Study: Every Detroiter less than a mile from booze

[buildingsofdetroit]

Fascinating research by my friend Robbie Linn, a master's student in urban planning at U-M. What does THIS tell you about our fair city? Maybe he can find out the average distance for Detroiters from a full-scale grocery store next.

"Clearly, no area in the city is without a liquor store or bar. In fact, every resident of the city lives within .7 miles of one of the city's 810 liquor stores or 560 bars."

More:
http://mapdetroit.blogspot.com/2010/...or-stores.html

[Detroitnerd]

Thank god!

[RYANGUARD]

And it is for this very reason that Coleman Young got the State Liquor Store built at Sherwood and Nevada in the early 80s.At one time there were 10 State Liquor stores in the City of Detroit.From 1981,when the store on Mcnichols closed,to 1984 when the store opened at Nevada and Sherwood there were NO State Liquor Stores open in the city.Knowing the amount of revenue the State was making from Detroit alone,he pushed to get the store open.Along with the City Income Tax that the employees would have to pay was another piece of revenue that the City badly needed.The southeast Michigan area does 2/3s of the States business in liquor sales.The rest of the state contributes the other 1/3.

[Jimaz]

Nice work but I don't see the point. Is the idea that alcohol in Detroit is too convenient or not convenient enough? How does this compare with other cities/suburbs beyond Michigan?

My drink is 1/5280th of a mile from me. No risk of a DUI here.

[313WX]

That's why everyone says there's a liquor store on every corner [[and there really is).

Most cities don't have that type of convenience.

[DetroitPlanner]

You think thats bad, you should try mapping Ann Arbor, Hamtramck, Wayandotte, or Royal Oak!

[Goose]

this is a great example of one of the POSITIVE aspects of living in Detroit, seems like most just want to report the negative or the bad news... this information makes me feel great about the area......

[EastsideAl]

Yay!! And damn glad it's less than a mile for me.

Is it any different in other major cities? [[Excepting, of course, those in states with much more restrictive liquor laws, like Pennsylvania.) That would be the true comparison, not a comparison of a major city like Detroit with its suburbs.

When I lived in NYC there were 3 liquor stores and almost a dozen bars within easy walking distance of my place. And I lived in Queens, not Manhattan. There were also bars and liquor stores very nearby when I lived in other major cities as well. So I'm really not sure if Detroit is all that different. In fact, I would think that with the emptying out of the City of Detroit the actual number of liquor outlets has probably gone down in recent years. And so perhaps people's proximity to liquor outlets has as well.

Goodness knows there are nowhere near as many bars as there used to be. There literally used to be one every couple of blocks on the east side back in my childhood and my father's and grandfather's day.

[Jimaz]

It really would be interesting to see this contrasted against other places associated with alcohol like New Orleans, Las Vegas, Milwaukee [[they like beer, right?) or Norway. I hear Norway has a surprising number of small-scale stills.

[Left_For_Texas]

If the nearest alcohol to you is .7 miles you haven't been doing your shopping.

[Gistok]

One has to remember that in Detroit in the mid 20th Century there were bars actually IN neighborhoods. I remember there was one on Medbury near Chene before the area was decimate. That bar was totally surrounded by a neighborhood. This scenario was likely repeated throughout much of older Detroit.

What has happened since is that many neighborhoods were decimated by abandonment... and the bars likely closed... but their valuable liquor license was sold to others [[or the bars simply moved). So what you have now is a LOT of bars nearer the city limits. I believe that on the far east side the short stretch of Harper Ave. between Cadieux and Morang... there is something like 8 bars.

I'm curious to know the number of bars/liquor stores in Detroit in 1954 [[when there were 2 million people living in the city).... and that figure today... with 800,000+ people. Something tells me that the number hasn't dropped significantly.... because who wants to throw away a valuable liquor license?? And you can't transfer it out of the city!

[wolverine]

That is a nice GIS study. I remember we did these small projects in U of M Planning.

It's just some nice factual data, but nothing worth a heavy discussion or debate. The fact is, similar cities will likely return similar results. It's just a truth of urbanized areas. There's more quantities of X good when there's more people. Alcohol is a common good along with Milk, bread, cereal, etc. So you'll find it everywhere and within close distance.

The studies get more interesting when you analyze hard to find products. How many people are within x miles of a car dealership? A bike shop? A fitness center? That's when you get some very telling results that can describe a city.

[trotwood]

thank god!

rotfl!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~

[agirlintheD]

THAT far? %#$#$#@$!

