Showing posts with label Detroit. Show all posts

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Detroit's prospects may be better than we think

by Kaid Benfield

As almost everyone knows, Detroit is a city with some serious problems. But, as I have written before, it's more complicated than some pundits allow: while it is true that the central city has been famously "shrinking," its suburbs have actually been growing in recent decades. Looking at Detroit the region rather than Detroit the central city, the situation is still far from rosy, but not as dramatically dire as some suggest.

I find it nothing short of tragic that so many people are writing off the city's prospects - and concentrating mainly on how to adapt to a decline of population and economic activity that they believe is essentially permanent - when the region has been expanding. Hollowed-out centers accompanied by sprawl on the fringe are horrible for the environment and for people. The last thing we should be doing is institutionalizing that pattern.

more about Detroit:

Shrinking Cities: The Forgetting Machine

Back to Basics for Detroit Light Rail

Is Detroit the new Brooklyn?

Skyline photos of Detroit 1

Detroit’s Renewal from a Funder’s Perspective

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Shrinking Cities: The Forgetting Machine

by Jason King

....

It's reductive, and it limits the stories behind the former beauty, and the nasty racial discrimination that was at work in the creation of something like the large Hudson's store on Woodward Avenue, captured in this image that shows the cutaway of the various departments inside the hive of mid-century activity which was vital to the "making of shoppers, like the making of citizens, was an essential function of both store and city, especially the city of middle-class arrivals made possible by the flourishing of modern industry". This idealistic experience is another cultural ruin that no longer exists (as it was demolished by changes in commerce) - much like the building in which it used to happen.

The Old Michigan Theatre, Detroit, photo by femaletrumpet02

The same fates, to a differing degree, befell many sites, like Hudsons, but the overlay of the old (ruin) and the new become something similar to Rome - a cafe right outside the Pantheon, or a gelato stand at the Colosseum... In Detroit, the Michigan Theater, for instance, was an architectural gem from the 1920s, which in the words of Herron was somewhat rudely transformed into a parking garage... "The old Michigan Theater is one of the most suggestive sights in the whole city of Detroit: neither an abandoned ruin nor a precious, restored fetish, but a working statement about making do with the past. The tenants of the offices adjacent to the theater threatened to move out unless they were provided with secure parking, so that’s what the landlord improvised out of the otherwise useless auditorium. And that is the genius of the place."

....

The Old Michigan Theatre, Detroit, photo by emaletrumpet02

The Old Michigan Theatre, Detroit, photo by jvh33

more about Detroit:

Back to Basics for Detroit Light Rail

Is Detroit the new Brooklyn?

Detroit: The Death of Manhattanism

Skyline photos of Detroit 1

Detroit’s Renewal from a Funder’s Perspective

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Back to Basics for Detroit Light Rail

by Yonah Freemark

Just three weeks after a 9.3-mile light rail line down Woodward Avenue, the city’s central strip, Mayor Dave Bing revealed on Friday that he would allow a shorter link funded by a private group to move forward if it submitted an acceptable business plan within 90 days.

The project will have to be built right: Even at just 3.4 miles, the line could serve as a quick, reliable connector between the waterfront and the New Center, via Midtown. But that will only be possible if trains have their own lanes, run frequently and are funded with no negative effect on the city’s already under-financed bus system. There is evidence that those conditions will not be met. Yet the project’s design has yet to be completed — Detroit transportation advocates could still successfully fight for the appropriate implementation of this first stage of Woodward Light Rail.

But the circumstances in which the project’s reactivation has occurred speak to a continued dysfunction not only in Detroit but in American transportation politics in general.

Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI, photo by bruna camargo

The rail project was put on hold last month because of the sense that Detroit — already mired in debt — would be unable to afford the operations costs of the corridor (estimated at $10 million a year) without sacrificing bus service. Repeated plans for a regional transportation authority, and associated funding, have been in the air for decades. Only a plan that served the suburbs well would be acceptable, since they would have to agree to increase financing for transit. So Bing, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood agreed to refocus efforts and money on city-suburban improvements to the bus network.

Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI, photo byNuevo Anden

The latest move is backtracking at its best. Seemingly overwhelmed by calls from influential congressmen and the executives of downtown businesses like Quicken, Penske, and Compuware — who have already lined up $80 million for a $125 million short version of the line (called M1-Rail, which was actually proposed in advance of the longer corridor) — the deal from last month will be amended.

Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI, photo by femaletrumpet02

Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI, photo byMaia C

more about Detroit:

Is Detroit the new Brooklyn?

Detroit: The Death of Manhattanism

Detroit’s Renewal from a Funder’s Perspective

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Is Detroit the new Brooklyn?

