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Another important aspect to keep in mind when thinking about Detroit is that Southfield in Oakland County has a huge business district with many office towers. Southfield's amount of office space actually surpasses that of Detroit's central business district. More than 100 Fortune 500 companies have offices in Southfield.
In most other cities those businesses would likely be located in the major cities downtown. Fortunately, this has been turning around. Businesses are starting to move back to downtown Detroit, restaurants, stores, and other services are popping up to serve them.
Oh that's different. My perception is that most major businesses would want to be located in a major city. I wonder way corporations left Detroit and moved to suburbs just outside of Detroit?
I think what happened to Detroit is a much more complicated story than what is discussed in the media.
Oh that's different. My perception is that most major businesses would want to be located in a major city. I wonder way corporations left Detroit and moved to suburbs just outside of Detroit?
I think what happened to Detroit is a much more complicated story than what is discussed in the media.
In most cities they would want to be located in a major downtown. I don't the exact reason why many left for the suburbs, it was the general trend to move everything out of the city into the nice "safe, happy suburbs." I'm sure it partly had to do with poor management of the city, for a long time there was strong "city vs suburb" sentiment. For years there were a large number of people who were too afraid to even go into the city limits, which would make it hard to attract and retain employees.
You are very right that it is much more complicated than portrayed in the media. Fortunately, people are starting to realize that a strong, vibrant Detroit benefits the area and the state. For a long time, people seemed to have the attitude that Detroit wasn't needed, and should just be avoided.
In most cities they would want to be located in a major downtown. I don't the exact reason why many left for the suburbs, it was the general trend to move everything out of the city into the nice "safe, happy suburbs." I'm sure it had to do with poor management of the city, for a long time there was strong "city vs suburb" sentiment. For years there were a large number of people who were too afraid to even go into the city limits, which would make it hard to attract and retain employees.
You are very right that it is much more complicated than portrayed in the media. Fortunately, people are starting to realize that a strong, vibrant Detroit benefits the area and the state. For a long time, people seemed to have the attitude that Detroit wasn't needed, and should just be avoided.
What happened in Detroit though happened to a lot of cities in terms of population declines, increased crime, but none had the decline as Detroit.
The seeming hatred between Detroit and its suburbs does seem to be unique. I mean certainly there are conflicts between big cities and its suburbs, but not with that level of animus.
Another poster had link to an article about Oakland county and how its president was running and had been running on an anti-Detroit platform to sell the county.
Believe you me Chicago is very segregated and the surrounding suburbs are somewhat segregated, but I don't know of any place in IL where the leading politicians say Chicago sucks come here instead.
There seems to be a recognition that the city of Chicago is the economic engine for really the whole state of IL and if it suffers, so does the state.
The Detroit area is vastly underrepresented in population, compared to other metro areas. The office of management and budget, of the federal government, uses commuting percentages to determine the boundaries of metro areas. They really should call it “the commuting metro area”. Cities that have a high concentration of employment in its core attract commuters from far flung suburbs and exurbs. Detroit’s weak core means that people do not have to commute to the core county in great numbers and so they are not counted in the MSA population.
Looked at another way, the square mile footprint of the Houston MSA is about 9,000 or 10,000 square miles, with about 6 million people as the metro area. Metro Detroit is said to be around 4 million. Yet, if you took a 10,000 square mile footprint and superimposed it over the Detroit area, which would include some parts of Canada, there would be about 6.5 million people. So there are actually more people in the Detroit area, when using an equal sized area/footprint as the Houston, Texas metro area. This is all due to commuting percentages to the core counties. Detroit weak CBD reduces commuter percentages from outlying areas and so they do not get counted.
Detroit, to a lesser degree, has been somewhat like Soweto, South Africa during the area of apartheid. It was the black township outside the white city. Soweto was black and poor while Joberg was white and affluent. The city of Detroit represents a small percentage of the population of the region and just as poor communities exist in healthy large cities, in the Detroit region it just happens that the poor neighborhood of the Metro area is the city of Detroit.
The Detroit area is vastly underrepresented in population, compared to other metro areas. The office of management and budget, of the federal government, uses commuting percentages to determine the boundaries of metro areas. They really should call it “the commuting metro area”. Cities that have a high concentration of employment in its core attract commuters from far flung suburbs and exurbs. Detroit’s weak core means that people do not have to commute to the core county in great numbers and so they are not counted in the MSA population.
