  Thejesus Member Username: Thejesus Post Number: 2824 Registered: 06-2006 |
They quote Blair McGowan and also talk about how Troy office parks have no culture http://www.crainsdetroit.com/a pps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2007 1126/SUB/711260350/1070/-/-/po ntiac-the-last-frontier | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 3811 Registered: 10-2003 |
Ha! People are just into cities again. It's the truth! | ||
Thejesus Member Username: Thejesus Post Number: 2827 Registered: 06-2006 |
watch...by the time SE MI builds up all of these downtowns, the trend will have moved back to suburban office parks... always one step behind : P | ||
Alan55 Member Username: Alan55 Post Number: 782 Registered: 09-2005 |
Quote from article: "Texas-based EDS Corp. announced last month it is moving 2,300 jobs to the GM-owned Centerpoint business campus just outside downtown. " If anyone is familiar with Centrepointe Campus, it would make any office park in Troy look like a cultural urban garden spot. Centrepointe buildings are all-white two-storey office buildings surrounded by thousands of parking spaces. Centrepointe is suburbia just inside the city limits; by no means an urban experience. Good for Pontiac's tax base, but that's it. | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 3819 Registered: 10-2003 |
As somebody who worked in downtown Royal Oak for some time, and then moved into a nondescript suburban office building with nothing around it... Let me tell you, GO FOR THE CITY! I am constantly making futile comments about moving our offices, just in hopes some seed may be planted somewhere.  It's a miserable existence out here! | ||
Goat Member Username: Goat Post Number: 9964 Registered: 10-2003 |
The truth is you will have people who like the suburbs and will NEVER live in an urban area and you have people who want to live the urban experience. It is very hard and dare I say impossible to convert either one to the other. The dilemma is being able to attract those you want to attract and give them reasons to choose where and why they want to live there. Anything is a waste of time and money with little success to show for it. In a nutshell, build what people want for their respective areas. | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 3821 Registered: 10-2003 |
You can live in the suburbs and work in a "downtown" like Royal Oak. That's a great way to go, if you ask me. It is so nice to have some OPTIONS at lunchtime. You know what I do for lunch now? Nothing. It's not worth driving somewhere just to get crappy fast food. I just pack a lunch every day at sit here at my desk. In Royal Oak, I'd just go for a nice walk at lunch sometimes. Or window shop, or go to a restaurant. After a big project, we'd walk to a bar after work and celebrate. You know what we do here? Nothing. We drive home. | ||
Goat Member Username: Goat Post Number: 9969 Registered: 10-2003 |
^^^I agree with you on that^^. I could never understand putting buildings in the middle of no-where. | ||
Detroitrise Member Username: Detroitrise Post Number: 856 Registered: 09-2007 |
It gets on my nerves so much when I hear threads like this. SE Michigan has downtowns, and people want downtowns. Yet, the locos in this region continue to do things backwards, basically just turning suburbia into the city (which I feel isn't the best of ideas in the first place) instead of trying to help build up the downtowns we have. | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 402 Registered: 04-2006 |
^Uh, downtown Pontiac has been there for quite a while now... | ||
Treelock Member Username: Treelock Post Number: 240 Registered: 03-2005 |
I love the soulless, L-shaped office building with reflective green glass and ample parking in a suburban corporate office park with freeway access where I work. I feel so good whenever I approach the opaque behemoth in the morning. | ||
Detroitrise Member Username: Detroitrise Post Number: 859 Registered: 09-2007 |
"^Uh, downtown Pontiac has been there for quite a while now..." Uh yeah, I know that. However, Downtown Flint and mainly Downtown Detroit has been there and bigger for even longer. | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 404 Registered: 04-2006 |
And your point is...? | ||
Detroitrise Member Username: Detroitrise Post Number: 860 Registered: 09-2007 |
I'm still trying to figure out yours. Ok, I know that Pontiac has a downtown. Every city has a "downtown." Why did you need to remind me of that? | ||
Bearinabox Member Username: Bearinabox Post Number: 405 Registered: 04-2006 |
