How is everyone in MI dealing with the economy???

[jeffncandace]

Originally Posted by enli

Well, frankly, that's pretty insulting. I said nothing of the kind, but I did point out a reality - we have problems in my home town that are not going to be fixed by vomiting up another high rise loft building. I challenge anyone who thinks I cherry picked or worse to print the pictures and walk down Washington from Eleven Mile to Lincoln - about a half mile, then go east one block to Main and walk back to Eleven Mile and find one single building that does not exist there.

What a shame that anyone who posts in disagreement is automatically portrayed as a liar.

More than one of you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

Wow! Ashamed of ourselves!

First of all, my sincere apologies if you were offended. If you are at all familiar to this forum then you know that we have many people who post incredibly negative things and nothing anyone can say or do will convince them that we are not on a sinking ship. No one is saying times aren't tough, but they paint an absolute bleak picture!

So, my comment was not directed at you per se, but since I don't know you and we get so much biased negativity here, my assumption was that "you" would repost that your pictures were indeed representative of the entire RO downtown area, which is not true.

Again, I was just downtown on Sunday. There were lots of bustling businesses and happy shoppers strolling the streets! As much as there used to be? Probably not.

You are very welcome to the forum and welcome to share your thoughts and feelings regarding the area. Again, I sincerely apologize that you were so offended.

[Cato the Elder]

I mentioned it in a different thread, but even in the best of times, there are stores vacant in RO, B'ham, Ferndale, Berkley, etc. Starting and maintaining a small business is a tricky endeavor, especially when you pay good rent. Overall, it's a good problem in that there are so MANY available spaces due to development over the last decade. As Magellan mentioned, context is important. There might be more stores vacant than 5 years ago, but I doubt it's higher than 10% of available storefronts in the core of downtown. Take a picture of entire downtown blocks in RO and then we'll formulate some valid opinions.