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As someone who has lived in and around Detroit for their whole life, I found this article to be very insightful. By far, the best part of Detroit is a trend of
by free_everybody 9y ago
As someone who has lived in and around Detroit for their whole life, I found this article to be very insightful. By far, the best part of Detroit is a trend of extremely creative people being able to do whatever they want with their respective spaces. It goes far beyond painting a mural or erecting a sculpture. There are huge gardens[1], performance art spaces[2], puppet theaters[3], concert venues in industrial buildings[4], and much more. And these spaces are very cheap to maintain, relatively speaking.
[1]http://www.miufi.org/ http://www.miufi.org/
[2]http://thehinterlandsensemble.org/ http://thehinterlandsensemble.org/
[3]http://www.puppetart.org/ http://www.puppetart.org/
[4]http://tangentgallery.com/Tangent_Gallery/Home.html http://tangentgallery.com/Tangent_Gallery/Home.html
- greglindahl 9y agoConcert venues in industrial buildings sound great until you have a fire and people die, thanks to a lack of attention to fire safety.
- darkmuch 9y agoThat's a grim thing to say for no reason.
- greglindahl 9y agoYou're right that it's grim -- I said it because of the title of this discussion, "people being able to do whatever they want", and remembering the Ghost Ship fire in Oakland, CA.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- L_Rahman 9y agoUnfortunately, it's also something that actually happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_warehouse_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_warehouse_fire 36 people died.
- darkmuch 9y agoOh, i live nearby; I am definitely aware. That was also horrendously illegal. I'm not sure why you would assume they violate code except to be dramatic. Concerts have been held in industrial places in secret, but if you hear about one it's typically above board.
- sliverstorm 9y agoThat was also horrendously illegal And yet the original parent said: the best part of Detroit is a trend of extremely creative people being able to do whatever they want with their respective spaces Or did I misunderstand, and they are allowed to do anything zoning-wise but are still held to the appropriate codes.
- akgerber 9y agoThe interior is mostly concrete and drywall and there are clearly-lighted exit signs in the photographs. There has been a long history of cultural spaces in ex-industrial space, and it's perfectly safe when basic fire safety regulations for places of assembly are followed.
- greglindahl 9y agoOh, I'm sure these spaces make great concert venues, and are perfectly safe when fire safety is paid attention to.
- Spooky23 9y agoWhen nobody is watching, people tend to cut corners on things like basic fire safety.
- sandworm101 9y agoPop-up concerts sold by word of mouth... tickets sold for and all involved paid in cash. In oher words:illegal. But if you want to officialy convert a space, if you want to sell via ticketmaster or get financing through a bank, then suddenly there is plenty of government. Forget fire inspectors, what is the state of the bathrooms? An ADA suit will cut far deeper than having to install sprinkers. It is far easier to push some industrial-looking stuff into a club than try to setup a legit club inside a factory.
- IncRnd 9y agoIt isn't illegal for concerts to be spread by word of mouth or for their tickets to be sold for cash.
- sandworm101 9y agoNo, but those are red flags.
- IncRnd 9y ago
- free_everybody 9y agoThat's certainly a risk that can be mitigated, as with all structures.
- dahart 9y agoFor someone who hasn't lived there, but has spent some time in Detroit, can you shed some light on whether it makes sense to treat Highland Park as separate "city" apart from Detroit? I realize it may technically have it's own boundary, but to an outsider Highland Park looks like a neighborhood of downtown Detroit. I mean, it's even halfway between downtown center and the Detroit Zoo. Since Detroit as a whole is having the same problem, including many other neighborhoods, I felt like the article talking about Highland Park as distinct and separate felt weird. Is there some context there that I might not understand?
- maxerickson 9y agoIt's just historically incorporated separately, so it is a different tax base, to share services would have to negotiate with Detroit, etc.
- dahart 9y agoYeah, so I can understand that technically speaking, for income & property tax purposes Highland Park is it's own thing. But the big picture economics of the area are that proximity of the neighborhood means, for example, many people living in that neighborhood also work and purchase goods in Detroit but outside of the neighborhood. And Detroit as a whole has this problem, it's been written about all over the place. All of Detroit has been grappling with how to provide continuing services to the multiple neighborhoods that have lost a lot of people. So I'm just curious if there's something more I need to know than just the Highland Park boundary that warrants separating it? Or maybe even if writing about it this way is a good thing for the Highland Park residents for some reason I don't understand?
- maxerickson 9y agoThere's just no fixed process for dealing with the situation. Detroit doesn't necessarily want to assume responsibility, the residents don't necessarily want to become part of Detroit, etc. etc. I think it is kind of a modern problem to think of government structure as a static thing. Like another example from Michigan, now that we have paved roads everywhere we should all but dissolve townships. Organizing most of what they do would work fine at the county level. There's some real neighbor stuff that they do, but they don't need to have zoning boards or road projects.
- baron816 9y agoMaybe someone should start an art school out there and turn it into what New York used to be?
- free_everybody 9y agoThere is the College for Creative Studies (CCS) which is located in the heart of Detroit, but the tuition is steep and attracts mostly kids who grew up in the richer suburbs of metro-Detroit. Most of them probably don't stick around long after they graduate. My guess is most Detroit artists never went to art school. The money just isn't here.