Your original post sounded like a critique of new suburban "downtowns" like the ones in Novi and Warren. I was just pointing out that Pontiac, an established city with a historic downtown, doesn't really fall under that category. And no, every city does not have a downtown. Troy? Sterling Heights? Southfield? | ||
Detroitrise Member Username: Detroitrise Post Number: 863 Registered: 09-2007 |
Did you even read my comments Bearinabox? Every city has a center of civic and commerce affairs. However, nothing compares to a center like Detroit for instance. If they're so "well established", then why is DETROIT servicing them their light and water? It's like Joliet building up their downtown all nice and big when Gary and Chicago are "right down the street". Centralization is my point. | ||
Yaktown Member Username: Yaktown Post Number: 266 Registered: 02-2006 |
Bear, don't bother arguing with 'rise. Every thread he posts in is the same old boring tripe:Detroit is the only city in the entire state apparently. Please don't feed the troll. Back on thread, I think the gist of the Crain's article was pointing out how affordable and plentiful downtown Pontiac is and how businesses are re-discovering it. | ||
Rocket_city Member Username: Rocket_city Post Number: 476 Registered: 04-2006 |
Too bad Oakland County uses Pontiac as its Crapper. | ||
Gsgeorge Member Username: Gsgeorge Post Number: 358 Registered: 08-2006 |
Detroitrise, have you ever even been to Pontiac? It has a large, old, walkable core with some gorgeous historic structures and one of the best Deco towers in the region. Surrounding neighborhoods are dense, with older housing stock similar to that found in Woodbridge and Hubbard Farms. It's definitely not suburban, even though the DETROIT burbs have surrounded it completely. Development in Detroit isn't the only thing that will pick Michigan back up off its ass. Pontiac is the northern anchor of the region and can work in tandem with Detroit's rise. | ||
Scooter2k7 Member Username: Scooter2k7 Post Number: 25 Registered: 10-2007 |
As far as Macomb County goes the only true downtown is Mount Clemens. Romeo and Richmond have Main Streets and have history but are more of village center. The problem with Macomb County is that it is the poster child of suburbia. Cities like Warren, Sterling Heights, Roseville were created in the 50s as an alternative to Detroit. Today newer areas like Shelby Township and Macomb Township are nothing but big box stores and over priced houses that all look the same. In Macomb Township they are planning a Macomb Town Center with a township hall, rec center and a walkable downtown with shops and houses. The hall and rec center are built and the homes are being constructed. The problem is it is in the middle of corn fields. It will be a great downtown, in 2057! | ||
Gsgeorge Member Username: Gsgeorge Post Number: 359 Registered: 08-2006 |
PS - the article made me feel really good about Pontiac. I grew up there and endless bike rides through the city throughout my childhood have seen it rise from a run-down ghetto to a thriving community, and the improvements downtown have been drastic. I'm looking forward to Pontiac's future. | ||
Jeduncan Member Username: Jeduncan Post Number: 152 Registered: 11-2006 |
I hate the term "Office Park." it's a contradictory term. Fredrick Law Olmstead would puke. | ||
Jeduncan Member Username: Jeduncan Post Number: 153 Registered: 11-2006 |
PS, if you haven't, read "The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man Made Landscape." it goes into nauseating detail of why suburbia, though initially a prosperous concept, is a terrible undertaking. | ||
Dan Member Username: Dan Post Number: 1462 Registered: 10-2003 |
Pontiac is part of Metro Detroit, and as a region we must rise, the city-suburb debate is tired and old, and helps nothing. We are all Detroiters in the eyes of the world. Charlottenburg is Berlin, Pontiac is Detroit. Lets move on, and push all our cities, and neighborhoods. | ||
Luckycar Member Username: Luckycar Post Number: 58 Registered: 02-2007 |
The empty buildings in downtown Pontiac need to be filled,now!Why couldn't Google have been given the buldings?With all their cash they could haved moved right in and updated the Phoenix Center Buildings.Instead they searching around Ann Arbor for a "suitable location".This would bring the 1,200 workers back downtown that GM took out.Plus the walking traffic/ food and drink action will pick up. | ||
Mwilbert Member Username: Mwilbert Post Number: 8 Registered: 11-2007 |
