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  #141  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 1:26 AM
tablemtn tablemtn is offline
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How can the US federal govt or the Michigan state govt just sit back and continue to let this city rot?
Inertia. It has been a troubled city for 40 years. People get used to it, and move on.
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  #142  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 1:28 AM
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Originally Posted by Blitz View Post
I don't see how the city proper can turn itself around without some sort of amalgamation or consolidation. Of course it won't be popular but nothing else seems to be working. How can the US federal govt or the Michigan state govt just sit back and continue to let this city rot? If this situation were to have happened in Canada, there would've been a forced amalgamation when the problems first started being recognized 40 years ago.
The problems were "noticed" in the riots and with the leadership of people like Coleman Young, and people voted with their feet. Would the Canadian government have forced inhabitants who wanted to leave to stay in Detroit?

The Canadian government would have just as clueless as to how to rectify the situation as the American one, perhaps more.
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  #143  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 1:30 AM
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Originally Posted by Blitz View Post
I don't see how the city proper can turn itself around without some sort of amalgamation or consolidation. Of course it won't be popular but nothing else seems to be working. How can the US federal govt or the Michigan state govt just sit back and continue to let this city rot? If this situation were to have happened in Canada, there would've been a forced amalgamation when the problems first started being recognized 40 years ago.
I'd like to remind you that these are the same citizens who wanted to reject the 2nd bridge between Detroit and Windsor that Canada was going to fully pay for.
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  #144  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 1:58 AM
hudkina hudkina is offline
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The bridge proposal failed, meaning the vast majority of people saw through the lies. Granted it's not surprising to see so many duped by the endless ads of a billionaire. There were virtually no opposition ads.
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  #145  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 2:02 AM
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In Canada, provincial governments have total control over the nature of local government. US State governments don't have that power.

Ontario could probably dissolve every single municipality in the province and govern the entire thing as a 1 million square kilometre city state if it wanted to.
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  #146  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 2:03 AM
hudkina hudkina is offline
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As far as amalgamation, I think it would have to come from a vote by the people. And even then, only the municipalities where a majority of residents vote for consolidation would be able to merge. It might be easier to start with a merger of the three county governments and then maybe merge the city of Detroit with that county government. From there, it might just be an issue trying to get the residents of each individual municipality to vote to merge their government with the regional government. Some might do it readily, some might never do it.
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  #147  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 2:09 AM
AccraGhana AccraGhana is offline
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Ok….I have read through all the threads and it appears that Detroit is still the area that America loves to denigrate and write off. If people take away the gain of immigrants from other major older large northern cities, they would all be in similar shape as Detroit. The Detroit area has lacked the growth of immigrants from Latin America, Asia, the Caribbean and Africa and this is mainly because there has not been robust economic activity to attract them to the region. Immigrants are attracted to areas of job growth and opportunity and Southeastern Michigan has been the opposite of that.

There has been a massive loss of white and African American population from many areas in California, as well as New York and Chicago. However, the loss of the traditional demographic has been replaced by immigrants. Detroit has a large Middle Eastern immigrant population, but the Detroit area is underrepresented, percentage wise, in regards to the fastest growing minority groups. The Detroit area represents the Demographics of America in the 70’s and not 2013. It’s primarily a white and black metro area while most other major metros are much more diverse due to immigration.

There are about 6 million people in a 50 mile radius of Detroit and about 13 million people in a 100 mile radius. There are about 54 million people in a 300 mile radius. Detroit is the largest trade route in America, as trade with Canada, our number one trading partner, goes mostly through Detroit. There is about to be a second international bridge added connecting Detroit and Windsor, creating thousands of jobs. The auto industry and unions have been radically restructured. Michigan tax laws have been changed and Michigan’s business climate is much more favorably rated than in the past. Michigan is blessed and surrounded by fresh water, which is a resource that most people do not realize will heavily shape the future due it growing scarcity relative to population growth.

