  Detroitstar Member Username: Detroitstar Post Number: 934 Registered: 01-2006 |
need some homework help! I am bringing this discussion here because I believe parking lots are major scars to the core of the city, and as I look at certain locations, I see loads of potential! It's no secret that Detroit has an overabundance of surface parking lots in the downtown core. I spent several nights in January checking out the different aspects of our parking oasis. I looked at everything from location, usage, surroundings, and potential impact, among other things. I am currently writing a paper to identify the potential that is contained within these lots. My goal is to identify a short list of lots that contain the most potential positive impact for the city. Obviously these places will never be developed overnight, and most of them will be around for decades. My goal is to make a point as to the lots that should be the focus of development efforts. Rules: -Hudsons Block does not Count -Site History does not count (i.e. M-L Hotel lot only valid for other reasons) -Sites with proposed developments (i.e. Monroe Block) are disqualified I'm curious what the know-it-alls of Detroit Yes think about this! (Message edited by detroitstar on February 11, 2008) | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 1871 Registered: 07-2004 |
The classic "parking lot city" was Greensboro, N.C., if I remember correctly. | ||
Hornwrecker Member Username: Hornwrecker Post Number: 1976 Registered: 04-2005 |
 Parking lots in the 1930s CBD Red = surface Purple = garage | ||
Rocket_city Member Username: Rocket_city Post Number: 594 Registered: 04-2006 |
There are a lot of parking lots on the west side of downtown in the vacinity of 211 W. Fort that I always imagined would be a great spot to put a corporate tower, possibly a new tallest, that would heavily impact the skyline. The corridors include Washington, Fort, Cass, Lafayette, and a few others. | ||
Dougw Member Username: Dougw Post Number: 2056 Registered: 11-2003 |
Hornwrecker will leave it as an exercise for the reader to fill in the same map with red and purple for the 2008 CBD. | ||
Hornwrecker Member Username: Hornwrecker Post Number: 1977 Registered: 04-2005 |
... or see which ones have remained parking lots, in continuous operation for over 70 years. Save our historic parking lots! | ||
Detroitstar Member Username: Detroitstar Post Number: 935 Registered: 01-2006 |
The lot that sticks out to me with the most positive potential is the one next to the Holiday Inn Express, at Lafayette and Washington. A parcel of that size and location will be very desirable in the near future. With plenty of pre-existing parking in that area and plenty of urban infrastructure already in place, I think it would have an immediate impact on the neighborhood. I cant speak as to what I would like to see there, but I think it is a versatile site. | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 5035 Registered: 10-2003 |
Some of those parking lots cost more to purchase and develop than beautiful existing buildings downtown. Especially if the owners find out Ilitch might want to build an arena on them. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 1872 Registered: 07-2004 |
Go here and click on "parking". Ooooh, it isn't pretty! http://www.detroit2005.com/map o/main_area.html | ||
Thegryphon Member Username: Thegryphon Post Number: 41 Registered: 11-2007 |
Parking in a central downtown is not a phenomenon unique to the D. Looking at google maps, cities like Pittsburgh, Cleveland & St. Louis also have an abundance of surface lots. Unless all of those who commute or visit the city spontaniously decide to talk a bus or move to the D there will always be a need for parking. Surface lots are the cheapest by far, followed by structures, & my personal fav. underground structures. With the latter 2 being so expensive, why not have the city offer tax credits to develop underground structures &/or above ground ones. Or what is wrong with have ground level retail/commerical space to add to the streets (city ordinance (: )? | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 1873 Registered: 07-2004 |
Disingenuous piffle. People decide "spontaneously" to take mass transit when governments subsidize it, instead of subsidizing auto traffic. Jeez, you think the entire population of New York just fuckin' woke up one day and said, "I'm selling my car and taking the subway instead?" Like I said: Piffle. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5127 Registered: 10-2004 |
One must have to be a compleat idiot (and consummate socialist, in this case) to expect Detroiters, who have plenty space for parking cars both at work and at home, to have to live as those have to do in a restricted NYC. Those in NYC don't have many reasonable car ownership possibilities. That's why many there don't have any vehicles. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 1874 Registered: 07-2004 |
