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Detroit’s revival takes shape after decades of decay

theguardian.com

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Re: Detroit’s revival takes shape after decades of decay

#131

Post by Yeul »

garciansmith wrote: post #128
guywithahat wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> who the Big 3 have abandoned for a profit. I don’t think anyone left Detroit willingly; they were forced out due to race riots, threats to their life, and the UAW. The big 3 lost billions trying to revive the city in spite of the local politicians If your book implies or says it was somehow due to greed, you should respectfully find a new book.

Sugrue's "The Origins of the Urban Crisis" has a much more nuanced thesis, and part of it is that people were leaving well before the 1967 Uprising, part of it was broader economic changes, part of it was governmental policies (especially with regards to housing and transportation). The causes of the decline of Detroit's population are complex, not something that can be distilled in an HN comment honestly. But the id…

My family left the city in order to raise children. We tend to forget that cities can turn bad fast when there is an economic crash. They are the first places to be hit with drugs and crime.

Re: Detroit’s revival takes shape after decades of decay

#132

Post by GenerWork »

bityard wrote: post #130
psunavy03 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no state income tax . . . yet. But the "soak the rich" band is already tuning up, and with the cost of living being what it is out here, "rich" will probably include anyone who can afford a house.

I'm confused by this. I live in Michigan and have been paying state income tax ever since my first job.

I think the parent is referring to Washington State, not Michigan.

Re: Detroit’s revival takes shape after decades of decay

#133

Post by alexissantos »

bluedino wrote: post #121
qudat wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in A2 as well and I don’t even bother looking for gigs here. Duo used to be the tech company to work for here but they were bought by Cisco which is not really my vibe. Barracuda is another big name but other than that I cannot name many others.

Isn't Techsmith (Camtasia) down there somewhere?

East Lansing, where MSU is!

Re: Detroit’s revival takes shape after decades of decay

#134

Post by skybrian »

yardie wrote: post #33
dcchambers wrote: post #20

I really thought the major "rust belt" cities were going to blow up after the big COVID WFH push. Why spend 2-10x as much to live in one of four coastal metros when you could get the same pay while living somewhere much cheaper. The biggest issue with these cities in the last 50 years has been a lack of high paying jobs and WFH tech jobs essentially negate that issue. There are a ton of American cities that have fall…

The sun belt took wind out of their sails. And even they are starting to see softening demand. Miami just cancelled an A-class commercial high rise due to weak demand. In Austin, rents are tanking. It’s very hard to revive a town or city when the tax base is way down. I thought Detroit was going to succeed but they simply have too much ground to manage with their revenue. And there isn’t a way to shrink a shrinking c…

The decline in rents in the Austin area is due to building more housing, according to this article:

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/22/austin-texas-rents-f...

Re: Detroit’s revival takes shape after decades of decay

#135

Post by FireBeyond »

OnACoffeeBreak wrote: post #117
FireBeyond wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have refereed basketball at a very high level (think Div 1 College, NBA G-league/minor league), and in my earlier days I did a lot of junior high-level games, and I noticed very much the same, although more "vocal" with the parents than players. There seem to be three tiers: 1 - the low-level games, where it's fun, and no-one thinks it is more than it is, and everyone is generally chill. 2 - the very high-level gam…

The basketball thing can be such a shit show. As a parent of a kid that fell in love with basketball, did travel AAU basketball and ended up playing for a D3 college, I've experienced parents at all levels showing their full ass. Examples... Their coach at a rec league for 9 year olds was assaulted by the opposing team's coach at the end of the game. I've seen the cops being called to protect the refs and parents bei…

> Examples... Their coach at a rec league for 9 year olds was assaulted by the opposing team's coach at the end of the game. I've seen the cops being called to protect the refs and parents being escorted out of the game after threatening the refs. It goes on and on.

Oh yes, I lost track of the number of times I was threatened with being met in the parking lot after a game.

We never had to call the cops to eject parents - usually all it took was "That's fine, we'll just end the game as a forfeit to the other team" before you got some poor beleaguered kid saying "Dad, just go to the car. Please."

I quit (and this was probably 20 years ago) when I reported a player for "attempted striking a referee" during a fight, when he swung a closed fist at the head of one of my partner referees, who instinctively pulled back. The league believed that calling it attempted striking (which had a potential ban of 5+ years) would be "excessive" and downgraded it to "attempted assault of a referee". My argument was that the player -was- attempting to punch the referee (caught on video and all) and that the referee's reflex in dodging the contact shouldn't downgrade the severity of the offence.

