What sets Detroit apart from other American cities? (Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo: upper-class, foreclosure)

[Bluefly]

Originally Posted by delayed

That is absolutely correct. The suburbs have had zero connection to that city since the 50's and nothing has ever happened to change our attitude towards it. The recent mayor Kilpatrick did a number on any Detroit / Suburb relationship that MAY have been building by pulling the race card every chance he got (campaign slogan: "Our" Mayor) and blaming the suburbs for Detroit's blight. He is correct on that. It is the suburbs fault that Detroit is a cesspool stinking to high heaven with filth, greed, crime..etc. The suburbanites of today abandoned Detroit in the 50's. They basically said, fine. You want it so bad? Take it. Let's see what you can do with it.

Today, you can see what they did with it.

I disagree with the previous poster who said the suburbs will sink or swim in unison with Detroit. Why? Because Detroit has been spiraling out of control as a city since the 60's and while the suburbs may have some budget issues here and there, they are not collapsing. Detroit is collapsing. The thing about facts and statistics is that they can tell the truth without being swayed by emotion one way or the other. Look at the numbers, they tell the real story.

You're looking at the situation from someone who lives there. A lot of people who live in Seattle or Austin or LA or DC or wherever don't live in the cities themselves, but they are attracted to the region because of the overall vibe and culture of the anchoring city.

You can complain all you want, but people with ideas and jobs will not move to metro Detroit en masse with enthusiasm so long as the city itself suffers.

Pittsburgh's a good example. The city's really turned itself around and now people talk with enthusiasm about moving to Pittsburgh or visiting it or how quirky and great it is, even if they actually live somewhere outside city limits. Nobody says that about Troy or Auburn Hills or Southfield or any of the other soulless suburbs. They are mere satellite cities floating without an anchor and will never compete on their own as anything more than office parks so long as they turn their back on the city that defines their international reputation.

[Bluefly]

Originally Posted by Dexterguy

It's been like that for a very very long time, and let's look at reality, nothing is ever going to change that. There has been a few suburbanites that have tried to fix and help the city, specifically in downtown (Comerica Park, Ford Field, and even the RenCen over 30 years ago). But building sports venues is not enough to get people from the suburbs back in the city.

It's very true that people from metro Detroit in general do not associate themselves with the city at all. I know people from all over the suburbs, Shelby Twp, Sterling Heights, Farmington Hills, Livonia, etc. that will tell you they are from "Michigan" before they are from "metro Detroit". Oh! And unless you actually live inside Detroit proper, you will never catch anyone around here say they are from "Detroit", even if they live in an inner-suburb.

You can compare that with someone that lives an hour out of Chicago or New York, and they still consider themselves to be from "New York" or "Chicago".

I really think that one reason why suburbanites don't associate themselves with Detroit anymore is because the city is getting smaller and smaller. And you really can't compare Detroit anymore with a metropolis like New York or Chicago.

That bolded statement is absolutely not true. I've lived and traveled all over the country and world, and people say "I'm from Detroit" and then a knowing person says "What city?" Then they list their suburb.

Maybe it's different out in Dexter. I don't think I'd consider that metro Detroit either. But that's how it is for everyone I've ever met who lives in the metro area.

[bc008]

Originally Posted by Bluefly

That bolded statement is absolutely not true. I've lived and traveled all over the country and world, and people say "I'm from Detroit" and then a knowing person says "What city?" Then they list their suburb.

Maybe it's different out in Dexter. I don't think I'd consider that metro Detroit either. But that's how it is for everyone I've ever met who lives in the metro area.

I agree with this.

All my family lives between Garden City, Westland, and Plymouth etc. and they all say they live in Detroit.

[Redrum237]

I've been under the impression that the recession has hurt Detroit city a lot, but that the suburbs have been relatively unscathed. I suppose things aren't as simple as back in the day when 8 Mile was like a dividing line between two different worlds, as some of the inner ring suburbs are starting to become a bit more blighted. But as a whole, there is that huge difference that exists.

By the way, which of the inner ring suburbs of Detroit are perceived as being the most blighted or going downhill most? How is Southfield seen as these days?

And which parts of the city of Detroit has most gentrification taken place in?

[RememberMee]

So, in 1960th Corporations abandoned Detroit in favor of the cheaper suburbs dragging most of more or less reasonably paid workers with them in the quest for "upscale" suburban life. Detroit was left with the most dirty, low paid manufacturing and poverty. In 1980th Ronnie kicked off outsourcing era, Detroit lost great deal of what it had remaining since then. Now corporations are leaving suburbs (entire Michigan for that matter). Everybody discusses how to lure Corporations back (hint: work for cheap, and Heaven forbid - no unions, it's an unpardonable sin) but nobody ever ask the question - why, by what right, by whose authority livelihoods of millions depend on the decisions of a few dozens corporate bosses. Land of the free, huh?

[RememberMee]

Pittsburgh's a good example. The city's really turned itself around

Maybe, but manufacturing went 6 feet under. You can't attract metrosexual crowd to an industrial city, can you? Maybe Detroit is on the right track .

[TheProf]

Redrum/OP, I tend to agree with your list, however, I look at it slightly different...

