Quote Originally Posted by rb336 View Post
The real threat was the possibility of moving to the Palace. After all this, people still can't get it through their skulls that this deal isn't really going to cost the city a damn thing, or, at most, very little, and it rids the city of a huge, empty plot of nothing. a plot of nothing for which, to my knowledge, nothing was ever planned
Just because it's being built on a plot of nothing doesn't mean it's a prudent planning decision. Detroit's downtown has a spatial continuity problem because of the freeways and stadia inhibits strong residential and business districts from growing. Really, it's an issue of desirability and freeways and stadiums are incompatible uses with residential and even offices in an urban context. People don't choose to be near their teams or have good freeway access next to where they live. People choose neighborhoods that have street life on a daily basis and storefronts instead of blank walls and overpasses.