And we're certainly no ones Emerald City

[iheartthed]

Ed Glaesar compared and contrasted the trajectories of Seattle and Detroit:

For 50 years, economists have documented that urban reinvention and entrepreneurship rely on small companies and industrial diversity, not industrial monoliths.

At the start of the 20th century, Detroit was one of the most innovative cities on earth, with an abundance of small automotive entrepreneurs supplying each other with parts, financing and new ideas.

As the Big Three rose to dominance, Detroit became synonymous with urban decline. Boeing’s outsize footprint in Seattle set the stage for the city’s 20 tough years after 1960.

Before the industrial revolution, cities were centers of small, smart companies that connected with each other and the outside world. Small companies and smart people are the sources of urban success today. The industrial city now seems like an unfortunate detour during which cities exploited economies of scale but lost the interactive exchange of ideas that is their most important asset.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/20...er=rss&emc=rss

That explains the Detroit conundrum in a nutshell.

Last week I attended an event here in New York that was hosted by the University of Michigan's Center for Entrepreneurship. It was one of two related events, the other event being held in San Francisco. As far as I know, there was no comparable event held in the Detroit area, or in Michigan at all for that matter.

The keynote speaker at the event was the guy who is the head of NYC's department for entrepreneurial development. His message was essentially that New York's strategy of economic development prioritizes quality of life issues over all else. There was a guy in the audience who tried to grill him on the city's tax structure and the speaker did acknowledge how burdensome it is, but effectively brushed it off as a less pressing issue especially considering the precarious time that municipal budgets are going through nationwide. The speaker also juxtaposed the New York of today against the New York of the 1970s and 1980s, during which NYC went through a period of disinvestment parallel to what Detroit was going through at the time, and noted how disastrous it was to the entire region's economy.

[Detroitnerd]

Meanwhile, Detroit's plans seem to hinge on big developments, superblocks, parking garages, pedestrian tubeways, sealed-off campuses, big-ticket items. Last I heard, Can you say, "regressive"?

[iheartthed]

Meanwhile, Detroit's plans seem to hinge on big developments, superblocks, parking garages, pedestrian tubeways, sealed-off campuses, big-ticket items. Last I heard, Can you say, "regressive"?

Someone in the replies wrote a pretty good answer to that phenomenon too. It would be nice if someone could fact check, but it makes sense:

Um, why is there no mention of land value taxation?
Economics and land use are all about incentives. Since the 50s, the urban incentive all over America is to disinvest in central cities and create parking lots in place of actual multi-square foot urban structures. Where, for taxation purposes, urban structures are valued at a higher rate than the underlying land, the incentive has been to create cheap parking lots of expensive multi-level structures and avoid improvements entirely. Witness urban cores all over the US.
In Seattle, on the other hand, structures are taxed at a lower rate than the underlying land thus incentivizing maintenance and improvements. It makes no sense to create an expensive parking lot out of a comparatively cheap building.
So, even though central Seattle felt the suburbanization pressures of the 50s - 70s and consequent lower occupancy rates in the CBD. There was little pressure to demolish tall buildings because, for tax purposes, it made little sense. Henry George lives.
Now your analysis makes sense.

[vetalalumni]

Meanwhile, Detroit's plans seem to hinge on big developments, superblocks, parking garages, pedestrian tubeways, sealed-off campuses, big-ticket items. Last I heard, Can you say, "regressive"?

Maybe "build it and they will come" infrastructure focus could work - review some examples. In the 90's Pittsburgh was attracting young folks energy and the software dot-com industry was vibrant. Boulder, Austin, San Diego, Pheonix, Atlanta, Tri-cities, Orlando all attracted venture capital in abundance. Entrepreneurial failure was risked and acknowledged as a requirement of innovation. Key elements were 25-45 year old entrepreneurs, venture capital [[often "old money" needing a growth environment) and hungry young people under 40 willing to work for stock options etc...

[Don K]

As long as I've lived in the area [[going on 33 years now), Detroit has tried to rely on megaprojects [[RenCen, Poletown plant, etc.) for revitalization. This focus fits in with the incentives of politicians [[they love to be present at splashy groundbreakings and ribbon-cuttings - the reason they love building new roads and hate maintaining the ones we've got), but more than 30 years of experience should tell us this is not the way to go.

The Detroit area has spent the last 35 or so years pining for the good old days of the 50's and 60's, hoping that the Big Three can make it happen again. Well, in my opinion, while Ford, GM, and Chrysler will remain large employers here, they aren't going to drive the economy forward. The next stage of Detroit's evolution, if it happens, will come from some kid at U of M, or MSU, or Wayne State who has an idea and can get the money to make things happen.

[Fury13]

As long as I've lived in the area [[going on 33 years now), Detroit has tried to rely on megaprojects [[RenCen, Poletown plant, etc.) for revitalization. This focus fits in with the incentives of politicians [[they love to be present at splashy groundbreakings and ribbon-cuttings - the reason they love building new roads and hate maintaining the ones we've got), but more than 30 years of experience should tell us this is not the way to go.

The Detroit area has spent the last 35 or so years pining for the good old days of the 50's and 60's, hoping that the Big Three can make it happen again. Well, in my opinion, while Ford, GM, and Chrysler will remain large employers here, they aren't going to drive the economy forward. The next stage of Detroit's evolution, if it happens, will come from some kid at U of M, or MSU, or Wayne State who has an idea and can get the money to make things happen.

That's a great post... concise, insightful, utter truth.

[vetalalumni]

... The next stage of Detroit's evolution,... will come from some kid ... who has an idea and can get the money to make things happen.

Hopefully something like that will happen without the fear of failure overwhelming or repelling new ideas. Multiple failures typically preceed success.

[ghettopalmetto]

The Detroit area has spent the last 35 or so years pining for the good old days of the 50's and 60's, hoping that the Big Three can make it happen again. Well, in my opinion, while Ford, GM, and Chrysler will remain large employers here, they aren't going to drive the economy forward. The next stage of Detroit's evolution, if it happens, will come from some kid at U of M, or MSU, or Wayne State who has an idea and can get the money to make things happen.

And that can only happen if said "some kid" doesn't move to Chicago first.

In other words--focus on Quality of Life issues. The rest will follow.