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Jb3
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Username: Jb3

Post Number: 538
Registered: 06-2007
Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 3:18 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

'jb3' says:
Naw, Rush can take care of making an ass of himself without my help.

I'm starting to feel really bad for [M] here. I'm going to take this surreal argument into DetroitYes and open it up to the masses. It'll give me a chance to re-read all the posts here and maybe we can get away from our perceptions of you being an extremist right-wing conservative motivated by fear of change and me being socialist leftwinger hell bent on controlling and manipulating everyone into submission. Bear with me, i'll post a link.
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Iheartthed
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Post Number: 3767
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 3:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Wow, Eastern Bloc? The discussion should have ended at such an absurd statement. The city with the best public transit system in this country is also the same city that is the face of capitalism for this country. Someone please explain to me why all of these socialist securities traders take the subway to work every morning. Don't they know how un-American that is?

And public transportation = putting people out of work? Were these people former employees of the domestic auto industry that has kept Michigan's unemployment rate as the highest in the nation for a decade already?
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Bshea
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Post Number: 6
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 3:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

You push for high-density housing in Detroit -- which is unable to provide even basic services in a reasonable, efficient manner -- and what do you think you're going to get? Slums.

I can't believe people think it's just Detroit that loves cars, and not America in general. I guess all those songs, books, movies and other auto elements of our cultural just happened in Wayne County. How foolish of me!

The thread/argument originated with anti-auto and anti-suburban sentiments and me saying that while limited rail improvements would be welcome in Detroit, the suggestion that Detroit would see any significant repopulation or improvement is pure fantasy.

This city's congenital corruption, cronyism and greed are on such an epic scope and scale that it (combined with the too-slow reaction from the automakers to change themselves) has doomed Detroit to the point it might not be saved.

Mass transit has its place, but not as a general replacement for the automobile. That was my entire point, despite the revisionist spinning that followed by some.
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Detroitnerd
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Username: Detroitnerd

Post Number: 3519
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 3:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Bshea: Welcome to the forum. Keep on posting, although do keep an open mind. You may learn something! :-)
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Professorscott
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Username: Professorscott

Post Number: 1798
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 3:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Welcome to blogging, Bill. If you don't like revisionist spinning, you're in the wrong place :-)

Great place to have an argument, though, which is why I participate.

But I question one of your theses: New York and Chicago always had epic "corruption, cronyism and greed", yet they have survived and, to some extent, thrived.

I think if we can build a credible start of a transit system, a real one, you might see significant enough results in that very limited district to convince us to do more, and rebuild, over time. Detroit will never have 2 million people again, but it might someday have a million, or a million two.

But if we just keep doing what we've been doing, of course, we'll just keep getting these same results. Just, as always, IMVHO.
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Jb3
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Post Number: 539
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 3:52 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Agreed, mass transit will never replace the automobile. But efficient means of transportation absolutely will. The auto industry is absolutely too slow to react, therefore doomed.

I disagree with the 'slums' analogy though. Detroit residents may just surprise you if there is any actual investment back into the communities. If the market won't invest in the city, but expect the government to bail them out for their refusal to invest in cities, then i fully expect the government to invest in cities before its too late.
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Danindc
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Username: Danindc

Post Number: 4365
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 3:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

I can't believe people think it's just Detroit that loves cars, and not America in general.



Love is an emotion--hardly the appropriate economic rationale for transportation planning.

If you want free market economics, let's talk free market economics. Let's only build and repair roads when the gas tax alone can cover the cost. Let's eliminate the mortgage interest tax deduction. No more free parking. No more zoning regs that require a minimum parking lot size appropriate for the Saturday before Christmas.
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Bshea
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Post Number: 8
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 4:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I live in downtown Detroit - Lafayette Park. It's a great place, and I'm sure I'd use a street car if they add a spur line from the Woodward plan.

But Detroit's problems are so much deeper that examples like LP are the exception, not the rule. Sure, if someone pumps billions into the schools and services and infrastructure, it could look great. But who is going to do that? The 'government'? Can you imagine the mismanagement?