I think the Detroit and Michigan bashers better spend as much time getting their licks in while they can because Michigan, in the next 10 years, is going to outperform most states and Detroit is going to comeback a lot stronger than people think. I have no doubt in my mind of this. In 10 years, many of the boom areas of the last 20 or 30 years are going to experience major problems.
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  #148  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 2:34 AM
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Originally Posted by AccraGhana View Post
I think the Detroit and Michigan bashers better spend as much time getting their licks in while they can because Michigan, in the next 10 years, is going to outperform most states and Detroit is going to comeback a lot stronger than people think. I have no doubt in my mind of this. In 10 years, many of the boom areas of the last 20 or 30 years are going to experience major problems.
I don't disagree. However, the million dollar question is what Detroit would look like in that 10 years. Will most of the recovery happen in the suburbs and much of the inner-city still hallowed out? Would sprawl continue to spread outwards and away from the city? Would much of the urban landscape be converted into super-block farms or left to nature? Most likely, yes.

Detroit has a few ideas of what the city may look like in 50 years (which seems like a really far off date).

http://detroitworksproject.com/wp-co...ghborhoods.pdf

Last edited by animatedmartian; Feb 9, 2013 at 2:46 AM.
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  #149  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 3:49 AM
AccraGhana AccraGhana is offline
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Originally Posted by animatedmartian View Post
I don't disagree. However, the million dollar question is what Detroit would look like in that 10 years. Will most of the recovery happen in the suburbs and much of the inner-city still hallowed out? Would sprawl continue to spread outwards and away from the city? Would much of the urban landscape be converted into super-block farms or left to nature? Most likely, yes.

Detroit has a few ideas of what the city may look like in 50 years (which seems like a really far off date).

http://detroitworksproject.com/wp-co...ghborhoods.pdf

Nope....I think the major players in the Detroit region are finally realizing that a revitalized Detroit proper is the key to regional stability and growth. That revitalization will manifest the same way the city grew originally....which is from the core outwards. In 15 years Detroits population will be over 800,000, depending on what happens with the black population. I think the white population will increase significantly in coming years....but inner ring suburbs will experience white flight and many blacks may continue to move to the inner ring suburbs....decreasing the count in the city. If the black population in the city stabalizes while the white population increases in the core, the city will see net growth.
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  #150  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 5:00 AM
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Originally Posted by AccraGhana View Post
Nope....I think the major players in the Detroit region are finally realizing that a revitalized Detroit proper is the key to regional stability and growth. That revitalization will manifest the same way the city grew originally....which is from the core outwards. In 15 years Detroits population will be over 800,000, depending on what happens with the black population. I think the white population will increase significantly in coming years....but inner ring suburbs will experience white flight and many blacks may continue to move to the inner ring suburbs....decreasing the count in the city. If the black population in the city stabalizes while the white population increases in the core, the city will see net growth.
I think the white population is already beginning to increase. Lately I've been seeing whites move into neighborhoods like Russell Woods, University District, and Indian Village as well as Downtown and Midtown. So I think you might be pretty accurate in that regards.

And what about the immigration factor? Currently, Southwest Detroit has a relatively stable Hispanic population but not enough increase to outweigh the decrease of other races. So possibly if what you say ends up happening, then SW Detroit ought to see the first true population gains in Detroit (instead of simply vacant area being filled in the other neighborhoods). But what about other immigrants? Other than near Hamtramck, I don't imagine too many immigrants filling any neighborhoods unless a new immigrant specific neighborhood is created.
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  #151  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 11:18 AM
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How about making Detroit almost like a county-city, not in a literal governmental sense but in how it is built. With Detroit's plan to concentrate resources in relatively stable residential areas and have urban farming in the areas inbetween that are nearly totally vacant after awhile you could literally have "small towns" within the city in the more remote neighborhoods, "countryside" between them and downtown Detroit being the central gathering place for everyone in this "city-county". Pick a few really stable looking houses in nearly vacant areas and make them "farmhouses", I mean seriously on google street view some houses already look like farmhouses amidst countryside. It could be a way to show to everyone in the US that countryside and urbanity can live side by side while the outer suburbs of Detroit having the usual endless sprawl.
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  #152  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 3:22 PM
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Originally Posted by vid View Post
In Canada, provincial governments have total control over the nature of local government. US State governments don't have that power.

