Louis Aguilar [[Detnews) Provides Ammo To Those Who Fight Back Against Detroit Trolls

[TTime]

As you say, people have whatever reactions they have, but "hasn't changed a bit in 10 years" is objectively wrong, and that true is even if you discount restaurants, coffee shops and yoga studios, although I don't really see why discounting them is appropriate, as they represent a significant improvement. On the other hand, it is certainly true that it is easy to overstate where things currently are, and one danger is that people listen to the hype and then are disappointed by the reality. On the third hand, the reality really is improved, and improving.

The reason discounting a few new restaurants is appropriate is simply because this guy lives in a town where many new 20 story buildings pop up and no one brags and new restaurants open constantly . The other thing I didn't mention was the person who mentioned the new restaurants knows the city enough to realize we have lost "a few" of the old restaurants he used to go to. One example was," oh I guess Oslo is gone." ...but it has obviously been replaced by Cornerstone Barrel House which in my opinion is a great spot, it isn't overhyped or overpriced and the crowd and staff are good. I also liked Oslo.

[mwilbert]

The reason discounting a few new restaurants is appropriate is simply because this guy lives in a town where many new 20 story buildings pop up and no one brags and new restaurants open constantly.

Which is a perfectly good reason for not being overly impressed by the changes downtown, but which is not an explanation for your friends, who apparently had in fact been familiar with the downtown of decades past, not recognizing that there have, in fact, been significant improvements. If you evaluate downtown by the standards of a normal largish city, it isn't impressive, and I don't know many people who would say that it is. If you evaluate it relative to its state of the past couple of decades, and its trajectory of the previous few decades, it is kind of amazing.

[TTime]

Which is a perfectly good reason for not being overly impressed by the changes downtown, but which is not an explanation for your friends, who apparently had in fact been familiar with the downtown of decades past, not recognizing that there have, in fact, been significant improvements. If you evaluate downtown by the standards of a normal largish city, it isn't impressive, and I don't know many people who would say that it is. If you evaluate it relative to its state of the past couple of decades, and its trajectory of the previous few decades, it is kind of amazing.

Amazing? People have done amazing things in this world but what has happened Downtown recently isn't one of those things and if you want people to take this town seriously stop grossly exaggerating. I'm done commenting on this.

[mwilbert]

Amazing? People have done amazing things in this world but what has happened Downtown recently isn't one of those things and if you want people to take this town seriously stop grossly exaggerating. I'm done commenting on this.

That is good, because it means I won't have to disagree with you again.

I do not think I am exaggerating, and I do think what has happened downtown is amazing. I think your comment about seriousness is misplaced. As other people have said, basically no one is saying how great downtown is, because they recognize that by normal standards, it isn't great. If people were saying that, it might not seem very serious. But a completely serious person should recognize that it has come a long way from where it was.

Did you spend any time downtown in the mid 80's, say a year or two after Hudson's closed? It was desolate, and there was no sign of improvement for years. You can completely legitimately say that the developments of the past 15 or so years are inadequate, that there are still tons of problems, that the foot traffic is nothing like it should be in a downtown, that real estate values are still low, that there are still incredible numbers of surface parking lots reflecting that and blighting the streetscape, that there is still very limited retail, etc.,etc.,etc., but it seems to me that it is probably about as big a step from desolation to where it is now as it would be from now to a more-or-less functional downtown. I'm not completely confident that will happen--what has already happened was pretty surprising, and we may not get another positive surprise, but at this point at least things are moving in a direction which they absolutely were not thirty years ago, and which frankly it was hard to imagine thirty years ago if you weren't an insane optimist.

Really all you need to know is that a fair and seemingly increasing number of people who have other options want to live downtown, in actual residential buildings that aren't in fortresses on the waterfront. If you had told someone that would be the case in 1985, they would not have believed you.

[ABetterDetroit]

Which is a perfectly good reason for not being overly impressed by the changes downtown, but which is not an explanation for your friends, who apparently had in fact been familiar with the downtown of decades past, not recognizing that there have, in fact, been significant improvements. If you evaluate downtown by the standards of a normal largish city, it isn't impressive, and I don't know many people who would say that it is. If you evaluate it relative to its state of the past couple of decades, and its trajectory of the previous few decades, it is kind of amazing.

Amazing is the perfect adjective for what I was conveying in my earlier post.

Taking part in the "let's look at what is happening in San Francisco, Seattle Toronto or New York and compare them to Detroit" is so utterly pointless simply because none of these other cities are Detroit. Not singling out any one individual, but countless posters who hate, joke or troll about Detroit have done it endlessly for years on this forum using these stupid comparisons. Yet, I have not once ever seen anyone on this forum who doesn't harbor the above feelings imply anything other than there is still a whole lot of work that needs to be done. Decades worth in fact, but we can be excited about progress.