ByKathy Hughes

Last weekend, the New York Times featured a story in its Style section about the onslaught of hip, young urban pioneers streaming into downtown Detroit. These “creatives,” as they are being called, are taking advantage of low rents and the opportunity to recycle this abandoned, blank slate of an urban landscape into something new and exciting. There are restaurateurs and entrepreneurs of all stripes living alongside environmentalists and urban farmers. The city, according to the Times, seems like “a giant candy store for young college graduates wanting to be their own bosses.” One woman said that there’s a cool party just about every evening. The article pointed out that even though recent census figures show that Detroit’s overall population shrank by 25 percent in the last 10 years, downtown Detroit experienced a 59 percent increase in the number of college-educated residents under the age of 35.

No doubt this is partly a word-of-mouth, grass-roots “movement.” But behind the scene, millions of public, private and foundation dollars are greasing the wheels. Last April, Blueprint America profiled an effort called Live Midtown, an incentive program created to lure some of the 30,000 employees of midtown’s major anchor institutions (Wayne State University, Detroit Medical Center and Henry Ford Health System) to move from the suburbs back into the city. By the end of June, 178 people were reported to have taken advantage of deep discounts on rent ($2,500 the first year and $1,000 the second) or purchases ($20,000 toward the purchase of their primary residence). We also looked at an effort by the mayor’s office to use federal stimulus money to lure members of Detroit’s police force out of the ’burbs and back into town.

Night life in Detroit, by Thomas Hawk

more about Detroit:

Detroit’s Renewal from a Funder’s Perspective

Detroit: The Death of Manhattanism

via Domus

by Mitch McEwen

There are many reasons to be fascinated with Detroit. Abandoned buildings and the unwinding of urban order have a kind of car-wreck appeal that traffics (pun intended) in the aesthetic pleasures of the sublime. Detroiters hate this kind of attention. One would rather reminisce about the height of automobile production and its attendant cosmopolitan side-effects (Motown music, an urban middle class, a population of 1.8 million[1]).

Between late March and the beginning of July of this year, a somewhat contradicting story of contemporary Detroit has emerged. When U.S. census figures were released, they announced the shrinking of Detroit's population by 25% over the last 10 years. In aggregate numbers the 237,500 residents who left Detroit in the past ten years tragically outsizes the 140,000 who left New Orleans after Katrina[2]. But closer parsing of the data reveals pockets of expansion: from Mexicantown and the growing Hispanic demographic, to the 59% increase in young college grads living in the city's downtown area. This latter statistic was the analytical cornerstone in the recent New York Times story about Detroit in the Fashion + Style section that featured a photo with the caption: "An influx of young creative types is turning Detroit into a Midwestern TriBeCa."

It is difficult to discuss Detroit without discussing media. The city is obsessed with the representations of itself, its image, its cultural currency. And in the most contemporary terms of media, Detroit—one might say—is trending. From Magic Johnson's venture capital fund[3] to the FIGMENT art fair on Belle Isle, a range of national endeavors are developing interests in Detroit. Not to mention national media attention. The New York Times has published 8 or so major articles on Detroit in the past year, even aside from articles about sports teams and auto companies. PBS and NPR both recently followed up on a Times article about Detroit's downtown with pieces titled "Is Detroit the New Brooklyn?"

Race and ethnicity in Detroit, by Eric Fischer

more details: http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?chicagodots

more about Detroit and New York:

Detroit’s Renewal from a Funder’s Perspective

Manhattan’s Master Plan: Why NYC Looks the Way it Does

NYC Taxi Reform Doesn’t Go Far Enough

Short Skirts on Bicycles Celebration in New York City

Detroit’s Renewal from a Funder’s Perspective

by Diana Lind

This interview is the first in a series of conversations with friends and members of Living Cities, a philanthropic collaborative of 22 foundations and financial institutions. On September 27th, Living Cities will be hosting a 20th anniversary event with a live webcast available on their website.

Over the past two decades, Living Cities has invested nearly $1 billion in American cities; most recently the organization has focused its efforts and funds on five cities through a program called The Integration Initiative. According to Living Cities, “The Integration Initiative supports cities that are harnessing existing momentum and leadership for change, overhauling long obsolete systems and fundamentally reshaping communities and policies to meet the needs of low-income residents.” In 2010, Detroit was chosen as one of the Integration Initiative sites. It will receive $2.75 million in grants, $4 million in flexible debt, and $15 million in commercial debt from Living Cities members to improve safety, schools, employment, small business opportunities and a host of other aspects of the city’s built environment.

Rip Rapson is the President of the Kresge Foundation and a member of Living Cities’ board. Kresge’s funding in metropolitan Detroit has lead to advances in arts and culture, education, entrepreneurship development, building the green economy, transportation reform, and perhaps most controversially, in land-use reform. He talked with Next American City about the Integration Initiative, innovation in anchor institutions and where Detroit is headed over the next 20 years.