suburban urbanization...

[hybridy]

with all this talk of detroit getting its transit plans in order-the metro region can reignite its attempts to grow as a whole. with that said, no suburb can attempt to replicate detroit's assets, however detroit's sprawling counterparts needs to agressively plan for a future where residents/visitors have a variety/price of housing/retail/transit or be left to further abandonment among other ills. i'm not so much interested in already thriving areas, downtown grosse pointe/royal oak or partridge creek mall either-but interested in the potential of other recent attempts/examples:
-pavilions of troy - more potential with housing/office/retail/hotel component aka reston town center in reston, va
-warren's town center
-birmingham's triangle district
-st clair shores nautical mile

while these areas remain dominated by the automobile, they have so much potential to be populated by civic spaces, public art, mixed-use developments, and possible transit connections in a new urbanist fashion which help to ensure a city's vitality and success

[Detroitnerd]

Well, homebuyers are willing to pay a premium to live on the old Woodward side of Birmingham as opposed to the other side of Woodward. The only thing is that remaking these environments into pedestrian-friendly spaces is very expensive and often prohibited by code and zoning rules. Ironically, lots of the regulations intended to keep pedestrians safe are the same ones that infringe on walkability and promote vehicular supremacy.

[dtowncitylover]

i'm not so much interested in already thriving areas, downtown grosse pointe/royal oak or partridge creek mall either-but interested in the potential of other recent attempts/examples:

What, since when did Partridge Creek become a thriving downtown? It's still a mall surrounded by a parking lot. Whether or not it's outside, it's not urban. Birmingham is a thriving downtown, which is why I don't understand you placed under "potential or other recent attempts/examples", when it's been that way.

[hybridy]

What, since when did Partridge Creek become a thriving downtown? It's still a mall surrounded by a parking lot. Whether or not it's outside, it's not urban. Birmingham is a thriving downtown, which is why I don't understand you placed under "potential or other recent attempts/examples", when it's been that way.

haha, i didn't mean to group the two...
i think we should explore ways to urbanize "sprawling suburbs" - bham n r oak excluded
im stating that the creek is not what suburbs should do to retain/attract residents

[BrushStart]

I was actually at the Fountain Walk in Novi today for the first time since it was built, and can I just say, WOW. What an epic disaster. Whoever planned that thing should really just quit working. Massively complicated parking lots and egresses, none of the buildings have windows, you can't figure out where anything is. It tries to emulate an urban space, yet none of the businesses are adjacent. It is ugly as hell and half of it is totally abandoned. Just a bizzare layout of concrete squares at different angles. It honestly looks more like a very complicated prison complex than it does a shopping center. The whole things is so large that most people would never walk through the outdoor cooridors, but are more like to drive around it to get from one side to the other. Overall, it makes absolutely no sense in any way, whatsoever. I don't say this often [[or ever), but they would have been better off building a strip mall. That's how bad the Fountain Walk is.

If this is an example of suburban urbanization, then it is destined to fail.

[Red Devil]

I was actually at the Fountain Walk in Novi today for the first time since it was built, and can I just say, WOW. What an epic disaster. Whoever planned that thing should really just quit working. Massively complicated parking lots and egresses, none of the buildings have windows, you can't figure out where anything is. It tries to emulate an urban space, yet none of the businesses are adjacent. It is ugly as hell and half of it is totally abandoned. Just a bizzare layout of concrete squares at different angles. It honestly looks more like a very complicated prison complex than it does a shopping center. The whole things is so large that most people would never walk through the outdoor cooridors, but are more like to drive around it to get from one side to the other. Overall, it makes absolutely no sense in any way, whatsoever. I don't say this often [[or ever), but they would have been better off building a strip mall. That's how bad the Fountain Walk is.

If this is an example of suburban urbanization, then it is destined to fail.

Yeah, Fountain Walk is a colossal disaster & joke. I'd even venture to say it is the most poorly designed shopping center in America, if not the world. But hey, at least it brought Hooters to Novi. What they SHOULD have done was make something like Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga, CA, but that probably wouldn't be possible with 12 Oaks across the street [[i.e. 12 Oaks has all the decent "mall" stores).

[eastland]

haha, i didn't mean to group the two...
i think we should explore ways to urbanize "sprawling suburbs" - bham n r oak excluded
im stating that the creek is not what suburbs should do to retain/attract residents

"the creek is not what suburbs should do to retain/attract residents?"
I'm sure there are 50 suburbs in the metro area that would give anything to have a Partridge Creek type-development.

[SaintMe]

I'm sure there are 50 suburbs in the metro area that would give anything to have a Partridge Creek type-development.

Not mine . . .

[DetroitPlanner]

St Clair Shores and Birmingham look pretty urban to me as it is. Most of Warren looks urban too, except for the set-backs to all those enormous factories.

[shovelhead]

Yeah, Fountain Walk is a colossal disaster & joke. I'd even venture to say it is the most poorly designed shopping center in America, if not the world. But hey, at least it brought Hooters to Novi. What they SHOULD have done was make something like Victoria Gardens in Rancho Cucamonga, CA, but that probably wouldn't be possible with 12 Oaks across the street [[i.e. 12 Oaks has all the decent "mall" stores).

