Detroit City Council has voted to tear down MCS they have given the owner 30 days to propose a plan for development of the building or front the bill for demolition.
whats the point of tearing it down? there was numerous ideas for the building but for some reason, the city couldnt do shit. it was supposed to be the new main police headquarters a while back, then a casino, then some other proposals.
sounds like the council just wants to act tough after they fucked up the cobo deal and the rest of the city.
makes you wonder how these people get into office.....
The problem for Detroit is its a bad business climate. It's anti business. Now, if Detroit can figure out why it's anti business it will go a long way in fixing itself. Its nicely situated on a large body of water. Its in a state with plenty of natural beauty. Its still, amazingly, the nucleus of the auto industry. It could capitalize on that, but instead it seems to do everything it can to destroy whats left. I think a good model for Detroit would be Houston Ca. 1987. Houston was all but left for dead and yet turned into a boomtown. Dont emulate Houston's sprawl policy, but emulate it's embrace of industry and trade rather than fight it. Factories are cool.
Theres more to Houston than Enron - its a major chemical center. Plus energy trading, despite Enron is still huge there. Detroit could be a major player in industrial financing. Detroit could also be a major port if the US government ever supported more international shipping in the St. Lawerence seaway. I think they are afraid of the invasive species problem with the trans con ships.
I find myself speechless that the city is planning to demolish this building. But what do you do with a beautiful old building that nobody wants to move into, and that nobody can afford to maintain or restore?
I feel bad for Detroit... I have a certain fondness for the city and I think it has a lot of potential, but decisions like this make me feel like I'm watching a friend continue down a spiral of self-destructive behavior and there's nothing I can do to stop them.
the building itself is not wonderful. it's a bit of a frankenstein. the main floor and its exterior architecture is quite beautiful and should be retained. the upper fifteen or twenty floors is an unremarkable early twentieth century brick office building. i could live without it. this is all from a purely architectural standpoint.
what the city and city council do not get is that the depot is a major tourist attraction. it's our prime emblem of ruin and brings in ruinseekers and urban explorerer from all over the world. if only there were a way to market it, it could be a major revenue generator. (i write this only half tongue-in-cheek.)
the city council is known for making these pronouncements without having any means of pushing them though. they are merely figureheads. if cockrel is able to obtain stimulus money though, then i will start to get concerned.
i don't think city council is really the problem for the train station. the building is owned by the reclusive & rather nasty matty moroun (also owns the nearby ambassador bridge) who doubtless has something up his sleeve that will be highly profitable for him. clearly this building is a pawn in a behind-the-scenes political game and in all liklihood its destiny will have nothing to do with either the will of the public or for the greater good of all.
personally, i don't see any reason to tear it down. if rome can keep the coliseum just sitting around for 2,000 years then i don't see why detroit need be in a hurry to demo. just toss some spotlights on it in the evening & voila
with the superbowl and the ncaa tourney bringing increased attention to the city, not to mention the the tim allen ads and the economy, i'm sure more than a few visitors have inquired about this thing. it would seem to make sense that the authorities are a little concerned about the embarrassment generated by a ruined high-rise right as you enter town on the I-94. i don't think they should tear it down either, but what are you gonna do? it is very obviously a messed up, empty building even as you drive past from several blocks away, and they are doing everything they can to try to shed that image.
The problem for the MCS goes all the way back to where it was built...too far from downtown. Also the timing was bad since the automoble was rising to dominance soon after the place opened in none other than the hometown of the automobile. Location still sucks for it's redevelopment. When a city shrinks as much as Detroit has it's just tough to make use of all the old infastructure left behind.
I agree that the thing shouldn't be torn down, even if it's not an architectural masterpiece. Typical American "new urbanism" thinking that since something is vacant and vandalized it should be torn down. Like a big empty lot looks any nicer? Jafidler is right, the thing is a tourist attraction. Has been in movies and every urban explorer knows what the MCS is. I would think guided tours of this thing would make a fair amount of $$.
