Dispite Poor U.S economy, Detroit among BEST for job growth.

[gthomas]

I just left from Chicago and notice similarities there as same as ours, losing population, lose businesses, and retail in the center of downtown and surrounding neighborhood. The difference between us as cities are : Detroit focus more on the negative and continue to find more things wrong with city, but no solution.
I watch the news there in Chicago and most of the news is about downtown and encouraging all the good things happening despite the decline I've seen there and it was alot.
All we know in Detroit is the negative aspect and dispite all the bad news I will bring up a little signs of our economy IS approving and GROWING.

: BCBS 3,000 more employees downtown, total 6,000
Renaissance center 92% occupancy rate
Quicken Loans bringing another 2,000 more employees by year end
other Entities of Quicken Loans, total 10,000 by 2013
More residential development throughout the whole city
More Development in Midtown/Downtown interest from National Chains recently
New Modern Schools
Lightrail?
Borders Headquarter relocation Downtown?
Technology companies hub [[WEBward)
Strong interest for International border and riverfront development
New paved roads and greenway development

Detroit has seen pretty nice things around with many more...I believe. Im doing my part to bring business here to Detroit. I've been traveling taking business trip to New York, Chicago, and I'm going to California toomorrow morning. Im meeting with community organization, investors, artists, to either to business here and relocate and bring people and jobs here to Detroit. I see opportunity, its paying off for me. Stay tune Detroit..

[RaumVogel]

See this like http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...-go-in-Detroit

Nothing attracts businesses better than desparate people willing to work for nothing!

[Bham1982]

Metro Detroit has been performing quite well over the last year or so. Quite a bit better than Chicago, in fact [[relative employment and housing trends, not absolute).

I have brought this up in other threads, and others are skeptical, claiming that a region can't prosper without a prosperous core city.

I would argue the last half-century indicates otherwise.

And this recent prosperity has nothing to do with light rail, BCBS, Quicken, etc.

It's the dramatic reversal of fortune for manufacturing in general and the Big Three in particular.

[Detroitnerd]

I have brought this up in other threads, and others are skeptical, claiming that a region can't prosper without a prosperous core city.

I would argue the last half-century indicates otherwise.

Thanks. I hadn't had a good laugh today yet.

[Bham1982]

Thanks. I hadn't had a good laugh today yet.

Not sure where you've been this past half-century, but the relative rise of suburbia has been a global phenomenon.

It's hardly unique to Detroit or Michigan, and it doesn't seem to have any relationship with regional prosperity.

[Detroitnerd]

Not sure where you've been this past half-century, but the relative rise of suburbia has been a global phenomenon.

Not so. Nowhere but in North America have things been this way. All kinds of subsidies and provisions for suburbia, car culture, individual home ownership, broad-brush zoning, increasingly large houses, increasingly long setbacks, prohibitions on mixed use, associations government, industrial dispersal policy, etc. But you wouldn't know or care about much of that, would you?

It's hardly unique to Detroit or Michigan, and it doesn't seem to have any relationship with regional prosperity.

Oh, there is a relationship. Sometimes it's a prosperous city, with prosperous suburbs and even some exurbs. Then there is another way a region can be organized: Suburbs can feed off the city. Over a half-century, flush with new buildings, new freeways, new sewers, new everything, and all subsidized, they can cherry-pick a once-great city bit by bit, poaching businesses, residents and all the political and financial power that go with them. Meanwhile, the city gets saddled with the poor, redlined, polluted, corrupt and left for dead.

After a half-century of poaching off a city that's increasingly moribund, perhaps some suburban residents can sit back and think that they built their city on a hill, that it was all their hard work that paid off in blissful suburbia. Actually, all they did was shift the same shit from one place to another, leaving behind a rotting urban core and pitting 140-odd governments against each other for a shrinking piece of the pie.

Guess what? Reckoning Day is coming soon. It's already here. Increasingly, our glorious little "communities" can't pay their bills. You know, a lot of the places you imply are "performing quite well"?

[iheartthed]

Of course Detroit is now having a faster rate of growth... Because no region can match how far it fell over the past decade! Even the Sun Belt cities whose economies were propped up by sprawl construction have yet to see the type of job losses that Detroit experienced in 2000-2009.

[Bham1982]

Not so. Nowhere but in North America have things been this way. All kinds of subsidies and provisions for suburbia, car culture, individual home ownership, broad-brush zoning, increasingly large houses, increasingly long setbacks, prohibitions on mixed use, associations government, industrial dispersal policy, etc. But you wouldn't know or care about much of that, would you?

This isn't true. Suburbs have been growing everywhere, from Seoul to Sao Paulo to Frankfurt. Regional economies have been decentralizing for a half-century now.

And whether or not there are subsidies that favor suburbanization is irrelevent to whether or not suburbanization affects relative growth rates.