The government in New York City does not make it its business to encourage individual car ownership, and especially discourages single-occupancy car traffic coming into the city. In Detroit, the government makes sure lavish subsidies are showered upon individual car ownership and that the private, often single-occupancy car is the dominant way to enter the city. That's the point. Nobody just got up one morning and decided to do things a certain way. It is the result of decades of public policy.  | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 2664 Registered: 04-2006 |
Does anyone know how many parking spaces there are downtown? | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 3884 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: Yeah, New York is SO restricted, with all the shit you can walk to within 5 or 10 minutes. They must be stupid over there or something. Detroit has the right idea, giving people freedom to drive miles and miles in every direction. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5128 Registered: 10-2004 |
The primary reason for only (what is the figure?) 6,000 Detroiters to live downtown is because not much more than that want to. Truly vibrant locale, right? Every major city should be as crowded... Another idiotic notion is to enforce rail service downtown for all that activity and population density. Is that how the new-urbanist socialists reason? Oh! I get it--I think... If socialists sock it to the populace by taxing them so that your comrade Trots can have their urban toys, then other fools would naturally follow your example and live downtown? Is that the message. Apparently it's not getting across,though. Perhaps, you should buy some time on the electronic media in order to sell that lipsticked pig. However, downtowners in Detroit could have plenty of available parking spaces--if they actually wanted to live like that. At least our Detroiters have choices. How has it happened that the socialists get to choose how others should live? Oh, I see... They haven't quite gotten that power to dictate to others yet, and are acting out as how they would if they only could. As if that time is long overdue. How sad... In SW Detroit, I have two groceries within three blocks, plus several others if I choose to walk further. While having a car, I almost always walk within a mile or two anyway. Drug stores are close, and there are so many take-out or sit-down restaurants nearby, I'd have to take the time to enumerate them all. Convenience stores abound. Plenty of dollar stores, too. Several pizzerias, and not just the chain variety. For some reason, barber shops and beauty parlors are sprouting like mushrooms. Did I mention mom-and-pop bakeries? Several of them within a mile. And 6 Mbs broadband Internet. Even street lights that work. In fact, one never turns off. And an added plus, pheasants and woodchucks selected us for their neighbors. We're not prejudiced... But here in SWD, we have something that those in NYC (or DC) would have a bit of difficulty finding close by--our own auto salvage yards for cheap parts for our vehicles that boo-hoo downtowners everywhere are usually lacking. But, I forget. Owning a car is beneath the new urbanists. A mortal sin, in fact... | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 3886 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: Choices? Such as driving everywhere and paying $3000/year for car insurance? If plentiful parking is what makes a great city, then why is Detroit lacking economically behind every other large city in the nation? | ||
Novine Member Username: Novine Post Number: 431 Registered: 07-2007 |
While LY implies that the lack of car transportation in NYC is the result of socialist government policies, NYC's relative lack of cars is due almost entirely to free market economics. There's no law limiting car ownership in NYC. If you can afford a place to park it, you can have a car in the city. But in NYC, the market doesn't waste real estate on surface parking or otherwise assist you to find a place to park your car. There's much more money to be had using that valuable real estate for something more productive. While people here often do a double-take at NYC real estate prices, two things to keep in mind when you hear those. One, New Yorkers have more money to put into real estate because they're not spending thousands of dollars a year on the cost of owning a car. Two, most New Yorkers do just fine never owning a car, much less one for every family member. The difference between Detroit and NYC is that those who choose to do without a car are screwed if they live in Detroit. | ||
Royce Member Username: Royce Post Number: 2540 Registered: 07-2004 |
