Detroit begins crafting plan to downsize - But picking winning, losing neighborhoods controversial

[Bozita]

Source: Detroit News

Last Updated: February 20. 2010 12:32PM
Detroit begins crafting plan to downsize
But picking winning, losing neighborhoods controversial
Christine MacDonald and Mike Wilkinson / The Detroit News


Detroit --Mayor Dave Bing and a majority of City Council members are on board with the concept of downsizing the city to save it and may soon move closer to choosing which neighborhoods to target for help at the expense of others.

A first step in the controversial process began this week, when Bing was briefed on a block-by-block study of conditions in the city's 133 square miles. Surveyors for the "Detroit Parcel Study" drove every street and logged details about every house, 350,000 parcels.

The report, which could be made public this weekend, is seen by backers as a key tool to prioritizing viable neighborhoods and accelerating discussion about downsizing. The process could eventually move into a politically uncomfortable -- but necessary -- debate about providing incentives to move residents from desolate neighborhoods, said City Council President Pro Tem Gary Brown. "We know that we have neighborhoods that aren't viable," said Brown, who took office in January. "I'm very much for prioritizing viable neighborhoods."

Bing and others acknowledge the city faces a reckoning. The city is big enough to contain all of Boston, San Francisco and Manhattan and was built to contain 2 million residents. It now has about 900,000, property values are shrinking, infrastructure is aging, but the need for services remains.


From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100220/METRO/2200309/Detroit-begins-crafting-plan-to-downsize#ixzz0g6fPBwme

Read more: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100220/METRO/2200309/Detroit-begins-crafting-plan-to-downsize

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Today's Detroit Free Press carries a similar report:
http://www.freep.com/article/20100220/BUSINESS04/2200371/1318/Survey-finds-third-of-Detroit-lots-vacant

Survey finds third of Detroit lots vacant
Positive news uncovered, too
BY JOHN GALLAGHER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER


A mammoth new survey delivers a sharply focused look at Detroit's housing stock and lays the groundwork for a sweeping debate about right-sizing the city.

The survey by the Detroit Data Collaborative gives an unprecedented view of the strengths and weaknesses of the city's residential areas. Results portray a city of marked contrasts.

A little more than 35% of the city's 343,849 residential parcels are either vacant lots or abandoned shells of buildings -- a staggering burden for a city trying to reinvent itself.

But the survey also found surprisingly upbeat results in Detroit's most vital districts. The survey found that more than 90% of the city's occupied residential units are in good or fair condition -- results that could lay the foundation for efforts to strengthen individual neighborhoods.

more...

[BeatleBoot]

1. Former Mayor Dennis Archer

Had a great plan for the city and it sounds similar to this.

His plan was to build pockets of new, sustainable housing in different areas of the city and eventually those pockets will connect to one another.

[Rapier09]

2. Downsize the local Government not the people

I am going to assume we don't need anywhere near the same levels of civil servants and cops for that level of decaying population.

On edit: actually no you can't downsize the cops are this point.

[BeatleBoot]

3. The people

are already downsized.

Population was 2 million now down to 900K.

[AngryAmish]

4. Yes you can downsize the cops

[kestrel91316]

5. Yeah!!1! Shrink it down 'til it's small enough to drown in a bathtub!!!1!11!!

[DBoon]

14. make those cops really small

I'm on drugs. I'm, uh, I mean, you know what it is. What's the deal, man? I like to get small. It's a wild, wild drug. Very dangerous for kids though, because they get really small. I know I shouldn't get small when I'm drivin', but, uh, I was drivin' around the other day, you know *whistles tunefully* and a cop pulls me over. And he goes, ‘Hey, are you small?’ I said, ‘No, I'm tall, I'm tall.’ He said, 'Well, I'm gonna have to measure you.' They've got a little test they give you; it's a balloon, and if you can get inside of it, they know... you're small. And they can't put you in a regular cell either, because you walk right out.

- steve martin

[bluestateguy]

6. Take the un-savable neighborhoods and make them into parks

nt

[Barack_America]

9. These areas are far too large for that to be practical.

They could, however, be turned into forests or, if the land is not too polluted, farms

[BeatleBoot]

13. Lifting from former Mayor Frank Murphy, some are farming the vacant lots

It was his idea from the Great Depression.

