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Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

nytimes.com

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Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#161

Post by prepend »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #23
rayiner wrote: post #6

Weird that the article does not cite a single economic or demographic indicator to support its assertion. For example, Detroit's population has declined so far this decade at about the same pace as it declined from 1990-2000 (though not at the disastrous pace it declined from 2000-2010, when the city lost a quarter of its population). Sounds like far from a revival.

As always, those of us who live here or nearby (in my case) understand what's happening in Detroit, and are more than happy to watch everyone else in the country dismiss it and look for the negative statistics. Detroit is one of the only cities in the country that seems to attract this mid-brow "are they really improving, though? Yeah, right" dismissal. As someone on the ground, if you want the negative statistics to…

“if you want the negative statistics to rally around, start looking at the racial inequality of who the growth is benefiting;”

Thanks for the suggestion. How do you measure improvement in racial inequality? Detroit has a really robust open data portal at https://data.detroitmi.gov/browse?category=Government with lots of data on education and health. But I don’t see any with race / ethnicity.

There must be some way to use statistics to capture improvements. There are quite a few statistical models and other cities are able to show quantifiable evidence.

There’s the Resilient Cities initiative - https://www.100resilientcities.org/

There’s also lots of stats used by businesses to relocate and invest in cities. Certainly it’s not possible to reinvent cities overnight, but Detroit has been in recovery for quite a long while and there must be some metrics that are being targeted.

But the article mentions none.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#162

Post by ChuckMcM »

I talked with a friend who lives 1/2 time in Detroit and 1/2 time in the bay area last week and they were not very hopeful about the future of that once great city. They said it was not uncommon that once a property didn't have anyone around for a couple of weeks people would come in during the night and strip it. It sounded sad and dystopian.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#163

Post by jsutton »

magduf wrote: post #50
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…

>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,…

> the industries that made these cities what they are are mostly gone now These cities often have attractive qualities for other industries, and with enough foresight these cities can position themselves well to succeed in the future. Many have been; e.g. Pittsburgh shed its steel roots and now is home of a leading health care industry, and a burgeoning tech one.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#164

Post by sanderjd »

hathawsh wrote: post #147
SquirrelOnFire wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

This is why I'm a big advocate (but not affiliate) of the "mikeroweWORKS" foundation. Mike Rowe, from the TV show "Dirty Jobs", is using his foundation to revive interest in trade schools and jobs. There are a lot of people who could be great machinists, electricians, plumbers, etc., but due to social pressures, they start college and soon drop out, then work for peanuts (if they can find any job at all). We need to…

I'm a big fan of his foundation too, but I often find myself wondering whether the stigma is the biggest problem. I looked into becoming an electrician awhile back, and the path to licensure seemed long and expensive. Contra that path, I'm sure we all know very successful self-educated programmers. Maybe the licensure and training expense is totally necessary, or maybe it could be improved through regulation reforms or apprenticeship instead of for-pay training. I really don't know enough about these industries to say, but it seems possible. It also seems like that would be likely to result in those jobs no longer paying such top dollar. Put a different way: it seems like if Mike Rowe were extremely successful in his initiatives on this front, the result may be that the jobs he is advocating are no longer as attractive as they currently are.

Having said all that, I'll be very angry with myself if my future children graduate high school thinking that college is the only next step that would make their loved ones proud, like it was for me and my friends.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#165

Post by derekp7 »

ghshephard wrote: post #137
TomMckenny wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did that $2k come from? While it's nice there is some way to redistribute wealth in this way, unfortunately service sector jobs don't create wealth: you can not have a city solely of repairmen and realtors. Less skilled factory work would generate wealth, but unfortunately those are the exact jobs that left.

If you have a $35,0000 truck with a blown transmission, then your repair-person just created $35,000 - $2,000 - whatever_that_truck_would_have_worth_as_scrap_parts. Electricians, Plumbers, Roofers, Drywallers, auto-motive repair to some degree, are the one who actually create/repair/restore the only physical infrastructure that actually matters. My Twitter, Facebook, Instagram could all disappear, and it would probab…

I think what the parent poster meant was if the whole town is filled with service providers, their customers must also be from the same local area. But if there are no other jobs for those customers to work at (to bring outside money into the community), they won't be able to afford those services. Local trade with each other (mechanic selling services to an electrician, the electrician doing work for a roofer, and the roofer putting a new roof on the the mechanic's workshop) falls apart when you don't have money flowing into the area from outside (i.e., building trucks to sell to people in other cities).