If Obama gives the city council that $10 billion, what do you think we'd get for it? I can already see the Freep expose stories on the waste of Biblical proportions.

Maybe Detroit isn't worth saving as it is. I don't know and haven't put enough thought yet into that.

But overall, cars are here to say. Trains are a nice bonus and will help, but don't look for them as panacea.
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Professorscott
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Post Number: 1800
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 4:08 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Panacea, no, but helpful, and necessary.

Detroit as it is today can't continue to exist. We need the next Detroit to come out of it. New York today doesn't look like the New York of 1975, and thank God.

I agree with you about giving $10 billion to the City Council. That'd be like giving a four-year-old boy an Uzi: you don't know exactly what'll happen, but you know it won't be good.
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Bshea
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Post Number: 9
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 4:09 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Love is an emotion--hardly the appropriate economic rationale for transportation planning.

My point was, someone had said the love affair with cars was just a Detroit thing, and that's dead wrong. My larger point was that "love" meant people want to buy cars. They remain a status symbol, something to tinker with, play with, use for getting the family and stuff around, etc.

A train will never match that. And yes, to some, like generations of New Yorkers that never owned cars, that's lost on them. But for tens of millions, cars are a way of life and a necessity.

And they're a necessity not just because of some sinister GM/Republican plot for profit, but because of convenience and the freedom they offer.
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Danindc
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Post Number: 4366
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 4:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

My larger point was that "love" meant people want to buy cars. They remain a status symbol, something to tinker with, play with, use for getting the family and stuff around, etc.



No, they're an absolute necessity for first-class citizenship in most places in the country.

I had a lot more convenience and freedom in the three years I didn't own a car. Between walking, bicycling, transit, and cabs, I worked, socialized, shopped, and traveled, but mostly because the "socialist Eastern Bloc" environment in which I lived permitted and encouraged it. It's the difference between living in an environment built for people, vis-a-vis one built strictly to accommodate cars.

I had a choice to not own a car; you don't. How much convenience and freedom do you have when you're in a traffic jam, or trying to find a parking spot? Or want to go tip a couple beers?
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Detroitnerd
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Username: Detroitnerd

Post Number: 3522
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 4:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

No, Dan, you don't understand. He has a choice: He chooses to drive everywhere. His other choice is to leave town and live somewhere else. And that's exactly the choice thousands of metro Detroiters make every year: I've had enough. I'm leaving. I give up.

And people who stay talk about how metro Detroiters "love" cars. And, in a sense, they're right. People who don't "love" cars can choose to take their money, their skills, their passion and their pride and take it away to another city, which will be derided as a bastion of communism, which provides a little ideological comfort to those who choose to stay. Simple. :-)
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Bshea
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 4:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

So a street car is more convenient for me and my four kids?

Shopping for them at Meijer is more convenient by rail than a car? That 12-minute car trip to Allen Park would be easier on a train, and the trip home would be as fast, especially with bags and bags of groceries?

You're being serious, right? Straight face and all?

Oh, wait. I should shop at the corner market, with its inflated prices, to show my support for Detroit and downtown living, eh?

Now tell me how people were "forced" to buy homes in the suburbs, and for decades the progressive movement didn't yelp to make it easier for people to own their own homes.

Because the American Dream had nothing to do with owning a home, right?

I must have missed the part of the century when millions and millions of Americans decried their forced suburban living and home ownership when all they wanted was to live in rented apartments downtown.

You stack people in high-density living areas, they're still going to need what they get in the 'burbs. And the physical elements of a city can't handle that. Not in today's world. This isn't 1875.
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Danindc
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 4:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

^^^I take it you don't travel much.
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Bearinabox
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Username: Bearinabox

Post Number: 1238
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 4:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I own a car, and I don't plan to give it up anytime soon. It's a piece of shit, but it's a car nevertheless, and there are times when I depend on it.

