Is Detroit actually doing something about blight and crime?? (Royal Oak: for sale, mover)

[ForStarters]

"Is Detroit actually doing something about blight and crime??"

Yes, it is. Blight and crime are the products of economic despair and overbuilding. Detroit is (1) working hard to build infrastructure and attract companies to the city and (2) working hard to demolish abandoned buildings to balance out the real estate market.

Until the oversupply of vacant real estate is corrected, blight will not go away and property values will remain abysmally low. Until companies come to the city and invest money, pay taxes, and employ people, crime will continue to happen. You cannot solve crime and blight problems without addressing the underlying causes.

Education is also a key to addressing both blight and crime. Progress has to start at the center.

[TightButLoose]

But things in downtown Detroit are on the upswing, correct? 4700 new jobs in downtown Detroit, lots of new restaurants and shops downtown near the ballpark. Isn't this a pretty good start? But I guess that just raises the question---when will the new found downtown prosperity start reaching the other corners of the city.

[fmax]

FS,

"Detroit is (1) working hard to build infrastructure".... "(2) working hard to demolish abandoned buildings".... "Until the oversupply of vacant real estate is corrected..."

What infrastructure are you referring too?

It's always switch-a-roo in Detroit with diminishing return of increasing taxpayer subsidies.

[Dexterguy]

Originally Posted by TightButLoose

But things in downtown Detroit are on the upswing, correct? 4700 new jobs in downtown Detroit, lots of new restaurants and shops downtown near the ballpark. Isn't this a pretty good start? But I guess that just raises the question---when will the new found downtown prosperity start reaching the other corners of the city.

To answer your question, there is not a single person that is going to be attracted to Detroit because it has Comerica Park or Ford Field. Detroit has to make available a solid education to its children, and prove that to the parents, otherwise Detroiters are going to continue to leave in droves for the suburbs simply for the schools. New construction (baseball, football, restaurants) that the suburbanites primarily support is not going to start reaching other corners of the city because people don't actually want to live in Detroit, just on occasion go downtown.

Until Detroit truly reinvents its schools, not just improve, but reinvent, it's going to continue to see its neighborhoods turn into shells.

Blue Cross/Shield, Quicken, and Compuware can all move thousands of employees to Downtown Detroit, but that's not going to improve the city neighborhoods because it's hardly making a dent in helping the argumentitive and corrupt public schools.

[fmax]

Dexter,

You have it right. No fundamental change is being made.

Tiger Stadium simply moved.

Hotel St. Regis or Book-Cadillac Hotel takes business seriously, the Crowne Plaza/Pontchartrain now sits vacant - across the street from the big convention center.

That other poster is talking about infrastructure - Detroit can't afford the infrastructure it has now!

A lot of the street lights have been turned off lately. I drove down Calvert, from Linwood to Woodward, and none of the traffic signals were powered. Hamilton is a mess. Fenkel? C'mon.

Bing has the best idea by shuttering the city under the guise of farming. No one has caught on that fruit pickers barely earn minimum.

[ForStarters]

Originally Posted by fmax

FS,

"Detroit is (1) working hard to build infrastructure".... "(2) working hard to demolish abandoned buildings".... "Until the oversupply of vacant real estate is corrected..."

What infrastructure are you referring too?

It's always switch-a-roo in Detroit with diminishing return of increasing taxpayer subsidies.

The infrastructure I am referring to includes highly needed transit, including the Rosa Parks bus terminal, another transit hub in Midtown that is under construction, the M1 rail line, and the Dequinder Cut for biking from downtown all the way to New Center without crossing an intersection, which is incredible.

Infrastructure also includes renovations at COBO Hall and city beautification including the finished Riverwalk, a new park in New Center, a total facelift of Capital Park, and a new park in the place of the demolished Lafayette Building.

So, I'm not sure what you mean by diminishing return of taxpayer subsidies. All of those things listed above are part of an effort to make the central business district more appealing to businesses and new residents. Money has to be invested on improvements. You can't argue that nobody wants to live in Detroit and do business in Detroit when you're unwilling to put up the money to complete necessary projects and renovations. Other cities spend billions on such things, which is why they are competitive and we are not. I live and work in Detroit and I put my money where my mouth is. I love the suburbs, but people who use the city as their personal playground when they come down for a game, a show, or the casino and then complain about why downtown doesn't have X, or why Y isn't as nice as they'd like it, have no room to talk when they balk at having tax dollars directed at city projects. You can't just expect things to turn around on a dime because you come down for a Tigers game 3x a year and drive home directly after. It doesn't work like that.

