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The place is surreal. There is so much infrastructure rotting and even burning right there in front of your eyes. I grew up in LA and was there during the riots

The place is surreal. There is so much infrastructure rotting and even burning right there in front of your eyes. I grew up in LA and was there during the riots and it left an impression on me. Cities need to be designed properly or they become a social catastrophe. Detroit is the case study for us all. Especially in downtown and in patches, there are things happening that could bring it back. Dan Gilbert is the perfect person to improve the situation, he's about as witty-gritty Detroit as it gets. Due to his efforts, there is some support infra for startups emerging and that will have some effect. Shopkeepers much more so, IMHO. But always beware of people with big ideas for your city: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKWtQvABBMY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKWtQvABBMY

rmason 14y ago
Detroit's urban planners made a lot of big mistakes. When the freeways were built in the fifties they cut entire neighborhoods in half. When Reneissance Center was built on the river in the words of one critic they pulled people off the streets and installed them in a fortress cut off from the rest of downtown. But other cities made equally dumb mistakes but they recovered. The riots in 1967 scared people and began the destruction. I went downtown with my grandfather two weeks later and it looked like a war zone with buildings still smoldering. Dan Gilbert is wagering a billion dollars of his fortune to turn things around and so far imho is doing very well indeed. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/business/dan-gilberts-quest-to-remake-downtown-detroit.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/business/dan-gilberts-ques... The NYT sees what Gilbert is doing as a philanthropic effort but Detroiter's see him more as a Billy Beane type. http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/4496/the_new_york_times_dan_gilbert_and_detroit_s_commerce_phobia http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/4496/the_new_york_ti...
- jamespitts 14y ago
  I read several books about urban planning and cities and it helped me understand how this happened all over the us. Detroit just got the worst of it. There are countless examples of horrible planning decisions in D., so many street-life-killing fortresses and dead voids everywhere. I do think that the people of D. will overcome these obstacles now that the core problems are identified. Do you remember anything about the conditions leading up to the riots? I remember taking a series of bus rides through central LA in 1990 (2 years before the riots) and all I could see were thrashed neighborhoods and desolate stretches. It is a whole different world now, so much more life on the streets when I go back.
  - voltagex_ 14y ago
    Hey, any book recommendations? Not for Detroit specifically, but urban planning is interesting.
    - jamespitts 14y ago
      Death and Life of Great American Cities - the intellectual blueprint of the great counter-reaction to reductionism and modernism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_Ame... City of Quartz - all about the history of LA and its power structures, lots of great anecdotes about zoning and the nasty history of racial segregation through real estate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_quartz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_quartz Suburban Nation The Modern Urban Landscape

rmason 14y ago

Detroit's urban planners made a lot of big mistakes. When the freeways were built in the fifties they cut entire neighborhoods in half. When Reneissance Center was built on the river in the words of one critic they pulled people off the streets and installed them in a fortress cut off from the rest of downtown. But other cities made equally dumb mistakes but they recovered. The riots in 1967 scared people and began the destruction. I went downtown with my grandfather two weeks later and it looked like a war zone with buildings still smoldering. Dan Gilbert is wagering a billion dollars of his fortune to turn things around and so far imho is doing very well indeed. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/business/dan-gilberts-quest-to-remake-downtown-detroit.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/14/business/dan-gilberts-ques... The NYT sees what Gilbert is doing as a philanthropic effort but Detroiter's see him more as a Billy Beane type. http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/4496/the_new_york_times_dan_gilbert_and_detroit_s_commerce_phobia http://www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/4496/the_new_york_ti...

jamespitts 14y ago
I read several books about urban planning and cities and it helped me understand how this happened all over the us. Detroit just got the worst of it. There are countless examples of horrible planning decisions in D., so many street-life-killing fortresses and dead voids everywhere. I do think that the people of D. will overcome these obstacles now that the core problems are identified. Do you remember anything about the conditions leading up to the riots? I remember taking a series of bus rides through central LA in 1990 (2 years before the riots) and all I could see were thrashed neighborhoods and desolate stretches. It is a whole different world now, so much more life on the streets when I go back.
- voltagex_ 14y ago
  Hey, any book recommendations? Not for Detroit specifically, but urban planning is interesting.
  - jamespitts 14y ago
    Death and Life of Great American Cities - the intellectual blueprint of the great counter-reaction to reductionism and modernism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_Ame... City of Quartz - all about the history of LA and its power structures, lots of great anecdotes about zoning and the nasty history of racial segregation through real estate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_quartz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_quartz Suburban Nation The Modern Urban Landscape