
The two Detroits: a city both collapsing and gentrifying at the same time - Thevet
http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/feb/05/detroit-city-collapsing-gentrifying
======
rmason
The article is from February. A couple of corrections:

1\. It's spelled Grosse Pointe not Grosse Point.

2\. The flower boxes that blocked entry from the city have been removed.

3\. Downtown's renewal has created jobs in security, food and construction

4\. There has been the start of a revival of retail centers in some of the
neighborhoods

5\. There's a really cool sculpture park a few blocks West of the Whole Foods,
I was there a week ago. It's on the service road of the Lodge expressway.

[http://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/2015/06/08/ar...](http://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/2015/06/08/artist-
sestok-builds-sculpture-park/28710697/)

------
werber
The article doesn't mention it, but downtown Detroit is effectively privately
policed : [http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-
kaffer/2...](http://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/nancy-
kaffer/2015/05/18/quicken-detroit-security/27521889/) , and Midtown Detroit is
mostly covered by Wayne State University Police, who are infinitely quicker to
respond than the actual city police.

~~~
rmason
A sizable part of downtown is in what is referred to as the Dan Gilbert green
zone. Cameras everywhere and a private security force.

[http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/6760/a_first_look_in...](http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/6760/a_first_look_inside_gilbert_s_downtown_multi-
million_dollar_security_hub#.VgngKflViko)

If you're in the tech area around the Madison building you're fairly safe 24
hours a day. East of downtown, especially after the sun goes down is a no mans
land.

~~~
werber
I feel pretty safe walking east of downtown, till about Eastern Market.

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rayiner
My wife was in downtown Detroit recently. She was surprised by how nice it was
compared to Baltimore. At least there is some revitalization in Detroit,
somewhere.

It's not a choice between pockets of growth and broad-based resurgence. It's a
choice between a few gentrifying neighborhoods and not even that.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>It's not a choice between pockets of growth and broad-based resurgence. It's
a choice between a few gentrifying neighborhoods and not even that.

Who says? Why and how did this state of affairs happen?

~~~
rayiner
Cities can't overcome the forces created by state and federal policies. It's
too easy for businesses and capital to simply move away from cities that don't
engage in race to the bottom behavior. You can either make your city super
attractive for development, or development will move to a city that is willing
to do that.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
That doesn't answer the question. Without some sort of countervailing policy
to concentrate wealth, it would seem that growth ought to lead to broad
growth.

~~~
jerf
Detroit is huge. It's really, really big. It was once a top-10 city in the
world and one of the wealthiest. Now it's dirt poor (by American standards)
and significantly depopulated, but it's still physically huge. It's like when
you cut back a really big tree... it can't help but grow back with little
shoots, because if what's left of the plant tries to revitalize the entire
empty shell, it'll simply die trying.

It would be a grave error to choke off the shoots of growth in Detroit out of
some misguided sense of it somehow not being fair that it's not evenly
distributed. This isn't San Francisco in wealth and power that maybe is doing
something you don't like, with resources to spare if it just did $WHATEVER.
This is, even now, a city on the edge, a city with massive financial problems
even with its current financial outlays that you would probably find horribly
inadequate, a city with no resources to speak of. Choke off the growth shoots
and you won't get a broad-based resurgence, you'll just get _nothing_.

(First rule of wealth redistribution: Make sure there is wealth to
redistribute! The only way the city is going to get resources to spread the
revitalization around is if there is _somebody_ being successful,
_somewhere_.)

~~~
PavlovsCat
It was a simple question, not a suggestion to choke off anything. I find it
curious that merely asking "why did this problem come to exist in the first
place" is met with downvotes and advice about "wealth distribution" that
sounds an awful lot like trickle-down economics.

~~~
jerf
It is not hard to read the code words of the modern gestalt in its ever-
increasing uniformity. The defense that the code words weren't really meant
"that way" is ever-more feeble.

And arguing about trickle-anything is irrelevant if you start with nothing to
trickle in any direction, and then ensure that there continues to be nothing
to trickle in any direction. You can't redistribute what isn't there.

But the real point of my message is that Detroit is _huge_. Geographically
it's much bigger than San Francisco. You can drive for 20-30 minutes at full
highway speeds starting in Detroit and still be in Detroit. There's a few
shoots coming up, yes, but they are still pretty small compared to what needs
to be there for the city to shed its current reputation.

------
ZoeZoeBee
Biggest problems for Detroit aren't mentioned in the article at all.

1) Crime - Goes without saying Detroit continues to be one of if not the most
dangerous large cities in the US.

2) Literacy - Only 50% of the population of 700,000 are functionally literate.
If you can't read or write what kind of job can you get in today's economy?

~~~
antidaily
Oakland is super dangerous too. Chicago has a million shootings every weekend.
So what.