EvilP is right that Detroit needs to remake itself. After Katrina I was all for relocating the people of New Orleans to Detroit as the infastructure is already there to handle an additional 1 million people. Houston is a good example because after the oil recession of the 1980's they grew more diversified through industry like medical research and high tech. Then again Texas is far more business friendly than Michigan and cities like Houston could attract business.
I think Detroit has a future, but only in a climate change worst case scenario. The location makes sense, where as Phoenix and Las Vegas do not. Hopefully the city coucil has enough intellegence to save some buildings for the future emmigrants from the water starved SW.
i tend to agree with aqua; it's too big to do anything with in its location. sure, there's been the police hq proposal, the casino proposal, and the convention center proposal (i actually helped work on that one!), but there's no money or political momentum behind any of that.
i actually find evilp's proposal the most intriguing. why not turn it into of all things...a train station? given the climate for public transportation, it's got a shot, but needs to be worked into a larger master plan which at this point i don't think it is.
Michigan is still a big state and Im sure it could use comuter rail to and from the suburbs. There must be miles of old rail rights of ways around there that could be utilised, maybe all the way out to the suburbs.
evilplat... that is the best thing that could happen to it. if GM / Chrysler wanted too, they could head up the new Metro Detroit passenger rail line. They get a job, Detroit benifits, commuters benifit... i love the idea,
I want to live in a world where i dont need to drive my car EVERYWHERE because there are no alternatives
but i think people love their i75 and i94 too much... i dont know
"the building itself is not wonderful. it's a bit of a frankenstein. the main floor and its exterior architecture is quite beautiful and should be retained. the upper fifteen or twenty floors is an unremarkable early twentieth century brick office building. i could live without it. this is all from a purely architectural standpoint."
While it may be stolid and offers the same clunky "typewriter effect" as the Vittorio Emmanuele in Rome, you gotta face it--iconically speaking, the tower *does* define the station, gives it its "edge". The main floor etc: sure, it may be more obviously "magnificent", but there's also a bit of a "if you've seen one Beaux-Arts train station in the form of Roman baths, you've seen them all" thing going. Divorced from the tower, it's like...why bother. It's like bikini-waxing all the edge from the joint.
I took an Urban Public Policy class at Portland State University (super liberal) in the 90s and one class session consisted of the lead professor presenting, in the first half of class, exactly how and when GM did this, then the second half was the assistant professor presenting exactly how that was a baseless conspiracy theory. I don't remember which presentation I believed at the time - probably I couldn't really process it all because I had such a strong contact high from walking across the Park Blocks to class.
So help me out - point me to some sources that confirm this urban tale!
I took a class on the automobile, housing subsidies and architecture where we to covered this. The Thought was the bus was a money saver. People were already moving so the fact that a bus route could be moved to follow population patterns was a good idea. GM bought the lines so that the cities would have the money to buy the buses - or so Ive told.
1949, UNITED STATES v. NATIONAL CITY LINES, Inc., et al.
Convicted for conspiracy, held up by Court of Appeals.
GM et al were found guilty long before Snell muddled the facts and or compiled his own theory. I don't think, other than a heavily peer-reviewed article, that you can get more 'factual' than a court case.
"The first count of the indictment, with which, in view of the fact that defendants were acquitted thereon, we are only incidentally concerned, charged defendants with having knowingly and continuously engaged in an unlawful combination and conspiracy to secure control of a substantial number of the companies which provide public transportation service in various cities, towns and counties of the several states, and to eliminate and exclude all competition in the sale of motor busses, petroleum products, tires and tubes to such transportation companies then owned or controlled by National City Lines, Inc., or Pacific City Lines, Inc., or of which said companies should acquire control, in the future, all in violation of Section 1 of the Anti-trust Act, 15 U.S.C.A. 1."
---
Vado, because trolleys were clean, quiet and smooth. Until car ownership soared, trolleys always had the right of way.
yeah, just like gm killed the electric car. oops, no, wait, that would be the obama administration. these myths are convenient when they fit your particular ideology; not so convenient when they don't. the truth is always a lot more complicated than the headline.
