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Comment by pram | Hacker News Reader

Downtown Detroit is kind of starting to seem like a Potemkin village. A lot of these “comeback” articles focus primarily on the development in a tiny portion of the city that honestly never declined that much to begin with, in comparison to everything else.

Crime and poverty are still insanely high. The school system is a tragic disaster. The majority of the urban area is still abandoned and blighted.

It’s really not a place to raise a family, unless you intentionally live separated from all the disfunction (private school etc) and then what’s the point?

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I work downtown but live in the burbs. I totally agree. Its a strange feeling when the entire business district (which is what is seen as evidence of the "comeback") feels just like a giant Quicken campus. I see far more private security than police.

The burbs sprang up around a city and economy 3-4x as large as it is today. Coupled with an overall shift in preferences towards urban living among millennials, it seems unlikely that there will ever again be a need for as much suburban housing around Detroit as there was in 1950. In other words, is it really reasonable to expect all of these areas to rebound?

My comment was more about how the core of downtown feels more like a corporate campus rather than a downtown city, it's a strange feeling. However, I think it's reasonable to question the expectations of which areas will rebound in this era.

I am curious if there is a preference for urban living or its just a case of where the jobs are. I would quite happily live in a small town but that's not where the jobs are for me (software engineer) or my girlfriend (neurologist).

There is less economic stability, so it's more risky to be in a place with fewer employers, that by itself incentivizes wanting to live in an urban area.

In the Detroit area the vast (VAST!) majority of the jobs are out in the suburbs. There's a good bit of stuff in downtown, but almost everything here is in an outer ring like Warren, Auburn Hills, Novi, Dearborn, Southfield, etc.

I am in Europe and the opposite seems true.

The suburbs around Detroit really started taking on a life of their own recently. Far from just housing, many of them have actually developed downtowns and cultures and personality of their own as Detroit has floundered.

"Detroit" is really collection of small towns packed into a fairly dense geographical area. The City of Detroit is relatively inconsequential without Royal Oak and Novi and Grosse Pointe and Bloomfield Hills and Warren and Pontiac etc.

Novi? Is strip-mall-sprawl a personality?

The 55,000 people that live there seem to be ok with it.

Agreed. This city is a commuter city: everyone drives into downtown at 8 am and migrates out into detroit metro at 5 pm. It's a nightmare commute.

I really enjoyed working by Campus Martius but the commute was brutal. I also did not enjoy the insanely high parking prices.

I totally agree about the Quicken vibe. Dan Gilbert owns a significant portion of the real estate downtown.

Are the emergency services still really slow and the property taxes reasonably high?

Because if so.... Not much of a comeback. Would be like comparing Greenpoint to Canarsie

Yes and yes. My last two attempts to call 911 failed because nobody would pick up. My alarm company was on hold to get to the police department for like 15+ minutes.

Taxes are insane compared to what I would pay in a suburb that provided basic services and decent schools. I live in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Detroit but will likely leave it for the burbs in the next year. Detroit just isn’t affordable for a young family.

I wish you godspeed. I live in a 92% black, high tax neighborbood on Long Island, but at least the police answer the phone and crime is at reasonable levels!!

What does the but in this sentence mean?

"Even though I live in an area that is ethnically similar to Detroit, and also has high taxes vis-a-vis household income, I am fortunate that I still can expect an ambulance to show up at my house, unlike Detroit."

There is nothing more sinister implied.

I agree with you about the disfunctional public services.

I disagree with you that downtown never really declined that much.

Woodward was mostly boarded up 20 years ago. During the recession downtown was a ghost town. It didn’t get worse because there was no one there to make it worse. It wasn’t uncommon to go downtown and not see a single person on the streets.

A revival has to start somewhere. Businesses and restaurants moving in is the start.

> We should have a fourth branch of government dedicated to science and technology.

On the rare occasion you did see someone, would you at least wave hello to them?

You see this in a lot of places. There are a lot of smaller cities in New England and elsewhere that have gentrified at some level. But that gentrification often seems to mean that there are maybe 20 square blocks of new condos, hip restaurants, craft bars, boutiques, a nice park, a few employers, etc.--and then things outside that radius get sketchy again rather quickly.

Not true, the Woodward corridor is pushing north toward New Center and is really nice. Corktown is also seeing an investment infusion due to the train station being redeveloped by Ford and lots of housing development. Check out brush park as well and Woodbridge, downtown is pushing out. Go look at it! Things are definitely changing.

Totally agree, although hype can at times help bring the real thing in that it raises expectations above the bar they are currently at. Side-note: it's "dysfunction"

Economic writing in narrative form is easily misleading and void of relevant information. Numbers are just sprinkled around to support the story, not to give accurate picture.

Even bad economies reach equilibrium. Declining economy can decline too fast and rebound. It seems that Detroit's population is still in decline. Decline has just slowed down. How much of it is from economic cycle is unknown.

> Even bad economies reach equilibrium

Venezuela is not there yet.

Well they are still sticking to their socialist agenda, which means centrally controlled economy instead of a dynamic market economy. Can't really have an equilibrium without allowing things to dynamically self correct through feedback loops. The only feedback right now is the continuing failure of centralized controls, which will likely continue indefinitely so long as those doing the controlling are using military force and violence.

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