Detroit in Ruins • Hacker News Board

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#121

Post by sharms » Wed, Aug 10, 2011, 11:56 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #20

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?

I also graduated from U of M, and then moved to Chicago, and I know others who have. Originally born and raised in Michigan.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#122

Post by Duff » Thu, Aug 11, 2011, 12:11 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #107

winestock wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key word is ethnicity. The book that changed my way of thinking about the subject is _The Slaughter of Cities_, by E. Michael Jones. http://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Cities-Renewal-Ethnic-Cleans... "In his meticulously documented book, he proves that urban renewal had more to do with ethnicity than it ever had to do with design or hygiene or blight. Urban renewal was the last gasp attempt of the WASP ruling class…

"The largely Catholic ethnics" (I'm a Catholic of Irish and Eastern European descent) were not "driven out" of their neighborhoods. They left them as a reaction to integration and the beginning of the end of redlining policies. The "control" they lost was "the ability not to live next to ethnic minorities other than their own". Moreover, upon leaving the white Irish Catholic and Polish enclaves, mortgage lending move…

I know nothing of the book that is being mentioned here, but various policies in the mid-20th century DID force the breakup of the traditional ethnic neighborhoods.

It's not an issue as simple as black and white. I live in an area that in the 1960's had thriving Irish, Italian and Polish catholic communities. Community being the key word -- these folks lived, worshipped and attended school together. They were tight groups of people, who still maintain ties today.

The reality of this is a loss of community in general -- read the book "Bowling Alone", which describes the decline of civic life in America, and isn't written by a kook. My children are almost certainly not going to know the names of more than half of the people who live in our city block with about 40 homes. In my childhood (back in the 70's and 80's), we knew everyone.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#123

Post by tptacek » Thu, Aug 11, 2011, 12:24 AM UTC

Duff wrote: post #122

tptacek wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The largely Catholic ethnics" (I'm a Catholic of Irish and Eastern European descent) were not "driven out" of their neighborhoods. They left them as a reaction to integration and the beginning of the end of redlining policies. The "control" they lost was "the ability not to live next to ethnic minorities other than their own". Moreover, upon leaving the white Irish Catholic and Polish enclaves, mortgage lending move…

I know nothing of the book that is being mentioned here, but various policies in the mid-20th century DID force the breakup of the traditional ethnic neighborhoods. It's not an issue as simple as black and white. I live in an area that in the 1960's had thriving Irish, Italian and Polish catholic communities. Community being the key word -- these folks lived, worshipped and attended school together. They were tight g…

My kids play with 5 other families on my block, and we know many, many more of our neighbors than that. I'm literally a stone's throw from one of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago. Here's a suggestion: instead of blaming your alienation from your block on the breakup of old racist† '60s ethnic enclaves, reach out to the people on your block. They'll appreciate it. Set up a block party. Collect email addresses from your neighbors and start a mailing list. Do a neighborhood watch. Talk to the other parents on the block and set up a movie night.

† That's what they were.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#124

Post by quick_look » Thu, Aug 11, 2011, 12:53 AM UTC

winestock wrote: post #106

tptacek wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The suburbs of Detroit are also in decline. For how many years now has Michigan been in the bottom quartile for unemployment? The fact that Twelve Oaks Mall is nice and has an Apple Store doesn't mean that that the Detroit Suburbs are proof of a functioning greater Detroit metro economy.

"Decline" means different things when applied to Detroit and to its suburbs. The suburbs are much safer and have much better infrastructure, among many other things. Higher up in this thread, I referenced the book The Slaughter of Cities, by E. Michael Jones. That is the book around which my views have gelled.

FYI, being better off than one's neighbor doesn't make one not poor.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#125

Post by quick_look » Thu, Aug 11, 2011, 1:05 AM UTC

kalid wrote: post #74

ethank wrote: post #28

What bugs me about the poverty-porn you see from Detroit is that if you really wanted to, you could do the same documentation in the wealthiest segments of Los Angeles, just by going a few blocks over. If I really wanted to, I could take my DSLR over to Canoga Park in Los Angeles and make it seem like I'm in a third world country. It's less than a mile from my home.

This is essentially a "Tu Quoque" -- other cities have bad parts, so how can we point fingers at Detroit? It's ok for both LA and Detroit to have bad parts. But I think it's disingenuous to pretend that Detroit's downfall is anywhere near that of other cities (unemployment, scale of abandonment, population decline, etc.).

This is essentially a "Tu Quoque" -- other cities have bad parts, so how can we point fingers at Detroit?

