People talking about Grand Rapids

[The ATX]

9 minutes ago, dadr said:

In all of Minnesota there were zero liquor sales on Sunday, period - although the law just changed a couple months ago I guess. State law still prohibits any liquor sales in grocery stores. The Trader Joe’s and Costcos have small stores with separate entrances off the main door.  Grand Rapids felt much less restrictive when I moved from Minnesota!

I lived in Minnesota for several years, and the liquor laws were really restrictive.  Grocery stores couldn't even sell real beer!  They were only allowed to sell "3.2" beer, and most stores where I lived didn't even keep it refrigerated!  You really had to plan ahead for binge drinking.   

[RegalTDP]

9 hours ago, joeDowntown said:

Agreed. There were a lot of things from the writers point of view that were kind of WTF moments (besides restaurants, bars, clubs, music venues, etc. do a lot of cities have a ton going on after 10? ). I've traveled to a lot of cities, and that seems like the typical thing to do after 10pm. It's typical rust-belt writer talk (it was definitely true 15-20 years ago, but that isn't very indicative of GR now). I was more pissed off at the way Paul Moore (Start Garden) portrayed the economy and workforce like "if people in West Michigan can't beat it with a hammer, those darned people just don't get it!". Pretty easy for him to say when he's literally been insulated and attached to the teet of the DeVos family fortune his entire working career.

I hate "flyover" articles. I hate it worse when locals add to the B.S.

Sorry, I'm getting back on the positive train now.

Joe

The author is local.  Seriously!! 

Also, I'm pretty sure Sunday liquor laws are statewide.  Has nothing to do with GR.

EDIT: @iK1NkY is correct.  The state changed the law in 2010, so businesses can apply for an extra permit to sell before noon.  Local municipalities can still set their own restrictions.  Grand Rapids is not one of them.

Edited October 20, 2017 by RegalTDP

[Pattmost20]

6 hours ago, RegalTDP said:

The author is local.  Seriously!! 

Also, I'm pretty sure Sunday liquor laws are statewide.  Has nothing to do with GR.

EDIT: @iK1NkY is correct.  The state changed the law in 2010, so businesses can apply for an extra permit to sell before noon.  Local municipalities can still set their own restrictions.  Grand Rapids is not one of them.

His hometown is "Bland Crapids", can't tell if being ironic or trying to parlay his writing career into a move to one of the coasts. Either way it is obnoxious.

[GRDadof3]

1 hour ago, Pattmost20 said:

His hometown is "Bland Crapids", can't tell if being ironic or trying to parlay his writing career into a move to one of the coasts. Either way it is obnoxious.

"Paid local shill writes eloquent journalistic 'outsider' piece." - The New Media

Wow, and everyone from Start Garden is touting this piece on Facebook this morning...

Let me just go on the record and say I respect what they are doing at Start Garden, especially their recent efforts to increase diversity in their organization and the companies they are looking to build up. But this article...

[GRDadof3]

8 hours ago, The ATX said:

I lived in Minnesota for several years, and the liquor laws were really restrictive.  Grocery stores couldn't even sell real beer!  They were only allowed to sell "3.2" beer, and most stores where I lived didn't even keep it refrigerated!  You really had to plan ahead for binge drinking.   

"Plan ahead for your binge drinking."  Exactly. These liquor laws are so archaically dumb. I was at Cedar Point this summer on a Sunday afternoon and you could not buy LIQUOR or "Liquor infused drinks" but you could buy beer. Not even wine. WTF? I think was exactly what I said to the person behind the counter.  He laughed hysterically and said "I know!"  Early evening  on a Sunday actually. 

So to think that West Michigan has some unique Quaker-ish liquor laws is pretty funny.  Massachusetts/Boston doesn't even allow happy hours!

[joeDowntown]

2 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

Let me just go on the record and say I respect what they are doing at Start Garden, especially their recent efforts to increase diversity in their organization and the companies they are looking to build up. But this article...

I actually agree. I'm happy that Start Garden exists. I think they do great things for the tech community, and I think Rick DeVos could have easily taken his fortune and done nothing for the community, but he's trying to be a huge catalyst for startups in West Michigan. My biggest complaint is that Paul Moore doesn't need to talk down on the capabilities or foresight of our tech community. Instead of making it sound like "hey, we're doing some good things, trying hard" it kind of came off as "same old rust belt mentality" to me.

And Start Garden doesn't know *everything*. I mean, they did give two rounds of funding to "Reindeer Cam".

Joe

[walker]

In the current October 23 issue of the New Yorker there is a very good article about the robotics revolution and where do humans fit in, particularly low-skilled humans.  While it meanders all over the place, as New Yorker articles do, the narration is framed around the changes that have occurred at Steelcase in Grand Rapids from about 1980 to the present.  It even mentions the pyramid and Switch.

I was a little surprised to find the article on the internet since the New Yorker in the past has had a firewall blocking non-subscribers.  Hope it’s still there:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/23/welcoming-our-new-robot-overlords

This is also the issue that reports the Harvey Weinstein scandal (which I didn’t read,) and that contains a lengthy profile of Mike Pence (which I did read, it was scary.)

Edited October 21, 2017 by walker
seeing if I can fix link - I think the firewall got me

[arcturus]

9 hours ago, walker said:

In the current October 23 issue of the New Yorker there is a very good article about the robotics revolution and where do humans fit in, particularly low-skilled humans.

