Midtown - too much, too little, or the right amount of attention?

[mwilbert]

While I can't disagree with your point, I don't think that is going to happen. From previous threads I'm pretty sure we disagree on how much money the city has, but however much it is, it is going to be less soon. I don't expect any significant improvement in general city services for the foreseeable future.

My theory is it is better to have some areas with adequate services and some areas with minimal services than all areas with quarter-assed services. I would then like to encourage people to move to the areas with adequate services. I don't expect everyone to agree with this.

[Russix]

While I can't disagree with your point, I don't think that is going to happen. From previous threads I'm pretty sure we disagree on how much money the city has, but however much it is, it is going to be less soon. I don't expect any significant improvement in general city services for the foreseeable future.

My theory is it is better to have some areas with adequate services and some areas with minimal services than all areas with quarter-assed services. I would then like to encourage people to move to the areas with adequate services. I don't expect everyone to agree with this.

Uniform services is the way to go. I don't expect the city to polish my garbage can nor should anyone else.

[Road_warrior]

Well the New Center council plan routes over to Anthony Wayne. I meant continuing this south of Warren on 2nd ave. I'm not really sure if dedicated Busway/Bikeways are worth the expense.

They are attempting to make 2nd and 3rd south of W Warren two-way streets again. Mario's Restaurant is fighting 2 way traffic for 2nd because they will lose the ability to illegally park valet cars on all over 2nd avenue.

[texorama]

I think the biggest need in reversing Detroit's catastrophic population losses is to establish a good-sized neighborhood that is generally recognized as vital and safe at most hours. Midtown has the potential to be that, but it's not there yet. Accordingly, I would dump even more resources into it, policing it more heavily and prosecuting even minor crimes. Think along the lines of Rudolph Giuliani's attack on the squeegee men in New York, which yielded big benefits all across the board. Drawing 50,000 or so prosperous residents into Midtown would do more for the rest of the city than any allocation of government resources elsewhere.

[Fnemecek]

My theory is it is better to have some areas with adequate services and some areas with minimal services than all areas with quarter-assed services. I would then like to encourage people to move to the areas with adequate services. I don't expect everyone to agree with this.

The problem with that theory is that the debt load that we've accumulated over the past several decades still remains in place with fewer and fewer people to support it. The end result is that the adequate services are only temporary before additional cuts have to be made in order to accommodate those debt payments.

It's not worth moving people all over the city, if we're just going to have to move them again in 2 or 3 years.

[ThisIsForTheHeart]

If Midtown could relocate a major clothing store say from Somerset mall, I think Midtown would gain a good amount of attention and hopefully create a domino affect on having other stores leaving the mall and coming to midtown.

[canuck]

If Midtown could relocate a major clothing store say from Somerset mall, I think Midtown would gain a good amount of attention and hopefully create a domino affect on having other stores leaving the mall and coming to midtown.

I was thinking would it be possible to lure some Co-op type supermarkets and businesses along Midtown / New Center's main thoroughfares?
Are there any? If major chains are not present, then Co-ops might be interested in getting close to
a consumer base like farmers do at Eastern Market?

Wayne State and the Ford Hospital are key players in attracting businees in the area and they could foster restaurants on and off campus that provide good food and value. These institutions could act as anchor stores in a shopping mall concept. Maybe?

[English]

Midtown needs more after-dark policing on secondary streets.

For instance, during fall semesters, one of my courses is in Old Main. My assigned parking garage on that end of campus is the Studio One/University Tower structure. Last fall, there was a string of robberies on Cass between Hancock and Forest. I'm dressed like a professor [[not too fancy, but definitely professional and not shabby) and I am pulling a wheeled briefcase. I am what we used to call in hip-hop parlance "a mark" on the streets I used to walk without a care in the world. So starting in late October, I began paying to park in the lot across the street, or the lot next to Shangri-La. Every other lot in the vicinity is University owned and has a waiting list.

Do not tell me that I'm paranoid. A WSU instructor was shot last fall minding his own business, walking in Woodbridge. Now, 10 years ago, I wouldn't have walked to Woodbridge at night, but I certainly walked Cass from Willis north to 94, often and without a second thought. I met my grad student group at Circa. I walked home at 11 pm from Purdy-Kresge. Nothing ever happened to me. Today, there's more to do in Midtown, but the streets feel different after dark.

