Raptor56 Member Username: Raptor56
Post Number: 763 Registered: 05-2007
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 8:44 am: | |
but we're close... http://realestate.yahoo.com/pr omo/americas-emptiest-cities.h tml |
Thejesus Member Username: Thejesus
Post Number: 3683 Registered: 06-2008
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 9:31 am: | |
may not be the emptiest, but easily the most depressing |
Roq Member Username: Roq
Post Number: 6 Registered: 02-2009
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 9:44 am: | |
That article is complete b.s. Vegas is full of people and construction, granted not as much as there used to be but it is by no means empty like Detroit is empty. |
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 3775 Registered: 04-2006
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 10:01 am: | |
quote:That article is complete b.s. Vegas is full of people and construction, granted not as much as there used to be but it is by no means empty like Detroit is empty. And what do you base Detroit's emptiness on? Because Detroit has more people and is more densely populated than Vegas. So is there some other measurement that you're using? |
Thejesus Member Username: Thejesus
Post Number: 3685 Registered: 06-2008
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 10:18 am: | |
"That article is complete b.s. Vegas is full of people and construction, granted not as much as there used to be but it is by no means empty like Detroit is empty." Vegas has a large transient population so it is very occupied at any given time, but those people are filling up hotels, not apartments and houses. The article says Vegas has a population of 2 million, so yes, it's much more populated than Detroit, but that doesn't mean Vegas doesn't have a fuckload of vacant housing that was built in the last several years that is now sitting empty. |
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 3777 Registered: 04-2006
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 10:23 am: | |
quote:The article says Vegas has a population of 2 million, so yes, it's much more populated than Detroit, but that doesn't mean Vegas doesn't have a fuckload of vacant housing that was built in the last several years that is now sitting empty Metro Vegas has 2 million people. Vegas is nowhere near the size of Detroit. |
Retroit Member Username: Retroit
Post Number: 973 Registered: 04-2008
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 10:31 am: | |
Vagas is "empty" because they overbuilt. Detroit is "empty" because people don't like living there. Edit: "...because MOST people don't like living there." |
Vas Member Username: Vas
Post Number: 465 Registered: 01-2004
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 10:33 am: | |
correct. wow. Scholars of the D working without simple factual numbers. Las Vegas at 9:15am has the strongest feeling of despair I've ever seen. |
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 3779 Registered: 04-2006
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 10:35 am: | |
quote:Vagas is "empty" because they overbuilt. Detroit is "empty" because people don't like living there. Edit: "...because MOST people don't like living there." :-) No... I'd say that Detroit is empty for the same reason(s) as "Vagas". |
Macknwarren Member Username: Macknwarren
Post Number: 129 Registered: 10-2007
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 10:49 am: | |
That story tracks only rental vacancies. It has nothing to do with vacant neighborhoods, which are rampant in Detroit but much harder to quantify, especially on a national basis. |
Thejesus Member Username: Thejesus
Post Number: 3686 Registered: 06-2008
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 11:04 am: | |
^except that the article doesn't only track rental vacancies. "Detroit and Las Vegas are among the worst offenders by both measures--the Motor City sports vacancy rates of 19.9% for rentals and 4% for homes; Sin City has rates of 16% and 4.7%, respectively." |
Gmich99 Member Username: Gmich99
Post Number: 245 Registered: 11-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 11:36 am: | |
What would Detroit's vacancy numbers look like if the empty parking lots where buildings one stood or and feral fields where whole blocks of houses once stood were included? There is no comparison to Detroit. Detroit is the most vacant large city in America. It is not even a debate. (Message edited by gmich99 on February 17, 2009) |
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 3780 Registered: 04-2006
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 11:40 am: | |
quote:What would Detroit's vacancy numbers look like if the empty parking lots where buildings one stood or feral fields where whole blocks of houses once stood? There is no comparison to Detroit. Detroit is the most vacant large city in America. It is not even a debate. Okay, but there are no buildings standing where surface parking lots exist by virtue of physics. So if you want to change the laws of physics then yes, Detroit's vacancy rate would be much higher. But even if you did have some type of freaky vacant building/surface parking lot mutant, Detroit's population density would still be much higher than "Vagas"'s... Unless you again changed the physical laws that calculate density as the amount of people in a finite space. |
Gmich99 Member Username: Gmich99
Post Number: 247 Registered: 11-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 11:57 am: | |
Population density is not very telling in the comparison of Detroit to other large cities. Unquestionably there are still a lot of people living in proximity to each other in Detroit neighborhoods. But abandoned buildings in their various states of decay, from merely boarded up, to buildings awaiting the fate of "Slumpy," to bulldozed are not factored into vacancy rates. I am unable to imagine another American city with as many parcels of land that sit entirely empty where a building once stood, sit in unusable ruin, or sit boarded up with no prospect of tenancy. |
