mfarris

I, too, would be surprised if the Metro Detroit population rose, based on what I've heard from friends still in the area. But I'd be even more surprised if it declined by 25%.

Not saying that the area's not in trouble. It is. But the difference between "in trouble" and "dying" is significant.

The US Census version of "Detroit" is the area within the city limits. It has been "dying" since since the '68 riots, due to a combination of white flight, decline of manufacturing, and subsequent decline in retail, services, and civic engagement. All of which leads to more people leaving -- often going just 5-20 miles, into the suburbs.

In real life, to most southeast Michiganders, "Detroit" is a much larger area encompassing dozens of neighboring suburbs. That Detroit continued growing into the late '90s. The effects of the economic downturn were visible there long before the big 2008 crash (mostly in housing prices and boarded-up storefronts on suburban main streets), but its overall population decline has been much less dramatic than 25% in 10 years.

The "dying" talk is overblown. Cities ebb and flow. Manhattan in the 1970's, anyone? This is a very low ebb for the Detroit area, but it'll come back. All the way? Probably not -- being the central hub of a world industry was a bit of a historical fluke. But there's a foundation of engineers, designers, and other educated white-collar types -- along with the vestiges of a blue-collar middle class -- to build upon.

When I moved to Los Angeles ten years ago, the Hollywood area was a wasteland. So was downtown. Old Town Pasadena was gang territory. Echo Park is where you went to get shot. Now all of those areas -- and many dozens more -- are bustling and in various stages of gentrification.

And add "Strawman" to Ad-Hom Block Pro. The moment I see somebody use that word I think, "This person learned to 'argue' by reading Internet forums. Disregard."

Few things grate as much as the self-satisfied "strawman" police.

The majority of the internet quackery that I come across is perpetrated by D.O.'s. There's no doubt that the anti-science, New Age-y crackpots have found a D.O. degree to be the path of least resistance.

It's comical. I call home when I leave work. We might talk for five or ten minutes as I drive. This requires two or three calls, due to the drops -- on a major freeway with five bars of reception.

My family and friends have similar issues. A couple don't have it so bad because they're on the West Side, where AT&T seems to have built more towers -- gotta keep Beverly Hills & the movie studios happy, you know.

Oddly, we have little trouble with 3G data. I can stream podcasts and use Google maps simultaneously. It's the calls that are the issue.

If my family and friends' experience is any indication, the drop rate is over 50%. So it's probably going from 55% to 56%: horrible to a teensy bit more horrible.

I live in Los Angeles. There are cell towers uglifying the sky everywhere. My favorites are the mock trees -- one in Burbank is a squat, fake palm tree with "coconut" repeaters. And despite the apparent ability to put towers absolutely anywhere... AT&T still blows.

In order to get that level of display control, they're doing some insane things under the hood with the HTML. It's a tag fiesta in there (understandably -- there's no other way to do it), and complex HTML can put some real demands on the processor -- but nothing compared to the same content in Flash.

In Safari scrolling that document is very smooth. So much better than the Flash Scribd. Kudos.