Muskegon -
Let's jump over to Muskegon, a city that has had its fair share of tough times, but one that is making a serious effort at a renaissance. 'Urban Renewal' was not limited to big cities, and Muskegon followed the model set by bigger municipalities. As a result, the entire downtown was basically obliterated. Starting in the 1950s, much of the city's downtown building stock was demolished and replaced with parking lots. In the 1960s, a suburban-style mall took the place of Western venue, in an ill-fated, cringe-worthy attempt to attract shoppers downtown. The economy continued to falter and downtown suffered severe blows that were hard to overcome for decades. That mall has since been demolished, and the city has reinstated the historic, pedestrian-oriented street grid, which has helped encourage new interest in developing downtown. This
article from the Institute for Quality Communities, out of the University of Oklahoma, does a good brief summary of the changes, and has some shocking before / after comparison photos with a slide bar (brace yourself) -
Downtown Aerial View - 1953 - Note the dense urban fabric, few surface lots -
Downtown - Same Aerial View, but in 1968 - Notice the extensive surface lots and loss of historic blocks -
Aerial View - 2002 - The suburban-style Muskegon Mall has caused even further degradation of downtown core, killing more local businesses and bringing more surface lots -
Downtown Aerial View - 2013 - With the mall fully-demolished in the early 2000's and the street grid reconstructed, new developments are seen occurring -
It's not all sunshine and flowers, of course, but...wow! What progress has been made is incredible and commendable and there is so much more in the works. A recent rough estimate shows that about $1 billion is currently being invested in the city. There is a demand for new housing downtown that hasn't existed since the 1950s, and businesses are either returning to downtown or opening there for the first time.