Looks to me like it's questioning the process by which we here conclude that Detroit is a hellhole.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#126

Post by jeffepp » Thu, Aug 11, 2011, 1:17 AM UTC

jjm wrote: post #33

jeffepp wrote: post #5

There is a TON of opportunity in Detroit. A lot of smart money has already started pouring into the city.

I know all about that city, and let me tell you I seriously doubt it is anything close to the opportunity that exists elsewhere. Just because 'some' money is coming in doesn't mean it will come out of the slump that _IS_ Detroit. Between scandals (do i really need to cite?), poor getting even poorer (which is insane), the violence[1][2], and people leaving [3], it makes it a hard choice for anyone to want and stay. T…

It's pretty clear you don't know "all about" Detroit, it's nice that you quote a few articles though (especially one from 2009).

The opportunity that I mentioned is not in residential (yet) although I would be a buyer of raw land near downtown.

There are some truly awful areas, but there are also some really great areas of Detroit -- especially Midtown -- where there are very low vacancy rates and an influx of college grads who want to live in a vibrant urban environment.

Billionaires are buying (with both hands) commercial buildings for pennies on the dollar. I'm going to bet they know a bit more about "opportunity" than the authors of your articles.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#127

Post by prawn » Thu, Aug 11, 2011, 1:58 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #57

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...

sports arenas One of them sold for under $600,000 a couple years ago! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverdome#Sale

Pretty incredible. Could've sold my house, bought that and turned the interior into a giant vegetable patch with some grazing land. A fattoria with stadium seating and reasonable exterior defenses against zombie hordes. Much more interesting than a house in the suburbs.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#128

Post by jjm » Thu, Aug 11, 2011, 2:13 AM UTC

jeffepp wrote: post #126

jjm wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know all about that city, and let me tell you I seriously doubt it is anything close to the opportunity that exists elsewhere. Just because 'some' money is coming in doesn't mean it will come out of the slump that _IS_ Detroit. Between scandals (do i really need to cite?), poor getting even poorer (which is insane), the violence[1][2], and people leaving [3], it makes it a hard choice for anyone to want and stay. T…

It's pretty clear you don't know "all about" Detroit, it's nice that you quote a few articles though (especially one from 2009). The opportunity that I mentioned is not in residential (yet) although I would be a buyer of raw land near downtown. There are some truly awful areas, but there are also some really great areas of Detroit -- especially Midtown -- where there are very low vacancy rates and an influx of colleg…

Well being a billionaire means you knew how to make money from a market yesterday. It doesn't really mean they know how tomorrow. Odds will be better as you have resources to try but everything is a gamble. Knowing the odds help.

And so with that, I say the odds aren't so good in Detroit. The market is constantly shrinking. That is fact (see the wiki link). This spills over to exports as well. The last saving grace are the auto manufacturers, but as most economists say the reliance on them for exports must end[5].

For all you know the 'billionaires' will frack[1] all the entire land and what will you have then? Or maybe foreign nationals are buying the land to level it for agriculture, and not high tech or manufacturing which keeps jobs [2][3][4]. That would be nice, to see a farm land back on Detroit soil.

Yes maybe selling that $1k piece of land for $2k would be a good deal. You just made 2x or maybe even 10x (if you could) there. But who are you going to sell it to?

I've seen plenty of people and huge think tank laden corps (investment firms, banks, etc...) with massive amount of money blow it all for stupid decisions. Including during the 2008 CDO mess. Or just look at the current Euro zone situation, they're STILL bleeding.

Yes what is happening to Detroit is also happening to the rest of the USA. The only thing is Detroit was ground zero.

Rather than 'follow billionaires' I choose to forge my own path with my fellow entrepreneurs learning from all of this horrible mess.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/world/americas/27brazil.ht...

[3] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-10/grantham-says-farml...

[4] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-10/being-like-soros-in...

[5] http://wallstcheatsheet.com/breaking-news/what-put-the-brake...

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#129

Post by logjam » Thu, Aug 11, 2011, 2:17 AM UTC

winestock wrote: post #117

tptacek wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The largely Catholic ethnics" (I'm a Catholic of Irish and Eastern European descent) were not "driven out" of their neighborhoods. They left them as a reaction to integration and the beginning of the end of redlining policies. The "control" they lost was "the ability not to live next to ethnic minorities other than their own". Moreover, upon leaving the white Irish Catholic and Polish enclaves, mortgage lending move…

Yes, they were driven out. There was a sharp increase in crime caused by the friction of disparate groups suddenly coming in close contact with each other (Devil's Night and so forth). Yugoslavia broke up due to such friction, and those ethnic groups have been in contact with each other for centuries. The Malays and Chinese of Malaysia have had plenty of scuffles, too, and they've been around each other for a long ti…

> As for E. Michael Jones, he didn't start going into his theory of the Jews until after he wrote his other work.