Edit: After seeing the downvotes on the parent post, and a couple similar ones, I think people are reading "creating wealth" vs. "not creating wealth" as value judgements on the people in those industries. Whereas in this context I think they mean in the purely economic / accounting sense, similar to "cost centers" and "profit centers" in businesses. Without profit centers, the business would crumble, but without the value that the cost centers bring to the business, the profit centers wouldn't be able to function.

So just like Silicon Valley needs to find a way to not price service workers (janitors, mechanics, etc) out of the area, other places need the same healthy balance of money flowing into the area along with a local economy to distribute that money around.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#166

Post by hpcjoe »

Jupe wrote: post #158
hpcjoe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mario's[1] for excellent Italian food. Xoxhimilco[2] for excellent Mexican food. Antonio's[3] in the burbs. New Peking[4] in GC for excellent Chinese food. I've lived in Michigan 30 years now. Came here for grad school, first at MSU, then down to Wayne State for Ph.D. Never left. There is something about this place. Even when we are getting the crap kicked out of us ... we don't give up. It took a long time to get ri…

You've included the link to Xochimilco's in Illinois, not Xochimilco Detroit (which apparently doesn't have a web site - but does have a facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/XochimilcoDetroit/ ) But, I will attest to their food being excellent!

Gaak ... thanks!

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#167

Post by hpcjoe »

jacquesm wrote: post #28
hpcjoe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mario's[1] for excellent Italian food. Xoxhimilco[2] for excellent Mexican food. Antonio's[3] in the burbs. New Peking[4] in GC for excellent Chinese food. I've lived in Michigan 30 years now. Came here for grad school, first at MSU, then down to Wayne State for Ph.D. Never left. There is something about this place. Even when we are getting the crap kicked out of us ... we don't give up. It took a long time to get ri…

> Private and charter schooling is doing a great job of fixing that, giving parents a choice Free private schools? If not they are giving parents that can afford it a choice. Just like wealthy expats tend to place their kids in good private schools in poor places because they can afford it. As long as education isn't good for everybody it's just another way to stack the deck.

Charters are generally free, as they have contracts with the state to provide school services. My wife teaches at a local college prep charter high school. Our daughter did both private and public school before college.

Charter schools aren't private though. Bad ones are closed, bad teachers are fired at running schools.

Quite a number of kids come from 15+ miles away to this school, driven there and back by parents daily. They come from school districts which have not been demonstrating successful outcomes, either in terms of retention, or successfully preparing kids for life after school (college, trade/vocational school, etc.)

This said, while it is a college prep school, it isn't a silver bullet. Kids parents need to be engaged and involved. They can't be helicopter parents. Most are though.

This isn't an identity or socioeconomic issue. Kids families in this school range from nearly homeless through extremely wealthy. The school will be good for those who wish to engage. For those who don't and simply want a babysitting service, maybe not so good.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#168

Post by BubbleFett »

One thing that most peeps from the East/West coast don't realize about Detroit is how big it is, compared to it's population size.

The city limits of Detroit proper encompass about 143 square miles.

While it's not that large of a city compared to others, you can fit the cities of San Francisco (46.7 sq miles), Boston (89.6 sq miles), and Manhattan (22.8 sq miles) within Detroit city limits.

While you process that, the 2017 population of Detroit is about 672,000 people, compared to the 3.12 million people who live in SF(860k), Boston (618k), and Manhattan (1.64M)

While it's growing for sure, if you get off the highway you'll see really fast that Detroit is still a ghost town.

There are entire neighborhoods/subdivisions with streets lined with houses except all of those houses have been abandoned. For DECADES. It's like the Walking Dead minus the zombies.

I'm psyched for Detroit (I grew up in the Detroit suburbs) and am rooting hard for it's recovery. With that said... the city of Detroit has lost 61% of it's population since it's peak in the 1950s.

61 PERCENT! While I remain optimistic, I'm also realistic. I'm psyched that Detroit is on an upswing, but there's a long way up to go.

Re: Detroit Was Crumbling, Now It's Reviving

#170

Post by vadym909 »

pkaye wrote: post #105
SquirrelOnFire wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Just for perspective, these jobs are a bit different than regular contracting or hourly jobs. Although the hourly rate seems high, often we exclude the travel time. Also the uneven demand. For example- On a rainy day, there might be 10 calls but they can only take a few and on sunny days they'd be lucky to get a call.
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