There are two locations downtown that definitely deserve a parking structure over surface parking lots. The first one is behind the Music Hall. That location, because of the hall, hotel, and nightlife in Harmonie Park could definitely use a parking structure. One like the one behind the Gem, maybe a few more floors, would be ideal. That would free up land to put some residential along Randolph Street in Harmonie Park. The other location that could use a parking structure is at Lafayette-Brush-Fort-Randolph. That is a huge surface parking lot that could fit so many more cars if it was a parking structure. Basically, duplicate the parking structure that is directly north of the site(the parking structure that contains Sweet Georgia Brown's and a few other restaurants). There are clearly many more locations where parking structures could go to replace surface parking lots, but these are my preferred choices. (Message edited by royce on February 12, 2008) | ||
Mackinaw Member Username: Mackinaw Post Number: 4429 Registered: 02-2005 |
Well I suppose a garage would make better use of space that the surface lot at Lafayette-Randolph near the Wayne County building, but the long term plan has to focus on putting a nice, tall building there. Danindc is right. Gas-sucking cars + high insurance rates + bad mortgages on houses that aren't gaining value sounds like a good recipe for economic stagnation. If you could live without a car in Detroit and find rentals more readily, people would have a lot more disposable income, keeping our service economy stronger and the City more stable in a recession. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 1875 Registered: 07-2004 |
I've even read that in some cities with effective public transportation, banks take into account the fact that you won't need to sock so much money into a car and help you qualify for a mortgage. Oh, but those banks! Socialists all! | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 2665 Registered: 04-2006 |
quote: Right on target. NYC also doesn't mandate that development projects have dedicated parking... Because there is no need for it. I love Detroit but NYC is one of the most efficient organizations in the world. Detroit could learn a lot about it's own failures by paying attention to what works in New York. | ||
Detourdetroit Member Username: Detourdetroit Post Number: 375 Registered: 10-2003 |
it is interesting to me that the two of world's leading financial capitals, New York and London are such dense environments, with restrictive (and in the case of London, punitive) laws about private auto use in the core. those capitalists running the show seem to understand something about the benefits of alternative transportation options. how free are you really when you have to drive everywhere you go? when i lived in NYC, it took me about 5 minutes to get over the need to own a car. periodic access to a car was great, but the day to day commuting, living etc. was so freeing...not to worry about the need for a car. i read lots of newspapers and good books on the mighty "G" line between brooklyn and LIC. Detroit is wrong wrong wrong to not invest in serious transport alternatives. if anything, our homogeneous + monolithic approach smacks a lot more of fear mongering big brother paternalism than anything NYC does to get people around... | ||
Treelock Member Username: Treelock Post Number: 272 Registered: 03-2005 |
Downtown Pontiac has some truly breathtaking surface parking lots. And yet, many of the business owners there continue to complain about a mysterious lack of parking for customers. | ||
Detourdetroit Member Username: Detourdetroit Post Number: 376 Registered: 10-2003 |
ly - i know of some pretty amazing auto salvage yards along flatbush ave in brooklyn and in flushing queens . . . i once broke a lens on a 1990 ford tempo and took it to a salvage yard in queens. w/in 5 minutes i had the whole assembly installed for $25 bucks. | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 2666 Registered: 04-2006 |
^Yeah, there are a lot of salvage yards in Jamaica Queens as well. It came in handy when my car window was smashed out a couple of years ago while parked in Brooklyn. | ||
Thewack Member Username: Thewack Post Number: 229 Registered: 11-2004 |
Detourdetroit - I'm also off the mighty "G" line, and take it to work everyday. I've also heard it called the Silver Slug (though, it's actually pretty fast). Detroit doesn't need to be like NYC, but should at least improve its mass transit system. While not as glamorous, perhaps BRT would be a good start. If that is successful, then consider the implementation of light rail. | ||
Detroitrise Member Username: Detroitrise Post Number: 1560 Registered: 09-2007 |
I'll tell you why there are so many surface lots in DD. -Those 80,000 workers want to park right near the front door so they can fly downtown into their office at 9AM and fly right back home at 5PM without a single stop instead of standing outside in the cold or heat for hours waiting for transit lines that never come. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5130 Registered: 10-2004 |