GM, Goodyear, Standard Oil et. al. had something to do with the demise of trolley service but I'm not so sure it's a direct as everyone would like to believe. Yes, there are very well documented stories like what happened in LA, but there were also very good trolley networks in much smaller cities. GM simply did not go and buy up the trolley lines in every city across the country.
What did happen is two major things. One, Henry Ford made the automobile affordable for the masses and everyone wanted one. Second, the East Texas oilfield was discovered and oil became very very cheap almost overnight.
Traffic on the trolleys fell to the point where they were not profitable to run privately. Gov't took over and replaced an infastructure intensive transit with a much cheaper to run bus service. End of story.
Had the automobile and oil remained expensive we would still have a very good mass transit system all over this country.
People always like to point to Europe and their much better transit options, but fail to realize Europe was not awash in oil like the US was. Not until the 60's when the North Sea oil fields were discovered did Europe have very much oil resources at all, thus it's always been expensive (even without taxes) for Europe to secure energy. Arguing population density and age of cities is, to me, a red herring. People over there simply have never switched over to the automobile en masse enough to make the old transit options obsolete.
Back to the topic de jour, yes, a train station might be a good option for redevelopment since our bounty of cheap oil is not infinite. The US imports 75% and back when the trolley lines were being torn up were were the worlds largest exporter of oil. GM and Chrysler are on deaths doorstep, etc. etc. It's high time we do re-establish some decent public transportation in major cities.
Rockandhill - GM, Firestone and Chevron were found NOT GUILTY of conspiracy to monopolize transit but they were found guilty of conspiring to fix prices under anti trust laws. Not the same.
Michigan is still a big state and Im sure it could use comuter rail to and from the suburbs. There must be miles of old rail rights of ways around there that could be utilised, maybe all the way out to the suburbs.
Oakland county kept (keeps?) killing the commuter rail proposals because they didn't want a "certain element" coming into the county.
the "aqualine" project in LA, the heavytrash group put up signs for showing a future development of a subway line that would connect the upscale neighborhoods with the lower classed... it was all just to open up dialogue, no real plans were made but its an interesting idea
shaner - that's an interesting idea - I'd like to see someone erect signs like that in Troy or Southfield. I think the commuter rail is an easier sell in Macomb county because it's much poorer than Oakland...
right now there's only the amtrak stop in Royal Oak and the one near wayne state. I think there's a couple more stops before you get to Ann Arbor, but that's pretty much it.
There are existing tracks that run along Woodward out to Pontiac, and along Groesbeck/Gratiot up to Mt. Clemens - these would see a lot of use if they became commuter rail lines.
I like aquapara's idea about moving New Orleans to Detroit. In Louisiana, you have a bunch of people in an unsustainable location without a city. In Michigan, you have a city in a sustainable location without any people. Seems like a match made in heaven. They'd have to get used to cold winters, but I bet New Detroit would produce even more kick-ass musical talent.
the only amtrak stop between detroit & ann arbor (the wolverine line?) is dearborn.
mass transit lines really are not a threat to bring poor people into wealthy neighborhoods. on the contrary, transit lines tend to increase property values in a given area (although maybe not for the house literally next to the tracks). for example, brookline, massachusetts (one of the first suburbs, by the way) is served by three branches of the green line...and it's hardly suffered an influence of poor people or a reduction in property values over the years.
it's almost baffling to me that given the circumstances of detroit, that a savvy combo of developers & politicians haven't already ram-rodded some kind of transit system through the city...simply out of the shear interest in making enormous personal profits via the assortment of insider deals that would be available.
Yes, it's the CUTE where technologies come together to address urban transportation issues. there i gave the building a reason for being. now just build some research facitilites around it and get a move on.
puddles - it doesn't make any sense to me either. When I used to work in Oakland County I'd hear a lot of racist garbage about why the commuter rail would be a bad idea. You'd think there'd be some kind of greater conspiracy against it (i.e. the auto industry), but I think it's just a lot of really ignorant people saying stupid things.
the woodward line is scheduled to be introduced first; and it's my understanding there is money available for it. it's end point is still not decided, though i have seen viable proposals that have been recognized by semcog to take it all the way to birmingham/troy. i believe new center is supposed to be the major hub that intersects local commuter lines and long distance lines. that is why i believe the central depot may be in trouble. it's not near any of that.