[Detroitnerd]

This isn't true. Suburbs have been growing everywhere, from Seoul to Sao Paulo to Frankfurt. Regional economies have been decentralizing for a half-century now.

Suburbanization as it happens in North America is a NORTH AMERICAN phenomenon. Huge roads, freeways, interconnectors, broad-brush zoning, massive subdivisions, cul-de-sacs, private cars and "loser cruisers" is about as exclusively American as you get: Gold-plated suburbs at the expense of the city, 3,000-square-foot houses. You are going to tell me that subs are going up the same in Macomb County they are in Frankfurt? While over the last 50 years the trend in developing countries has been for rural residents to pour into the cities?

You don't seem to have the faintest idea what you're talking about.

And whether or not there are subsidies that favor suburbanization is irrelevent to whether or not suburbanization affects relative growth rates.

So, if you pour subsidies into one mode of living, that is not relevant when determining its relative growth? Hahaha. Hahahaha. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Thanks for the laughs today, Bham.

[BrushStart]

Metro Detroit has been performing quite well over the last year or so. Quite a bit better than Chicago, in fact [[relative employment and housing trends, not absolute).

I have brought this up in other threads, and others are skeptical, claiming that a region can't prosper without a prosperous core city.

I would argue the last half-century indicates otherwise.

And this recent prosperity has nothing to do with light rail, BCBS, Quicken, etc.

It's the dramatic reversal of fortune for manufacturing in general and the Big Three in particular.

God. Do you ever stop with your endless trolling? I starting reading the OP's message and had this feel-good moment, and then my eyes ran right into your tiresome drivel. Just awful. You're always trying to proooove something. Give it a rest already.

[1KielsonDrive]

I think the heading of this thread was job growth? Hmmmmm? Phew, I was worried for a moment that someone was going to get hurt. Anyway, back to my cynical comment. Yeah, $8.00 an hour job growth. That's the job growth that politicians will trumpet but not qualify. "We got all this job growth...........!!!! Yay![[shhhhhh, don't tell those former auto workers they're now going to get a job paying $8.00).

[EL Jimbo]

The suburbs will cease to be a safe haven for the middle class by decade's end. Rising fuel costs will simply make mid 20th century suburban living unaffordable for all but the wealthy. I know some people will scoff at our current fuel prices being inflated by speculators, but even when the economy was at its lowest in 2009, the $1.99 a gallon I was paying was still twice as much as the $0.99 I was paying in 2000. 100% inflation in a decade [[at the minimum, currently it is 400%) on one commodity is definitely a trend.

Face facts. Pretty soon, suburbs and other auto-centric areas will simply not be sustainable.

[Bham1982]

Suburbanization as it happens in North America is a NORTH AMERICAN phenomenon. Huge roads, freeways, interconnectors, broad-brush zoning, massive subdivisions, cul-de-sacs, private cars and "loser cruisers" is about as exclusively American as you get: Gold-plated suburbs at the expense of the city, 3,000-square-foot houses. You are going to tell me that subs are going up the same in Macomb County they are in Frankfurt? While over the last 50 years the trend in developing countries has been for rural residents to pour into the cities?

Everything you wrote is both false and irrelevent.

Rural folks and immigrants are moving to metro fringes worldwide; they aren't moving to city centers. Mexico City and Buenos Aires haven't grown in decades. Paris is smaller than at any point in over a century.

And I never claimed that Macomb County = suburban Frankfurt. I said that the entire planet has decentralized over the last 50 years, which is indisputable. You might have heard of this thing called the automobile. Last I hear, it's widespread use gives folks mobility.

So, if you pour subsidies into one mode of living, that is not relevant when determining its relative growth? Hahaha. Hahahaha. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

This is wrong, and not close to what I wrote. Please read before commenting.

I claimed that the world has decentralized while gaining prosperity, and you claimed that the U.S. subsidies sprawl, and therefore the world isn't decentralizing nor gaining prosperity. Logical fail.

Obviously, it's irrelevent why folks are decentralizing when the issue is only determining whether or not they're decentralizing.

Quite simply, I don't think you understand the distinctions between questions of "whether or not", "how" and "why".

[Bham1982]

Face facts. Pretty soon, suburbs and other auto-centric areas will simply not be sustainable.

What about those "facts" in the most recent Census? You know, the one showing suburbs growing and cities declining?

Are those "facts" irrelevent?

And gas prices were much higher on a relative basis in the 70's, the decade of Detroit's greatest population loss. I guess Detroit is much denser and more "sustainable" now, right?

