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Downtown Detroit Development

TheDetroitCity99

By TheDetroitCity99
in Detroit

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Michi Burg

Michi

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What percentage of downtown workers are low income? Maybe this sounds insensitive, but perhaps it makes more sense to have people living closer to where they work, which, if my hypothesis is correct, means fewer low income people living near downtown.
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TheDetroitCity99 Whistle-Stop

TheDetroitCity99

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Who cleans all of the downtown buildings? Works maintenance at the casinos? Scrubs the sidewalks? Sells weiners at the stadiums?

The ticket is mixed income. I would love to afford to live downtown. At the moment, it is out of my student budget, but someday in the future it would be nice to accumulate some wealth to fit that income bracket. For the time being, I don't mind that I'm steered a bit further away, but so long as there are some options that recognize my kind of situation, the city will sustain.

Full fledged gentrification is years away. We haven't even begun to trickle in the retail sector, aside from a healthy abundance of places to stuff your face. Gentrification is more than just displacing the populus who could do next to nothing for nealy abandoned neighborhoods. It also includes a steady rise in pricing out the middle class, or just lowering their bang for the buck as space becomes more valuable.

I was at a presentation last night, and the speaker brought up a great point...one that supposedly had been thrown around before. But it was the first time I had heard it. It is that "Manhattan Island is perhaps becoming the largest gated community in the world"...It was in reference to sprawl, and the irony that the island is bursting at the seams, has no where else to go, an is forcing gentrification onto its borroughs further out.

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detwaa84 Whistle-Stop

detwaa84

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I don't know about that. Detroit doesn't have the same kind of mayor that Rudy was. I'm really not educated on this, but "I've heard" that Rudy broke every law in the book to tackle crime and fix the city agressively. New York went from a dump in the early 1990's, to one of the world's most admired cities today. What exactly happened? I don't know. but perhaps someone else here does.

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Michi Burg

Michi

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Well, Detroit needs to diversify it's economy.

Detroit can be like New York in the sense of a turn-around story, but that's about it. It's different than NY in almost every other aspect.

From my 3 years of being here, I've been able to identify the citizen support system for the city and how it reaches all corners of the metro area. I've also witnessed how loud and obnoxious the naysayers and trash talkers are, even if they are the minority, they are the loudest...why? Because they represent Detroit's national (sometimes international image).

In my humble opinion, corporate responsibility or corporate accountability will play a HUGE role in sustaining Detroit and will pull a lot of the pieces together. People don't know it yet, but they love Detroit. Just like people love Chicago, New York, Houston, Atlanta, Boston, Seattle, Omaha, Austin, Miami, etc...they love Detroit too and all it is and can be. The problem right now is that for the average Joe who might be attracted to urban living, Detroit is a difficult city to live in. For the urban pioneer, its doable and often times an obsession. So, while it's easy to not blame people for living in Detroit, it's becoming easier to come together with the common bond of working with the city to keep the momentum going.

The corporate responsibility comes into play when they support the city. Places are nothing without jobs, right? Lansing is not the size of Detroit because of jobs and Traverse City is not the size of Lansing because of jobs. To me, it is important that the limited corporations and businesses that offer jobs in a given area, become living members of those communities, above and beyond advertising and philanthropy. Their existence has a profound impact on the quality of life in an area, and I think that if you can offer high quality jobs downtown (Quicken Loans etc) that you'll see a response from the population who wants to live in the city and be as much a part of it as their employer.

I understand why jobs locate in the suburbs, so that's not the debate. What I'm more interested in is the new economy which is heavily dependent on the creative culture and classes. This economy is very much urban-centric since culture is bred and cultivated at the core of communities (big and small). Put Detroit on this radar, massage it, exercise it, support it, and you have a city that is a leader in innovation, creativity, diversity, knowledge that surpasses the best and brightest currently competing at levels above Detroit today.

How long will it be before we catch up? Because it will happen. There's too much going for this city for it not to...especially given this time period is among the lowest of the low.