Yes Hooters came to Novi. And it almost cost the city dearly.

You see, just after the previous debacle [[Sandstone and a 65 MILLION dollar damage award against the city of Novi) and settlement of said damage award the "forward" and "moral" city council decided that Hooters should NOT get a liquor license, after they were promised one. After being denied a couple of times, and Hooters threatening a court case, city council finally ok's the license.

Poor planning is a trademark of Novi. Family on both sides there back into the 30's, personally lived there on and off from the early 50's thru 79, out of state until the late 80's until '04, when we finally had enough of poor city services, poor planning, selective ordinance enforcement, and general head in the sand due to putting the cart before the horse so to speak with poor planning. Let's see, when Twelve Oaks first opened in '77, Novi Road was still TWO lanes north of Grand River. How's that for planning? That road was built piecemeal for years afterwards.

Twelve Mile was not improved until the late 90's and how about Grand River between Haggerty and Novi Road? That stretch was master planned in the late 60's to be a five lane highway, not just asphalt covering over a 1920's concrete base. Before I-96 was opened in the late 50's, overcrowding on Grand River was handled by a temporary lane on the south side of the roadway which was removed after the expressway was completed.

My uncle had a gas station at the "four corners" and as a youngster in the 50's I still remember the backups on Grand River, not to mention when Paragon Steel was in full swing in the 60's, Wixom Assembly too.


How the city planning commission allowed Fountain Walk? Well the developers usually got anything they wanted with little or no input from the city. Just a rubber stamp "ok".
Last time I paid attention to that "destination mall" they were going to reconfigure it, tear down Dick's Sporting Goods and relocate them. Last time I drove by, DIck's was still there. Some redesign was done IIRC, but the last time I stepped in there was 05, a bunch from work met at Hooters. Contrary to city council, my morals were not shattered, that happened years before....

Rant over, hasn't been my problem for seven years.......

[Hermod]

........but the last time I stepped in there was 05, a bunch from work met at Hooters. Contrary to city council, my morals were not shattered, that happened years before....

.

We had a Hooters within walking distance of us. It lasted a year and went out of business. How you can fail with a Hooters is beyond my imagination. Someone replaced it with a sports bar which has been doing OK.

[canuck]

We had a Hooters within walking distance of us. It lasted a year and went out of business. How you can fail with a Hooters is beyond my imagination. Someone replaced it with a sports bar which has been doing OK.

Maybe the beer was flat, maybe some other things were...

[terryh]

Yes Hooters came to Novi. And it almost cost the city dearly.

You see, just after the previous debacle [[Sandstone and a 65 MILLION dollar damage award against the city of Novi) and settlement of said damage award the "forward" and "moral" city council decided that Hooters should NOT get a liquor license, after they were promised one. After being denied a couple of times, and Hooters threatening a court case, city council finally ok's the license.

Poor planning is a trademark of Novi. Family on both sides there back into the 30's, personally lived there on and off from the early 50's thru 79, out of state until the late 80's until '04, when we finally had enough of poor city services, poor planning, selective ordinance enforcement, and general head in the sand due to putting the cart before the horse so to speak with poor planning. Let's see, when Twelve Oaks first opened in '77, Novi Road was still TWO lanes north of Grand River. How's that for planning? That road was built piecemeal for years afterwards.

Twelve Mile was not improved until the late 90's and how about Grand River between Haggerty and Novi Road? That stretch was master planned in the late 60's to be a five lane highway, not just asphalt covering over a 1920's concrete base. Before I-96 was opened in the late 50's, overcrowding on Grand River was handled by a temporary lane on the south side of the roadway which was removed after the expressway was completed.

My uncle had a gas station at the "four corners" and as a youngster in the 50's I still remember the backups on Grand River, not to mention when Paragon Steel was in full swing in the 60's, Wixom Assembly too.


How the city planning commission allowed Fountain Walk? Well the developers usually got anything they wanted with little or no input from the city. Just a rubber stamp "ok".
Last time I paid attention to that "destination mall" they were going to reconfigure it, tear down Dick's Sporting Goods and relocate them. Last time I drove by, DIck's was still there. Some redesign was done IIRC, but the last time I stepped in there was 05, a bunch from work met at Hooters. Contrary to city council, my morals were not shattered, that happened years before....

Rant over, hasn't been my problem for seven years.......

Do you remember the ruralness? There must have been some farms out that way.....I remember seeing a movie theatre under develpment out that way in the middle of nowhere..literally surrounded by trees and fields...now that same country area is overdeveloped...so sad...

[Red Devil]

We had a Hooters within walking distance of us. It lasted a year and went out of business. How you can fail with a Hooters is beyond my imagination. Someone replaced it with a sports bar which has been doing OK.