If the ASCE has anything to say, we can barely maintain our infrastructure... lead alone build new infrastructure... unless we has a dramatic paradigm shift in density, how urban environments function and concurrency.
i have to disagree with you jafidler, i don't like the idea of taking down the tower, the building imo should remain as a whole, i feel it would look oddly misproportioned without the tower
unless there is some reason why the lot is needed....why waste money tearing it down. maybe the state/city can figure out a viable proposal and then buy/take it.
or better yet...turn it into an 'official' homeless shelter... even though theres folks in there, but still.....
who knows really.....
how about a vertical mini putt putt course.... or even an open market/swap meet area.....
tear out the roof and floors, covered the whole thing in wire mesh and turn it into a giant monolithic garden (for the grown over urban decay look).
Do a transfer of development rights and for every dollar square foot a contractor pays for, eliminate a square foot of open or green space requirements.
How can we save Michigan Central Station?
Detroit City Council has voted to tear down MCS they have given the owner 30 days to propose a plan for development of the building or front the bill for demolition.
the detroit city council is a joke.... they have no clue (at least most of them)
One alternative they suggested was using Obama stimulus funds to tear it down. I have to admit that the current scheme is better.
whats the point of tearing it down? there was numerous ideas for the building but for some reason, the city couldnt do shit. it was supposed to be the new main police headquarters a while back, then a casino, then some other proposals.
sounds like the council just wants to act tough after they fucked up the cobo deal and the rest of the city.
makes you wonder how these people get into office.....
i'm just a bit ticked off with the whole council.
The problem for Detroit is its a bad business climate. It's anti business. Now, if Detroit can figure out why it's anti business it will go a long way in fixing itself. Its nicely situated on a large body of water. Its in a state with plenty of natural beauty. Its still, amazingly, the nucleus of the auto industry. It could capitalize on that, but instead it seems to do everything it can to destroy whats left. I think a good model for Detroit would be Houston Ca. 1987. Houston was all but left for dead and yet turned into a boomtown. Dont emulate Houston's sprawl policy, but emulate it's embrace of industry and trade rather than fight it. Factories are cool.
you need enron to do that.
Theres more to Houston than Enron - its a major chemical center. Plus energy trading, despite Enron is still huge there. Detroit could be a major player in industrial financing. Detroit could also be a major port if the US government ever supported more international shipping in the St. Lawerence seaway. I think they are afraid of the invasive species problem with the trans con ships.
Any photos of the station?
Maybe it could become a train station
now there's a thought. you and gin should get started on that. i just looked at some pics. mucho decay. maybe it could be a detroit grafitti musueum.
I find myself speechless that the city is planning to demolish this building. But what do you do with a beautiful old building that nobody wants to move into, and that nobody can afford to maintain or restore?
I feel bad for Detroit... I have a certain fondness for the city and I think it has a lot of potential, but decisions like this make me feel like I'm watching a friend continue down a spiral of self-destructive behavior and there's nothing I can do to stop them.
the building itself is not wonderful. it's a bit of a frankenstein. the main floor and its exterior architecture is quite beautiful and should be retained. the upper fifteen or twenty floors is an unremarkable early twentieth century brick office building. i could live without it. this is all from a purely architectural standpoint.
what the city and city council do not get is that the depot is a major tourist attraction. it's our prime emblem of ruin and brings in ruinseekers and urban explorerer from all over the world. if only there were a way to market it, it could be a major revenue generator. (i write this only half tongue-in-cheek.)
the city council is known for making these pronouncements without having any means of pushing them though. they are merely figureheads. if cockrel is able to obtain stimulus money though, then i will start to get concerned.
tearing down MCS will not clean up detroit,.. the problems in detroit have nothing to do with this building, they are social and economical.