BTW, I didn't state or imply anything about any socialists dictating their schemes on NYC. But NYC and Milwaukee had plenty of socialists in not-so-distant history (especially Milwaukee because it had a consecutive string of seven socialist mayors who labeled themselves as socialists, BTW, until the 1950s) The auto scenario in NYC is a result of lack of parking choices. However, Detroit never seemed to have any parking problems. Confer Hornwrecker's post 1976. It clearly shows that the parking there eighty years ago (for the more affluent?) was fairly ample. However, most of Detroit residents in 1930 clearly lived within four miles of downtown and used public transit. And another consideration, Detroiters then were not as illiterate as today's bunch and actually owned alarm clocks and had gainful employment. The fixed streetcar routes were installed to accommodate those already here--obviously, not to attract them here (from where?--the suburbs???). Had the private and then later public enterprises that laid fixed streetcar lines known that the factories would close and rebuild further out and urban flight would occur, would they have built such an inflexible system wrt modifications? Would they build them in the suburbs? Buses can better handle modifications than fixed rail systems. Clearly, only less than 0.2% of Metro Detroit lives in the CBD, and less than 2% work there. With demos like that, how could that geographical area even be considered as the CBD when it's only a single (one of several) business districts. But my rub is that the socialists want to tax and spend money that Detroit doesn't have, the adjoining counties do not have, and the state doesn't either without imposing another severe round of tax increases to those already in place. To build something that only a very few even want and will use, if installed. With fewer jobs and fewer people, just where are those riders going to come from and go? Yup! Raising taxes several notches higher will make Detroit and Michigan a desirable place to migrate people and business to--NOT. Back to your drawing boards, comrade Trotskyites. (Message edited by LivernoisYard on February 12, 2008) | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 2667 Registered: 04-2006 |
quote: I don't think anybody is pushing for it to become NYC, but by virtue of them both being centers of major metropolitan areas two have more in common than not. So if Detroit wants to know where it's going wrong, a good place to look is at a place that is evidently doing it right. | ||
Masterblaster Member Username: Masterblaster Post Number: 128 Registered: 03-2005 |
Livernoisyard wrote "With fewer jobs and fewer people, just where are those riders going to come from and go?" Mr. Yard, Hasn't it been established already that construction of rail lines in cities like Denver, Washington, DC, Portland, Charlotte, etc. spurred and encourages development within 1/4 mile of its locations. Transit is a catalyst for development thus bringing jobs and money into the economy. In addition, about the funding, from what I heard at the DTOGS meeting, the FTA's New Starts program provides up 80% of the funding for transit projects (although its preference is only 60%). So if a transit line down Michigan Avenue from Dearborn to downtown to New Center will cost $500 million, we locally may only have to raise $100 million, or 20%. 20% - Do you understand? | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5138 Registered: 10-2004 |
Yawn... Only $100 million! Such a bargain! Wasting money for providing unneeded transit along the best stretch for catching a bus in the entire metro area. What the socialists don't understand is that a mere $100 million is a helluva lot of money to a nearly bankrupt city and metropolitan area. Most cities in the financial straits of a Detroit would have gone into state receivership already. Squandering scarce financial resources on a boondoggle with little to no long-term, meaningful redeeming social benefits is the height of fiscal irresponsibility. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 1882 Registered: 07-2004 |
Doesn't matter, Masterblaster. Detroit is totally different. These other cities just haven't realized that it's all part of a vast socialist plot to steal money from people so that so-called "services" can be provided. But, other than driving development by using a variety of funds to complete projects that show a dedication to our urban cores so that developers will invest their money, it's really just a way for corrupt unions to bilk people out of their hard-earned money. All those new developments are there to hurt the public and benefit unions, some way, some how. Or at least that's the way it happens in LY's alternate reality. | ||
Detourdetroit Member Username: Detourdetroit Post Number: 378 Registered: 10-2003 |
yea, and only $1B for a one lane expansion of I-75 between 8 mile and M59...that's a real smart use of tax dollars. where's the social benefit there? LY, I think you're a transit scaredy cat. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5139 Registered: 10-2004 |