Re: Detroit’s revival takes shape after decades of decay

#136

Post by reducesuffering »

wing-_-nuts wrote: post #60
RALaBarge wrote: post #4

30 miles West in Ann Arbor, there are tech gigs but not tons of them. If you are apart of the University of Michigan, there are tons of opportunities via the college and the groups there, but if not there aren't tons of openings. Detroit itself is an amazing city, but it isn't a tech hub, nor is it for everyone. It is the shell of the automotive companies that started to move their operations of out the country in th…

I've actually looked at Ann Arbor before as I adore college towns and was looking at trying to find one in the great lakes region as a forever / retirement destination. Given you're from the area would you have any others to recommend? Things I'm mainly looking for: * A climate change refuge * No 'lake effect' snow * Continuing education opportunities (i.e. auditing classes as a retiree) * A good public / uni library…

I built an app that I input these preferences in to find your ideal matches based on data[0]:

Iowa City, Lawrence Kansas, Lincoln Nebraska, Champaign Illinois, and Omaha Nebraska seem to best fit.

[0] https://www.exoroad.com/us/counties?wildfireRisk=Not%2520App...

Re: Detroit’s revival takes shape after decades of decay

#137

Post by whaleofatw2022 »

neilv wrote: post #24
whaleofatw2022 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah class divides are weird in Southeast MI. At smaller shops it leads to a lot of hubris from management. I've worked at more than one shop where circles of UofM grads insist on outsourcing everything new and having in-house employees only do maintenance or minor features. If you didn't go to UofM your opinion is worthless. Leads to incredibly toxic shops and terrible software.

I've seen that kind of thinking by some grads of MIT, Harvard, and Stanford, too. I think it's a minority of them, but not-unusual. My position is, if you want a lifestyle company (and maybe a self-congratulatory echo chamber), then maybe it's fine to be a " shop". But if you want to hire the best people, and be informed by a d-v-rs-ty of perspectives and experiences, then you really need to not be so insular.

I suppose that's the irony.

UoM has produced some of the best engineers I've worked with but the worst engineers-turned-managers I've ever seen as far as mindset.

Re: Detroit’s revival takes shape after decades of decay

#138

Post by gcanyon »

dgfitz wrote: post #102
gcanyon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

St. Louis is similar: you can walk from downtown to empty grass-filled blocks in about fifteen minutes. My favorite story is the origin of the City Museum (which, shoutout to the City Museum, it's awesome). The City Museum building is in a former factory, it's about 11 stories tall and fills a city block. It's on the edge of downtown about a dozen blocks from the Arch. The artist behind the museum bought the building…

I think most US cities are like that in the “downtown to disheveled in 15 minutes” sense.

I've lived in Los Angeles, Seattle, D.C., New York, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Boston. I've spent time in Phoenix, San Francisco, Kansas City, Chicago, Miami, Portland, Atlanta, and Orlando. None of them come close to what you see in St. Louis. As a disclaimer, I always tell people, every bad thing you hear about St. Louis is true, and worse than you've heard -- but also that the many, many good things about St. Louis are never mentioned, and that's a shame. It's a long list and the City Museum is high on it.

But that said, check out this completely empty block on Delmar and 21st [1], and remember that with the Arch, that's less than 20 blocks from the river. And five blocks north of there is the former site of Pruitt Igoe, which is basically six or so blocks of wilderness behind a chain link fence. I don't doubt there are cities in worse shape (Detroit probably being one of them), but none that I've explored.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/ZWrwkK6CytcQRNmU6

Re: Detroit’s revival takes shape after decades of decay

#139

Post by ghaff »

gcanyon wrote: post #138
dgfitz wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most US cities are like that in the “downtown to disheveled in 15 minutes” sense.

I've lived in Los Angeles, Seattle, D.C., New York, Las Vegas, San Diego, and Boston. I've spent time in Phoenix, San Francisco, Kansas City, Chicago, Miami, Portland, Atlanta, and Orlando. None of them come close to what you see in St. Louis. As a disclaimer, I always tell people, every bad thing you hear about St. Louis is true, and worse than you've heard -- but also that the many, many good things about St. Louis…

Many cities have bad areas. But few have that 15 minute dynamic. OK maybe SF with the Tenderloin but even Howard St. isn't as bad as it used to be.

Re: Detroit’s revival takes shape after decades of decay

#140

Post by ghaff »

qudat wrote: post #115
tokioyoyo wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was there about a year ago with a couple of friends, stopped for a night while driving through Michigan to go up north. It was just so eerie throughout the entire day. Incredibly wide streets, but sometimes you would walk for 5 mins before you saw a single soul. Maybe because it was a bit of a chilly day as well, but it felt like the city was built for way more people, and there just isn’t enough now.

It’s a commuter town: people drive in at 8am and leave at 5pm. The greater Detroit area is massive.

I've found that in some Midwest cities that weren't even necessarily blighted. I remember Kansas City at an event years ago where there was basically no one in the downtown at night. The same is somewhat true of even someplace like the Financial District of Boston after hours but there are enough people pretty close by it doesn't feel the same.
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