I guess the question is: is the Centrepoint area close enough (spatially or psychologically) in order that people working there actually help the downtown core of Pontiac. Downtown Pontiac has a lot of potential. It is quite attractive and has lots of buildings that look to be either still in use or usable and it should have good prospects for redevelopment. The great thing about a place like that is that is is small enough that one major business moving in makes a visible difference--it kind of reminds me of downtown Lowell MA, which is now pretty viable, after having been pretty awful 30-40 years ago. What I don't know is whether this particular event will do much to further that--of course to the extent it improves Pontiac's finances, it is a good thing. | ||
Thegryphon Member Username: Thegryphon Post Number: 4 Registered: 11-2007 |
Mwilbert, Good thinking w/ finances! How can a city (YES CITY) like Pontiac move forward with out steady or at least stable finances. It helps to have an clean city government, and do something to the Amtrak station! That station can be a vital asset, but as of now it is unattractive, and home to some "interesting" loiterers. I live north of Pontiac and the closest Amtrak (or any train station for that matter)station is Pontiac. A lot of the time, people see Pontiac thru that station. Make it more presentable and people will be more willing to check out the rest of the city. | ||
Treelock Member Username: Treelock Post Number: 243 Registered: 03-2005 |
It's interesting to note that in terms of building stock, downtown Pontiac is maybe half of what it once was. The city, aided by decisions to move county government operations to a sprawling complex on the fringes of town and redirect traffic on a state road to a loop around the CBD, has inflicted one enormous blunder after another on that poor downtown. The former Oakland County courthouse once stood at the corner of M-59 and Saginaw and resembled the stately Wayne County building in downtown Detroit. Today's it's surface parking. Then, years later, they erected a butt-ugly district court building kitty corner. The Saginaw Street Diner, I think it's called, has an excellent collection of framed historical photographs of downtown Pontiac that really gives a sense of the architectural grandeur that has been forever lost. | ||
Gsgeorge Member Username: Gsgeorge Post Number: 363 Registered: 08-2006 |
Treelock, good point. Lots of good architecture lost in the construction of the Loop. Also, whose idea was it to construct that NASTY ASS concrete microwave tower? It's the tallest structure in the city. Looks like some massive guard tower, blank facade, cages and satellite dishes atop it. Get rid of that thing!•• | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 5816 Registered: 08-2004 |
I believe that originally suburbs sprang up in the 19th century, when places like the suburbs of congested London England were a way for middle class folks to have healthy living outside of the congested central city, and have it along one of the main rail likes going into the city and employment. That was the way suburbs were initially planned anyway (Pontiac/Mt. Clemens had their rail lines to Detroit)... but things have gone amiss since WWII. But the advent of mass produced automobiles turned suburbs from a spoke type of development (with open green spaces between) to massive sprawl in all directions. Unfortunately, Detroit is not only partly responsible for sprawl (due to the automobile industry), but also has one of the worst cases of sprawl anywhere. | ||
Novine Member Username: Novine Post Number: 288 Registered: 07-2007 |
"Unfortunately, Detroit is not only partly responsible for sprawl (due to the automobile industry), but also has one of the worst cases of sprawl anywhere." I don't think that's true. Look at places like Las Vegas or Phoenix to see sprawl on steroids. But unlike those cities, where a least some of that sprawl growth has been captured within the city limits, Detroit's sprawl has been almost entirely outside of the city and at the expense of the city. That's the real difference between Detroit (and similar NE and Midwest cities) and other cities in the South and West. | ||
Thejesus Member Username: Thejesus Post Number: 2857 Registered: 06-2006 |
the sprawl in metro Detroit wouldn't be so bad if we hadn't moved businesses, office towers and sports stadiums out of the city along with the neighborhoods... We'd still have a strong economic core even with subdivisions located out at 31 mile road if all the businesses in Troy, Southfiled, Auburn Hills, Livonia, etc. were all located in a single central location |