[Brickbat]

7. I find this terribly sad.

No benefit concerts, no commemorative posters.

[KittyWampus]

27. everything changes and has a lifespan. Detroit could be reborn and lead the way

Imagine a San Francisco in middle America.

[madrchsod]

8. "life after people" marathon today.."holiday hell" is on right now!

[JDPriestly]

10. Where have those who left Detroit gone?

They did not just disappear. Is there any trend in their moving patterns?

I remember when many, many people migrated from the southern U.S. to Michigan and other areas in the Midwest in the 1950s. Are people moving back to the South? Or are they moving West? What's happening? Are they simply moving to rural areas?

[diane in sf]

11. They went where they could find work. Chicago, Sunbelt, etc.

[caraher]

12. Suburbs, following jobs back south...

If you were to plot new construction vs. time on a map of SE Michigan starting in the mid-'60s, it would look like a shock wave emanating from the city proper. "White flight" gutted the population of Detroit, with people moving further and further away as the center became less viable. The metropolitan area probably continued to grow in overall population until into the '80s; I'm not sure what's happened since. Quite a few autoworkers simply followed the industry jobs; I remember people leaving for Saturn plants in Tennessee in the '90s, for instance.

Taking my own family, parents plus five Detroit-born siblings (born between 1964 and 1971)... we moved about 9 miles north to the suburbs in 1975. My father is deceased, one sister lives in a western suburb, my mother lives about 10 miles NE of where we moved in 1975, and the rest of us live in Indiana, New York, Oregon and California. This is a pretty typical experience; I don't think any of us particularly wanted to move away from Michigan, but the career opportunities simply don't exist there anymore - at least not the way they did for our parents' generation.

[FarCenter]

15. Detroit is a monument to the notion that conflict is a problem solving strategy

Conflict between workers and management.

Conflict between blacks and whites.

Conflict between rich and poor.

[Psephos]

28. Best one-sentence description I've heard. n/t

[XemaSab]

16. Very interesting

k&r

[Taitertots]

17. Yeah, lets turn large areas of Detroit into lawless Super ghettos

With no electricity, water, police, or anything.

[ret5hd]

18. What do you call a ghetto with no people? (i'd call it a pasture)

[Yurovsky]

19. I love the concept of "urban parks" a la NYC or ...

on a MUCH smaller scale, Savannah, Georgia. Small parks every other block or so. Very nice.

[Taitertots]

20. What do you call a pasture filled with burnt out buildings and homeless people

I'd call that a super ghetto.

Are they going to build a wall to keep people out or just hope no one ever goes there? Where do you think all the people who lost their homes are going to go?

[KittyWampus]

25. NYC manages to keep Central Park fairly sane. It's quite beautiful. Detroit needs a visionary.

It could lead the way to Urban Revitalization.

[Taitertots]

30. What do they do with the rest of the Manhattan sized abandoned area?

What they are talking about doing is stopping services to a whole city sized area.

[DBoon]

31. Dresden in 1945?

A place where someone just lost a very cruel war?

[Taitertots]

32. I had a professor who just came from Russia who described Detroit in similar terms

"It looks like the aftermath of a war" is how she described it.

Have you ever seen Detroit? Eight times as many people who used to live in Dresden could move into the abandoned buildings in Detroit.

[leeroysphitz]

21. If it's at 94 and Mt Elliot I'd call it a sequel to "Escape From New York". n/t

[PassingFair]

22. I used to work at the Renaissance Tennis and Racquet Club on Mt. Elliot near...

Jefferson.

My husband lived in a loft on Gratiot and VanDyke,
right behind a big red dot that claimed that
50,000 people a day passed by it.

[Urban Prairie]

23. I'd call it my DU SN n/t

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[KittyWampus]

26. Detroit has an historic opportunity to show the USA how Urban Renewal/Planning could be done.

Retaining historic districts, parks, veggie gardens.

Building around mass transit.

[XemaSab]

29. Rebuilding around smaller centers with a shared interest in building a viable community

instead of retaining the "sprawl" model where people a few blocks away are the "other" and not within the community sphere.