  Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 252 Registered: 04-2006 |
WARNING: For those who find my sarcasm and rants confusing or annoying, consider this your warning to get out of dodge. The City is about to become filled with City Planners from around the State for the annual conference! http://www.planningmi.org/conf erence.asp | ||
Futurecity Member Username: Futurecity Post Number: 366 Registered: 05-2005 |
"City Planners" in Michigan? What a crock!! I have yet to meet or ever even hear of one single solitary City Planner working in this state. Michigan has all of the "city planning" of a Third World oil town. Like flies at a trash dump on a hot July day, Michigan has an abundance of "Planners of Subdivisions", "Planners of Sprawl", "Planners of Deforestation and Raping of the Land", "Planners of Eight-Lane-Roads Littered with Big Box and Fast Food Cankers", "Planners of Promoting Automobile Use", "Planners of Stifiling Pedestrians", and "Planners Bent On Making Daily Life In Michigan as Fucked As Possible", But NO, I Repeat NO City Planners. | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 255 Registered: 04-2006 |
Wow who pissed in your wheaties? I think much of your problem deals with the right of a person to develop land as they seem fit. Planners are somewhat helpless against the what is seen as a fundemental freedom. Who was involved in Campus Martius, was it the sprawling planners out to screw people over? How about the miles of bicycle pathways, the clearing of red tape for the development of loft apartments or new townhomes in Detroit. Who is putting together a transit plan and moving it forward dispite constant naysayers or those throwing roadblocks in the way to funding it? Who are looking for ways to get around those roadblocks so the poor can have access to jobs? If Michigan has no City Planners, who has put together the proposals that have put the boulevard into Gratiot, the streetscapes along Woodward and Michigan? Do you think that City planners are pleased by that type of development? If you do, you must live in someplace like Canton or Washington Township because most planners are not there to rubber stamp site plans. Where are all of these 8 Lane Roads that the planners are working on? When was the last one built in the Detroit area?? The only thing I can think of in recent memory is the completion of the M-53 bypass, and most of that was built 20 years ago, and it took another 20 to finish it, and even that only added two lanes! | ||
Flybydon Member Username: Flybydon Post Number: 30 Registered: 01-2005 |
Wow who pissed in your wheaties? Oh I like that one. | ||
Michikraut Member Username: Michikraut Post Number: 185 Registered: 05-2004 |
That was a good one: though in my family will have to use "cheerio´s" as that is the fav. I think Futurecity is still thinking of the cityplanners from the 50´s/60´s/early 70´s. Modernism, Corbusier, New Frontiers was the fashion and everything seemed possible. Cities were deconstructed, satelite towns were planned and all connected by space age transportation (ala "Jetsons") Well, as fashioned has changed so has city planning: most schools for Urban Planning now stress density, street grids, population centers, mass-transit, and less intrusive planning. Think "Seeside" (??? is that the right name?) or even the Disney city down in Florida (though too cute and mainly for upper class). The concept of streetscape with smaller lots, human scale, with walk/bike accessable shopping areas, housing connected with the streets, and high density but still green developement is the norm. City planners can only set out a blueprint for developement - it is up to the developers, politicians, and building boards to follow and stick with the plans. I witnessed the bitterness and false accusations that flew a few years back when Ionia County passed a zoning ordnance. Originally conceived by a couple of city/towns/citizens to prohibit the expansion and developement of vast mobile home parks and slow down the conversion of good farm land into housing developements. It passed but barely and the tone was down right nasty - with so many false rumors flying around of what all would be prohibited(farmers from breaking up their farms or selling off parcels to family members to build a home, parking campers next to the houses during winter, building barns and sheds on your land, addition of new livestock, etc) Now, a majority are happy it is there and have actually tightened up a few loopholes. The land value has improved and some of the junk homes and lots have been removed. City planning is a good thing and when combined with community input and supported by the building approval boards and politicians- can lead to an improved standard of living. So speaks the architect- so perhaps I am a bit biased. | ||
Futurecity Member Username: Futurecity Post Number: 367 Registered: 05-2005 |
DP- Calling them planners is fine. They plan shit and we get shit. However, they are not City Planners. It's a gross misnomer to describe them as such. And gives them credit they in no way deserve. Oh, and by the way, the only time we get something decent (such as Campus Martius) is when the planners are taken out of the process and people who actually know about cities and the proper design of cities are brought in to do the job. | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 256 Registered: 04-2006 |
City planning is not the design end of the process. I think that is where we are not connecting. Planners are there to involve the public, identify problems, mitigatation measures, facilitate economic development, and to ensure that laws are not broken in the development of projects. (Message edited by detroitplanner on October 11, 2006) | ||
Futurecity Member Username: Futurecity Post Number: 368 Registered: 05-2005 |
"identify problems"? What sort of problems? Is it a problem that 99% of the built environment in Michigan not only looks like absolute shit, but is set up in an arrangement that is almost completely unusable without total dependence on an automobile? "involve the public"? What does this mean? Sounds like bureaucratic double-speak. Are you implying that the "public" is asking for the unsustainable, unwalkable, heinous shit planners are enabling developers to dump on us? "mitigation measures"? Surely you joke! Is this when a "developer" wants to land yet another fast-food drive-thru in someone's neighborhood, and people complain, the "planner" makes the "developer" use brick on the exterior? Or plant some bushes at the property line? "facilitate economic development"? HAR HAR HAR. As if the only solution is "the shit that we have all around us now" solution. Thanks for helping facilitate it. | ||
Solarflare Member Username: Solarflare Post Number: 557 Registered: 11-2003 |
You sound like a know-it-all student who has yet to experience the real world. Quit your crying and/or stick it up your ass. | ||