[mwilbert]

WIthout making any comment on the actual level of safety or lack thereof, I'm wondering if 10 years ago you were wheeling a briefcase? That would make me feel more vulnerable--no way to get away without losing the briefcase, and makes you look like you've got something good. I follow Don Juan's* advice: if I'm carrying something, it's in a backpack.

*You might be too young to have read any Castañeda, but this is perhaps the most plausible piece of advice ever given by Don Juan.

[canuck]

WIthout making any comment on the actual level of safety or lack thereof, I'm wondering if 10 years ago you were wheeling a briefcase? That would make me feel more vulnerable--no way to get away without losing the briefcase, and makes you look like you've got something good. I follow Don Juan's* advice: if I'm carrying something, it's in a backpack.

*You might be too young to have read any Castañeda, but this is perhaps the most plausible piece of advice ever given by Don Juan.

Especially as this bit of advice may have been peyotl or psilocybin induced... lol

[English]

WIthout making any comment on the actual level of safety or lack thereof, I'm wondering if 10 years ago you were wheeling a briefcase? That would make me feel more vulnerable--no way to get away without losing the briefcase, and makes you look like you've got something good. I follow Don Juan's* advice: if I'm carrying something, it's in a backpack.

This advice served me well during my years as a K-12 teacher and grad student. But 10 years ago, universities, teachers, and tenure-track faculty weren't being evaluated on their use of instructional technology. Without revealing what I have to carry, it's stuff that's way too heavy to put on my back unless I was a bodybuilder. So I was universally advised to get something to wheel [["Save your back!") and to pay the price-gougers to park right across the street or over next to the restaurant. I hated, hated, absolutely hated to do it, but this was "better be safe or be sorry" advice from profs who actually DO live in the city. I haven't lived here since '05 so I listened up.

Next fall, I'll try to use a folding shopping cart instead of the rolling briefcase. However, the stuff I need to conceal may be even more obvious. It may also get damaged.

I'm happy for this situation to be put back on the instructors/professors, but this isn't even a passing concern on some campuses [[campii?), even most urban research universities. A regular and visible police patrol from 7-9 pm would be great until you get more after-dark foot traffic in the North Cass area, especially when some of the businesses are drawing a different element into the neighborhood [[I'm talking about you, Starters -- love your food, love to patronize you, but all of the establishments in the Starters chain draw a 'hood clientele). My 'hood relatives and acquaintances didn't even use to come around Wayne State much. They joked about it and called where I lived "where the white folks and foreigners are." But then again, this was in the early 2000s, 200K people ago, and while Archer was still mayor. I just feel that as Midtown grows and prospers, and the rest of the city grows more desperate and desolate, we are setting ourselves up for a Brazil-like situation. If that's the case, and Detroit is going to have just the upper middle class and the very poor for a while, then the upper middle class needs to protect itself. Isn't that what happened in New York? What's happening in Chicago?

Midtown isn't yet a neighborhood where tens of thousands of young professionals universally feel that it's sufficiently safe to invest in, 24-7. The perception of safety during the evenings and weekends isn't quite there yet. Midtown can be kind of desolate outside of regular university hours, but when I was younger, it was an empty desolation. I'd walk all over the place on Saturdays or Sundays with friends, with my boyfriend, with my younger sibling, or even alone, and not even think about it. But as the rest of the city empties out, residents and businesses fleeing, you are going to get a desperate element. It's just what will happen, and what is happening.

As a former resident and current employee of Midtown, I believe that the neighborhood does contain the seeds for Detroit's revival. But let's make good use of those resources. I'm not saying cops on every block, but just temporarily and visibly let folks know that thugging and wilding out is NOT worth it in this area. You will get caught and there will be hell to pay. Then and only then will Midtown take off exponentially like comparable areas in other cities.

[Hypestyles]

... how many colleges/universities operate charter schools in town..

[EL Jimbo]

There's a balancing act to that, though. We still expect people outside of the target area to pay taxes at roughly double national averages. If we're going to expect them to continue to pay that much, we have to give them at least a basic level of services. Without it, those individuals leave the city, taking their tax revenue with them.

Without that tax revenue, it quickly becomes impossible to maintain funding in the target area.

Not necessarily. The whole point of consolidating into those target areas is because there are efficiencies found in providing services in a condensed area. In theory, services can be provided in the target areas at a much cheaper rate per capita. Thus, in many ways, any revenue raised from outside the target areas is "bonus" money that can go towards anything from debt reduction to vacant property demolition.

