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  #281  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2013, 1:07 AM
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Just came across an enlightening blog post about Corktown in the 1950s.

http://corktownhistory.blogspot.com/...ndustrial.html

One things that struct me as ...horrifying (I guess) is what qualifies as blight.

Quote:
How does one define "blight"? Common sense factors such as housing defects and crime rate were considered, but the urban planners of the 1950s used more creativity in interpreting the word. They also included indications such as:
  • The age of buildings
  • The occupants' income
  • "Overcrowding" of buildings
  • Lack of yard space
  • Intrusion of non-residential uses
  • Narrow streets
  • High traffic volume
  • Lack of off-street parking
  • "Mixed character" of buildings
I mean, I understand they were trying to get federal money to build new housing, but what urban neighborhood doesn't have those qualities? By those measures, they could have demo'd from downtown to Mcnichols if they really wanted to. Ugh... if they only saw the effects of their "improvements" on the city.
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  #282  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2013, 5:42 AM
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It's sad that Lansing has had to come in and take over the reins. This is particularily true due to Lansing being controlled by the mostly-white, suburban Republicans who will yield financial power over mostly poor, black, Democrats of Detroit.

It's not a great solution and doesn't bode well but the reality is that it was probably inevitable. Detroit is imploding due to lack of a tax base, high grandfathered worker compensation payments, high crime, declining population, and a desperate need for the social/ economic/health services it cannot afford. Not to sound too insensitive but Detroit was screwed and it's political corruption and inertia hasn't helped.

The debt burden Detroit faces is crushing and with an ever declining tax base that weigth will only increase. Whether it happened now or 6 months from now, it has become pretty clear that the state had to get involved.

One has to hope that the state will not run with some ideological bent but rather what is in the best interest of the city and her citizens.
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  #283  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2013, 8:51 AM
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Originally Posted by iheartthed View Post
And there's no good reason that I can think of for it to not be its own county.
I certainly can. Splitting only makes sense, IMO, in a maturing county where you have a huge difference in how one part of the county is doing over the other (i.e. one part of the county is just plain booming and the other completely collapsing), or where there is a power struggle, or where you have a really vivid divide between urban and rural or a vivid divide in politics. None of that is true in Wayne County, anymore.

There may have been a time where it might have made sense when the county was still developing. There are no longer any overriding reasons for either to want to get rid of the other. Wayne County does little in Detroit and vice versa, meaning that there isn't any real acrimony, and thus little reason for a split. There are few municipalities in the state that aren't cutting services and employees.

I'm actually shocked anyone is seriously arguing for a split, in a environment where cratering budgets and how we fund local government in this state is facilitating the need for more and closer intra and inter-county relationships, not fewer. If anything, the times are requiring stronger and fewer local governments, not more.
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  #284  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2013, 2:52 PM
AccraGhana AccraGhana is offline
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Originally Posted by ssiguy View Post
It's sad that Lansing has had to come in and take over the reins. This is particularily true due to Lansing being controlled by the mostly-white, suburban Republicans who will yield financial power over mostly poor, black, Democrats of Detroit.

It's not a great solution and doesn't bode well but the reality is that it was probably inevitable. Detroit is imploding due to lack of a tax base, high grandfathered worker compensation payments, high crime, declining population, and a desperate need for the social/ economic/health services it cannot afford. Not to sound too insensitive but Detroit was screwed and it's political corruption and inertia hasn't helped.

The debt burden Detroit faces is crushing and with an ever declining tax base that weigth will only increase. Whether it happened now or 6 months from now, it has become pretty clear that the state had to get involved.

One has to hope that the state will not run with some ideological bent but rather what is in the best interest of the city and her citizens.
^That was one of the most accurate analyses that I have read.

Detroit grew out from the river to become the giant that it was in 1950. Since that apex Detroit's decline started from its center when the core became divested and decayed. Today, there is no doubt that core is starting to reverse its losses as evidenced by a major add agency announcing recently that it will be bringing 600 jobs downtown. From the core the positive infection or inflection will spread.

The problem I have is one of perception, however. If you are the quarterback and you have no line, no running game and no receivers, your stats as a quarterback are going to suck. You cannot rise to your full potential in a team sport where you are dependent upon the rest of the offense doing their part. The true capabilities of Detroit’s leadership could never manifest because they essentially had no line, running backs or receivers, given the population flight, divestment, legacy cost and the decline of the auto industry. It was losing its economic base and its population base, both of which City Hall depended on for its survival. You cannot shine at quarterback without those things.