Jjw Member Username: Jjw Post Number: 182 Registered: 10-2005 |
futurecity tells it like it is---i agree. Step 1 in city planning: recognice past failure. | ||
Jjw Member Username: Jjw Post Number: 183 Registered: 10-2005 |
sorry--typo-recognize | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 257 Registered: 04-2006 |
All I wanted to do was to notify folks that there were people here from outstate who want to see all of the great changes in the city, and all I get is someone complaining. There are people around here who are only happy when they can play the victim of the man, citicize others who are actually trying to accomplish something, or are just plain cranky. Your questions of my explaination tell me you do not have the vaguest idea of what goes on in the planning profession. I would suggest that you do some reading on it before you continue your rant. www.planning.org | ||
Futurecity Member Username: Futurecity Post Number: 371 Registered: 05-2005 |
Only 15+ years experience with "planners". | ||
Themax Member Username: Themax Post Number: 334 Registered: 09-2005 |
Isn'there a plan to widen I-75 in Detroit? | ||
Brandon48202 Member Username: Brandon48202 Post Number: 108 Registered: 12-2004 |
Thanks for notifying us Detroitplanner, I let my APA membership lapse and have been out of the loop. That's a great looking line up of speakers/presentations. If I wasn't stuck in my cubicle tomorrow I'd go to the MSHDA housing finance session and the downtown walking tour. | ||
Bvos Member Username: Bvos Post Number: 2036 Registered: 10-2003 |
Futurecity, Your experiences are will the old line planners. The newer crop of planners are much more focused on helping create an environment where development happens in a quality, sustainable and desirable way. There was a lot of stuff that happened back in the 50s-70s (even 80s) in Detroit and Michigan that today's planners realize where catastrophic decisions. Urban Renewal being one of the most glaring abuses of planning. The downtown revival of Detroit and the revival of many other downtowns such as Birmingham, Royal Oak, Ferndale, etc. would not have happened with planners. Planners aren't the ones directly clearing title, creating renderings & site plans, putting together the financing package, etc. They're the ones creating an environment that has a lower risk for developers to do a deal while also serving the needs and wants of the community. They're the grease that makes things go. See you at the MAP conference Thurs. & Fri. DP. | ||
Futurecity Member Username: Futurecity Post Number: 372 Registered: 05-2005 |
The towns that you mention are moving in the right direction, but they are grains of sand on a giant beach full of shit (Thanks, "Planners!"). For every downtown Ferndale in Michigan there are 25 Hall Roads, 26 Mile Roads, and zillion subdivisions, tech parks and office campuses in between. All enabled and facilitated not by "old line planners from the 50's-70's, but by the quality of life killing ilk of your contemporaries. Nice try in passing the buck. Thanks for nothing. If you really cared about cities and making them better, you and DPlanner would attend the conference and stand at the door and punch the attendees in the face as they walk through. (Message edited by Futurecity on October 11, 2006) | ||
Apbest Member Username: Apbest Post Number: 208 Registered: 03-2006 |
thats retarded | ||
Detroitplanner Member Username: Detroitplanner Post Number: 259 Registered: 04-2006 |
I won't be at the conference, I am stuck in my cubicle working on the environmental impacts for environmental justice populations. I did go to the PNO tonight though. Future, you really have to look at the law and how developers work. I don't know a single planner that is pleased with the sprawl, yet we don't own the land, we can only regulate to the best of our ability. You should really look to Michigan's legislature to give the planners the kind of power you say we have. Here is an example of FutureCity's planners: http://www.edthefed.com/papers /the_highway.pdf | ||
Bvos Member Username: Bvos Post Number: 2039 Registered: 10-2003 |
I know several of the Macomb Co. planners. None of them like the sprawl that has overtaken the county. They can throw a fit all they want, create all the studies that prove their point, etc. but ultimately the decision is up to the local township board. Most township boards don't or refuse to understand the need to control growth in a positive and sustainable manner. They just approve any and every idea that comes to them. The planners are hamstrung by the policies of the county and state which value the fractal decisions of little fiefdoms instead of decisions based on rational regional systems. If you don't like the way a community works, talk to the local legislators. They're the ones with ultimate control over land use. | ||
Michikraut Member Username: Michikraut Post Number: 186 Registered: 05-2004 |
here here, FC- yep, there has been some big mistakes done by planners in the past- many of them recognised and deplored. Sorta like those wide bell-bottomed pants you were wearing at the family reunion in those old photos. Most planners today- are trying to migate those mistakes and learn from the past and make improvements. But as many other members have stated here- Planners can only make suggestions/concepts/alternati ve solutions and guidelines- it is up to the city councils, building boards and developers to implement them. City councils are usually more interested in creating tax base while environmental/aesthetics/livab ility are secondary priorities. Building boards are hampered by lack of/or contrary Zoning laws and Ordances which dictate building requirements/setbacks/density/ parking/etc. Developers/Builders are interested in making a profit and too often Design/Planning takes a back seat to timeliness and costs. Planners are not all to blame for the urban problems of the Detroit/Michigan/States. The people wanted their subdivisions, expressways/highways, big SUV, strip malls with big parking lots, and freedom to do as they please with their land. It is only in recent years has the issue of a walkable Community, less dependant on the automobile become socially desirable by a larger segment of the population. If the majority wanted more planning and restrictions they would have empowered their Local Boards/State Dept. with the power to create and enforce more human scale development. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 5068 Registered: 02-2004 |
City planners are already here. Gentrifying every Detroit ghettohoods in its path. | ||
Detroitej72 Member Username: Detroitej72 Post Number: 350 Registered: 05-2006 |
Danny, GET OVER IT!!! Detroitej72, REAL DETROITER | ||
Brandon48202 Member Username: Brandon48202 Post Number: 110 Registered: 12-2004 |
Anybody here attend any of the activities? |