its not as if there are plans for the property, tearing down MCS will only leave one more empty lot in detroit,
i don't think city council is really the problem for the train station. the building is owned by the reclusive & rather nasty matty moroun (also owns the nearby ambassador bridge) who doubtless has something up his sleeve that will be highly profitable for him. clearly this building is a pawn in a behind-the-scenes political game and in all liklihood its destiny will have nothing to do with either the will of the public or for the greater good of all.
personally, i don't see any reason to tear it down. if rome can keep the coliseum just sitting around for 2,000 years then i don't see why detroit need be in a hurry to demo. just toss some spotlights on it in the evening & voila
Agreed... And it's not like Detroit has any shortage of vacant land to build on.
with the superbowl and the ncaa tourney bringing increased attention to the city, not to mention the the tim allen ads and the economy, i'm sure more than a few visitors have inquired about this thing. it would seem to make sense that the authorities are a little concerned about the embarrassment generated by a ruined high-rise right as you enter town on the I-94. i don't think they should tear it down either, but what are you gonna do? it is very obviously a messed up, empty building even as you drive past from several blocks away, and they are doing everything they can to try to shed that image.
The problem for the MCS goes all the way back to where it was built...too far from downtown. Also the timing was bad since the automoble was rising to dominance soon after the place opened in none other than the hometown of the automobile. Location still sucks for it's redevelopment. When a city shrinks as much as Detroit has it's just tough to make use of all the old infastructure left behind.
I agree that the thing shouldn't be torn down, even if it's not an architectural masterpiece. Typical American "new urbanism" thinking that since something is vacant and vandalized it should be torn down. Like a big empty lot looks any nicer? Jafidler is right, the thing is a tourist attraction. Has been in movies and every urban explorer knows what the MCS is. I would think guided tours of this thing would make a fair amount of $$.
EvilP is right that Detroit needs to remake itself. After Katrina I was all for relocating the people of New Orleans to Detroit as the infastructure is already there to handle an additional 1 million people. Houston is a good example because after the oil recession of the 1980's they grew more diversified through industry like medical research and high tech. Then again Texas is far more business friendly than Michigan and cities like Houston could attract business.
I think Detroit has a future, but only in a climate change worst case scenario. The location makes sense, where as Phoenix and Las Vegas do not. Hopefully the city coucil has enough intellegence to save some buildings for the future emmigrants from the water starved SW.
i tend to agree with aqua; it's too big to do anything with in its location. sure, there's been the police hq proposal, the casino proposal, and the convention center proposal (i actually helped work on that one!), but there's no money or political momentum behind any of that.
i actually find evilp's proposal the most intriguing. why not turn it into of all things...a train station? given the climate for public transportation, it's got a shot, but needs to be worked into a larger master plan which at this point i don't think it is.
Michigan is still a big state and Im sure it could use comuter rail to and from the suburbs. There must be miles of old rail rights of ways around there that could be utilised, maybe all the way out to the suburbs.
evilplat... that is the best thing that could happen to it. if GM / Chrysler wanted too, they could head up the new Metro Detroit passenger rail line. They get a job, Detroit benifits, commuters benifit... i love the idea,
I want to live in a world where i dont need to drive my car EVERYWHERE because there are no alternatives
but i think people love their i75 and i94 too much... i dont know
"the building itself is not wonderful. it's a bit of a frankenstein. the main floor and its exterior architecture is quite beautiful and should be retained. the upper fifteen or twenty floors is an unremarkable early twentieth century brick office building. i could live without it. this is all from a purely architectural standpoint."
While it may be stolid and offers the same clunky "typewriter effect" as the Vittorio Emmanuele in Rome, you gotta face it--iconically speaking, the tower *does* define the station, gives it its "edge". The main floor etc: sure, it may be more obviously "magnificent", but there's also a bit of a "if you've seen one Beaux-Arts train station in the form of Roman baths, you've seen them all" thing going. Divorced from the tower, it's like...why bother. It's like bikini-waxing all the edge from the joint.
Keep the tower.
Wasn't it GM who bought out a major of the right-of-way for rail service? Like the same exact thing they did in Los Angeles and elsewhere?
LOL.
gm killed the bus lines and trolleys
it will live on in print and photos!