Yeah, and I'm more than a little creeped-out calling anything this guy produces a "theory" or even "work".

Since you keep bringing up this guy's theories as such a transformative event for you and all, just for edification, here's what the Southern Poverty Law Center has to say about his "theory of the Jews":

"The magazine's cover stories over the last year or so are instructive: "Judaizing: Then and Now," "John Huss and the Jews," "The Converso Problem: Then and Now," "The Judaism of Hitler," "Shylock Comes to Notre Dame" and so on. Jones runs through all the usual anti-Semitic canards -- the ideas that "Jewish media elites" run the country, that Jews are "major players" in pornography, and that Jews are behind Masonry and the French Revolution -- but that's only the start. He also accuses Jews of poisoning society with thinkers such as Karl Marx (a devotee of Satan, says Jones) and Sigmund Freud (who set off an epidemic of sexual sin, he says). And he describes the World War II Nazi genocide of the Jews as "a reaction to Jewish Messianism (in the form of Bolshevism)." Last April, in an article raging about a new president of Notre Dame University, Jones charged that anyone who went to a mainstream university would emerge "with a Jewish world view … and maybe a Jewish spouse." Jones, who has written nine books and hundreds of articles, regularly cites extremist sources, especially the American Free Press run by veteran anti-Semite Willis Carto. He also has taken up race, most obviously in his "Rooted Culture" conferences that include a trip to Germany. The 2005 trip theme would be familiar to any neo-Nazi -- "the continuing deracination in Germany." Jones has one other line of business that would be familiar to the racist right: the "neo-ethnic songs" he sells as part of a bid to create what he calls a true "Volk" music."

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/br...

Sounds to me like his "theory of the Jews" stupidity didn't exactly evolve too far from his "theory of the blacks", eh?

> Diversity + Proximity = War

And now...let's see here now...such an elegant little equation for Hacker News here and all...concise...and war...sounds harsh...so, according to the 2000 census, the following U.S. cities were more diverse than Detroit: Long Beach, Oakland, Los Angeles, New York, Houston, Sacramento, San Jose, Chicago, Dallas, Anaheim, Newark, San Francisco, Miami, Riverside, San Diego, Fort Worth, Boston, Honolulu, Santa Ana, Milwaukee, Denver, Austin, Tampa, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Albuquerque, Tucson, Corpus Christi, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Cleveland, Buffalo, Arlington, Norfolk, Charlotte, Washington, Minneapolis, Kansas City, St. Paul, Omaha.

So they should all be war zones - that's what your equation tells us, eh? Yugoslavia. Bosnia. Ethnic cleansing in all those cities much more diverse than Detroit. Isn't that the phrase in the title of E. Michael Jones little racist book you keep leaving off for some reason: "The Slaughter of Cities: Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing"?

Horseshit.

Re: Detroit in Ruins

#130

Post by Duff » Thu, Aug 11, 2011, 2:18 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #123

Duff wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know nothing of the book that is being mentioned here, but various policies in the mid-20th century DID force the breakup of the traditional ethnic neighborhoods. It's not an issue as simple as black and white. I live in an area that in the 1960's had thriving Irish, Italian and Polish catholic communities. Community being the key word -- these folks lived, worshipped and attended school together. They were tight g…

My kids play with 5 other families on my block, and we know many, many more of our neighbors than that. I'm literally a stone's throw from one of the worst neighborhoods in Chicago. Here's a suggestion: instead of blaming your alienation from your block on the breakup of old racist† '60s ethnic enclaves, reach out to the people on your block. They'll appreciate it. Set up a block party. Collect email addresses from y…

I'm glad that you're so progressive, but you happen to be the exception. You also are reading what you want to, and not what I said.

The nationwide trend is that social interaction between Americans has been in decline substantially in recent years. This is pretty much across the board. Again, read Bowling Alone, or skim a review of it. These are quantifiable facts.

You can apply whatever judgement that you want, but the fact is that ethnic communities were and in some cases still are true communities that people feel a part of. Your suggestions are also great ways to build a community based on commonalities other than language and culture.