[Blarf]

I like the people who preach about "keeping drugs off our streets" don't have a problem with liquor stores everywhere selling alcohol, which is a drug. I love double standards.

[Russix]

I like the people who preach about "keeping drugs off our streets" don't have a problem with liquor stores everywhere selling alcohol, which is a drug. I love double standards.

Like how the Partnership for a drug-free America is heavily funded by pharmaceutical, tobacco and alcohol corporations?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partner...g-Free_America

[kryptonite]

Aha! So this is the reason I'm in Detroit so often! My city has no pubs, only one liquor store and a Kroger. Kryptonite likes to belly up to a bar - a dive bar preferably. Congratulations Detroit!

[Carey]

I'd be willing to bet there are a lot fewer bars in Detroit than in 1954. In a long-ago class at WSU, I stumbled across the numbers of bars in Detroit in the late 19th Century. While I can't recall the precise number, I remember being surprised because it was in the 500s -- much like today.

Call up a Yellow Pages phone book from the early 1950s at the Burton Collection and you'll be jarred by the huge numbers of everything in Detroit back then -- thousands of cleaners, hundreds of hardware stores, hundreds of new car dealers..even dozens of esorteric-sounding businesses that dealt with machines and factories, such as belt manufacturers, etc.

[Hypestyles]

despite being .7 miles away from a liquor store.. the same cannot be said of grocery stores..

[56packman]

liquor-lotto-loosies

[Danny]

Those Liquor Stores were built in the ghettohoods of Detroit for a reason:

1. To oppress the low-income and poor folks to remain the their institutions without walls.

2. To break and harden their hearts and spirits.

3. To break their families apart and create domestic violence.

[professorscott]

Those Liquor Stores were built in the ghettohoods of Detroit for a reason:

1. To oppress the low-income and poor folks to remain the their institutions without walls.

2. To break and harden their hearts and spirits.

3. To break their families apart and create domestic violence.

Interesting thesis. I wonder why there have been liquor stores built in Sterling Heights and West Bloomfield. Somebody apparently has decided it's profitable to oppress the high-income and rich folks, to break and harden their hearts and spirits, and to break their families apart and create domestic violence.

Of course, one possible reason there are more liquor stores in Detroit than in [[say) Sterling Heights is that there are more people in Detroit than in Sterling Heights. Just a thought.

When your kindly old professor was Mayor Pro Tempore of Berkley, he was rather proud that nobody in Berkley had to walk anywhere close to a mile to get their supply of hooch. Never occurred to me that this was any kind of a problem. Walking to the liquor store is very "green", of course, and if it's your second trip of the day there are other reasons to keep the jalopy in the driveway.

[xphillipjrx]

One has to remember that in Detroit in the mid 20th Century there were bars actually IN neighborhoods.

The neighborhood bar is one of the coolest things about Chicago. Take a drive through Lincoln Park. You will see bars smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood. You'll also see three times as many corner buildings that used to be bars and are now used for residential or office. I can only imagine how it used to be when all those places were in business at the same time.

[Leroy Hoard]

despite being .7 miles away from a liquor store.. the same cannot be said of grocery stores..

People have to drink more to forget things like this.

[Detroitnerd]

Those Liquor Stores were built in the ghettohoods of Detroit for a reason:

1. To oppress the low-income and poor folks to remain the their institutions without walls.

2. To break and harden their hearts and spirits.

3. To break their families apart and create domestic violence.

This is ridiculous. Lots of Bible-thumpers and unctuous city council people have been railing against "vice" for years. And you start to wonder where it all comes from. It's almost as if they have no idea what their city is. It's like when Talabi rushed out to a new liquor store that was opening on the East Side to protest against "vice" and try to shut the place down -- and found that the owner had been doing business in the neighborhood for a generation, and had already gone door to door asking residents to sign on with approval of a new, modern, well-lighted store, which they did! If they'd spend less time trying to charm ministers and holy rollers and actually engaged the community, they'd find that PEOPLE ENJOY DRINKING, and are not impressed by people bullying them from the pulpit about "vice."

I was reading today something from Maryann Mahaffey years ago, about a proposal to keep bars open till 4 a.m. [[like New York, or Chicago, or lots of other cities!). Mahaffey said, "I don't want my city, which has always been known as a family city, to be known as Sin City," she says. "I'm interested in attracting families and children."

Now, I know some families in Detroit and I respect them and their choice to live here, but, reading that quote, one wonders just how out of touch Mahaffey was to say such a thing. ... And, more disturbing, she's the NORM when it comes to Detroit pols...