That said, I never drive it unless I have to. If I can get where I'm going by walking or taking the bus, I do. If I can't, I try to do as many things as possible in the same trip so I can go as long as possible without having to drive again. I don't like driving--I don't like having to concentrate on traffic and try not to get run down by idiots, I don't like looking for parking, and I don't like worrying about whether my car will still have all its windows when I come back to it. I'd rather just sit back, space out, and leave the driving to the guy who's getting paid.

I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see why car ownership and transit need to be mutually exclusive. Even people who love to drive and would never ride a bus or train should welcome improved transit and increased transit ridership, since it means less traffic on the expressway and more empty parking spaces at the mall. More to the point, it cuts down on the number of drunks, blind old ladies, and other people who really shouldn't be driving but have to because they have no other way to get around. I don't understand why any rational person would oppose transit.
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Bshea
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Post Number: 11
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 5:05 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

The problem is, no one here is opposing mass transit.

I argue that, in the case of Detroit, it's not the cure-all that many think it will be, at least not until a LOT of other issues are fixed to the point we're competitive with places like Dallas, Denver, etc., where light rails has been a true boon for a wide variety of people.

There's a lot of anti-auto rhetoric on here, however. I'm pro car, and have nothing against trains in general. I'm all for both, but air, water, etc. But it's the progressive mewling about the evils of the auto industry and hipster disdain for suburbia, that galls me.
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Bearinabox
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Post Number: 1239
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 5:16 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Mass transit is not a cure-all. It is one piece of the puzzle, and it will help. Of course there are other issues, and of course we should address those as well, not just build a rail line and then sit back and wait for all the other problems to solve themselves. I just think it would be incredibly short-sighted of us to not build light rail just because there are other things wrong here.

As for anti-auto rhetoric and "hipster disdain for suburbia," I will say that I find auto-oriented development oppressive and unattractive. Driving down Big Beaver Road or M-59 literally gives me a headache. That's why I choose to live in Detroit, in an area designed by and for actual human beings, and generally avoid the outer reaches of suburbia. I don't consider myself a "hipster," though, and I don't find the auto industry inherently evil. I just think quality mass transit should be an option that is available to me, just like driving is. Sorry if you find that galling. :-)
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Detroitnerd
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 5:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Well put, Bear. You didn't even know you were really campaigning to take away Shea's car and replace it with a train and force him to do EVERYTHING on it, did you? Well, now you know.

Having transit is about choice. Notice how people pile on and talk about you taking away their cars the moment you talk about adding a light rail line? I think it's silly.

As much as we enjoy a little nose-tweaking of car-lovers on this forum, nobody wants to take your car away, Bshea. Nobody will force you to run all your errands in a streetcar.

Here's the long explanation: When you get rid of transit in a city that had it for 100 years, the built environment has lost its circulation system. Those dense built environments were meant to be attached to an actual transportation system. In many ways, that transportation system was the whole environment's reason for being built in the first place.

So you get rid of the interurban, the streetcar, replace it with an expensive-to-maintain, irregular bus system. But the only transit of any quality is the private car. What happens to the built environment? It atrophies.

What happens when you simultaneously pour resources into suburbs? All of a sudden, brand-new freeways are rolling out into the cornfields. The government passes the GI bill, allows people to write off their mortgage interest, starts subsidizing new development for a car-only land of wonder.

Well, that's the story of what's happened. And it's been called the "greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world." That's not hipster disdain, that's writer James Howard Kunstler. He's an old dude, kind of a crusty journalist. I don't think he wears a hoodie, anyway.

And the weirdest thing of all? The most ecstatic, hoodie-wearing, iPod-listening, weblogging, Richard Florida-reading hipster would never propose eliminating all other forms of transportation and relying only on light rail. That is a complete absurdity. Nobody is coming to take away your car keys.

In fact, when it comes to that wild accusation, the shoe's really on the other foot. Our city planners, for decades, have dictated that all other forms of transporting people must fall before the automobile. Everybody must be done by internal combustion engine. No serious commuter rail, no serious heavy rail linking to nearby cities, no light rail even. Buses, trucks and cars. That's all.

