It’s interesting how the purpose of ring roads have changed as the modern era as moved on ring roads in Detroit, Grand Boulevard was envisioned more as a promenade around the urban area acting as a home for new and elite development. Outer Drive built just on the other side of the transitional period acts as a residential front street for the large sections of bedroom neighborhoods being built in the outer city. Concept of moving people around the congested developed urban center is there and marks a significant transition into pure mile road style development.
8 mile and Telegraph are sort of an early post war equivalent to a Detroit ring road but the theme of Telegraph Rd being a north south bypass while 8 mile being more of a crosstown expressway are taking shape. 275 was always envisioned as a bypass though it was moved westward while 696 was a crosstown expressway. Geography bounds were and what can be built 275 was cancelled from Farmington Hills to Davisburg because it would require draining wetlands, filling in parts of lakes and grading through the hills to shave off a few minutes commute.
The flat easily cleared and developed land runs along the waterfront from Port Huron to Toledo with the lakes and hills region while a very desirable area to live and play in acts as an impediment for the kind of fast paced mid-century sprawl that was the future. It’s interesting to see what kind of development visions city leaders were looking at in the 60’s to overcome the geographic challenges and better utilize regional assets. The Doxiadis Plan kind of gives me the impression of a series of high voltage power lines crisscrossing the region supercharging growth. It would have been a nightmare to implement as envisioned a sort of super mile road system and highway hybrid but I get where they were going.
I kind of like the concept of building a large urban center in St Clair County having a balance of satellite cities around the triangular edge of the urban zone would have been very interesting with a proper mass transit system. Only the very beginning of laying down infrastructure for the envisioned scheme came to fruition before the 67 riots and growing national unrest upended this idealistic if naive period in our national history ushering in the more cynical post modern era. But hey we did get an our water system expanded in the north tapping into Lake Huron and I do enjoy that sweet sweet blue water coming from my tap.
https://funnelme.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/doxiadis-plans-detroit/
2020 light pollution map. Interesting to see how with Ann Arbor protecting itself from development from the east with the exception of the 94 - Michigan Ave corridor it’s beginning to sprawl to the south and west.
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