Laugh or smiley it off. The proponents of mass transit projects traditionally lowball their capital and operating costs estimates by a factor of 100% or more in order to lure suckers (taxpayers) into starting them. Once started, and they (Oops!) run out of funds, they hit the taxpayers for the extra 100% or more to "finish" them and "then" discover that the "estimated" operating costs are way too low, and more tax subsidies are needed over and beyond what was "estimated" before the big sucking sound began. | ||
Detroitnerd Member Username: Detroitnerd Post Number: 1883 Registered: 07-2004 |
Yeah, but light rail is socialism. Freeway expansions are 100 percent American, motherscratcher! | ||
Novine Member Username: Novine Post Number: 432 Registered: 07-2007 |
"Squandering scarce financial resources on a boondoggle with little to no long-term, meaningful redeeming social benefits is the height of fiscal irresponsibility." I agree. That's why spending billions to widen freeways in SE Michigan is criminal. On the other hand, spending a fraction of that money on transit would have many meaningful social benefits for Detroit and SE Michigan. LY is always complaining about how transit is subsidized. ALL transportation is subsidized by the government. The difference between building transit and building a freeway is that you can run a transit line through a neighborhood without destroying it. Try doing that with a freeway. In plenty of cities around the US, they're tearing down the freeways in the urban areas. In Detroit, we want to widen them. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5141 Registered: 10-2004 |
It's wasteful when so few will really benefit for so much money. In any event, having the likes of a Kilpatrick as mayor will act as a retarding force on any major capital expenditures funded from both within and, especially, outside the city of Detroit. That administration will be viewed with contempt and distrust by most power brokers and the public. So, see? Having him as mayor can be a cloud's silver lining. | ||
Novine Member Username: Novine Post Number: 433 Registered: 07-2007 |
The State of Michigan can spend around $80 million to upgrade the Beck Road and Wixom Road interchanges to service two cities whose population combined isn't even 1/10th of Detroit's and you're telling us that spending $100 million to build transit from Dearborn to Detroit is a waste? | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5144 Registered: 10-2004 |
So, comparing one wasteful boondoggle over another justifies either of them? Is that how radiclibs rationalize things? | ||
Danindc Member Username: Danindc Post Number: 3887 Registered: 10-2003 |
quote: Big deal. The Washington Metro system cost over $9 billion to build. Since 1980, it has directly generated over $25 billion in investment. Do the math. Something that was just released this week: Arlington County, an 23 sq. mi. inner-ring suburb that consisted largely of sleazy auto repair shops and pawn dealers in the 1980s, is poised to jump from 195,000 to 230,000 in population by 2030. And you can't even touch a single-family home for less than $500,000. About 80% of its real estate value is derived from 10% of its land. How many inner-ring suburbs in Detroit have that problem? That damned socialism, creating boondoggles everywhere. Livernoisyard bemoans that greater downtown Detroit has only 80,000 workers and 6,000 residents. Here's the rub: because of the need to have parking everywhere, YOU CAN'T FIT MORE THAN THAT WITHOUT GOOD TRANSIT. Something has to change. | ||
Detourdetroit Member Username: Detourdetroit Post Number: 379 Registered: 10-2003 |
LY "mommy there's a big bad streetcar outside wanting to take me for a ride." | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5146 Registered: 10-2004 |
What? Me worry? Nothing will happen because of little money for capital or operating costs--regardless of what percentage the US coughs up. The very few million recently spent on the Detroit Zoo was like pulling teeth to come up with. Once realistic capital and operating cost estimates become available and those are distributed, the opponents of LRT will see to it that it'll go nowhere. So, let's say the Feds will pay even as high as 80% for the capital costs. Let's say the Feds pay $400 million with the rest coming locally. What happens if the project is lowballed by a relatively low 50%. Then, the $500 million project then will oost $750 million. The Feds already paid the $400 million that they were committed to. So now the locals must pay $350 million for an estimated $500 million project, now costing $750 million. Think this won't happen? Think again because lowballs can easily result in cost overruns far in excess of the 50% for this example. Cost overruns of 100% or more can easily occur because a lowball is often used to commit the community into starting a project. It's a form of extortion preyed upon taxpayers who aren't too diligent when these types of boondoggles are first proposed before any land acquisition and construction are approved and started. Surely, the LRT proponents made the same nonsense rationalizations twenty-one years ago and all Detroit got in return could be described on one lousy T-shirt: "Wanna take a ride on our new People Mover?" (Message edited by LivernoisYard on February 13, 2008) | ||