What happens when you put the burden of moving everybody onto one mode of transportation? It doesn't work. You eliminate the curb-to-curb freedom the vehicle is supposed to have. Your built environment gets so spread out that you are stranded without your car. Why is that idiot in front of you driving five miles per hour? Why is everybody jamming the road at the same time? Well, when it comes down to it, what choice to they have?

So what if we carefully start organizing light rail to service our historic built environment? What if we try to entice you to leave your car at home when you can? Big deal. It's probably going to be good for the value of property, it should drive investment, it should help reduce emissions, repaving fees, etc. But beyond all the arguments about economics and environmental benefits, it should be done because it's something we can all use. Unless you don't want to, Shea. More room for me. :-)
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Bshea
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 6:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

My defense of the automobile wasn't predicated on an anti-train agenda. Far from it, and I've state repeatedly on here that I'm all in favor of light rail.

Again, and with feeling this time: My points were being made toward those with a hefty anti-car sentiment, and the misplaced notion that rail is a top priority as a Detroit fix, and that all we need is little hipster communities such as Ferndale and the points. Scroll up.

I've lived in cities and suburbs. Both have their ups and downs.

I also don't believe mass transit was the reason Detroit (the dense built environments) were built. There were many reasons, and places like Detroit developed because there was money to be made as a trading post, fort, river stop, etc.
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Detroitnerd
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 6:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

BSHEA: My defense of the automobile wasn't predicated on an anti-train agenda. Far from it, and I've state repeatedly on here that I'm all in favor of light rail.

Yes, but that didn't stop you from straw-manning:

BSHEA: "Mass transit has its place, but not as a general replacement for the automobile. That was my entire point, despite the revisionist spinning that followed by some."

So, you did say that mass transit can't replace cars. I'm correcting the basis of your argument because, again, NOBODY here is saying light rail, buses, etc. are going to replace cars. Fair enough?

BSHEA: I also don't believe mass transit was the reason Detroit (the dense built environments) were built. There were many reasons, and places like Detroit developed because there was money to be made as a trading post, fort, river stop, etc.

Ah, yes, but that's not what I believe either. I said mass transit was the reason the built environment was put up the way it was. Obviously, it wasn't the reason Detroit developed AT ALL. That's obviously preposterous.

As for the anti-car sentiment, why not? You think you can set up society in such a way where people have no choice but to drive, and then you can balk when they bristle at the way it's set up? Next to the jet plane, cars are the most expensive, least efficient, most environmentally devastating way to travel. With facts like that, we should all cheer?

Anyway, loosen up a little, Bshea. It takes some time, but we do cotton to the darndest strangers on this here forum. :-)
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Professorscott
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 6:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

DetroitYES has several recurring topics that get people deeply sucked in and speaking very passionately, and transit is always one of the more reliable such topics. We can talk about the public schools, which I would argue are more important, but that discussion won't be as impassioned. Very interesting phenomenon.

What makes transit, I think, so frustrating for so many of us, is that rapid transit is a service people expect big cities to provide, and every damn big city provides it, except here.

We are competing against other cities; imagine you were the mayor of a city that had no public parks whatsoever, or perhaps no library, or no museum. What odds would you give that city to be able to recruit new businesses and repopulate? Well, that's us. We are just completely lacking in a basic, everyday service that every other city provides, and that people expect.

We have many problems to overcome, and this is only one, but a very basic and important one. Show me any thriving big city on Earth without rapid transit.
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Bshea
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 6:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I'm correcting the basis of your argument because, again, NOBODY here is saying light rail, buses, etc. are going to replace cars. Fair enough?

No, not fair enough because early in the conversation (and I think the posts migrated here), the genesis of this was a fully anti-automobile comment, listing all the accident stats, reliance on Mideast oil and all the other bogeymen used to portray cars as evil. And there also was put forth the notion of retooling most of Detroit's auto industry to produce train cars.