...to me, it begins and ends with your element no. 2: Poor public transit/lack of rapid rail of any kind... It seems this one fact indirectly or directly has caused all 4 of the other factors on your list... The lack of rail has caused Detroit to:

- have a weak downtown due to too many cars, need for parking (including much dreaded space-eating surface lots), which causes massive jams for big events (like the annual auto show in January) which, in turn, discourages jobs/events/people from locating downtown --

-- have neighborhood carving freeways in every sector of the city, not only causing a disconnect for suburbanites with the City, but also pushing the suburban population mass considerably further out from town than most similar-sized cities (see Philadelphia, whose metro area is roughly the same size: even though metro Philly's far flung, there are not only many inhabited, walkable city areas, but the suburban mass tend to cling close-into the city borders like which is normal -- of course Philly's the opposite of Detroit, with excellent mass transit!) ... I rarely see a city with core, high-density suburbs like Royal Oak and Birmingham being 12 and 16 miles from the urban core as they are in Detroit (with, btw, more livelier, denser, walkable downtowns than the Detroit downtown core!),

-- those same freeways + lack of rail transit has caused Detroit to be in the odd position of having almost zero walkable, dense/core areas in the city aside from Downtown, whose density, itself, is on the light side -- Detroit has New Center, which, though improving rapidly, still is spread over a wide area along Woodward and is pockmarked by parking areas giving it a suburban/driving feel, and Mexicantown which has some walkable areas along Vernor Ave even though there is a degree of blight there beyond the compact, block-long restaurant area, that’s adjacent to lots of surface parking (so, unfortunately, visitors, mainly from suburbs, can park, eat, and leave).

-- All of the above, spurred by the lack of rail, has caused the racial schism in City and burb in Detroit, which is stronger than practically every other big city...

Now let me say, I'm not saying rapid transit is the magic wand that cures all urban ills. Let's face it, Chicago's L travels over miles of blighted Chicago both West and South; ditto Cleveland's east side (with its heavy-rail Red Line terminating in God awful East Cleveland)... Baltimore's Metro Subway hasn't caused nearly the renewal/gentrification along the rundown Pennsylvania Ave/Park Heights corridor to the city's northwest like D.C.'s Metro Rail has done... But even in these cities, there are several areas where the rail transit has not only held urbanized areas in check (blight-wise) while giving such areas the springboard to revamp themselves...

... and YES before you say it, there are those exception cities, Milwaukee, for example, that have defied logic and have dense/strong in-town areas where, like Detroit, they have no rail transit either... But clearly these are the exception and not the rule and, in Milwaukee's case, part of it has to do with the fact that, historically, they were fortunate enough to have a highly developed, old line/upscale area adjacent to downtown (the Lower East Side, including Brady Street and the lake shore areas) that have remained desireable and are close enough where people can walk, cab or bus it.... But even outside these few close in areas, Milwaukee looks a lot like Detroit, esp its core North and NW areas... sprawl, abandonment, blight, etc.

[Redrum237]

I think part of the reason that Milwaukee is doing alright is simply because it's much smaller than Detroit. The city of Detroit may be almost as big as the whole Milwaukee metro area. Downtown Milwaukee is much closer to the suburbs than downtown Detroit is.

I also think part of the reason many Detroiters don't want high speed transit is because, if it connects the city to the suburbs, they're worried that the city's riff raff will come along to the suburbs with it.

Also, are downtown Birmingham and Royal Oak that great? I looked at them on google street view and they didn't look too impressive. I know some of the Detroit suburbs do have good downtown/main street areas, but I'd doubt that those are the best examples.

[TheProf]

^ you may not be looking at the right areas of Birmingham or Royal Oak; you should check the downtown/commercial areas ... compared to most of Detroit, esp the suburbs, whose streets are like elongated strip shopping centers, intermixed with low-densiy housing set way back from the streets (often with marginal roads separating local traffic from the main roads. Detroit has, by far, the most sprawl based on the worst land use of any larger NE/Midwest city in the nation.

[Bhaalspawn]

Originally Posted by Redrum237

Let me rephrase it....people in the suburbs of Detroit perceive themselves as having no investment in the city. They don't care about what goes on there in terms of crime, poverty, etc., as long as it doesn't effect them. The suburbs don't interact much with the city.

There is no American city I can think of in which the suburbanites care less about the state the city is in, than Detroit.

Basically, the middle class and upper middle class suburbanites in Oakland and Macomb counties have more or less written off Detroit as being a third world enclave, riddled with hopeless poverty and a corrupt city government. They rightfully regard spending money on Detroit or giving money to the city government as tantamount to flushing it down the toilet. Detroit is an embarrassment to the suburbs and the sad fact of the matter is that, minus Wayne State University, a few office buildings, the medical complex, the casinos and the sports arenas--things that could, metaphysically, be located in the suburbs instead of the City--the City is of no value or of negative value to the suburbs.

It may seem "intellectual" or "enlightened" to say that the evil soulless lily-white suburbs need the City, but in reality, it's not true.

Other than those items I mentioned, what is the City of Detroit doing for the suburbs right now? If the University, the casinos, the medical center, and the sports arenas could be magically moved out to the suburbs and the City and its inhabitants were magically replaced with a clear grassy field where the city used to be, how would it harm the suburbs?