~~~
smtddr
The thing that gets lost in most statements similar to _" $CITY is
dangerous!"_, is that it's usually not the whole city. Parts of it are. If you
know what parts and stay away from those, you'll be okay. There are parts of
San Francisco that are probably pretty scary from the point-of-view of upper-
middle-class folks but when you know SF well enough, you know where _not_ to
go.

\- Mexico is a beautiful place with plenty to do on a family vacation, as long
as you know where you're going.

\- Oakland has fantastic entertainment, art and food... as long as you know
where you're going.

\- San Francisco is great; well-known as a major international tourist
attraction... as long as you don't go to... [http://www.vice.com/read/hunters-
point-is-san-franciscos-rad...](http://www.vice.com/read/hunters-point-is-san-
franciscos-radioactive-basement)

~~~
fiatmoney
If one has to live there and be familiar with the local geography in order to
know precisely how to reduce one's risk of getting carjacked, it's fair to
describe it as "dangerous". There is a real difference between "danger with
pockets of safety" and the reverse.

~~~
smtddr
It's just that upper-middle class people tend not to have any street-smarts so
they're afraid of any place that doesn't look shiny-and-glamorous..... and
eventually, this conversation is going to take us to deeper uncomfortable
social issues like this: [http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/what-to-
do-when-y...](http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/what-to-do-when-your-
app-is-racist)

 _" “rating system based on the personal views of Americans, a people
historically known to mask the occasional racist view behind words like
‘dangerous’ ”—or, for that matter, “sketchy.”_

------
gautamnarula
I recently met someone who traveled to Detroit regularly for work. He said
downtown Detroit was terrifying--no cars at all to be seen, and only homeless
people around him. He chose to stay in his hotel most of the time, because he
feared for his safety.

I wonder what fixing Detroit would look like. The city is in free fall--high
crime, deteriorating infrastructure, and a declining tax base. How would this
be reversed? In a time where many cities are booming (Atlanta, Boston, New
York, San Francisco, Denver, etc.) Detroit is collapsing.

My guess is that fixing Detroit would start with a massive cash infusion from
the state or federal government to address crime and crumbling infrastructure.
Nobody wants to live in a city that is unsafe and has no quality housing or
reliable transportation. I'm not sure what the next steps after that would be.

2) Build a new

~~~
tsotha
>My guess is that fixing Detroit would start with a massive cash infusion from
the state or federal government to address crime and crumbling infrastructure.
Nobody wants to live in a city that is unsafe and has no quality housing or
reliable transportation.

I don't see any reason we should spend federal dollars to rescue a city that's
responsible, in large part, for its own plight. And it's not like we've
imposed a visa system on Detroit residents, trapping them there.

~~~
thomk
Detroit is something like 95% black and poor, making it the least diverse city
in the country as well as the biggest to be bankrupt. People who live in the
city don't stay there because of a visa system, they stay there because there
are no other options. When you are poor, moving just means an added expense to
just live in another poor place. Might as well just stay put.

~~~
tsotha
I'm always amazed that poor people seem to be able to afford cigarettes,
drugs, and alcohol, but they can't scrape $24 together for a bus ticket to
Chicago. I have nothing against people who want to stay in Detroit. It's just
that I don't want to spend a bunch of money subsidizing their decision.

~~~
rmxt
Can you really say with a straight face that it's "cigarettes, drugs and
alcohol" keeping a non-negligible amount of people from spending their way out
of Detroit? The idea that poor people are "wasting" their money on
entertainment is wishful myth.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/how-
the-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/how-the-rich-and-
poor-spend-money-today-and-30-years-ago/360103/)

~~~
tsotha
I can absolutely say with a straight face anybody who drinks or smokes could
instead find $24 for a bus ticket.

Have you ever been to a poor neighborhood? Every other shop is a liquor store.
The owners of those stores aren't keeping them open as a charity.

~~~
rmxt
If the solution were as simple as getting a bus ticket out of town, don't you
think more people would do that? (Hint: it's not that simple.) The evidence
shows that poor people spend less on entertainment than rich people.

Have you ever been to a rich neighborhood? Every other shop is a Starbucks or
Gucci. The owners of those stores aren't keeping them open as a charity. (This
statement, like yours, is a non-sequitir. I think what you are trying to get
at is basically, "poor people are already disproportionately affected by
addiction, so we should take away social services (i.e., where your taxes
dollars go) that help them escape said addiction." That's damn circular logic
if I've ever seen it.)

~~~
tsotha
>If the solution were as simple as getting a bus ticket out of town, don't you
think more people would do that? (Hint: it's not that simple.)

Yes, the solution is really that simple. Why don't they do it? Moving sucks.
You only move when you have to. Note here I don't have a problem with it. Move
or not move, that's up to them.

>The evidence shows that poor people spend less on entertainment than rich
people.

Well, good. Poor people _should_ spend less money on entertainment. They're
poor. The question isn't whether they spend more or less money on
entertainment; the question is whether or not it's reasonable to expect people
to cough up $24 for a Greyhound bus ticket to Chicago. In California twenty
four bucks buys about half a carton of cigs.

>Have you ever been to a rich neighborhood? Every other shop is a Starbucks or
Gucci. The owners of those stores aren't keeping them open as a charity. (This
statement, like yours, is a non-sequitir.

No, mine was not a non sequitur. We were talking about poor people. I have no
idea what you're trying to say here. Some kind of free association?

>I think what you are trying to get at is basically, "poor people are already
disproportionately affected by addiction, so we should take away social
services (i.e., where your taxes dollars go) that help them escape said
addiction."

I suggest you reread the thread here, since there's no way you could have
gotten that impression by reading what I actually wrote.

Nobody is trapped in Detroit. As a taxpayer I have no obligation to shower
money on the city in an effort to make it a nice place. The people who live
there have two options - either they can make it a nice place through their
own efforts or they can go somewhere else. If they're waiting for the rest of
us to pick up the tab, well, they can keep waiting.

