Elements of Urbanism: Detroit

[Metro Jacksonville]

Elements of Urbanism: Detroit



While Detroit is nationally recognized as America's poster child for blight and economic decline, Metro Jacksonville takes a look at one aspect the city has successfully brought back to life:  Downtown Detroit.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2009-sep-elements-of-urbanism-detroit

[Fallen Buckeye]

Music scene is supposed to be awesome there. I have friends that travel a 6 hour drive fairly regularly to catch shows there. Personally, I don't have much love for Detroit after spending a night freezing on the airport floor after being snowed in. NEVER fly there in the winter! lol.

[heights unknown]

Poor Detroit.  Has seen many many hard times in the last 40 years or so. Over 900,000 people departing since the 1950's, that's a huge chunk of meat leaving the butcher. Add to that the decline of the auto industry, which was the heart and heartbeat of detroit's success, and you've got a city that is only a shell of its former self, and continues to lose population.  But it appears that Detroit of late is keeping its head up high and taking numerous measures to bounce back.  Wouldn't want to live there, too cold in the winter, and summer lasts only about 3 months.  Overall, wish the best for Detroit.  Have some family living there and for the life of me will never know why they left North Florida for Detroit (early 70's, at that time the auto industry was still booming).

Heights Unknown

[reednavy]

Nice capture of someone with a rebel flag at Comerica Park.

Just an observation.

[Ocklawaha]

Did you make it past this station Lake? This is the old Michigan Central Station in Detroit, but it's out of the urban core. Buffalo New York has a similar station situation. There was a plan to convert this into a Grand Terminal for a fantasy monorail idea, that makes our Skyway look like the Union Pacific.

Sad to see them go, as both city's have plans to wreck them.

OCKLAWAHA

[thelakelander]

Yes, I've been past there several times over the last decade.  You are correct, they are trying to tear it down.

[ralpho37]

Makes our Skyway look like the Union Pacific?  So it was a crappy idea?

[ralpho37]

Wow I'm speechless.  That 8th grader has more merit to be on the city council than that Monica Conyer lady.

[thelakelander]

Yes, I get around when I'm up there.  However, for this thread, I only focused on DT.  What historic district and neighborhoods are you interested in seeing?  I have a pretty large photo archive from trips over the years, so I may have them.

[Fallen Buckeye]

A lot of the older homes and buildings are being torn down as I understand because they're havens for illegal activity. I don't know how many of the abandoned homes are in historic neighborhoods, but I think that's a loss I'd be willing to take if it helped with reducing crime. It is shame, but who is going to come invest and live in them when the rust belt is bleeding people and jobs?

[dubguy82]

I love this site, don't get me wrong - but i feel like some topics are very repetitive.  Didn’t the Detroit area get covered at least once before?  Also, most times I log in I feel like it is all about rail service.

[thelakelander]

Sometimes you have to drive the point home, so some topics are revisited at time when the opportunity presents itself.  Rail is a great example of this because we feel its one of the most important issues facing the future of our community.  Detroit has been covered in the past.  However, the subjects have been different, well spaced out and deal with several issues we face locally.

November 2006 - Rust Belt Special II: Learning from Downtown Detroit
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2006-nov-rust-belt-special-ii-learning-from-downtown-detroit

September 2007 - Elements of Urbanism: Detroit International Riverfront
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2007-sep-elements-of-urbanism-detroit-international-riverfront

February 2008 - The Detroit People Mover: The Skyway's Sister System
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2008-feb-the-detroit-people-mover-the-skyways-sister-system

March 2008 - Rail Without the FTA: Detroit
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2008-mar-rail-without-the-fta-detroit

[jaxlore]

i love the city of detriot we fly up every year for the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, along with folks from all over the world (and now about a dozen or so of us from jax). The downtown is really great, there is of course some sketchyness once you head past the Motown Museum, but we have our own here as well. The people mover is great we hop on that from the hotel and we are at the Ren Center. The locals have always been a pleasure and I always feel welcomed when I am there. The crowd roar from Comerica Stadium is like nothing i have ever heard before, our hotel was right across the street and it was like a sonic boom. All in all I love it. You can tell they are hurting right now, there are a lot of empty buildings though but I like the way they have artists decorate the empty store fronts(see the pic with the tire art). But heck all i have to do is look out the window and the burkman plaza shell and know all citys are hurting right now.
One other thing, i love about detroit, is record stores!!! While they are fading there are still more then you can shake a stick at and me and the wife go hog wild!

[krazeeboi]

It's great to see the good parts of Detroit every now and again. God knows we've seen enough of the crappy sides.

Re the Monica Conyers video, she was definitely out of order for her behavior, but that little girl needs to be taught that you don't talk to adults that way. Had that been me when I was in 8th grade, my mom would have popped me in the mouth whether my point was valid or not. [/digression]

[Lunican]

I didn't realize that the Detroit People mover runs on rails. I thought it was rubber-tired like Miami's.