Ontario could probably dissolve every single municipality in the province and govern the entire thing as a 1 million square kilometre city state if it wanted to.
North Carolina has that power over municipal entities within its borders. At the moment, for instance, my city is being punished for being liberal. Our state representative has stripped us of control of our airport, our expo center, and next up is the water system. When we complained, we were threatened with dissolution in a threatening letter to the editor from that representative, in which he reminded us that all municipal entities in North Carolina exist only at the pleasure of the legislature. In other words, sit down, shut up, or face being forcibly merged with the conservative county that elected me in the first place.
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  #153  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 3:35 PM
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In Ontario, the government punishes cities by forcing them to provide more services. This is especially true in the north, where the largest city in a district (which is like a county but has no government) is responsible for providing all other communities in its district with various social services like housing, ambulances, and welfare.

Cities here are large geographic blocks though, not oddly shaped blobs that interlock with each other and have enclaves and exclaves all over the place, so the idea of dissolving a city is a bit more impractical unless its in a district with a county government. And in most cases, our large cities are already independent of their counties.
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  #154  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 3:55 PM
AccraGhana AccraGhana is offline
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Unfortunately Detroit has been a victim of self-fulfilling hyperbole. Detroit’s issues have always been overblown to the degree that the hyperbole became the accepted belief and in turn dissuaded investment and residence, which in turn self-fulfilled the hyperbole. It’s akin to going to a bad doctor who tells you that your condition is a lot worse than it really is, which in turn makes the patient depressed and stressed, which in turn lowers their immune system, which in turn makes the patient’s condition worse. That is what is called a negative self-fulfilling prophecy. The placebo effect can be seen as a positive self-fulfilling prophecy.

Detroit has been a city that America has loved to pick on and use as a case in point in punch lines and supposedly scholarly exchanges on what can happen to a city if it follows the wrong. This negative advertising, free of charge, only made matters worse. In regards to crime, well, Detroit’s high crime RATE was primarily a consequence of white flight. Nationally the violent crime rate for African Americans (for historical reasons) is extremely higher than it is nationally for white America. Thus, the higher percentage black a city is the higher the crime rate will be, as a general rule (Southfield notwithstanding). In other words, it has not been the case that blacks in Detroit are much more violent than blacks in other big cities, rather, the anomaly is that most cities that Detroit is juxtaposed against have much larger white populations in terms of percentage of the overall population.

If Detroit merged with Wayne County, Detroit’s crime rate would take a radical fall per capita because the demographics would reflect the demographic makeup more similar to other large cities. Thus, what makes Detroit stand out is the level of racial polarization that manifest between city and suburbs, while in many other areas of the country this polarization manifest within city limits, preserving large white populations, as in the case of Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, or little polarization at all. Cities that maintain a significant white population have lower crime rates, although the same types of crime that is in Detroit exist in those cities as well, but is more isolated to certain neighborhoods or sides of town where blacks and or Hispanics live. Hence, there has never really been a crime anomaly in Detroit, but rather a racial polarization anomaly between city and suburb resulting in Detroit becoming a microcosm of the black problems in America.

As I said in my other post, people just took the 2010 census numbers and ran with it as the truth. Detroit’s decline was embellished, just like nearly every other problem in Detroit has been. There is no way that Detroit lost 250,000 in 10 years. In particular, there is no way that Detroit lost 190,000 blacks in 10 years (actually in 7 years as the economy in the state and region did not really get bad until 2003...but no worse than in the 80's which did not create a mass black exodus), especially when the previous decade showed and 15k increase in the black population. How many squatters were missed? There are so many abandoned housing units in Detroit that people can and do simply squat and they obviously would be reluctant to come out in the open and to be counted and risk being evicted (in their mind) from the property. In no major city is this probably truer than in Detroit, due to the number of abandoned dwellings and the number of poor and destitute people. The census methodology is not tweaked to account for a situation like Detroit’s and when the mayor chooses to NOT rally the city, like can be done when rallying people to vote to increase participation, then it’s clear that the 2010 numbers are inconsistent, if not inaccurate. Thus, in regards to the official census count for Detroit.....I call BS.

Detroit's problems are not rooted in the incompetence or corruption of its leadership, but rather, the racial attitudes and polarization of the people in the region. The latter is improving and that is why Detroit is slowly starting to come back, despite Dave Bing being in office.