~~~
rmxt
Read this entire article:

[http://stateofopportunity.michiganradio.org/post/want-out-
po...](http://stateofopportunity.michiganradio.org/post/want-out-poverty-move)

It is extremely naive to think that spending $24 on a bus ticket is a one-
size-fits-all solution that will work for all poor people in Detroit, and work
without a drop of your taxpayer input. That concept might work for a select
few, but it's doomed to fail when played out on a large scale. There are
thousands of more factors than "spend $24 on a bus ticket, or spend $24 on a
six pack and two #2 from McD's".

Here are just a couple: do I have family where I am going? do I know that the
bus route exists? do I have $24 in cash, or am I running behind on a cash
advance from my last paycheck? will I, and my family, be able to eat this
weekend if I get this ticket? how do I arrange for housing, temporary or
permanent, before I get there? (if I have a job,) what do I do about my job?
will I get a job if I move? how do I redirect any government assistance that I
am getting to my new temp/perm. address?

What is "shower money on the city" if _not_ financial support for social
services and infrastructure? How can you say that my impression is off, when
you're literally saying "don't shower money on the city"? Where do you think
this money goes? The "blight-removal efforts" are a step in the right
direction, and hey, guess what? They take taxpayer money! So do community
centers, well staffed and equipped schools, and youth programs.

I'm very glad that you've apparently handcrafted your own bootstraps, boots
and fences over which those boots will climb, but not all of your fellow
Americans were born so fortunate. I think that breaking up entrenched pockets
of poverty is a good idea, but it's a bad idea to think that it can be done
without some governmental intercession.

------
jamespitts
Detroit collapsed, long ago. It was walled off, long ago. It was stripped, and
the educated people moved outward, long ago.

I worked at the Madison Building downtown while rapt.fm was part of the Bizdom
accelerator program so I saw a lot of this gentrifying effect happening.

Dan Gilbert / Detroit Venture Partners / Bizdom have been establishing a tech
ecosystem to help with the revitalization downtown. There were dozens of small
companies at the Madison Building, a really nice place to have events on the
rooftop, an auditorium, etc. And the urban area right around it has a lot of
great restaurants and places to live.

This startup scene was moderately big, but way, way bigger was the moving of
Quicken Loans back downtown. Plus the updating of the sports stadiums. Plus
the general hipsters from UMich building interesting stuff throughout the
region. Plus the huge bailout of GM and other kinds of Federal support of
industry in Michigan during the Great R.

All of that is why Detroit's collapse is in the past tense, not to say that it
is in good shape or anything.

It was an interesting situation on the ground, it had the feel of re-taking,
re-building, re-connecting. Downtown and the Wayne State area were way better
off than the rest of town, in a highly visible way. But all kinds of folks who
held on through the real decline were around, with stories to tell.

One key thing that happened while I was there, and this is was the intention
of key people at Bizdom I believe, was that business connected quite a bit
with the outer community (i.e. across the freeway-moat around the gentrifying
downtown). Lots of people got involved with the startups in the Madison, and
were often introduced to us by Bizdom's leaders.

Our company, which combined freestyle rap music with real-time web technology,
collaborated with maybe a dozen or two people from around the area. Some were
graphic designers, techies, or artists, others were local rappers or
promoters.

The town's presence was constant, it was there in the huge windows. You could
drive down any major stretch at night, and randomly take a right into a post-
industrial wasteland. A kid might zip by on a bike in the pitch dark. Because
everywhere, nearby, there were also some homes with families inside.

I can't even describe how much city there is, outside of downtown. Miles of
infrastructure basically sits fallow or highly depreciated, and thousands mire
in poverty, due to poor urban design, poor leadership, and historic fear.

By hosting companies that draw from Detroit's huge creative energy and then
bringing tech and business people to the core of the city, Gilbert will have a
major positive effect in the long run.

Call this effect gentrification while the city collapses, but you can also
call it the shaky beginnings of a return to normalcy.

------
sustrik
maybe that's the solution to the suburbia problem. move the people downtown
and let the suburbs rot off.