[drippyhollows]

Detroit could be very nice.... if Grand Bvrd was the new city limits. The east side was liquidated and relocated to the east side of Woodward and within E. Grand Bvrd. Talk of 200K more residents in the next 10 years leaving Detroit could make that easier. Depopulated eastside could become a legitimate forest area. New Deal style deconstruction. Side streets removal, abandoned structure demolition, reforestation. A metropark type situation wouldn't even be an unwelcome situation. Campgrounds and such. Those aforementioned activities could create jobs for some of the 12K or so being dropped from the dole. Provide them the education, know how, so on and so forth. Skills.... E. Grand Bvrd and inward to downtown could be the destination for residents moved out of the depopulated zone. Name the neighborhood Paradise Valley for the sake of nostalgia. Surround the community with the types of social services such a population requires. Keep it centralized. Add Indian Village and West Village to the police repopulation areas. The west side of Woodward Midtown is already gentrifying and expanding its population. Woodbridge, the community very near New Center, Wayne State, Corktown, Downtown... Create a nonstop chunk of relative affluence. If South Cass was rehabilitated they could almost connect the dots. Get rid of the tenements and motels along Peterboro and the surrounding streets. Jeffries East being gone smoothes the path. Make this area a reasonable place for students and young professionals to settle. The outer most areas of W.Grand Bvrd. Well... its as close to urban prairie as can be. Perhaps new subdivisions. Serious police presence. If enough money returns to the area i would expect shopping would follow as well. Algebra of need.
More likely the entire west side would remain within the jurisdiction of Detroit. However, I could see the University district, Palmer Woods, Sherwood Forest and the surrounding areas being able to be successful breakaway communities. East English Village may as well and Rosedale Park Grandmont. Highly unsuccessful areas on the westside would probalby do well by transitioning back to nature until a better use could be determined.
Im not an urban planner tho. Just bored and rambling.

[EL Jimbo]

What about those "facts" in the most recent Census? You know, the one showing suburbs growing and cities declining?

Are those "facts" irrelevent?

And gas prices were much higher on a relative basis in the 70's, the decade of Detroit's greatest population loss. I guess Detroit is much denser and more "sustainable" now, right?

You are right, but my point is that gas prices are rising MUCH faster than inflation. If this trend continues [[as I think it will) gas prices will reach up to near the 1973 levels in the near future. As I said before, gasoline prices have gone up over 400% in the past 11 years. Total inflation for the entire economy has gone up 400% since 1973 [[38 years). I think this clearly shows just how much fuel inflation is outpacing inflation in general.

To reach the levels of the oil embargo, fuel prices would have to get to $7. I don't think it will get there for a bit, but even if gas gets over $5 a gallon this summer [[possibly even $6) you are going to start seeing catastrophic impacts to the economy and people's travel decisions. Also, unlike the Oil Crisis of 1973, prices aren't likely to go down like they did then. High prices are here to stay. People will adapt. Suburbs will die.

Furthermore, a census is really telling the story of the past. It really isn't a good predictor of the future [[just ask Detroit city planners of the 1950s). Sure it can be used to identify trends, but trends don't always stay the same.

[Richard]

Detroit has seen pretty nice things around with many more...I believe. Im doing my part to bring business here to Detroit. I've been traveling taking business trip to New York, Chicago, and I'm going to California toomorrow morning. Im meeting with community organization, investors, artists, to either to business here and relocate and bring people and jobs here to Detroit. I see opportunity, its paying off for me. Stay tune Detroit..

I would agree that there have been some nice things happening within Detroit but also pretty much everything that is happening is because of internal investment the ones that have the funds are grabbing the opportunities whether its because they have the funds or their projects include enough protocol for fed funds.

Before anybody packs up and moves their company anywhere they will do some basic research which would include contacting the Gov and city and county representatives, here in lies the problem as pretty much every other city usually has a 24 hour response time when a email is received whether it be as simple as a zoning check or even a question for the mayor even Mr Gilbert has a company policy that all email inquiries must be responded to.

When you cannot get answers to simple questions and phone voicemail's are constantly full you kinda think and wonder who needs the headache and if a city official cannot even answer a simple zoning question it becomes a big deterrent .

IMHO While I would commend you for the outside of the box thinking aspect in what you are doing I would be very careful as it could easily backfire,maybe take a little bit of time for some research and "pretend" that you wish to bring or relocate a business to the city make the inquiries and look at the results.

The reason I say this is because I am trying to bring a business to Detroit and am finding it is a extremely protected city that seems to have an almost distain towards outsiders coming into that click. Funny though the one business person that everybody seems to dislike the most has been the most help to me in navigating through the BS and offering assistance.If I was not so damn stubborn I would have walked months ago.

[313WX]

Im not an urban planner tho. Just bored and rambling.

That's obvious.

How would you convince your tax base which largely resides outside of the Boulevard loop [[thousands of people still live on the eastside) to voluntarily [[because we know the city doesn't have any money to offer them) give up their homes they've worked hard to maintain and move into the Boulevard loop? Then if they don't voluntarily move into the Boulevard loop how exactly will the city function with the lost of its remaining tax base by cutting them off the grid?