Now, things are starting to reverse for the city as businesses and people are starting to move back into the core of the city. Now we have a coming Emergency Manager and a white candidate is now leading in the polls to be new mayor. The EM would have POWERS that city leaders did not have. Following the quarterback analogy (and it’s not meant to be a PERFECT analogy either, for detractors) the EM QB gets to change the rules of the game, when the old QB could not. He can declare previous rules of the game null and void and create his own rule. Now he gets 10 seconds before the defense can rush the passer, given him more time to find an open receiver. Thus, he will complete more passes and throw more touchdowns and the crowd will cheer and say that they should have gotten rid of the other bum QBs long ago, all while ignoring the fact that the new QB does better ONLY because he gets to change the rules to help him with his task.

Things are starting to turn around In Detroit, not because or in spite of whom the mayor or city council is. It’s turning around because the businesses community in Southeastern Michigan is finally deciding to invest in the city and young suburbanites are breaking away from the attitudes and fears of other parents and patronizing and even moving into the city’s core. When this momentum picks up and Detroit turns around and there is new leadership……the turnaround will NOT be the result of the new leadership as that will simply be a coincidence and not causation. This is not to suggest that leadership does not make a difference or that Detroit’s previous leaders since the 70’s, have not been guilty of things such as mismanagement, corruption and the like, because they have. What they are guilty of, however, is NOT responsible for the bulk of Detroit’s decline the last 40 years. Their flaws have just been used to obfuscate and deflect the root causes of the decline, which many have a vested interest in sweeping under the rug.
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  #285  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2013, 3:16 PM
iheartthed iheartthed is offline
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Originally Posted by LMich View Post
I'm actually shocked anyone is seriously arguing for a split, in a environment where cratering budgets and how we fund local government in this state is facilitating the need for more and closer intra and inter-county relationships, not fewer. If anything, the times are requiring stronger and fewer local governments, not more.
Granted, this probably made a little more sense in the 1990s, before the state shut down Recorders Court, but Detroit has duplicated nearly every service provided by the county. Why does Detroit pay for a sheriff when it has by far the largest police force in the state of Michigan? Recorder's Court was already effectively the county court system for a Detroit county, so why did they need to abolish it and join Wayne County's system? Detroit operates its own public transit system, so it doesn't need Wayne County for that. Detroit operates its own water and sewage department, so it doesn't need Wayne County for that either.
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  #286  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2013, 3:45 PM
hudkina hudkina is offline
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
is oakland county really getting close to running out of developable land? that would seem odd to me because i think of dupage county as chicagoland's version of oakland county (or the closest thing to it at least), but dupage county has double the overall density of oakland county (2,800 ppsm vs. 1,400 ppsm) and it is truly getting close to full build-out. it would seem to me that the northern half of oakland county would still have a good deal of land left to develop to increase overall density.
Dupage county is much smaller than Oakland County. It's essentially a 3x3 county, whereas Oakland is a 5x5 county. If you take the 3x3 southeast portion of Oakland County, you get a population of of 825,429 in an area of 313 sq. mi. for a density of 2,636 ppsm, or just slightly less than Dupage county.

The remaining 559 sq. mi. of Oakland County has a population of 376,933 for a density of 674 ppsm. Those remaining townships are dominated by low-density sprawl, large-lot rural residential development, as well as protected parks, forests, and wetlands. (Lyon Oaks County Park, Kensington Metro Park, Proud Lake State Recreation Area, Highland State Recreation Area, Pontiac Lake State Recreation Area, Indian Springs Metro Park, Independence Oaks County Park, Orion Oaks County Park, Bald Mountain State Recreation Area, Addison Oaks County Park, and Stony Creek Metro Park sorta create a greenbelt around the denser urban area and those parks combined account for a good 20 sq. mi. of parkland. Those areas have since been engulfed by the low-density sprawl.) While you won't be hard-pressed to find an open field or farm that could easily become the next 500-home subdivision, such land is getting down to the last dozen or two square miles. Most of the newest sprawltopian development has spilled over into Livingston County, or the more easily-developed open farmland of northern Macomb County. It's much cheaper to develop in those areas and there are more "choice" plots of land.