[Fnemecek]

Not necessarily. The whole point of consolidating into those target areas is because there are efficiencies found in providing services in a condensed area. In theory, services can be provided in the target areas at a much cheaper rate per capita.

Unfortunately, theory and reality don't always match.

The issue is that services citywide have been cut so deeply that the efficiencies in question are largely moot. Once you stop delivering services entirely, the costs don't get any cheaper.

Thus, in many ways, any revenue raised from outside the target areas is "bonus" money that can go towards anything from debt reduction to vacant property demolition.

That would only work if residents in the target areas were paying enough in taxes to cover the existing debt load as well as city services and administrative expenses.

[daddeeo]

Downtown has gotten the money for years. How about some dough for the neighborhoods?
I hear story and plan after plan by Kwame and Bing but never see results.
Pretty soon the city center will be surrounded by a dead zone where everyone has left.

[socks_mahoney]

What does everyone think of making 2nd Ave between Grand River and Grand Blvd a 2-way street again? Then adding bike lanes, the 23 Hamilton inbound route, and possibly some shuttles to cut the Hamilton wait time in half[[bus every 15min instead of 30min)???

The New Center Council is already implementing this between Grand Blvd and Warren[[Fall 2011), does the Cass Corridor Neighborhood Development Corporation have any plans to match this?

I've always thought the opposite. Close the street to traffic and make it a busses/pedestrians/bikes/other non motorized vehicles street. If you make Third a two way street, Cass and Third would be able to handle any traffic that comes onto second.

Obviously exceptions could be made for emergency vehicles and/or deliveries to businesses. Though deliveries could go up the alleys.

[tangerine]

the three most important things in urban redevelopment... critical mass, critical mass, critical mass

[corktownyuppie]

the three most important things in urban redevelopment... critical mass, critical mass, critical mass

Agreed.

Also, let's just assume that 19 out of 20 stories about Detroit in local, regional, state, and national media are negative. If Midtown is the one golden child that can show a respectable and up-and-coming part of Detroit to the rest of the world... I don't care if they get 10x more attention than East English Village.

[detroitbob]

The theory of closing streets and making it pedestrain only has failed in most instances...think State Street in Chicago. It has been reopened to vehicle traffic and has the big city feel again.

[kraig]

On this quiet Friday morning, I will pose this question:

Should the public and nonprofit sectors pour tons of money into Midtown as they have been doing?

The pro argument is that it is an up-and-coming area that is centrally located and has multiple attractions and big businesses.

But the flip side of that argument is almost the same - that when an area [[at least as currently drawn) has virtually all of the major cultural institutions [[library, DIA, Historical Museum), huge employers [[State of Michigan, DMC, and Henry Ford), a university, TechTown, and an inbuilt student population, it should be able to stand on its own two feet - since that is all any particular area of Detroit [[or any other city) could ever really hope for in terms of localized stimuli. The implication would be that money and effort should be put into some of the other 95% of Detroit's square miles.

Thoughts?

The short answer is yes. First off, there's not a part of Detroit that wouldn't deserve any attention that it receives. Secondly, anyone that's truly familiar with what midtown was 20-25 years ago can really appreciate how much the area has grown and developed within the past decade. To say there is a night and day difference is an understatement. Lastly, midtown deserves the attention it's receiving, due to the fact that it has a number of extremely active community groups that have commanded the attention that it's getting. The attention being received now is the result of a decades long struggle to receive that attention.

At some point I hope that the powers that be will give the same amount of attention to the rest of the city, particularly the eastside, while sustaining the attention to the parts of the city that is currently receiving some.

[kraig]

Agreed.

Also, let's just assume that 19 out of 20 stories about Detroit in local, regional, state, and national media are negative. If Midtown is the one golden child that can show a respectable and up-and-coming part of Detroit to the rest of the world... I don't care if they get 10x more attention than East English Village.

You may want to start caring. The mainstream media is always looking for the stories that Detroit doesn't want told. When they come to town, as soon as they're done with a Whole Foods type of story, they're looking to report on an abandoned, yet brand new, Welcome Center story. As soon as they're done reporting on asbestos removal from the Train Depot, they're looking to report on the Packard Plant. Everything matters.