Our society today wasn't set up to force people into car-centric lives. Our society developed the way it did because of cars. We wanted them, so that's how things evolved - highways, suburbs, etc. We owned cars, so we need our infrastructure to revolve around them. That was the natural progression.

Hand in hand with that was the natural desire to own a home - not rent an apartment in a big city. If people were so eager to live in dense cities, the market would have bore that out. It didn't.

I understand society and culture change, but the car and owned-home will remain at the core of ours for a very, very long time to come, notwithstanding the progressive fantasy of communal apartment buildings next to a Whole Foods and train station.
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Bearinabox
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 6:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

DetroitYES has several recurring topics that get people deeply sucked in and speaking very passionately, and transit is always one of the more reliable such topics. We can talk about the public schools, which I would argue are more important, but that discussion won't be as impassioned. Very interesting phenomenon.

I, for one, haven't got the first clue what should be done about the schools, so I wouldn't have much to offer on that topic. I don't understand the concept of "education," really. In my experience, formal education is not a terribly effective cure for stupidity.
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Danindc
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 7:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

Hand in hand with that was the natural desire to own a home - not rent an apartment in a big city. If people were so eager to live in dense cities, the market would have bore that out. It didn't.



Maybe you can explain this lack of "eagerness to live in dense cities" with some factual data. I dunno, maybe you can show how the average automobile-centric house in Troy, Michigan is far more preferable to a "stacked-on-top-of-each-other Eastern bloc rowhouse" in Georgetown, Annapolis, Boston, Savannah, Charleston, or San Francisco.

All I know is I've never planned a vacation to Schaumburg, Illinois.
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Detroitnerd
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 7:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I can't find anything that says, "Cars are evil; here's why." But, based on what you describe, Bshea, it sounds like somebody was concerned about a lot of very real problems with automobiles, and you heard "Cars are evil; here's why."

As for producing train cars, Detroit has done it before. Perhaps it could do it again. Nothing crazy about that. It was a major product of this city 100 years ago.

We couldn't have developed the car-centered sprawl we have today without generous federal subsidies. So what if "we" wanted cars. The powers that be got together and gave them to us good and hard. So much so, in fact, that a lot of the people who grow up here are frustrated by having to drive everywhere, get sick of it, and leave town. What about those people who are leaving town? Are they part of your "we"?

In general, there's a significant percentage of people who want to live in cities. Do you realize what they do when they're from here? They leave. The market bears it out, but not here. The market bears it out in Chicago, New York, San Francisco, New Orleans, anywhere else but here, where we perpetuate this MYTH about who WE are and what WE want and how EVERYTHING is WONDERFUL the WAY IT IS.

Which is worse, Bshea, a progressive fantasy, or a regressive one?
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Danindc
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 7:05 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

We owned cars, so we need our infrastructure to revolve around them.



Interestingly enough, people in Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Toronto, DC, San Francisco, Portland, and other places still own cars. They did not, however gut their entire cities to accommodate cars at the expense of accommodating people. The real estate values show that these are attractive places to live.
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Bshea
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 7:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

With Detroit bleeding homeowners and children -- the primary sources of school funding -- the schools will never get the cure they require, at least not under this formula.

It's a catastrophic Catch-22: You need kids in the schools to generate funding, but no one wants their kids in the schools because they're awful because of underfunding. And until you fix the schools (and city services/crime), you're not going to attract a significant number of people with families back to Detroit. You can seriously repopulate the city with singles and retirees, not to any meaningful degree.

And that's my point overall - while light rail will be good, it's not going to be a major source of renewal until other things are handled, or at least significantly on their way to being fixed. At best, you'll get some news bars and shops along Woodward (and, God forbid, more nonsense like the Ellington).

Light rail is one of many, many things Detroit needs.
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Retroit
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 7:34 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Bshea, I commend you for taking on the Rail-O-Phile faction of DetroitYES! They're a tough bunch! I sure couldn't crack them!