Gnome Member Username: Gnome Post Number: 722 Registered: 08-2007 |
Detroitstar- I think the lots across Woodward from the Fox and the lot across Madison from the 36th district court. since this thread has now devolved into the favorite discussion of busTrainTrollyWishWe WereLikeChicagoNewYorkButWeCan 'tBecauseWeAreTooWhiteBlackRic hPoorOldFashionClosedToHistory ... | ||
Dustin89 Member Username: Dustin89 Post Number: 199 Registered: 07-2006 |
Treelock said: Downtown Pontiac has some truly breathtaking surface parking lots. And yet, many of the business owners there continue to complain about a mysterious lack of parking for customers. A very good point. Looking at the City of Pontiac "Downtown Commercial and Residential Inventory-Summer 2007" (I obtained this at the DDA) the overhead photos are incredible. Other than Lot 9 and the Phoenix Center parking garage--which are incredible expanses of available parking--there are 21 vacant lots identified for possible development by this DDA pamphlet. Almost all of them are parking lots. Lot 9 is the biggest (identified as Lot #1 in the pamphlet listing of key lots), but there are other enormous ones such as the corner of University and N. Woodward, a lot on Cass Avenue north of the charter school, the Woodward/Pike St. parking lot north of the library, the enormous weedy & vacant parking lot at Wayne and Lafayette, etc., etc. I am almost always able to park within a block or two of my destination in downtown Pontiac; Saginaw St. does fill up at night, but those on-street spaces are only the icing on the cake. There is ample room and opportunity for infill or mixed-use development downtown, to say the least. | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 2672 Registered: 04-2006 |
quote: Yeah, those lots in front and on the side of Comerica have to be the biggest wastes of space in all of downtown. | ||
Detroitstar Member Username: Detroitstar Post Number: 946 Registered: 01-2006 |
What about the lots across from the 36th district court? I cant get a good read on that site...the lots are always full for court use and ballgames, but can it serve a better purpose? I mean there is already ample court parking in the structure on Brush. | ||
Ray Member Username: Ray Post Number: 1085 Registered: 06-2004 |
Livernoisyard, I've been a life long Republican but you are talking me into becoming a socialist.The world economy is ever dominated by a growing legion of large vibrant cities in the US, China, Japan, Europe and elsewhere. These centers are magnents for human and financial capital and they are kicking the crap out of Detroit.I really think that suburban Detroit is like the last redoubt of 1970's thinking. While nearly every major city in America is eagerly building mass transit, Detroiters stubornly cling to a twentieth century lifestyle.It's not the socialists that so desperately want re-urbanization of Detroit. It's the people who care about the region and realize that unless we accomplish this, nobody of talent and ambition and skill is going to want to live here, in a sea of God-forsaken, butt-ugly decaying Midwest sprawl built circa 1960-1990. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5323 Registered: 10-2004 |
The US is becoming more socialist, while some European countries are experiencing that mixing a welfare (socialist) state with open borders can quickly bankrupt those countries. Add Sweden and France to the list that are attempting to throw off their yokes of socialism. The eastern part of Germany is trying to do that also, and its Interior Minister is very anti-immigrant (anti-Turk, etc.) now. Ditto for Austria. There are others. China is becoming less socialist, but is still a dictatorship. Detroit is so deficient in so many areas that the rapid-transit proponents paint Detroit's lack of rapid transit as being THE cause for its lack of competitiveness among most of the country. Yet metro Detroit uses the mass transit it has at only a 2% rate when using mass transit for getting to and from work. Just what would installing rapid transit do when it merely would duplicate four miles of that vastly underutilized mass transit with rail? Seems rather stupid for anybody with half a normal cranial capacity to believe that having rapid transit would create jobs--the only reason to have a city in the first place unless Detroit is anticipated to be a retirement center or a welfare haven. [Oh, I forgot, Detroit partially IS a welfare magnet because Michigan and Vermont are the only two US states with no limits on life-long welfare benefit eligibility.] The poor rankings of Detroit in the press and newsletters