Last edited by AccraGhana; Feb 9, 2013 at 4:27 PM.
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  #155  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 4:34 PM
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Originally Posted by AccraGhana View Post
Detroit's problems are not rooted in the incompetence or corruption of its leadership, but rather, the racial attitudes and polarization of the people in the region. The latter is improving and that is why Detroit is slowly starting to come back, despite Dave Bing being in office.
While I agree with a lot of what you're saying, this point is not completely valid. Other cities in Michigan (i.e. Grand Rapids) have demonstrated what can be done with good governance. Yes, Grand Rapids may be less racially divided than Detroit, but that is not the main differentiating factor. Even as Grand Rapids' population has remained stagnant for the past half a century, the city has continued to grow. Population changes and racial make-up are not all-encompassing excuses.
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  #156  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 7:28 PM
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Originally Posted by dc_denizen View Post
The problems were "noticed" in the riots and with the leadership of people like Coleman Young, and people voted with their feet. Would the Canadian government have forced inhabitants who wanted to leave to stay in Detroit?

The Canadian government would have just as clueless as to how to rectify the situation as the American one, perhaps more.
Canada would have more growth management, making sprawl more difficult and expensive. That could have slowed things down substantially.
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  #157  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 7:54 PM
AccraGhana AccraGhana is offline
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While I agree with a lot of what you're saying, this point is not completely valid. Other cities in Michigan (i.e. Grand Rapids) have demonstrated what can be done with good governance. Yes, Grand Rapids may be less racially divided than Detroit, but that is not the main differentiating factor. Even as Grand Rapids' population has remained stagnant for the past half a century, the city has continued to grow. Population changes and racial make-up are not all-encompassing excuses.
I think Grand Rapids demographic makeup makes your comparison apples to oranges, with all due respect. Also, I am not willing to give “grades” without there being a standardized test. Certainly Grand Rapids has not faced the difficult situation of residents and businesses leaving in droves and devastating the tax base. The situations of the two cities are like night and day. The racial composition of the city is VERY important. Why? In America, black poverty is 3 times the rate of whites, black unemployment is twice the rate of whites and black wealth is 13 times less than whites. Thus, a majority white city will reflect the better economic feasibility of government given the greater taxable income and wealth (from homes mostly and revenue from property taxes). Not only that, but when half the population leaves, something that never happened in Grand Rapids, and the same square mileage has to be serviced and the pension of retired workers from the city when it was much larger still have to be paid, then the situation becomes untenable.

I will say that in regards to corruption and such, cities like Chicago and New York have a long history of such, without it resulting in the conditions of Detroit. The last 4 Governors of Illinois, I believe, have served prison time for corruption charges and certainly the state of Illinois has not been abandoned like Detroit has.

As far as incompetence goes, which is another charged leveled at Detroit leaders, what does that really mean? Does failure to turn conditions around make one incompetent? Maybe, however, it first has to be demonstrated that it is realistic that the leadership, or any leadership, is dealing with a situation that can be turned around by their actions. If Detroit leaders had to bench press 500 lbs, and continued to fail, sure they are incompetent at their given task, but what percentages of people are competent to do it?

Last edited by AccraGhana; Feb 9, 2013 at 8:20 PM.
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  #158  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 8:05 PM
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Canada would have more growth management, making sprawl more difficult and expensive. That could have slowed things down substantially.
For US cities, that'd get complicated. For Detroit, you have Toledo, Flint, and Ann Arbor all within 1 hour's distance. If growth is limited in Detroit, then people would simply relocate into the cheaper satellite cities. So then the population becomes more evenly spread through the region and all that leaves is a green belt between Detroit and the satellite cities.

And if you try to do the same thing to the satellite cities, then the whole region would be island cities with no room to grow and really who knows where it'd stop.
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  #159  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 8:13 PM
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It has to be at the state level at least. The state can mandate that every county and town create growth mangement plans within a certain framework. That's tough to do, and every town can be a loophole, but it does work, and is done to varying extents in some regions.
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  #160  
Old Posted Feb 9, 2013, 8:33 PM
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Accra: New York was doing really bad in the 70s economically, similar to Detroit. Yet, the tides began to turn when reforms were implemented and sound, stable governance occurred.

mhays: That would be difficult, as every county would have different criteria; growth management would be very different in Oakland and Macomb Counties compared to Wayne County. A regional approach would need to be taken, but that will never happen when the region still ops to create more suburbs.
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