The best Hooters I've ever been to also went out of business. It was down in Newport Beach, CA by the harbor. I imagine they just couldn't make enough to pay the rent, which I bet was astronomical. The entire wait staff was composed of bikini and fitness models, many of whom were surgically enhanced. Totally blew every other Hooters out of the water.

[Hermod]

The best Hooters I've ever been to also went out of business. It was down in Newport Beach, CA by the harbor. I imagine they just couldn't make enough to pay the rent, which I bet was astronomical. The entire wait staff was composed of bikini and fitness models, many of whom were surgically enhanced. Totally blew every other Hooters out of the water.

Some years back, I was in Huntsville, Alabama on business. Heading for the airport, i stopped at a Hooters to get some lunch [[not wanting to pay airport prices). It was a total dive with over-aged and over-weight waitresses. I thought that i had wandered into the state fair swine judging tent by mistake..

[rhythmc]

^ this made me laugh.

[DetroitDad]

^ this made me laugh.

The only Hooters I have been to was in Huntsville, Alabama. I just figured they were keeping it real....

[DetroitPole]

St Clair Shores and Birmingham look pretty urban to me as it is. Most of Warren looks urban too, except for the set-backs to all those enormous factories.

I think SCS and Birmingham are fine communities, but only in Metro Detroit would they pass for "urban." Especially SCS - I mean, it's got to be what, 90% single family residential structures?? What makes it urban? Sidewalks?
I understand the conclusion though, given that some of the inner ring eastern suburbs are virtually identical to the east side of Detroit. However most big cities don't look like that.
I also think they look urban to us relatively speaking to the new developments of the outer sprawl burbs that are just mazes of subdivisions connected to 50 mile per hour highways.

[Magnatomicflux]

SCS has 5,472.3 people per square mile. I would think that's pretty urban.

[Red Devil]

SCS has 5,472.3 people per square mile. I would think that's pretty urban.

Not on Detroityes. Detroit is the measuring stick by which all urbanity is measured. Just by not having the name "Detroit", SCS is classified as a sprawled out, lifeless, soulless suburb filled with racist whites, big box stores, and Chili's. What's funny is that Detroit isn't even that urban anymore. There are at least 20 LA suburbs that are now more dense than Detroit.

[hudkina]

A city like St. Clair Shores can easily be retrofitted to become more urban. It already has a somewhat urban "center" at 9 Mile and Mack Ave. The problem is that it has been decimated by city planners trying to accomodate the automobile.



But if the city decided to establish a grid and remove all surface parking, it could easily become one of the region's premier urban nodes:



Granted, for urbanization to truly work, the city would need to add more than just commercial retail. It would need to add office buildings and hundreds [[if not thousands) of residential units. It would also help if it was connected to the rest of the region via light rail. For example, a LRT line along Mack Ave connecting it to the Grosse Pointes as well as Downtown.

[fryar]

You can also just hide the surface parking, at least in some cases.

[fryar]

Here is some interesting food for thought with regard to this discussion.


As has been mentioned on this thread and elsewhere, codes and prevailing mentalities are probably the two biggest obstacles to getting something like this done. I don't know what the codes actually specify, but this seems like a sufficiently major change to the overall picture that I can only imagine it does not comply. Meanwhile, with regard to the mentality, this kind of thinking probably needs to overcome knee-jerk rejection - after all, it impacts the visibility of that McDonald's.

[bailey]

Here is some interesting food for thought with regard to this discussion.


As has been mentioned on this thread and elsewhere, codes and prevailing mentalities are probably the two biggest obstacles to getting something like this done. I don't know what the codes actually specify, but this seems like a sufficiently major change to the overall picture that I can only imagine it does not comply. Meanwhile, with regard to the mentality, this kind of thinking probably needs to overcome knee-jerk rejection - after all, it impacts the visibility of that McDonald's.

Well, I agree that codes...and more importantly, the blue haired olds that run city council meetings to ensure those codes never change...are a problem. But isn't THE problem the dearth of NEED of new commercial, residential or office space? I mean taking the SCS 9 mile and Mack intersection as an example; Yes, doing the above would make it more urban, but where is the demand driving that retro fitting? You already have depressed real estate, empty storefronts and empty movie theater there, what is adding MORE capacity going to do? Further isn't adding more of this urbanity in the 'burbs the exact opposite of what is preached here about the need for DETROIT to be the urban core?

To me it would seem that what you are describing above should be done along woodward in Detroit around the various McDs and Popeyes. forget trying to make SCS more urban, get Detroit to actually be more urban first.

[hybridy]

Here is some interesting food for thought with regard to this discussion.


As has been mentioned on this thread and elsewhere, codes and prevailing mentalities are probably the two biggest obstacles to getting something like this done. I don't know what the codes actually specify, but this seems like a sufficiently major change to the overall picture that I can only imagine it does not comply. Meanwhile, with regard to the mentality, this kind of thinking probably needs to overcome knee-jerk rejection - after all, it impacts the visibility of that McDonald's.

funny you mention that...in madison, wi mcdonalds sued and won a judgement because of new pedestrian bridge blocking its sign

http://host.madison.com/wsj/business...cc4c03286.html