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Jasoncw Hamlet

Jasoncw

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Metro Detroit has a lot of money, a lot of talent, a lot of good business people, a lot of good workers, but imo, the reason why Detroit isn't doing too hot is because of people's attitudes. People do have pride in Detroit (I think you can see it during sports games, or when talking about the big 3), but there are so many attitude problems.

There's also a lot of, ignorance I guess it would be called. When I was little, my idea of downtown literally looked like a nuke was just set off. A lot of abandoned factories and "old" buildings. And I lived in Detroit (for the first few years), and still have friends in Detroit, and that's what I thought of downtown when I was really little. And while most people in the suburbs are fine, there is a disturbing amount of really racist, ignorant, and raw Detroit-hating people. Some people think that you will literally be shot if you go to Detroit, and in SE Michigan, people have seriously asked people I know if they've ever been shot at when they said they lived in Detroit. But these are relatively older (out of high school at least) people from Saint Clair Shores. What will the people born today in Canton, or the newest development on 300 mile road think in a few decades when they're older? At the same time, what are poor inner city people's perceptions of the suburbs? I'd imagine just as distorted. And then even suburbs vs. suburbs, what people think of Grosse Pointers, or people from Warren. I think sometimes we underestimate how bad some people's perceptions of everything is.

Anyway, I forgot what I was talking about, so I guess now's the time to stop talking, but to summarize, Detroit will be great again when people's attitudes change. :)

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jas49503 Hamlet

jas49503

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I don't know about that. Detroit doesn't have the same kind of mayor that Rudy was. I'm really not educated on this, but "I've heard" that Rudy broke every law in the book to tackle crime and fix the city agressively. New York went from a dump in the early 1990's, to one of the world's most admired cities today. What exactly happened? I don't know. but perhaps someone else here does.
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detwaa84 Whistle-Stop

detwaa84

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I suggest you check out the book "freakonomics" by steven levitt. it offers compelling evidence explaining the decrease in crime not just because rudy cracked down on fare jumpers and grafitti artests, which is the explanation that has been tossed around and what many people use to explain the decrease in crime and improvement in the city. the problem with that explanation is that similar changes in crime and improvment in urban centers occured all across the country where no aggressive tactics were used. What Levitt used was basic economic principles to link the legalization of abortion to the decrease in crime.

The reason that detroit didn't see similar gains is probably secondary to the contraction of the auto industry with resultant downward economic pressures combined with detroits crap hole status. a 100 % improvement from the bottom 1% is only 2%.

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rbdetsport Burg

rbdetsport

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Torture?! The reason I am not very specific in a lot of my info is because I get my info from a handful of inside sources whose jobs could be on the line if certain info gets leaked. One friend nearly lost his job by leaking info onto internet forums. A lot of the inner workings of these developments are very sensitive. Often times, the info that gets leaked can be just enough to nix a deal at the very last minute.

There's some good stuff in the works though...several building renovations, and one new building, and some smaller things. I think a lot of you will be pleasantly surprised when the official announcements come along. :)

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TheDetroitCity99 Whistle-Stop

TheDetroitCity99

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I took the tour at the rencen yesturday and when we got to the top the guide pointed to a large empty cement lot that was about a mile long and said they had torn down some old factory to build up Something called Renshores and that they were going to be PRETTY pricey and that Jerome Bettis was planning to not only buy a unit but advertise for it.

Im very pleased with what's happening in our city.It's becoming a very trendy and lively place to visit and Live. I just might think about buying in the city!

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wolverine Town

wolverine

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Well Jerome's lot is practically a swamp, not cement. The swath of land I'm guessing the guide was pointing at is River East. (possibly Renshores, is a new name?) I'm not surprised the guide would mention it. You'll find info on River East throughout the RenCen, although only enough info as we already know. I don't know that Jerome Bettis would "advertise" this, but he could easily be involved in the project in some way.

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