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Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

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Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#101

Post by mbesto »

SquirrelOnFire wrote: post #82
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Everyone in America doesn't want to stare at a computer, drink $5 latte's, and eat farm to table food. There is nothing wrong with a town that has $3 beers in a plastic cup and a crowd of people screaming until at the TV until they are horse. There is nothing shameful about marrying a man or woman while holding each other's calloused hands at the alter. Sure, but the money for that has to come from somewhere. Nowada…

>Nowadays, "working-class, blue-collar" stuff does not make money, and if "working-class, blue-collar" people identify with the economic system which designates their labor as a cost to be repressed rather than a service to be rewarded, I'm not sure how much I can do about that. Maybe by pointing to blue collar work that still pays well. A buddy of mine is an auto mechanic and is the sole income earner for his family…

> Pay attention to how much you spend next time you call a plumber.

Anecdotal, but the average quote I got for electricians in the bay area was $200/hour. This is also consistent for electricians in the wealthy suburbs of Chicago (just had a friend recently get work done at that price). I recently paid $2k to get a transmission done, of which $1700 was labor alone (took 3 days).

Point is - these trades are no joke when it comes to earning income, especially if you're talented.

I'm a serious proponent of promoting vocational jobs. Even in an "AI world" you're still going to need mechanics. Basically anything with moving parts needs labor.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#102

Post by rmason »

dizzystar wrote: post #22

Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Toledo, and so on got absolutely destroyed after all the mills were shut down. The bar for reviving is incredibly low. Those that could leave, left. The very people that could quicken the recovery of the fallen Midwestern towns are the same people who left. Detroit has UM, Cleveland has Case Western, Pittsburgh has Carnegie Mellon which are all top-flight schools. In a strange way, the…

Actually U of M is in Ann Arbor which is 40 miles West. Though there is a satellite campus in Dearborn which is in the suburbs.

Detroit has Wayne State University which is growing with the addition of a new business school courtesy of the late Mike Ilitch the founder of Little Caesars.

https://ilitchbusiness.wayne.edu/

There are also two smaller colleges, Marygrove and University of Detroit Mercy.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#103

Post by microtherion »

trop wrote: post #81
magduf wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and a crowd of people screaming until at the TV until they are horse. You can scream at a TV all you want, but that's never going to turn you into a horse. On a more serious note, the industries that made these cities what they are are mostly gone now, and they're not coming back. The thing that made these cities attractive for these industries is no longer all that relevant: their location on the water. These days,…

> their location on the water Which I misread as "the location of their water". Which is actually quite serious. See https://www.wbez.org/shows/wbez-news/in-dayton-ohio-an-econo... > As states like California face major water shortages, city officials in Dayton sense a business opportunity. ... the self-filtering, self-recharging freshwater supply, along with the rivers, once made Dayton attractive to water-intensive…

Ohio is particularly useful as a source of flammable water…

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#104

Post by jessriedel »

trisimix wrote: post #13
jessriedel wrote: post #7

What are the economic indicators that things are looking up? The place is still losing population as of last year, and it's not even clear if it's slowing down. http://www.dailydetroit.com/2017/05/25/detroit-continues-los... (2016 appears to be the last year census data is available.)

https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2017/07/10/detro...

OK, that just says that the number of VC-backed startups in Detroit went from 23 to 35. This doesn't tell us much about Detroit as a whole.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#105

Post by pkaye »

SquirrelOnFire wrote: post #82
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Everyone in America doesn't want to stare at a computer, drink $5 latte's, and eat farm to table food. There is nothing wrong with a town that has $3 beers in a plastic cup and a crowd of people screaming until at the TV until they are horse. There is nothing shameful about marrying a man or woman while holding each other's calloused hands at the alter. Sure, but the money for that has to come from somewhere. Nowada…

>Nowadays, "working-class, blue-collar" stuff does not make money, and if "working-class, blue-collar" people identify with the economic system which designates their labor as a cost to be repressed rather than a service to be rewarded, I'm not sure how much I can do about that. Maybe by pointing to blue collar work that still pays well. A buddy of mine is an auto mechanic and is the sole income earner for his family…

Yup, I had a leaking roof during the last rainstorm and the emergency repair cost me $800 for 1 hour of work. Still happy with it because the potential damage would have been much worse.

A while back I needed some sprinkler work done.. normally I would have attempted it myself but due to health issues I can't do it anymore... and the lowest cost gardener was $200 for 30 minutes worth of work. There is still money in the blue collar trades for someone willing to run a business.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#106

Post by AFNobody »

Eire_Banshee wrote: post #97
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Everyone in America doesn't want to stare at a computer, drink $5 latte's, and eat farm to table food. There is nothing wrong with a town that has $3 beers in a plastic cup and a crowd of people screaming until at the TV until they are horse. There is nothing shameful about marrying a man or woman while holding each other's calloused hands at the alter. Sure, but the money for that has to come from somewhere. Nowada…

Trades pay very well with just a high school education. > "Nowadays, "working-class, blue-collar" stuff does not make money`" is just flat out wrong. That line of thinking is a major contributing factor to the shortage of labor in blue collar fields, along with mass amounts of young adults with crippling college debt.

Trades pay well with a customer base to support them.

The core problem is, ultimately, the customer base is led by the white collar jobs who lack the skills to perform those tasks.