OK: Did GM REALLY kill the trolleys?
I took an Urban Public Policy class at Portland State University (super liberal) in the 90s and one class session consisted of the lead professor presenting, in the first half of class, exactly how and when GM did this, then the second half was the assistant professor presenting exactly how that was a baseless conspiracy theory. I don't remember which presentation I believed at the time - probably I couldn't really process it all because I had such a strong contact high from walking across the Park Blocks to class.
So help me out - point me to some sources that confirm this urban tale!
I took a class on the automobile, housing subsidies and architecture where we to covered this. The Thought was the bus was a money saver. People were already moving so the fact that a bus route could be moved to follow population patterns was a good idea. GM bought the lines so that the cities would have the money to buy the buses - or so Ive told.
[url=http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/551/did-general-motors-destroy-the-la-mass-transit-system
]thestraightdope[/url]
link
word on the street was that they bought the bus line and took half of them off the road to force folks to buy cars....
but hey, you would think by now there would be a few transit lines down woodward/gratiot/mich ave. ...considering the radial pattern
the people mover was a test for transit....but as you can see, it really doesn't go anywhere.....
who the hell wanted to ride a trolley back when gas was a quarter and you could buy a used car for a hundred bucks.
1949, UNITED STATES v. NATIONAL CITY LINES, Inc., et al.
Convicted for conspiracy, held up by Court of Appeals.
GM et al were found guilty long before Snell muddled the facts and or compiled his own theory. I don't think, other than a heavily peer-reviewed article, that you can get more 'factual' than a court case.
http://www.altlaw.org/v1/cases/770576
"The first count of the indictment, with which, in view of the fact that defendants were acquitted thereon, we are only incidentally concerned, charged defendants with having knowingly and continuously engaged in an unlawful combination and conspiracy to secure control of a substantial number of the companies which provide public transportation service in various cities, towns and counties of the several states, and to eliminate and exclude all competition in the sale of motor busses, petroleum products, tires and tubes to such transportation companies then owned or controlled by National City Lines, Inc., or Pacific City Lines, Inc., or of which said companies should acquire control, in the future, all in violation of Section 1 of the Anti-trust Act, 15 U.S.C.A. 1."
---
Vado, because trolleys were clean, quiet and smooth. Until car ownership soared, trolleys always had the right of way.
here in louisville it was more than one perpetrator: gm and goodyear.
yeah, just like gm killed the electric car. oops, no, wait, that would be the obama administration. these myths are convenient when they fit your particular ideology; not so convenient when they don't. the truth is always a lot more complicated than the headline.
GM, Goodyear, Standard Oil et. al. had something to do with the demise of trolley service but I'm not so sure it's a direct as everyone would like to believe. Yes, there are very well documented stories like what happened in LA, but there were also very good trolley networks in much smaller cities. GM simply did not go and buy up the trolley lines in every city across the country.
What did happen is two major things. One, Henry Ford made the automobile affordable for the masses and everyone wanted one. Second, the East Texas oilfield was discovered and oil became very very cheap almost overnight.
Traffic on the trolleys fell to the point where they were not profitable to run privately. Gov't took over and replaced an infastructure intensive transit with a much cheaper to run bus service. End of story.
Had the automobile and oil remained expensive we would still have a very good mass transit system all over this country.
People always like to point to Europe and their much better transit options, but fail to realize Europe was not awash in oil like the US was. Not until the 60's when the North Sea oil fields were discovered did Europe have very much oil resources at all, thus it's always been expensive (even without taxes) for Europe to secure energy. Arguing population density and age of cities is, to me, a red herring. People over there simply have never switched over to the automobile en masse enough to make the old transit options obsolete.
Back to the topic de jour, yes, a train station might be a good option for redevelopment since our bounty of cheap oil is not infinite. The US imports 75% and back when the trolley lines were being torn up were were the worlds largest exporter of oil. GM and Chrysler are on deaths doorstep, etc. etc. It's high time we do re-establish some decent public transportation in major cities.
Rockandhill - GM, Firestone and Chevron were found NOT GUILTY of conspiracy to monopolize transit but they were found guilty of conspiring to fix prices under anti trust laws. Not the same.
