Quote:
Originally Posted by edale
No where near the scale of Detroit. Almost all rust belt cities have pockets of abandonment.
Buffalo has several intact neighborhood commercial corridors. Detroit has nearly none, save for a couple blocks of Livernois. Clearly Detroit is in far worse shape, and it's not even close.
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You are mistaken that Detroit’s only commercial corridor is Livernois from 8
to south of 6. Sure Detroit has had more abandonment then any other city but it’s been doing a bang up job mothballing what it can and getting it into the hands of people who will do right by it. Demolishing what can’t be saved in a strategic way that provides the biggest boost for areas that are experiencing revitalization & or stabilization.
- Heres a sort of quick accounting for a rundown of neighborhoods / districts. It’s quick and sloppy but I feel I’m hitting the important points while being realistic.
Detroit is a huge city fitting Boston, Manhattan & San Francisco in it as had been noted for some time. 1/3 made it though the bad times with high occupancy, 1/3 made it through in a mixed condition what that means depends on where you are in the city. However the demolition, land bank, park and streetscape improvements along with a revival of city services has turned some areas in this condition from breeders of blight into an asset. Green space with occupied homes and businesses in the mix is a novel and cool neighbor to have next to a traditional high density Detroit neighborhood.
While the older industrial areas that were overwhelmingly vacant have been set aside for green / blue space, sit fallow and grow things for profit or naturally. There’s also the increasingly high demand for new class an industrial space. The Packard Plant besides the building on the south side of Grand Blvd which is being saved to be renovated the rest of the site looks like it’s going to be a new factory.
There are huge quadrants like the outter westside which is mostly high occupancy with then exception of Brighmoor & the SE corner of the Southfield - I-96 interchange.
The Midwest section of the inner city centered around where 96 runs along Grand River is high vacancy. That’s the area to the west and south west of Dexter - Linwood and North of Corktown.
A lot of the lower east side with the exceptions of Lafayette & Elmwood Parks, Indian Village, West Village & the Jefferson Corridor to the river is high vacancy. This was one of the oldest parts of the city a lot of the area especially to the west was similar to Corktown & was seen as a target for urban renewal. It never was completed but 94 was built fast and with little regard for the area.
The Gratiot Corridor north and south of Lasalle College Park (an Outer Drive neighborhood) has high vacancy from outside of Eastern Market to 7 mile. The area south of Harper Woods and north of 94 has good density and quality housing stock but the area west of Harper Woods, Regent Park has been struggling with crime. It’s been targeted by police because it become an outlier with violent crime increasing. In general the east side has more problems then the west the integration of city and suburb isn’t really taking place between Macomb and Wayne.
The Northeast side of the city is the quadrant that is having the most problems with stabilization. Lasalle College Park east of City Airport has great housing stock and is pretty well kept but it has crime problems. There’s good housing with many of the neighborhoods along the north east fringe but again crime which is dropping is a problem. So is the drainage system in the area it starts under the heavily urbanize central Woodward Corridor and floods as the various underground branches come together north of city airport.
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Commercial neighborhoods
West Vernor west of 75 almost to Livernois / Dragoon is pretty solid.
E. Warren from Morningside through East English Village and into Cornerstone (ending at GP border Moross) has had and is undergoing a major streetscape improvement with a significant amount of new stores opening.
Mack Ave from Cadiux to Moross has is vibrant along the Detroit side.
Here’s one people don’t normally think of. The Lodge Freeway an above ground boulevard the same Northwestern Highway that still exists in Farmington & Southfield. The way it was built is a bit painful to think of when you look at the wholesale destruction of other areas. Yet much of the street frontage was preserved from 8 mile to Wyoming, it has some residential mixed in but it’s mostly commercial & is well kept and becoming more vibrant.
W. Warren from about Rouge Park to the Southfield Freeway is kind of emblematic of “new city” Detroit commercial neighborhoods. It’s a messy mix of historic clumps mixed with set back strip malls & auto focused businesses. However W. Warren east of Southfield to the Dearborn border has just undergone a beautiful streetscape transformation & has solid intact historic commercial stock.
McNichols west of Livernois has a nice intact commercial strip going past Marygrove College to the west of the Lodge where it begins to become less vibrant and buildings haven’t been updated in a while. There’s a lot of interesting things going on near U of D and Marygrove
There’s a lot of blocks on W McNichols that havn’t really had much activity over the past 10-15 years that are well kept and new small businesses are moving in to mix with the one big and small prosper and mom n pop that stuck it out. 7
Mile west of Southfield has a well preserved commercial strip that’s had more business move in recently and is getting a new streetscape as well as that redevelopment of that giant southern mansion looking building that was torn down a decade ago.
Grand River Ave especially from Evergreen to Southfield is on the same level as Livernois. There’s new apartments being built and the area pretty much at home in a nice suburb. GR and Greenfield I hope to see that former old school mall that’s only half occupied get the attention it needs one way or another. I’m still waiting on the McNichols & Grand River Meijer and street front shopping to finish linking Rosedale & Old Redford. The Grand River reconstruction from Lasher into Farmington Hills will go a ways to reviving GR in Redford and getting suburban shoppers in the city and vice versa.
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