The blue collar tradesmen, frankly, has the skills to avoid buying services from each other. I know a mechanic that does her own plumbing, electrical, etc. She'd never try to make money at it but to the best of my knowledge the only time she hired anyone was to get the HVAC installed. That was largely a size/experience issue with a crane to move it into her backyard over the fence.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#107

Post by taeric »

SquirrelOnFire wrote: post #82
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Everyone in America doesn't want to stare at a computer, drink $5 latte's, and eat farm to table food. There is nothing wrong with a town that has $3 beers in a plastic cup and a crowd of people screaming until at the TV until they are horse. There is nothing shameful about marrying a man or woman while holding each other's calloused hands at the alter. Sure, but the money for that has to come from somewhere. Nowada…

>Nowadays, "working-class, blue-collar" stuff does not make money, and if "working-class, blue-collar" people identify with the economic system which designates their labor as a cost to be repressed rather than a service to be rewarded, I'm not sure how much I can do about that. Maybe by pointing to blue collar work that still pays well. A buddy of mine is an auto mechanic and is the sole income earner for his family…

Sadly, this is the sort of advice that would work for anybody, but won't work for everybody. :(

Specifically, if more folks were trying to follow this advice, it would begin to fail in predictable ways.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#108

Post by GaltMidas »

ebbv wrote: post #27
dizzystar wrote: post #22

Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Toledo, and so on got absolutely destroyed after all the mills were shut down. The bar for reviving is incredibly low. Those that could leave, left. The very people that could quicken the recovery of the fallen Midwestern towns are the same people who left. Detroit has UM, Cleveland has Case Western, Pittsburgh has Carnegie Mellon which are all top-flight schools. In a strange way, the…

I'm sorry I have to do it; Detroit does not have U of Mich. U of Mich is 45 minutes west in Ann Arbor. Some U of M grads go over to Detroit, but it's not like U of M students live in Detroit. They are very separate. Detroit is mostly reviving because Ann Arbor, where U of M is, is way too expensive. The Ferndale area of Detroit is becoming what Ann Arbor was when I grew up in the 80s; all about its local community an…

Posting from Ferndale and some super seriously expensive commercial real estate. I'd say it used to be cheap, but Ferndale is long past cheap now. Hip? Yes, and we pay on par with Troy commercial rent for that coolness in a former industrial building turned office. Residential is pretty much the same now.

Your point about Ann Arbor relative to Detroit is spot on. Detroit doesn't really have UofM. It has Wayne State, but neither UofM or Michigan State can be claimed by Detroit.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#109

Post by goatherders »

stanfordkid wrote: post #92
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Everyone in America doesn't want to stare at a computer, drink $5 latte's, and eat farm to table food. There is nothing wrong with a town that has $3 beers in a plastic cup and a crowd of people screaming until at the TV until they are horse. There is nothing shameful about marrying a man or woman while holding each other's calloused hands at the alter. Sure, but the money for that has to come from somewhere. Nowada…

I think the "everyone can be a millionaire via college" mentality has created a focus on higher education (engineering, medical school, law school etc.) ... and dissuaded people from professions which may be very worthwhile (welder, autoshop-owner) ... but will cap out at wages of $200k-$300k. We've made these jobs seem "dirty" and low class when they're not.

Agreed. Most people you know will never make 300k a year. The vast majority are unlikely to make 200k. And in most of the country anything over 100k is seen as doing well and rising. Building something based on a trade and "only" making 200k is laughing all the way to the bank in most cases.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#110

Post by amyjess »

wcunning wrote: post #34
ebbv wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry I have to do it; Detroit does not have U of Mich. U of Mich is 45 minutes west in Ann Arbor. Some U of M grads go over to Detroit, but it's not like U of M students live in Detroit. They are very separate. Detroit is mostly reviving because Ann Arbor, where U of M is, is way too expensive. The Ferndale area of Detroit is becoming what Ann Arbor was when I grew up in the 80s; all about its local community an…

Check Zillow right now -- Ferndale is not particularly cheaper than Ann Arbor these days. More importantly, my Ann Arbor Area to Detroit-ish commute is shorter (in time, not distance) than my friends working in the same building coming from Ferndale. When Ferndale was "cheap," I could have bought a literal mansion in Detroit with my sophomore intern money, cash in hand. To the GP's comments, Detroit has done a lot to…

Saying "statistical area" doesn't give the whole picture because it doesn't tell you what kind of statistical area. Detroit and Ann Arbor are only in the same Combined Statistical Area, not the same Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Detroit—Warren—Dearborn, MI and Ann Arbor, MI are separate MSAs in the Detroit—Warren—Ann Arbor, MI CSA.

This means that while there are some interlocking commuting patterns between Detroit and Ann Arbor, they are much weaker than the commuting patterns within a single MSA.

On the contrary, Oakland is part of the same MSA as SF: San Francisco—Oakland—Hayward, CA. Though most of what was traditionally considered SV is in a separate MSA: San Jose—Sunnyvale—Santa Clara, CA. And both are part of the San Jose—San Francisco—Oakland, CA CSA.

Sorry, I'm something of a census nerd, and I even built a site using machine-parsed census data just so I could drill down to various levels.

Some links:

http://zaidan-x.org:8192/csa/220 (Detroit)

http://zaidan-x.org:8192/csa/488 (SF)

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