Good Luck!
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Detroitnerd
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 7:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Schools are important, but I don't know just how important they really are in the short-term. I lived in New York City 1991-2002, and their schools are horrible. But the growth during that period was huge, nonetheless.

I look at Detroit's school woes and just say that it's not going to be fixed. It takes active, educated, angry parents to do that. And those sorts of parents either (a) don't live in the city or (b) don't enroll their students in Detroit Public Schools. So, with open enrollment in the suburbs and private schools in Detroit, that's not exactly a recipe for push-back that will improve the situation.

But I do know that if we start bringing in some of the amenities the city used to have -- and this light rail deal looks and smells good -- we may be able to rein in some of the brain drain we suffer from and start populating Detroit with "residents of choice" again. And that would put us on a track to solve some other, stubbornly embedded problems.

If you want to enlarge the scope of the discussion to include transit, education, services, crime, taxes, etc., then the bottom line is that, until we have some regional understanding that our city centers are going to be the site of economic growth in the next 100 years, we're all just going to be fighting for the spoils until the next-to-last person leaves southeastern Michigan for good.
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Diehard
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 7:58 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I can't believe nobody's brought up the chicken-or-egg question about why "nobody wants to go to Detroit because it sucks so bad" (yeah, I'm paraphrasing). The city fell apart BECAUSE it was abandoned for the suburbs. When people took their money and drove off to live in some distant cornfield, of course the schools/city services/quality of life deteriorated in the city they abandoned. The "choices" they made led to our utter lack of choice today. Free market my ass.
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Professorscott
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Posted on Monday, February 16, 2009 - 11:20 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Bill, I'm not familiar enough with the Ellington Lofts project to know why you referred to it that way. Care to elaborate?

From the 1930s to the 1970s, just about every major American city lost population and resources as the new expressways (built with Federal money) drew people to the new 'burbs where they could have a house, 2.3 children and a car in their detached garage.

From the 1970s to the present day, though, many (most?) big American cities found a way to slow or reverse the decline, and attract new residents, including people with families. Detroit, for whatever series of reasons, has not.

It might be worth starting a thread to discuss that comparison. Why have Chicago, Boston, Portland, New York, Denver, Minneapolis, and on and on, all made somewhat of a comeback from the very dead years of the late 1960s to the early 1980s, where in Detroit the decline on a percentage basis does not appear to be abating in the least?

The simplistic reasons fail. Racism? We had that in other cities. Corruption? We had that in most cities, and I'm not sure our corrupt officials were even all that good at being corrupt.

Why are we so much worse off than other cities, to the point that we are a reliable source of humor for late-night talk-show-host comics? When I was a kid, growing up in Noo Yawk, "Detroit" was a word that signified industrial might, and modernity. Now "Detroit" is a punchline.

What happened? And better yet, what can be done?

By the way, lest the Prof be misunderstood, I'm not in any way antisuburb. In fact I live on a farm. A great region needs great suburbs and a great core city in order to thrive. We have some great suburbs; we lack the great core city we used to have, and need.
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Detroitplanner
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Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 8:17 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

You answered your own question PS. I've seen what de-industrialization has done to this city over the last 40 years. It has not been kind to it. Detroit is the largest of the rustbowl cities that are left struggling for crumbs in an economy that forgot that you need to make stuff in order for your economy to work correctly. Detroit is no different than a lot of cities in this area, only that it is much larger, therefore its failures are more pronounced than those in places like Toledo, Gary, Flint, and even Cleveland.

I am not going back to find where Elington was first mentioned but it is a building of mixed success. Retail fills the first level but its condo are pricey and sales have been disappointing. Sometimes I think its little more than a Potemkin Village set-up to mask a garage for the Symphony.
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Bshea
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Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 8:35 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

If you check out real estate Web sites, people are desperate to get out of the over-priced Ellington. None of these loft projects ever seem to get filled up or become profitable. I understand the previous desire to build them, but the consumer base just isn't there, at least not in that price range for that area.
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Professorscott
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Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 10:34 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Bill, you hit the nail on the head:

"...at least not in that price range for that area."