always seems to peg Detroit at or near the very bottom in virtually every negative category, including transit. But whose fault is it if metro Detroiters won't even take the bus to/from work? Any rail would only travel a very short distance before transferring to buses would be necessary anyway. If they won't take the buses now, just why would they be expected to do so when there is also rapid transit in addition to buses? Seems crazy to me to assume that Detroiter's mindset would or could change in this and other necessary areas. Detroit won't get better, and yet more of its skilled (or would-be) workers will leave because of the dearth of employment. And graft and corruption of the public sector in all three metro Detroit counties. Very high crime and high taxes also make the entire metro area less attractive. Detroit has some of the most illiterate people not only in the US but also on all but one other continent. Getting an education takes about one and one-half decades. Detroit's kids are becoming intellectual dropouts by the third or fourth grade whereby they may attend school but do next to nothing while there. And there are many other negatives that Detroit has in super abundance. Taken together, they must be tackled before any progress could be expected in Detroit. In the interim, more will leave, and having or not having rapid transit will not play one iota of a role as a fundamental cause or remedy in Detroit's many failures. But the pro-rail people will state otherwise, and the gullible will believe that nonsense instead of facing stark reality. There will be no quick fix (e.g., rail, etc.) but instead it will take a decade or so of steady effort and work, and most people cannot and won't wait for that because they have their own lives to live. Why should those who leave be criticized because they choose not to be reformers and making sacrifices when it's not necessary elsewhere? And they'll continue to live almost anywhere but in Detroit. (Message edited by LivernoisYard on February 23, 2008) | ||
Drankin21 Member Username: Drankin21 Post Number: 181 Registered: 12-2003 |
"that mixing a welfare (socialist) state with open borders can quickly bankrupt those countries." not so fast my friend the talk of degradation of the culture of these countries does not mean that they have failed. Since when does the mixing of new ideas and perspectives result in a negative? They are dealing with many of the same problems that we are and in a much more diplomatic way. The new America attempts to marginalize those that don't agree with the intellectual majority. When does it stop? When does the constitution and "one man, one vote" come into play? They are learning about what it means to live without walls and we are trying to decide how high to build ours. American arrogance is really becoming a global joke | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 5324 Registered: 10-2004 |
quote:The current reversals on European socialism has been occurring via the ballot boxes in many countries there. France is an obvious example, as it has been in the news quite often lately. Austria has been that way for a bit. Sweden voted its socialists out of its highest national office for the first time in over seventy years less than two years ago. Holland is becoming far less socialist. Former Soviet Bloc countries-Poland, Hungary, and the former Czechoslovakia--are following the former American business model, getting away from their former command (socialist) economies. So, while Europe is starting to become more like what the US was a few decades ago, the US is now emulating the European socialists of yesteryear. And Detroit is about the worst--modeling itself much after the former, failed Soviet Union. (Message edited by LivernoisYard on February 23, 2008) | ||
Drankin21 Member Username: Drankin21 Post Number: 184 Registered: 12-2003 |
Well put Livernois, Of course pure socialism is not way to go (quite a few examples of failures), but there are contents of a socialist state that are very attractive and could be implemented in a pure democracy with just a few open minds. | ||
Nainrouge Member Username: Nainrouge Post Number: 832 Registered: 05-2006 |
Livernoisyard, You obviously do not have the slightest clue about European politics. Sure some countries shift to the left or the right occasionally, but most of the mainstream rightwing parties in Europe would be considered flaming communist in this country. For example, none of the so-called "right" parties in Europe are calling for the elimination of nationalized health care. Just because a country decides to reduces some of its social programs doesn't mean that they have decided over night to become libertarians. BTW, calling everyone a Trotskyist who calls for the government to step in and help solve a problem is not only childish, but it also shows your ignorance. It is as stupid as those who throw around the word "Nazi" without understanding what that really means. |