Looked at another way, the square mile footprint of the Houston MSA is about 9,000 or 10,000 square miles, with about 6 million people as the metro area. Metro Detroit is said to be around 4 million. Yet, if you took a 10,000 square mile footprint and superimposed it over the Detroit area, which would include some parts of Canada, there would be about 6.5 million people. So there are actually more people in the Detroit area, when using an equal sized area/footprint as the Houston, Texas metro area. This is all due to commuting percentages to the core counties. Detroit weak CBD reduces commuter percentages from outlying areas and so they do not get counted.
Detroit, to a lesser degree, has been somewhat like Soweto, South Africa during the area of apartheid. It was the black township outside the white city. Soweto was black and poor while Joberg was white and affluent. The city of Detroit represents a small percentage of the population of the region and just as poor communities exist in healthy large cities, in the Detroit region it just happens that the poor neighborhood of the Metro area is the city of Detroit.
Why does Detroit have a weak core? Did it always have a weak core? I get what you are saying basically the other places didn't need Detroit to gain major corporations, so Detroit was actually competing against its surrounding suburbs for businesses to settle there.
What happened in Detroit though happened to a lot of cities in terms of population declines, increased crime, but none had the decline as Detroit.
The seeming hatred between Detroit and its suburbs does seem to be unique. I mean certainly there are conflicts between big cities and its suburbs, but not with that level of animus.
Another poster had link to an article about Oakland county and how its president was running and had been running on an anti-Detroit platform to sell the county.
Believe you me Chicago is very segregated and the surrounding suburbs are somewhat segregated, but I don't know of any place in IL where the leading politicians say Chicago sucks come here instead.
There seems to be a recognition that the city of Chicago is the economic engine for really the whole state of IL and if it suffers, so does the state.
There was a horrible GOP ad bashing Detroit, it was pulled off the air. Most realize that was a mistake, and many leaders requested that it never be run. It's not the way average people feel these days, people are finally starting to get the picture that MI needs to Detroit to be great city again. There are plenty of great areas in Detroit, go downtown any night and you will see tons of people out having fun in the city.
The problem is the long history of "suburb vs city" with strong racial undertones has caused a lot of pain, fear and mistrust among people. Many older people still hold on to this fear, and teach it to their children, but it is changing. Every day there are more businesses and people moving back to Detroit.
There was a horrible GOP ad bashing Detroit, it was pulled off the air. Most realize that was a mistake, and many leaders requested that it never be run. It's not the way average people feel these days, people are finally starting to get the picture that MI needs to Detroit to be great city again. There are plenty of great areas in Detroit, go downtown any night and you will see tons of people out having fun in the city. The problem is the long history of "suburb vs city" with strong racial undertones has caused a lot of pain, fear and mistrust among people. Many older people still hold on to this fear, and teach it to their children, but it is changing.
Detroits core...Downtown...is not the problem. It is the rest of Detroit. You can't fix it by moving a few hundred thousand middle class into Downtown. The Rest of Detroit pulls it down faster than the center can build. It is a very, very large money sink.
You have to stop the hemorrhage in the outer area...otherwise down the tubes.
Downtown and midtown combined have a population of about 20,000 people. They have to double twice to get to be 10% of the population.
That is too small to be relevant to the outcome of the Detroit mess.
It's true that the population is still small, but it is growing. There is also a massive influx of suburban entertainment dollars, and worker dollars headed there every day. 20 years ago it was common to see downtown streets empty after work hours, now it's more common to see packed streets and people everywhere spending money. There are also a good number of other neighborhoods that aren't poor, and a few that are well off.
It's true that the population is still small, but it is growing. There is also a massive influx of suburban entertainment dollars, and worker dollars headed there every day. 20 years ago it was common to see downtown streets empty after work hours, now it's more common to see packed streets and people everywhere spending money. There are also a good number of other neighborhoods that aren't poor, and a few that are well off.
The population of Downtown and Midtown are not small they are miniscule.
Detroit's largest tax is in fact the income tax which hits mainly suburban commuters. But that actually serves as a driver to locate outside of Detroit and escape the tax. If you really wanted to grown downtown you would do away with that tax...but you can't because that leaves the City with virtually no income. .
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