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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

#71

Post by francisofascii »

ndileas wrote: post #32
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…

I live in Rochester NY, grew up in Buffalo. Housing markets here were nuts the last couple years, probably due to this effect (although laughable compared to SF I'm sure) and pent up demand. I'm not sure I really want it to "blow up" any more, although I'm not much of a big city guy - I like going to the same diner every Saturday and reading at home. Life is pretty good.

Yep, I know a guy who moved to Rochester metro from the NYC metro post COVID. I was kinda shocked to see the high prices of housing there.

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

#72

Post by ghaff »

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…

You probably need to decide if you want no "lake effect" snow specifically or just don't want a lot of snow. It still snows a lot in places that aren't Buffalo or Syracuse. Just in New York state Ithaca is pretty much out of the lake effect snow belt but it still snows quite a bit.

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

#73

Post by yesfitz »

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…

The CityNerd, Ray Delahanty, just published a video on this topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcn77OwF9XE (You can safely increase the speed of the video to 1.5x. He speaks slowly.)

If you don't feel like watching the entire video, I'll just recommend Iowa City, Iowa. It ticks all your boxes except maybe climate change refuge. But with all the money you save on housing, you can buy a vacation cabin/bunker further north.

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

#74

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

eduction wrote: post #23

Detroit’s homicide rate as of January is about 4x the national average, 31.9 per 100k vs 7.4 nationally. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/20...

Like any city most of these would happen in easily avoidable areas and there's no reason to live in fear about it unless you're one of those people for whom it's a hobby.

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

#75

Post by pc86 »

nancyminusone wrote: post #65
pc86 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just move north" is a common refrain from people who don't understand what climate change means.

Could you expand on this point? Are climate refugees not expected, at least in the short term?

It's a byproduct of the naïve belief that climate change means it gets hotter (and little/nothing else), to which "just move north" is a logical conclusion. The truth is closer to climate change means more extreme weather happens everywhere, and things get hotter up until -- and here's where my knowledge of science may be much less up-to-date -- a critical mass of ice at the poles melts, and which point the temperature plummets.

By definition a lot of areas will be hit hard and some areas will be hit less hard but it's not going to be along a north-south axis.

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

#76

Post by toast0 »

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…

> And there isn’t a way to shrink a shrinking city.

You could probably disincorporate parts of the city, but I assume that would require consent of the owners/residents and the county. Of course, reducing the incorporated area also reduces revenue, so it might leave you with similar revenue vs cost mismatches, but a smaller area.

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

#77

Post by FireBeyond »

pc86 wrote: post #57
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.

Which is kind of funny since you're talking about UofM, not Stanford or MIT. It's a good school but there are literally hundreds of good schools in the US. In my experience lots of folks educated at top top tier institutions are pretty humble about it, and acknowledge places where other institutions are as good or better than their alma mater. A coworker of mine recently got his MBA from Penn which is not only Ivy Le…

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 games, where even the parents know that the last thing their kid or the team needs is them messing with the referees, etc.

But most of the issues came in between. The kids who were absolutely talented, but were never going to play professionally. But they were still well ahead of the first group. Those were the troubles, where parents, coaches, and players felt that they truly belonged in group 2, but the only thing holding them back was the referees or whatever else and had a need to prove themselves. Never has a quote been more appropriate from Top Gun, "Son, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash."

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

#78

Post by psunavy03 »

filoleg wrote: post #69
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 have an alternative proposal to Ann Arbor for this that hits every single one of your criteria, but with a plus-minus (with a caveat, but i will elaborate on that later) regarding reasonable cost of living. That would be Seattle area. I will go point by point. The good: * According to their own Climate Vulnerability Assessment[0], the region is fairly resilient to the impacts of the climate change. * There is no la…

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.

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

#79

Post by lotsofpulp »

psunavy03 wrote: post #78
filoleg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an alternative proposal to Ann Arbor for this that hits every single one of your criteria, but with a plus-minus (with a caveat, but i will elaborate on that later) regarding reasonable cost of living. That would be Seattle area. I will go point by point. The good: * According to their own Climate Vulnerability Assessment[0], the region is fairly resilient to the impacts of the climate change. * There is no la…

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 would not be too worried about that. Washington legislators just outlawed income tax last year. While those who want earned income tax are vocal, the support for the initiative against income tax was so widespread that the politicians did not want it on the ballot for fear of voters being swayed to vote for the other ballot initiatives.

https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Initiative_2111,_Prohibit...

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

#80

Post by ghaff »

evantbyrne wrote: post #70
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Grand Rapids and Traverse City might meet your criteria, but it's hard to say given how subjectively they are worded. If you want to live in a town with a large university, then obviously just look at the top three universities by size in each state.

Yeah, I'd look at university towns and small cities generally in the northern end of the country. Though it's probably not just the largest universities--there are smaller schools that caan still give a place a feel of a university town. Then pick some climate metrics like average inches of snow. Create a shortish list and go from there. I suspect some of the criteria are also less important than others.

Continuing ed opportunities are probably actually one of the tougher things. There are often things you can do informally with unis if you know the landscape but it's not something that's routinely offered as part as I know. There are community colleges and nightime continuing ed but, honestly, I'd probably mostly look online for that sort of thing.

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