Pontiac, Utica, Mt. Clemens.

University: Oakland University

Sports Arenas: Palace and Silverdome

Zoo: Royal Oak

**EastsideAl** · September-29-10, 04:02 PM

Of course all of these places existed before the 1950s. In the sense that the land didn't just spring out of the waters then or that it wasn't some sort of remote pioneer or Indian country.

But, for the most part, these were small towns and rural areas before the '50s. There was some exurban development along the old streetcar lines, and especially some suburban development along the Woodward corridor up to Royal Oak. The rest was relatively lightly populated semi-rural area though. Even significant areas of the City of Detroit were not fully developed until WWII and shortly afterwards.

In any event, other than small cities like Pontiac and Mt. Clemens [[the respective county seats of Oakland and Macomb counties), none of those areas have any history at all as a city. They were first small towns surrounded by farmland near Detroit, then suburbs of Detroit.

**Danny** · September-29-10, 04:04 PM

There's no way that a suburb will annex a suburb! Like a city annexing a city. The Michigan SBC laws prevent that since 1978. However police, fire depts, and water and sewage depts. can merge into other city municipal services if more budget cuts persists. So the suburban cities will stay their own shape and size. Annexation of Michigan cities from townships starts with sub-divisions gaining city water rights, petition from residents, and a public vote. [[CAVEAT)! once a city annex a township, the residents have to pay higher taxes. Now when a township becomes a charter, it would not be annexed to a city as long as the charter township has its own water, police, city services and fire depts. If not then the township will lose its charter and be annexed to a city by legislature.

WORD FROM THE STREET PROPHET

For there will be NO merging of a "SUPER DETROIT" or a "SUPER SUBURBS". Not in a 1000 years. The annexation laws since 1948 has spoken. It is written and so it shall be done.

Neda, I miss you so.

**Detroitnerd** · September-29-10, 04:10 PM

Originally Posted by Newdetroit

People were saying that this proposed city has no history and it would comprise of cities from the 1950's. This is not true, but even if it were, so what??

Sorry, kid. That's just not the way it works in debate. If you can find somebody who says that Oakland and Macomb counties are the historical center of southeastern Michigan, I have a train station I'd like to sell them.

As for your "historical information," ooh, wow. Royal Oak township was incorporated in the 1830s! Who gives a shit? Did they have any appreciable development out there then? No. How about in the 1800s? No. Detroit's history goes back to 1701, making it one of the oldest cities in the United States. It's older than St. Petersburg in Russia. You would claim that the northern counties have some ancient history to the point where Detroit would not be the historical center? I weep with laughter, young feller. Never could the history of your proposed area eclipse the real, old, original town to the south. Even the native Americans had cleared and settled Detroit because it's a good place for a settlement.

Were there some little agricultural villages out there? Yes, eventually. Were they completely independent of Detroit? Bigger than Detroit? Have a historical identity that is not shared with or subsumed under the history of Detroit? No. Being platted on paper does not a history make.

Your defenses of your proposal are as idiotic as the proposal itself.

**Newdetroit** · September-29-10, 05:20 PM

Well, you can try to sell the abandoned train station in Detroit first. Second, I am not using history as a reason to create a new city for SE Michigan. Rather, I was replying to the notion that these Oakland and Macomb county communities have no history and merely sprung up in 1950. And news for you: Oakland and Macomb counties have WAY surpassed and eclipsed the city of Detroit in almost all respects except for the fact that Detroit was founded in 1701 and its contributions to industry and music. I can respond to you by saying who gives a shit also! THAT IS ALL GONE! We are in 2010 and people in this region need to realize that we are at a serious disadvantage with the Detroit label. Oakland and Macomb Counties fuel the economy of the region let them take the credit!

Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

Sorry, kid. That's just not the way it works in debate. If you can find somebody who says that Oakland and Macomb counties are the historical center of southeastern Michigan, I have a train station I'd like to sell them.

As for your "historical information," ooh, wow. Royal Oak township was incorporated in the 1830s! Who gives a shit? Did they have any appreciable development out there then? No. How about in the 1800s? No. Detroit's history goes back to 1701, making it one of the oldest cities in the United States. It's older than St. Petersburg in Russia. You would claim that the northern counties have some ancient history to the point where Detroit would not be the historical center? I weep with laughter, young feller. Never could the history of your proposed area eclipse the real, old, original town to the south. Even the native Americans had cleared and settled Detroit because it's a good place for a settlement.

Were there some little agricultural villages out there? Yes, eventually. Were they completely independent of Detroit? Bigger than Detroit? Have a historical identity that is not shared with or subsumed under the history of Detroit? No. Being platted on paper does not a history make.

Your defenses of your proposal are as idiotic as the proposal itself.

**ghettopalmetto** · September-29-10, 05:33 PM

Originally Posted by Newdetroit

Well, you can try to sell the abandoned train station in Detroit first. Second, I am not using history as a reason to create a new city for SE Michigan. Rather, I was replying to the notion that these Oakland and Macomb county communities have no history and merely sprung up in 1950. And news for you: Oakland and Macomb counties have WAY surpassed and eclipsed the city of Detroit in almost all respects except for the fact that Detroit was founded in 1701 and its contributions to industry and music. I can respond to you by saying who gives a shit also! THAT IS ALL GONE! We are in 2010 and people in this region need to realize that we are at a serious disadvantage with the Detroit label. Oakland and Macomb Counties fuel the economy of the region let them take the credit!

There are about 950,000 people that might take issue with you describing their home as "all gone".

It ain't the IMAGE that's the problem. The REALITY is what's broken. Your idea continues the fallacy that the region can just abandon a quarter of its populace and leave 'em for dead. All you do is ignore the very real problems that continue to hamstring the region. You don't propose to solve a single God damned thing, other than to plaster cosmetics on very ugly pig.