I think my assumption isn't that fixing detroit is going to make Michigan better. The world's economic climate, and America's corporate and government response to it is making michigan worse. Detroit is the last to feel these effects. However, whatever hurts detroit is going to hurt all of michigan, even the suburbs, and in most cases already has. Detroit has been big enough to absorb the economic blow that has hit the rest of michigan since flint started to die in the 80's. The auto industry has already hit most of michigan, see the plants getting shut down in flint, saginaw, and in pontiac, up woodward, past ducky's. It's not going to hit detroit til last because that is the biggest pool of available labor, and closer to transportation lines. With all the companies moving out of Michigan, not just detroit, the whole state is in trouble. Shit, the whole state shutdown last fall because it was not getting enough tax revenue from, detroit, or suburb and everywhere else. The problem I have with the whole City/Suburb argument is that neither side realizes the problem isn't the annoying person in the next apartment, its the fact that the building is on fire. We're about to see the North American International Auto Show go to L.A. because we can't decide where to build a new convention center (Novi or where Cobo is). The leadership on both sides seem to both be elected on their track record of hatred of the other side, and their track record of not giving in an inch. It makes as much sense as these heated union negotiations , all it does is make business want to go elsewhere. One side has to win, it just needs to happen.
In my opinion, the side that needs to win needs to be detroit. It just makes sense, they have two border crossings with Canada, they have an airport, they have a central downtown, a few world class universities (nothing against OU) and they have all that infrastructure that make for any kind of urban development, (roads, pipes, electricity underground). Infact, if the auto industry takes a step back there may be a chance of having a public transit system in detroit becasue of the way the streets are laid out that could actually move people around efficiently like most big cities. This is the big reason why It doesn't make sense to have Oakland county or any other suburb become more developed. If we try to move too many more businesses out to the suburb the traffic and gridlock will be worse than L.A. (with more construction and winter snow plows) and no hope for an effecicent rail plan like in NYC, Chicago, or even Boston. Grand Rapids, and Ann Arbor, while probably more progressive and aesthetically appealing than detroit, both lack the hundreds of thousands of people who could work at a job if provided.
Detroit, and michigan, is on the map because it was a place where people with little experience or education could get a job building cars and live a middle class lifestyle. For detroit, and for michigan in general there needs to be a way for these people to get jobs, or else everybody will lose.
4 comments:
well, if you want to create jobs for unskilled labor, there's no better way to do that than to expand infrastructure on a massive scale--somewhere that it hasn't already been done. lay pipe, build roads, put up mid-rise office buildings--somewhere else.
detroit is dead. unless you can get the state to level everything that doesn't have a purpose--which would require getting competent urban inspectors to make those certifications--it's not going anywhere. detroit needs to be taken on like Sim City: level anything that isn't (a) of 1980's vintage or later, or (b) currently occupied.
if the state isn't getting enough tax revenue, perhaps it needs to cut back on its spending. cut back on entitlement programs. these are growing pains that are admittedly painful, but imminently necessary.
look at it objectively. if you want to build a new convention center, where will the businesses and people who have the money to infuse the sort of capital required to sustain such such an operation want the place to be located?
Novi.
but that notwithstanding, what do you need to do FIRST? clear out city hall and put in place a regime ruled not by one man or one man and his cronies, but by a professionalized elected organization.
in short, you want to fix detroit, clean it up. you want the rest of the state to care about detroit, give the rest of the state a vote in its mayoral election.
How can you have massive infrastructure expansions in the counties surrounding detroit and simultaneously cut back on government spending. Private investment companies aren't putting money into real estate because of the credit crisis and the bursting of the housing bubble. There is a house on wattles and kensington that got burned to the ground because the developer ran out of money and tried to collect insurance.
Detroit is getting leveled, check out the open lots that the city has for sale. http://www.ci.detroit.mi.us/Departments/PlanningDevelopmentDepartment/RealEstate/PublicBidSales/FirstComeSaleVacantResidentialLotsInFill/tabid/1683/Default.aspx I could own property for less than I paid for my tv.
Most of this stuff is outside the center middle area of the city where they stopped leveling and started building. There are a ring of highways down there within which there is more police presence, newer buildings, and less blight. Directly outside of that is immediately a lot of nothing, room for more buildings, and then after that, its regular detroit. There are only vacant lots and new buildings if you take woodward across 75 just past comerica park. What used to be there was an office building that used to be used by the motown record label, they leveled it for the superbowl. They are starting in the middle and moving out, leveling, building, leveling, building, and Tiger Stadium is next.
But whatever, downtown Detroit is still too messed up for any young professional to move there, so the revitalization has not came yet. The suburbs aren't exactly sure on their future either. Which is the most important? Southfield? Novi? Troy? Dearborn? No business wants to be stuck in the middle of no where and all of those places are easily a half hour drive away from each other during business day traffic. It seems like there is no plan anywhere for any kind of development, everybody is letting everything decay from the start of Woodward in Detroit, to the end of it in Pontiac the county seat of Oakland County. My mom's new studio is right in the middle of the loop with a view of the phoenix center and three tall office towers, and a little bit of the amtrak station. Every building in her view is completely empty. Its like I am legend. Summit Mall is a tragedy and that is just a few blocks from the L. Brooks Patterson and the county offices. Infact, aside from woodward from 8-16, oakland county is not doing that nice, and I doubt Macomb, or Wayne is doing that much better.
The whole way Michigan supports itself is drying up, dying. Yet leadership in the city and the suburbs both act like there is a great big pie to slice up and all they have to do is make sure they get more than their neighbor.
i guess i haven't been really clear on what i think is actually the real question here: what do you do with a large urban center when it dies?
privatize!
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080531/NEWS06/805310336
Post a Comment