New Large Medical Warehouse in Midtown!!

**dmike76** · May-30-12, 02:46 PM

What would you suggest be done with that area, Detroitnerd? If all it is is a bunch of old railroad tracks and empty petroleum and manufacturing buildings, then I'm all for it. I love sarcastic comments with no solutions or valid ideas to back them up.

The joint effort with the Detroit Medical Center and Cardinal Health, a Dublin, Ohio health company, will build a large medical warehouse to the area just west of the Ford and Lodge freeways, on land pock-marked with old railroad tracks and empty petroleum and manufacturing buildings.

**Detroitnerd** · May-30-12, 03:01 PM

Originally Posted by dmike76

What would you suggest be done with that area, Detroitnerd? If all it is is a bunch of old railroad tracks and empty petroleum and manufacturing buildings, then I'm all for it. I love sarcastic comments with no solutions or valid ideas to back them up.

I call bullshit. Just because you think a plan is pedestrian or shitty doesn't mean the onus is on little ol' you to think up a better plan. I know a lot of well-meaning boosters love to try to use the why-tear-down-without-building-up fallacy to shush people who think we can do better, but I'm afraid I'm not impressed.

Whatever. Want to give up 300 acres of street grid? It's a wonderfully quixotic street grid that could be rebuilt the way it was platted someday, but once the grid is obliterated it can't be brought back. Detroit has good bones for redevelopment, but not as long as we keep sweeping them away to get 140 jobs. I'm sure it breaks down to gaining about three or four jobs for every block lost. I have no doubt that this plan will go through, and that in 100 years these inorganic forms will be dead zones where nobody wants to build because it wasn't built to human scale. That's cool. Detroit's tough. It can take another couple hundred acres of abandoned warehouses and baking asphalt.

Eds and meds can be good for cities. But when you look at someplace like the Medical Center, personally, on every level other than economic activity, that place is awful. I'd never want to spend more than a moment there. If that's the current vision for cities, I think, yeah, we can do better.

**Wheels** · May-30-12, 03:17 PM

Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

It's a wonderfully quixotic street grid .

Definition of QUIXOTIC. 1: foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially: marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action

Nice argument!

**Detroitnerd** · May-30-12, 03:22 PM

Originally Posted by Wheels

Definition of QUIXOTIC. 1: foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially: marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action

Nice argument!

Haha. Yeah. Tell that to the West Village. I never could make sense of the streets on the west side south of 14th Street in Manhattan. But the results were often interesting. Narrow streets that turned onto unexpected blocks, shade-dappled lanes that opened onto busy thoroughfares. The decaying warehouses of the meat packing district, now home to fabulous nightclubs.

But that's OK. What the hell. Lay out large, prefabricated warehouse buildings in nice open parking lots with wonderful, wonderful four-lane thoroughfares. It will have all the beauty and luxury -- and practicality!! -- of Macomb County.