Quote Originally Posted by Detroitnerd View Post
I think the main difference is that, with these efforts in the mid-city area, we are talking about subsidizing families, individuals, and supporting a dense area with lots of small, independent businesses using existing buildings.

The classic blunder in Detroit has been to cater only to big players, especially downtown. No scheme is too outsized. No campus is too gated or closed. Pesky old building in the way? We'll knock it down! Old streets mean the lot's too small? We'll tear it out, or let you build right over it! We want bigger, newer, closed-off developments all connected by a series of tubeways so that nobody need walk on the street. So you end up with stuff like the RenCen, the Millinder, Cobo, Ford Field, Comerica Park: Places where you go in, and you don't need to leave for anything, vertically integrated, as shut off from their surroundings as an arcology or an airport. And the downtown itself cut off from surrounding neighborhoods by a moat of concrete. What has this done for downtown? Has it added much to street life? Probably the best thing they've added is Campus Martius Park, which is an actual public space where you can hang out right downtown. The rest? Obscene late-20th century crapola, designed for Jetsons.

In contrast, what's being done in the mid-city area is a lot more interesting. I get the sense that Detroit's leaders are only beginning to understand it. In the coming years, the real challenge will be taming Wayne State University, a classic big Detroit player that wants to build big buildings where we're starting to see a bit of density and diversity and an appreciation of the human scale of the early 20th century infrastructure and architecture.
Couldn't agree more.WSU and the hospitals are going to be trying their damndest to make their own super-campus in the next 10 years. If they spent as much money on advising students as they did trying to figure out what streetwalls to demolish for parking and greenspace, it would solve some problems.

I also agree with Hamtragedy that the neighborhoods are not getting sufficient help. There are so many cops downtown that I can't help but believe half of them could be patrolling areas that need that extra safety right now. The infrastructure in neighborhoods is crumbling fast. No one is watching, and Bing isn't even talking to city council, apparently.

Still, I think focusing most of the development and "buzz" on a hot area is inevitable, it happens in every city sometimes.