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Detroit in Ruins

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Re: Detroit in Ruins

#11

Post by riceadam »

Being from Detroit, it's great to see young tech companies springing up in the city but I think that video Knoxville did with Palladium Boots sugar coats things a bit too much. Hipsters starting underground bars/clubs and photographing urban decay is not going to revive the city.

A plan for a $500m railway was recently approved and I can't see any way it's going to be successful in its first phase. My main issue with the proposal as it is now is the fact that the line only extends to 8 mile.

For those of you unfamiliar with the city, the mile roads lie parallel to the Detroit River and span outwards all the way into rural areas. Driving into the city, things start to go downhill fast around 8 mile -- which is why everyone knows what it is now thanks to Eminem's movie. If I'm going to a sporting event or casino from my house in the burbs, I'm not going to drive 15 minutes to 8 mile, park my car in a shady parking lot, and get on a train when I could just drive another 15 minutes instead.

Anyway, for this new train venture to be even remotely successful I think the track would have to extend to at least 12 mile if the city is looking for an influx of wealthy suburbanites.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#14

Post by noelwelsh »

neutronicus wrote: post #9
noelwelsh wrote: post #7

I'd like to know more background on this. Why don't people move into the empty buildings? Housing in the UK is fairly scarce and empty buildings are likely to be colonised by squatters. After ten years or so squatters can actually claim the property. I thought artists would like the opportunity to get a big studio at a discount rate, and hackers who are bootstrapping would sure make their capital go a lot further in…

Detroit is crime-ridden and cold. Why not just move to another part of the US?

Sure it's cold, but it's cheap and apparently still has decent facilities. I'm not sure on the crime -- how much is that story a media beat-up? Are there other parts of the US where you can be near a large urban centre and pay virtually nothing? (It's an honest question! And yes, I could probably look this up somewhere.)

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#16

Post by TomOfTTB »

saturdaysaint wrote: post #6

This is unsympathetically referred to as "ruin porn" around Detroit. Yes, there are an exceptional amount of abandoned buildings (there are about 600,000 people in a city that could probably comfortably hold 3x that), but there are also world class universities, sports arenas, restaurants concert venues, houses and apartments, etc. http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n8/htdocs/something-something...

I think being dismissive of this sort of thing ignores the bigger point. American Society has a group of people (I'm going to say age 35 and below) who had never lived through a significant downturn before this. So sites like this aren't necessarily saying "Detroit is a lost cause" they are marveling at the idea of abandon buildings which is a fairly new concept to a lot of us.

I, for example, grew up in Las Vegas and am endlessly fascinated by the Fontainebleu building (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontainebleau_Resort_Las_Vegas). It's a 68 story resort that just ran out of money after they constructed the outer structure. So this 735ft tall neon blue building just sits there in the middle of the strip waiting to be dealt with (most believe it will never be finished at this point).

But my fascination with it isn't that I think the Vegas strip is dying its just that I'd never seen something like that fail to be completed before.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#18

Post by GaltMidas »

They aren't very up to date. Many of these have been replaced. The velodrome is maintained by people who simply like to ride. It doesn't look like that picture at all.

We get it. There are many urban wasteland piles of crap and thousands of houses that are abandoned. Downtown Detroit is represented here by about 5% of what is actually there as far as ruins go. Next to the skyscrapers are brand new buildings housing Quicken and CompuWare among many others. Dan Gilbert actually bought a couple of the buildings shown here to move the rest of his people into. "Skyscrapers are on sale!" -- Dan Gilbert at TedXDetroit.

It's not perfect but I wonder how many people actually think that this is what is "normal". I mean come on...Irish Hills? They aren't even in the same metro area, let alone Detroit. I would need a map to even find them. Next to the "CPA" Building is one of the hottest restaurants for hundreds of miles.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#19

Post by tomlin »

This isn't just a Detroit problem. Residents of just about every mid-to-high pop. city could pick a few eerily similar buildings on this site left in the very same states.

Living in Ontario, Canada, I can say our situation isn't quiet as progressed as Detroit, but the cracks are definitely starting to show. I think Detroit shows signs of what is to come on a larger scale if we don't start putting people and civics as a front-and-center issue.

Detroit's pain should serve as a great education and not simply thought of as a worst case scenario.

Not all is lost for Detroit, as it is in a great position of pivot that would normally be masked by the bureaucracy of a "well run" city.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#20

Post by kenjackson »

saturdaysaint wrote: post #6

This is unsympathetically referred to as "ruin porn" around Detroit. Yes, there are an exceptional amount of abandoned buildings (there are about 600,000 people in a city that could probably comfortably hold 3x that), but there are also world class universities, sports arenas, restaurants concert venues, houses and apartments, etc. http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n8/htdocs/something-something...

I assume when you mention world class universities you're referring to UM Ann Arbor -- maybe Kettering too. Is there a lot of cross fertilization between the city and the schools? Do a lot of UM students live or move to Detroit?
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