There is (any time except right now) demand for housing of various types all over the metro area, but there isn't demand for every type of housing in every area. People like building lofts because they see evidence that it's worked economically in other places. So someone might think, hey, they built lofts in Portland and they made a bunch of money! But the trick is, the person who made money built the lofts in a very specific place in Portland where lofts make sense.

If you want to build, let's call it, "lifestyle housing" which is moderately unusual residences that will only match with certain types of people, you have to make sure (a) that market exists in your area, and (b) they want to live in the neighborhood in which you plan to build.

When the economy comes back somewhat, I wonder what kind of housing will be in demand, in Detroit and the 'burbs. Right now, of course, no housing whatever is in demand.
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Bshea
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Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 5:02 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

I see the loft thing as not unlike the rail thing: It's worked in places like Portland, where the market is very different. To assume it will be the magic bullet for even Woodward is a mighty assumption.

I believe the numbers quoted are something like $4 minimum in economic development within a few blocks of the rail line for every $1 spent on rail.

I just can't see that happening here. The TRAIL plan would mean $400 million in new investment, and the pie-in-the-sky fraud known as DTOG would be $1.4 billion in new investment.

Not going to happen. There will be some, and I'm all for it and the line, but I don't believe that economic development ROI will happen until other factors are fixed.

Some areas along Woodward will seen boom times, maybe, but I fear that line is going to pass vast stretches of slum that will remain so.

The potential is there, but there are so many anchors dragging the potential down. And that $4 is the low end estimate, BTW.

(And I don't think it's fair to factor in the $200-$400 million new hockey arena likely to end up in Foxtown or near the Ilitch's casino, because that's coming anyways ... but certainly all the more reason for them to invest in the line!)
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Danindc
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Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 5:10 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

I believe the numbers quoted are something like $4 minimum in economic development within a few blocks of the rail line for every $1 spent on rail.

I just can't see that happening here. The TRAIL plan would mean $400 million in new investment, and the pie-in-the-sky fraud known as DTOG would be $1.4 billion in new investment.

Not going to happen. There will be some, and I'm all for it and the line, but I don't believe that economic development ROI will happen until other factors are fixed.



Can I ask on what you base your skepticism? Certainly, Detroit is not the first city to be in this position.
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Focusonthed
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Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 9:29 pm:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Everyone--

If you haven't, read "Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream."
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Bshea
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Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 2:54 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)


Can I ask on what you base your skepticism? Certainly, Detroit is not the first city to be in this position


Sure. The cities cited in the economic impact studies always are Portland, Denver, Dallas, etc. None of which ever was in the position Detroit is in now. I haven't seen such studies done on places a severely blighted and run-down as Detroit. I'm not sure there's ever been an introduction of light rail, from the ground-up, in such an urban situation in modern times. At least I can't think of one at 3 a.m. while drinking milk and eating Pop Tarts (s'mores).

Detroit is its own unique case study, whereas those Western and Southern cities were in better circumstances.

I'll concede, on the flipside, that because Detroit's urban situation is unique, and we have the billionaires willing to launch this, there is no case study on this. Maybe it'll spawn a new era for Detroit. My guess it will be a slow, slow growth situation that has people calling it a People Mover-style failure, at least in perception, and possibly growth one day over 20 years will catch up to predictions ... at which we'll see all the stories in our online-only editions of the Freep and News saying it's finally a success.
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Iheartthed
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Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2009 - 8:36 am:   Edit PostDelete Post   Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

quote:

I'm not sure there's ever been an introduction of light rail, from the ground-up, in such an urban situation in modern times. At least I can't think of one at 3 a.m. while drinking milk and eating Pop Tarts (s'mores).



Los Angeles, Dallas, Phoenix.

Also, it isn't an introduction, but rather a re-introduction, since Detroit did have a streetcar system before.

(Message edited by iheartthed on February 18, 2009)

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