It hasn't gone unnoticed on Wall Street ... https://roboglobaletfs.com/

(disclaimer - I'm in the investment business)

[arcturus]

GR ranked #4 in percentage increase in home values in the past 3 years by realtor.com.

https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/cities-best-price-appreciation/?cid=soc_shares_article_tw

Edited November 14, 2017 by arcturus

[GRDadof3]

2 hours ago, arcturus said:

GR ranked #4 in percentage increase in home values in the past 3 years by realtor.com.

https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/cities-best-price-appreciation/?cid=soc_shares_article_tw

If your home increases in value, that's called gentrification.  Just FYI. 

[arcturus]

18 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

If your home increases in value, that's called gentrification.  Just FYI. 

Unless the average price is over a million to begin with like #2 Santa Maria, CA.

Those darn $800K homes are becoming a real eyesore.

[ModSquad]

19 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

If your home increases in value, that's called gentrification.  Just FYI. 

With an average sales price of $249,000 and the fact that it costs about $250,000 to build a reasonably sized home it means we are not going to be able to build our way out of the housing shortage any time soon.

On another, somewhat related note, I was told by a VERY credible source that the rental market in GR is softening very fast.  To quote my source: "The rental market is down, various sectors of the rental property business have rising vacancies and good tenants are getting harder to find forcing the to reduce rents and re-think their requirements for an applicant."  We should watch this closely.

[GRDadof3]

1 hour ago, KCLBADave said:

With an average sales price of $249,000 and the fact that it costs about $250,000 to build a reasonably sized home it means we are not going to be able to build our way out of the housing shortage any time soon.

On another, somewhat related note, I was told by a VERY credible source that the rental market in GR is softening very fast.  To quote my source: "The rental market is down, various sectors of the rental property business have rising vacancies and good tenants are getting harder to find forcing the to reduce rents and re-think their requirements for an applicant."  We should watch this closely.

I was being sarcastic. Every homeowner wants his/her home to go up in value. 

But yes, I hear ya. And the apartment situation is not surprising. If the metro area has a net positive immigration of less than 2000 people a year, and assume that maybe 1/2 of them want an apartment (wherever that apartment may be), there's not really enough immigration to the area right now to fill up everything coming on line. I think it will fill in though, especially since there are very few new projects starting right now. 

[MJLO]

Yeah I don't think it should be surprising that the rental market might hit a lull for a bit as all these units need to get absorbed.  I did a sweep of all the major market rate developers they haven't dropped their advertised prices yet.  So while it sounds like they may be getting ready to, the reality doesn't look like it's materialized yet.  They would pull my stubborn butt back out of the suburbs if prices downtown dropped $200/mo.   There has to be other single professionals like me who don't want to mess with a mortgage and stay just outside of downtown hoping that 2013 prices come back   Can't be all bad.

[The Llanito]

http://www.businessinsider.com/best-housing-markets-2018-millennial-home-buying-2017-12/#10-cincinnati-ohio-1

Another list GR made it on.

[jthrasher]

2 hours ago, The Llanito said:

http://www.businessinsider.com/best-housing-markets-2018-millennial-home-buying-2017-12/#10-cincinnati-ohio-1

Another list GR made it on.

they couldn't have chosen a worse photo to show GR

[Pattmost20]

53 minutes ago, jthrasher said:

they couldn't have chosen a worse photo to show GR

It isn't even Grand Rapids.

[WMrapids]

1 hour ago, Pattmost20 said:

It isn't even Grand Rapids.

 

1 hour ago, jthrasher said:

they couldn't have chosen a worse photo to show GR

That’s my photo of EGR! 

I randomly took it years back and uploaded it to Wikipedia since there were no other photos at the time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Grand_Rapids,_Michigan

Edited December 14, 2017 by WMrapids

[Pattmost20]

10 minutes ago, WMrapids said:

 

That’s my photo of EGR! 

I randomly took it years back and uploaded it to Wikipedia since there were no other photos at the time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Grand_Rapids,_Michigan

I thought that was yours, it had your username credited below the picture.

[GRDadof3]

2 hours ago, WMrapids said:

 

That’s my photo of EGR! 

I randomly took it years back and uploaded it to Wikipedia since there were no other photos at the time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Grand_Rapids,_Michigan

That's too funny. I know exactly where that is, I was there to watch a swim meet the other day and took this.

[WMrapids]

2 hours ago, GRDadof3 said:

That's too funny. I know exactly where that is, I was there to watch a swim meet the other day and took this.

Exactly!

[WMrapids]

19th out of 50 best cities to live in the United States. I don’t know why the link says 2016, but this was just published.

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-news-best-places-to-live-in-america-2016-3

[RegalTDP]

1 hour ago, WMrapids said:

19th out of 50 best cities to live in the United States. I don’t know why the link says 2016, but this was just published.

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-news-best-places-to-live-in-america-2016-3

Shutterstock needs to carry better pics of GR. Seriously, ours is the lamest photo in that group.

[crinzema]

Maybe something like this, taken by yours truly, would help?

Edited February 27, 2018 by crinzema

[GRLaker]

51 minutes ago, crinzema said:

Maybe something like this, taken by yours truly, would help?

Yes, please. Anything but the lame garbage these websites have been plucking from there. I'm tempted to go take pictures with my iPhone 8+ and flood the page with them.