Bobl Member Username: Bobl
Post Number: 504 Registered: 07-2008
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 12:05 pm: | |
Each time I visit Las Vegas, Lake Mead is visibly lower. They might soon be in serious trouble, as the Lake is in "drought stage" and still falling. Too many people have moved into what is actually a desert. Their future may not be as bright as their casino lights. |
Gmich99 Member Username: Gmich99
Post Number: 249 Registered: 11-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 12:15 pm: | |
The idiocracy of unbridled sprawl and the certain inability of areas like Vegas and Phoenix to sustain such large populations on a finite and dwindling fresh water supply is little consultation for cities like Detroit that have been crippled by the population and financial shift. (Message edited by gmich99 on February 17, 2009) |
Roq Member Username: Roq
Post Number: 7 Registered: 02-2009
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 12:34 pm: | |
"And what do you base Detroit's emptiness on? Because Detroit has more people and is more densely populated than Vegas. So is there some other measurement that you're using?" I base it on when I walk downtown in Detroit, there are hardly any people around (not counting panhandlers) unless a game or event is going on. In Vegas, I'm bumping into people left and right both on the strip and in the old downtown. Like someone else mentioned, there is no comparison between Vegas empty and Detroit empty. |
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed
Post Number: 3781 Registered: 04-2006
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 12:38 pm: | |
quote:I base it on when I walk downtown in Detroit, there are hardly any people around (not counting panhandlers) unless a game or event is going on. In Vegas, I'm bumping into people left and right both on the strip and in the old downtown. Okay, so like I thought, you don't have a point. You compare one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world to downtown Detroit in order to compare "emptiness". Why not just compare Disney World to downtown Detroit to make the same conclusion? |
Diehard Member Username: Diehard
Post Number: 665 Registered: 03-2005
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 1:00 pm: | |
Each time I visit Las Vegas, Lake Mead is visibly lower. They might soon be in serious trouble, as the Lake is in "drought stage" and still falling. Too many people have moved into what is actually a desert. I, for one, am not crying for all those developers who built on spec out in the middle of a sandbox. Let them lose their shirts. We as a society should know better. As for Detroit, better times may be coming. Water is the new oil. |
Islandman Member Username: Islandman
Post Number: 1968 Registered: 08-2004
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 2:17 pm: | |
Good point Diehard. I know a few people that stay in Detroit because of the water resources. Yes, they are waiting for a Mad Max scenario. Population could double overnight. |
Roq Member Username: Roq
Post Number: 8 Registered: 02-2009
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 2:38 pm: | |
"You compare one of the biggest tourist attractions in the world to downtown Detroit in order to compare "emptiness" I didn't compare them, Yahoo did and I called bullshit because anyone with two functioning eyeballs in their head can go to each city and determine which one is emptier. Here's a clue, it isn't Vegas. |
Hudkina Member Username: Hudkina
Post Number: 337 Registered: 12-2004
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 6:01 pm: | |
Roq, you don't even know what that Forbes article is comparing. (Hell you can't even get the source of the article right...) I agree that this "ranking" is ridiculous, but using the criteria that Forbes did, that is how they rank. First of all, they are ranking metropolitan areas. For Detroit that includes all of Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, St. Clair, and Lapeer Counties. For Las Vegas that includes Clark County. Secondly, they are only comparing the vacancy rates for rentals and "for-sale" homes. It's not taking into account empty seasonal housing, "abandoned" housing, etc. It's certainly not taking into account land that onced had housing, but currently doesn't... All they did was look up the information on these two pages: Rental Vacancies: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www /housing/hvs/annual07/ann07t5. html Homeowner Vacancies: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www /housing/hvs/annual07/ann07t6. html They ranked them from #1 to #75 in each category, and then consolidated the rankings. |
Hudkina Member Username: Hudkina
Post Number: 338 Registered: 12-2004
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 6:05 pm: | |
It's just another example of a 5 minute "study" that Forbes did to get on the front page of Yahoo.com in a way to draw people to their own website and generate ad revenue. If you're looking for a intensive study on the actual land-use of major cities, you're not going to find it in a Forbes.com article... |
N7hn Member Username: N7hn
Post Number: 175 Registered: 02-2008
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 8:57 pm: | |
well. Even if there is a high vacancy rate in vegas now, thing is vegas will rebound alot faster that detroit probably will. At least people GO TO Vegas and still have a mostly positive image of the city (Message edited by n7hn on February 17, 2009) |
Lmichigan Member Username: Lmichigan
Post Number: 4135 Registered: 10-2003
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 9:27 pm: | |
It seems like a double posting of the same article every other day now. It's already been done and not even days ago: America's Emptiest Cities |
French777 Member Username: French777
Post Number: 690 Registered: 10-2006
| Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - 9:32 pm: | |
I kinda like having all Downtown to Myself on a Sunday morning! Even-though thats not good news for the city .. |