Lansing Off Topic

[MJLO]

what about the job situation, no matter how nice a place is, if you can't get a job, you can't stay.

[hood]

Lansing has continously had the second lowest unemployment rate in the state, behind Ann Arbor. Lansing also has relatively high-paying, stable jobs, even though the "stable" part is becoming less applicable. Besides, there is sort of a pent-up demand for urban housing in the area, I'm sure much similar to GR. Lansing has a lot going for it, and it's potential is finnaly being realized.

[RustTown]

The problem isn't so much unemployment, as Lansing's economy is diversified enough that its always low, but the loss of manufacturing jobs, and the inability to attract more high-skill jobs. Because the U.S. is bleeding manufacturing jobs, Lansing was hit hard over the past 15 years or so. Behind Detroit, Lansing had the second highest job loss in the nation I remember seeing last year, and it all had to do with the plant closings in the area. Now that that is done, the region won't be losing much of anything else.

[MJLO]

Well you can only lose so much before there is nothing left to lose. I'm sure the same is true of GR, I haven't heard any job numbers lately, but the past six years has not been kind to GR's Job market. I think only now it's starting to recover.

[hood]

The problem isn't so much unemployment, as Lansing's economy is diversified enough that its always low, but the loss of manufacturing jobs, and the inability to attract more high-skill jobs.

It's not so much that Lansing has the inability to attract high-skill jobs, it's that nobody has tried that hard. Lansing is getting in the game pretty late and is going to have a rough time catching up, I'm pretty confident that with MSU, LCC and Cooley that Lansing should be able to do much better. One thing we have going for us is that the Lansing area is considered one of the better educated ones around, I wish I could find the actual ranking but Lansing was up there, I think over the rest of the state even.

Edited June 5, 2006 by hood

[MJLO]

yeah it's a shame, I don't often hear numbers on how Lansing stacks up to other places. I've heard the educated ones. But when I'm in Lansing it seems like the educated residents of the area are located in Okemos and Haslett.

[RustTown]

The region is decently educated. I mean, it's no different than anywhere else where the educated middle class has mostly moved to the suburbs.

[hood]

You gotta check out this site: Cub Scenes, It has great HIGH-res (although watermarked) photos of downtown and all the GM plants.

[RustTown]

Very nice! Though, for once, I wish they weren't so big.

[hood]

I got started on removing the watermark from one of the pics tonight, but I'm taking a break until tomorrow, it's pretty tedious but it looks like it's working decent.

[RustTown]

I resized them, and I personally wouldn't want to remove the watermark sense they are someone elses pictures. I'd hate to see someone else getting them from this site and passing them off as someone as their own.

[hood]

I resized them, and I personally wouldn't want to remove the watermark sense they are someone elses pictures. I'd hate to see someone else getting them from this site and passing them off as someone as their own.

I'm only removing the big watermark, I'm leaving their name and copywrite at the bottom. I wasn't going to post them here anyways, I was just removing it for myself, and if you would like me to email you it I can do that.

[hood]

Just another update on the leasing at the Motorwheel lofts, 45 have now been leased, so nearing 40% even being over two months from the first available units.

[RustTown]

Hopefully not to jinx anything, but it was revealed on the news tonight, halfway through the year, that Lansing has only reported 2 murders, thus far. This is the lowest rate in many, many years. The murder rate has always been significantly low for Lansing for a city its size, but this is unusually low. Hopefully, this is not a fluke. They say if the trend continues (and who knows), we're only on schedule for 5 numbers. I hate to reduce it to numbers, personally, but it's an intersting piece of information, nonetheless. They said that Lansing peaked sometime in the 80's, I think it was, with 22 murders.

[hood]

A couple years ago Lansing had no murders going into June, but still ended up with 8 or 9 on the year. Thats still pretty low, but I doubt we'll see a 5 or 6 murder year, that would almost be unbeleivable.

[RustTown]

Has anyone else heard anything concerning the RFP for the Ottawa Street Station? It seems like we heard they were preparing one, but never heard if they submitted it.

[RustTown]

BTW, I just noticed on Saturday while coming up Grand, that the Rosenbaum Law Center at the corner of Washtenaw and Grand (1-story building built in 1910 directly across from Grand Tower) looked to be being cleaned out. Has anyone heard about them moving? I always imagined these key corners of Grand (at Kalamazoo, Washtenaw, Allegan, and Michigan) becoming residential towers as they'd have great views in almost all directions as the skyline currently "steps down" at to Grand which is inhabited by a lot of one and two story buildings.

[hood]

I seen that too, I have no idea whats going on, but I hope they aren't remodling. I too would like to see all the parking lots and small buildings along Grand between Kalamazoo and Shiawassee razed and turned into something nicer, residential high and mid rises.

[RustTown]

I was by there again, today, to get a closer look, and the signage has been removed on the front of the building.

[hood]

There was an article in the LSJ today about some comments the mayor made regarding the townships on regionalism, and I gotta say I agree with him. Mayor blasts townships; they fire back

The townships are selfish and cause nothing but problems, they care about nothing but adding tax base to themselves. It is evident when you drive around in places like Holt, Okemos and Waverly that the townships take in high tax rates and have nothing to show for it. Major, high-traffic streets are still old two laners with no curbs or side and still have ditches running along side them. They utilize county police, county road crews and just generally lack basic services, townships are a joke. Lansing needs to regionalize as much as possible, if Lansing were to merge with a couple townships to become a city of over 200,000 that could do amazing things for the area. Without doing that, the Lansing region will continue to be on the backburner of the national scene, we will remain to go unnoticed by most companies and investors.

[RustTown]

I agreed with the mayor, too, and even his strong language. IMO, it is charter townships that prevent regionalism. If your currently a charter township there is currently NO incentive for you to cooperate with the other municipalities in your area. What the new Michigan Constitution basically did, mid-century, was to put into law anti-regionalism measures.

Now, I'm not saying annexation could solve all our problems, or that we even should do it on a large scale, but Lansing Township, for instance, has no reason to exist any longer, IMO.

[hood]

Not to bring up the MW lofts again, but there are now 55 units leased an more importantly, the "Ticonderoga," a $2,850 per month unit has been leased. Thats very suprising, $3000 a month is A LOT of money, especially to be spending around there. That may actually be the most expensive apartment in the entire Lansing area, in fact I would bet that it is. It's probably even more expensive than most of those nice, big rental houses in the burbs.

[RustTown]

Does anyone know what's going on at the Knapps Centre? I saw 4-5 industrial-sized dumpsters lined in front of the building along its Washtenaw frontage.

[downtownlansing77]

Nothing is going on with Knapp's...the dumpsters were all moved out of the alley between Allegan and Washtenaw for Combined Sewer Overflow Construction. They are proposing limiting dumpsters back there after construction so the alley is more attractive.

Does anyone know what's going on at the Knapps Centre? I saw 4-5 industrial-sized dumpsters lined in front of the building along its Washtenaw frontage.

[RustTown]

Thanks. Though, there wasn't much unattractive about the alley before. They were always relatively clean and clear for allies. Unless they are seeking to make them pedestrian ways, I really see no reason to move the dumpsters out.