Also, to assert that Bing is "shuttering the city" is a flat out lie. He is razing blighted and abandoned buildings that have no hope of ever being restored and preventing the waste of valuable tax money on city services like police, fire, buses, and utilities for an area where nobody now lives. Massive housing developments in the region over the past several decades resulted in double the housing stock for a decreasing population. Housing in Detroit and elsewhere will have to be razed if the real estate market is to be stabilized. Even so, downtown residential space is at a high premium these days; this I can personally attest to. More amenities at Detroit's core will spur more residential and business growth, which will have a snowball effect moving forward, hopefully spreading upward and outward. If DPS can be improved or charter schools added, maybe some the younger professional-types moving into the city will stay in the city even after having kids. If you don't invest in it, don't knock it.

[fmax]

For S, You are a romantic that's for sure and it was hard for me to accept too. The bottom line, Detroit bonds are junks status. It is what it is and Bing has it right by shuttering the city.

[fmax]

Clearly, for some reason Detroit is incapable of maintaining a modern, well-rounded city with stable communities.

Another way to say it might be, Detroit has been a “real-time” observation of societal breakdown.

Detroit’s destruction has been in the making for a very long time. Can you imagine how excited the Detroit population would have been in 1972 – the groundbreaking ceremony for the so-called “Renaissance Center”? Only to be followed up by the destruction of the Arsonists throughout the ‘80’s?

The Detroit River isn’t even called by its’ name. The river is known as the “International Riverfront”, muting the name “Detroit” all together.

After the neighborhoods are torn down and farms roll in, those farms will eventually be tilled back into pine tree farms or, “forest space”. (O/T – when the Detroit neighborhoods are demolished, are the foundations removed or left behind?)

Reverting back to a “farming community” or so-called “forest space” means ceasing to be a “City” all together. If Detroit builds farms and parks everywhere it’s a petting zoo or Renaissance Fair at best. When the farms come the underutilized expressways will be flooded with Lake Water for urban fish farming? Anything is possible.


A Bullet Train between Royal Oak and Hart Plaza isn’t going to necessarily help Detroit as whole. Exactly what is the cost of the bullet train compared to complete demolition of the downtown Detroit Core?

Bing thinks outside the box. It is what it is. Bing is doing what needs to be done - shuttering The D.

[and the]

Using homicides as a barometer of the affectiveness of any kind of "war on crime" is absolutely ridiculous. If you want to look at the affectiveness of a crackdown on crime, look at larcenies, stolen cars, burglaries, robberies, theft of scrap from vacant houses, arrests of vagrants pissing on the street, street level drug arrests. THAT will tell you how much of an effort the police department is putting into restoring the quality of life in Detroit and how it's working. Hearing Warren Evans talk about how much better Detroit is because the homicide rate is down 20% or the homicide closure rate is up 20% while the population is down to 750,000 from one million 25 years ago is laughable. Want to impress me? Tell me how many car thieves and burglars you caught and how much you lowered the rate of burglaries, larcenies, dope houses in operation, etc. Show me how little gang graffitti is sprayed all over the neighborhood. Until then, just keep turning up the smoke and adjusting the mirrors for the sycophants dumb enough to believe and enable you.

[editors_desk]

empty areas into parks? where are the jobs? let's spend the money on that first. nothing "shrinks" in reality. maybe the path is re-routed or the spot is filled up with a building but nothing is going to shrink... just to be refurbished into a new road, house or park lawn... c 'mon folks let's get with reality. stop playing games, tearing down homes and bulldozing the eyesore away is not the answer. your "LEADERS" are not doing right, are not listening to the folks who voted for them, are enjoying CORRUPTION at tax payer expense. watch youtube videos of city council and the monkeyshines going on there. wake up folks it's time to get the liberal progressives out of power. the ruling class has betrayed the folks and need to go. house and senate will fall to the gop in november. as soon as michigan stops voting for liberal causes then and only then will it recover.

Originally Posted by cityboy2010

To people who live in Detroit (and not the suburbs):
I know there's been a lot of proposed ideas about transforming empty areas into parks, physically shrinking the city, etc. but are any of these ideas really being acted upon? Has any funding been put forth to help Detroit get rid of the neighborhoods where hardly anybody lives anymore? From what I've heard, most of the nearly-empty neighborhoods are closer to downtown and the river, and not a lot of crime happens in them- they're more of an eyesore.

Also, are there any really strong plans in force to crack down on homicides? What are the worst neighborhoods as far as homicides? I've seen murder maps but I've never been able to find the names of the actual neighborhoods that are most dangerous.

Sorry if I'm asking a lot of questions- just interested!

Thanks.