Dahon.Steve

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintame...ity/video/939/

This was an excellent program on PBS that shows how the motorcar created and destroyed Detroit within a period of 75 years. It’s incredible how a city built on electric streetcars was sacrificed to make way for high speed motorways ruining the economy and forcing people to relocate to the suburbs. Detroit is an excellent example of how to make a beautiful metropolis into a slum and run it into the ground with highway construction, street widening and transit elimination. It’s unfortunate there was no Jane Jacobs to save Detroit from the insanity of self destruction by design..

Other factors like the 60’s riots, white flight and manufacturing loss also contributed to the destruction of Detroit. However, cities like New York City and Newark New Jersey also experienced similar problems and went through the same turmoil but there is one main difference. These cities did not dismantle ALL of their transit systems forcing the middle class into their cars and out to the suburbs. They did not view the solution by abandonment of the city with motorized insanity while moving jobs and shopping centers away from the center.

Although the program did not dwell into the subject, Detroit’s underlying problem that would eventually break the city in two was racial in nature.

On a separate issue, who would ever believe that Spain of all European countries is set to become the leader in high speed rail. One of the political leaders in the movie pointed how each stop revitalized the community creating thousands of jobs and economic prosperity. Incredible.

This movie really needs to be seen by everyone in this nation. We need to focus on light rail development and transit oriented communities as our long term solution for economic growth. We are not going to become an industrial powerhouse ever again and rail construction and transit hubs with shopping centers and office towers maybe the only way we can recover the thousands of jobs that were lost.

As for Detroit, they have a long way to go but this a classic example of motorcar infrastructure run amok.

Ekdog

Thanks so much for posting that, Steve. I wonder if it's been nominated for a prize. It certainly deserves one.

I really hope Detroit can turn things around.

Roody

It was a fantastic documentary, and extremely interesting to me as both a native Detroiter and a carfree person. Detroit is America's guinea pig or canary in the mine. Unless changes are made, the rest of the country will follow its lead, and maybe the rest of the developed world.

We did have an excellent thread here a couple years ago on this very topic. Who knows? Maybe the producers of the documentary read that thread and got some ideas from it.

wahoonc

Good piece! The nagging question in my mind is what is going to generate the capital to rebuild? Detroit was built by money generated by the automobile, if that money has gone away what is going to replace it? I would love to see the city reborn but where is the money going to come from? I suspect that many of the old street car suburbs as well as some of the ones even further out are going to have to become independent small towns or they may die out. With the entire government system as we know it headed for bankruptcy it will be interesting to see what arises from the ashes.

Aaron

Dahon.Steve

I knew you would like this documentary and isn't it ironic how Detroit is attempting to reverse decades of neglect by constructing of all things, a street car? The motor city of the nation look at urban revitalization through mass transit while attempting to reconstruct the prosperous car free community lost years ago. How tragic.

Dahon.Steve

Good point.

Today’s economy just might be the worse time to even think about spending a billion dollars on lightrail. When you think about it, what can they do? Ask GM to move the plants back to the center?

The future of Detroit will be determined on the new line going right through the center of the city.. If the train attracts venture capital with new shopping centers financed by the business community, you’ll see the line extended further down the road. The money invested will have been a success by all standards.

I’ve seen new rail construction bring jobs, housing or both back into a dead community. It takes years but if they focus on building a car free walk first community with shopping, restaurants while reducing the speed of street traffic to 25 mph, anything is possible.

Platy

Actually, rebuilding everything will be the fun part. Everyone will pitch in and contribute something. Some ideas will fail but others will succeed. It won't be long before things start coming together again. For a glimpse at how it might go, take a look at how Sony rolled up their sleeves and went to work rebuilding in 1945.

https://www.sony.net/Fun/SH/1-1/h1.html

Great oaks from little acorns grow, etc. At some point we'll have to let the old rotten oaks fall to make room for the new sprouts. My personal estimate - it'll start about 20 years from now. I hope I'm there to see it!

Smallwheels

It was interesting in some parts and boring in others. I had no idea that parts of Detroit City were so pretty. That must have been a great place to live fifty years ago.

This program was very dry and undramatic. It needed better music and more science and technology. It would have been even better with many more locations around the world that have implemented good infrastructure for non-motorists.

Ekdog

Let's face it, unless "defense" spending--which has risen 70% in inflation-adjusted terms since 1970--is curbed, there isn't going to be money for anything but war.

Defense spending has soared 70 percent since 2001, in inflation-adjusted terms, reaching the highest level in post-World War II history. The Pentagon's $708 billion 2011 budget is now 23 percent higher than the peak of Regan-era Cold War military spending.

https://theenergycollective.com/TheEn...llective/59060

Roody

I guess that's the big question. But remember that Detroit is the center of a huge metropolitan area made up of probably (and I'm just estimating) more than 100 local governments. Michigan law always discouraged cities from annexing outlying communities, and that is one reason for Detroit's woes that is rarely mentioned outside the state. So my answer in part is that the suburbs should come to the rescue of Detroit--although past history suggests that they will never do this. The region has lost billions in federal transit dollars over the decades because they have been totally unwilling to devise a regional development and transit plan. (The documentary mentioned this IIRC)

Artkansas 

War is Peace.

Ekdog

Not sure I understand that statement, but there used to be ongoing "guns versus butter" debates in the United States, while now, apparently, no one dares broach the subject. Meanwhile, millions are left without healthcare and there is no money for renewing a crumbling, antiquated infrastructure.

Artkansas 

One of the big and unique problems that Detroit seems to have is that so much of it has been abandoned. It's like a 400 lb man who diets down to 200 and discovers that he can no longer wear the same clothes. Detroit needs to collapse back down to its urban center and get the population density back up so that it can afford to provide services for its population.

I liked the urban farms proposal. That would be a way to at least feed the people and provide some jobs.

With all the industrial buildings empty, they might be smart to start promoting these as artist's studios, and encourage an art scene. That would make living in Detroit trendy and hip.

Dahon.Steve

This has to change if Detroit has any chance of making it back. They have to begin some form of gentrification to bring back the middle class that left. Detroit has to rebuid the carfree community that existed before auto industry took over.

Artkansas 

That's why you want to turn the empty industrial spaces into artists' lofts. Artists need big cheap spaces, which is what much of urban Detroit is now. They bring art studios, galleries and coffee bars. That attracts the folks with money who want to live in an exciting area. That makes an area popular and that makes the middle class want to go there.

Artkansas 

"War is Peace", "Freedom is Slavery", "Ignorance is Strength " 1984 - George Orwell

nivekdodge

I'd love to see where that money goes compared with the 40's and 50's. It came here to Pittsburgh back then for steel to build things with. The powers to be here, thought that would never change. That is why we have Malls now selling things from foreign countries instead of Mills making things for foreign countries. Where do all the high tech Items come from?

Roody

I wish you would post about Pittsburgh's response to declining industrializtion. I understand that Pittsburgh nearly went the route of Detroit but escaped that fate. What did they do differently?

gerv 

This sounds like what happened to Berlin in the 1990s. There was a lot of extra build capacity and suddenly artists were flocking in.

However, cheap rent is just one factor in such an explosion. I'd also guess that Berlin would have pretty good public transportation. After all, not much point in buying or renting cheap real estate if you have to drive 20 miles to a grocery store.