Oakland county kept (keeps?) killing the commuter rail proposals because they didn't want a "certain element" coming into the county.
the 8-mile demise
"Oakland county kept (keeps?) killing the commuter rail proposals because they didn't want a "certain element" coming into the county."
http://heavytrash.blogspot.com/2005/04/aqua-line.html
i dont find that surprising..
the "aqualine" project in LA, the heavytrash group put up signs for showing a future development of a subway line that would connect the upscale neighborhoods with the lower classed... it was all just to open up dialogue, no real plans were made but its an interesting idea
shaner - that's an interesting idea - I'd like to see someone erect signs like that in Troy or Southfield. I think the commuter rail is an easier sell in Macomb county because it's much poorer than Oakland...
right now there's only the amtrak stop in Royal Oak and the one near wayne state. I think there's a couple more stops before you get to Ann Arbor, but that's pretty much it.
There are existing tracks that run along Woodward out to Pontiac, and along Groesbeck/Gratiot up to Mt. Clemens - these would see a lot of use if they became commuter rail lines.
I like aquapara's idea about moving New Orleans to Detroit. In Louisiana, you have a bunch of people in an unsustainable location without a city. In Michigan, you have a city in a sustainable location without any people. Seems like a match made in heaven. They'd have to get used to cold winters, but I bet New Detroit would produce even more kick-ass musical talent.
the only amtrak stop between detroit & ann arbor (the wolverine line?) is dearborn.
mass transit lines really are not a threat to bring poor people into wealthy neighborhoods. on the contrary, transit lines tend to increase property values in a given area (although maybe not for the house literally next to the tracks). for example, brookline, massachusetts (one of the first suburbs, by the way) is served by three branches of the green line...and it's hardly suffered an influence of poor people or a reduction in property values over the years.
it's almost baffling to me that given the circumstances of detroit, that a savvy combo of developers & politicians haven't already ram-rodded some kind of transit system through the city...simply out of the shear interest in making enormous personal profits via the assortment of insider deals that would be available.
he agrees with me!
Center for
Urban
Transportation
Emergence
Yes, it's the CUTE where technologies come together to address urban transportation issues. there i gave the building a reason for being. now just build some research facitilites around it and get a move on.
puddles - it doesn't make any sense to me either. When I used to work in Oakland County I'd hear a lot of racist garbage about why the commuter rail would be a bad idea. You'd think there'd be some kind of greater conspiracy against it (i.e. the auto industry), but I think it's just a lot of really ignorant people saying stupid things.
the woodward line is scheduled to be introduced first; and it's my understanding there is money available for it. it's end point is still not decided, though i have seen viable proposals that have been recognized by semcog to take it all the way to birmingham/troy. i believe new center is supposed to be the major hub that intersects local commuter lines and long distance lines. that is why i believe the central depot may be in trouble. it's not near any of that.
I say demolish it.
If the ASCE has anything to say, we can barely maintain our infrastructure... lead alone build new infrastructure... unless we has a dramatic paradigm shift in density, how urban environments function and concurrency.
i have to disagree with you jafidler, i don't like the idea of taking down the tower, the building imo should remain as a whole, i feel it would look oddly misproportioned without the tower
unless there is some reason why the lot is needed....why waste money tearing it down. maybe the state/city can figure out a viable proposal and then buy/take it.
or better yet...turn it into an 'official' homeless shelter... even though theres folks in there, but still.....
who knows really.....
how about a vertical mini putt putt course.... or even an open market/swap meet area.....
tear out the roof and floors, covered the whole thing in wire mesh and turn it into a giant monolithic garden (for the grown over urban decay look).
Do a transfer of development rights and for every dollar square foot a contractor pays for, eliminate a square foot of open or green space requirements.
rockandhill - Vergara proposed that idea several years ago with other buildings in the city... it really freaked people out.
It would be "preserving" the buildings and their sites while eliminating problems developers have.
I actually think it would be a moderately successful idea given the situation.
But thanks toasteroven, I'll have to check that out.
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