Last edited by hudkina; Mar 6, 2013 at 3:56 PM.
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  #287  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2013, 4:47 PM
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Originally Posted by hudkina View Post

The remaining 559 sq. mi. of Oakland County has a population of 376,933 for a density of 674 ppsm. Those remaining townships are dominated by low-density sprawl, large-lot rural residential development, as well as protected parks, forests, and wetlands.
wow, that's really some super-low density sprawl to only muster 674 ppsm over 559 sq miles of land. i would have thought that there would be way more than only a few "choice" pieces of land to develop over an expanse that vast. is it all like 5 acre minimum lot size kinda stuff up in the northern sections of the county?
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  #288  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2013, 6:08 PM
hudkina hudkina is offline
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Keep in mind something like 10% of that land is parkland and other green spaces. Also, a density of nearly 700 ppsm isn't that low. The minimum threshold for what the Census Bureau defines as urban is 500 ppsm.

This is fairly typical of development outside the 3x3 southeast "Dupage" portion of Oakland County.
[/url]

The problem is that large, easily-developed farmland like that is extremely rare. Most of the lots have already been subdivided into smaller lots for the type of residential development you see already surrounding the farm field. There are still plenty of larger lots, but many are heavily wooded and would be relatively expensive to develop.
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  #289  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2013, 6:12 PM
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Originally Posted by hudkina View Post
Also, a density of nearly 700 ppsm isn't that low. The minimum threshold for what the Census Bureau defines as urban is 500 ppsm.
700 ppsm is extremely low from my perspective. it's straight-up rural compared to where i live, as the pic above shows. the census cut-off of 500 ppsm is stupidly low in my opinion. it should be raised to 1,500 ppsm at a minimum, and even then that still feels pretty damn rural to me.
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  #290  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2013, 6:56 PM
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But the point is that this land isn't rural in the traditional sense of the word. A better term would be semi-urban, a step below suburban, but a step above rural. You can clearly see that this area isn't agricultural and certainly not wilderness. Urbanity, by definition isn't exclusive to hyper-urban skyscraper districts even if that's the type of urbanity to which you are accustomed...
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  #291  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2013, 7:31 PM
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Actually, something like 38% of the SFH Oakland County is 2.5 acres and above. 14% is parkland and preservation. 11% is vacant land. 4.5% is agricultural. And then 6% is taken up by the lakes. So yea, collectively, there's not much land left to claim.

http://www.advantageoakland.com/Rese...pmasteroak.pdf
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  #292  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2013, 8:03 PM
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Originally Posted by hudkina View Post
Urbanity, by definition isn't exclusive to hyper-urban skyscraper districts even if that's the type of urbanity to which you are accustomed...
i'm aware that the definition of urbanism extends well beyond skyscraper districts, but the pic above of northern oakland county doesn't look remotely urban to me, it looks like relatively wealthy people living out in the country, which is what it is. sub-suburban would be the best description.

but we're way off topic................ sorry.
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  #293  
Old Posted Mar 6, 2013, 10:15 PM
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^Or 'exurban.' It's certainly not urban.
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  #294  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2013, 6:21 AM
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Originally Posted by hudkina View Post
But the point is that this land isn't rural in the traditional sense of the word. A better term would be semi-urban, a step below suburban, but a step above rural. You can clearly see that this area isn't agricultural and certainly not wilderness. Urbanity, by definition isn't exclusive to hyper-urban skyscraper districts even if that's the type of urbanity to which you are accustomed...
A neighborhoods composed almost entirely of single family detached houses (like mine) can have 10,000 people per square mile easily and thus it is laughable to consider 700 per square mile urban, that is textbook exurban. Oddly enough though eliminate that farmland, make the streets more grid pattern and the houses smaller and it doesn't look all that different from the bombed out neighborhoods of Detroit. I think in much of metro Detroit urbanism is almost like a dead religion, there is some ancestoral memory of urban living but the average person has little to no frame of proper reference.
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  #295  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2013, 2:17 PM
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A neighborhoods composed almost entirely of single family detached houses (like mine) can have 10,000 people per square mile easily and thus it is laughable to consider 700 per square mile urban, that is textbook exurban. Oddly enough though eliminate that farmland, make the streets more grid pattern and the houses smaller and it doesn't look all that different from the bombed out neighborhoods of Detroit. I think in much of metro Detroit urbanism is almost like a dead religion, there is some ancestoral memory of urban living but the average person has little to no frame of proper reference.
I think that the enclave of Hamtramck would refute that.
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  #296  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2013, 3:11 PM
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Originally Posted by Chicago103 View Post
A neighborhoods composed almost entirely of single family detached houses (like mine) can have 10,000 people per square mile easily and thus it is laughable to consider 700 per square mile urban, that is textbook exurban. Oddly enough though eliminate that farmland, make the streets more grid pattern and the houses smaller and it doesn't look all that different from the bombed out neighborhoods of Detroit. I think in much of metro Detroit urbanism is almost like a dead religion, there is some ancestoral memory of urban living but the average person has little to no frame of proper reference.
Detroit actually still has a lot of dense 10,000+ ppsm census tracts, but the problem is that they are not contiguous. If the city of Detroit could cull out those de-populated tracts then the overall population density would probably bounce up somewhere close to 10,000 ppsm. Obviously, that is impossible considering the patchwork of populated tracts versus de-populated tracts shown on the map below... Along with the unfortunate circumstance of having much of the de-population center around the core of the city:



source: http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2...or-rail-first/
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  #297  
Old Posted Mar 7, 2013, 11:19 PM
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^That map is based on 2000 Census data. There are a quarter-million fewer Detroiters today.
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  #298  
Old Posted Mar 8, 2013, 3:17 AM
hudkina hudkina is offline
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Originally Posted by Chicago103 View Post
A neighborhoods composed almost entirely of single family detached houses (like mine) can have 10,000 people per square mile easily and thus it is laughable to consider 700 per square mile urban, that is textbook exurban. Oddly enough though eliminate that farmland, make the streets more grid pattern and the houses smaller and it doesn't look all that different from the bombed out neighborhoods of Detroit. I think in much of metro Detroit urbanism is almost like a dead religion, there is some ancestoral memory of urban living but the average person has little to no frame of proper reference.
That is a picture of a neighborhood 37 miles from downtown Detroit. That particular square mile has a density of 281 ppsm. It's only a representation of the metropolitan fringes where large-lot residential dominates. It is hardly indicative of a typical metro Detroiter's neighborhood. It's not even classified as urban by the Census Bureau. I was just giving an example of what semi-urban development along the metropolitan fringe looks like. Oakland County has tons of it, but because it is so lightly populated, it is about as typical (population-wise) as people living in the downtowns of Royal Oak, Birmingham, Rochester, Ferndale, Milford, Farmington, Pontiac, etc.
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  #299  
Old Posted Mar 8, 2013, 3:24 AM
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It's sad that Lansing has had to come in and take over the reins. This is particularily true due to Lansing being controlled by the mostly-white, suburban Republicans who will yield financial power over mostly poor, black, Democrats of Detroit.
I think people are being too sympathetic to the City of Detroit. Have any of you ever seen video of Detroit City Council meetings? If you take a look at them you will see that a lot of the troubles Detroit faces are due in large part to an incompetent city government.
Yes suburbanization, business flight, etc have had a huge negative impact on Detroit. But Detroit City Council and their fight against working with the region, etc have also been a huge huge part of the decline of Detroit.

And it is time they are called out to task about their inability to run a big city.

Detroit also needs a huge dose of regionalism where the city and suburbs have to work together whether they like it or not. It can't be done under Michigan law, but if it was possible, the State should just amalgamate Detroit and its suburbs and regionalize all major services and schools.
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  #300  
Old Posted Mar 8, 2013, 4:09 AM
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Originally Posted by miketoronto View Post
I think people are being too sympathetic to the City of Detroit. Have any of you ever seen video of Detroit City Council meetings? If you take a look at them you will see that a lot of the troubles Detroit faces are due in large part to an incompetent city government.
Yes suburbanization, business flight, etc have had a huge negative impact on Detroit. But Detroit City Council and their fight against working with the region, etc have also been a huge huge part of the decline of Detroit.

And it is time they are called out to task about their inability to run a big city.

Detroit also needs a huge dose of regionalism where the city and suburbs have to work together whether they like it or not. It can't be done under Michigan law, but if it was possible, the State should just amalgamate Detroit and its suburbs and regionalize all major services and schools.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCZTkk-JxOo

Now....had this taken place in Haiti or some poor African Country you can bet the narrative would be that such is a demonstration of incompetence and the inability to run a country. The bottom line is that some groups have no margin for error or cultural difference before someone uses the error or cultural differences as proof of incompetence and inferiority.

Last edited by AccraGhana; Mar 8, 2013 at 4:24 AM.
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