Michigan legislative action thread
Posted on 04/10/2013 6:26:34 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Detroit, in the minds of many people, looks like something from the film Gran Torino, in which Clint Eastwood’s retired car worker defiantly manicures his lawn and flies an American flag as the city around him descends into chaos. With its fraying social fabric and the imposition of an emergency manager to cope with its collapsing finances, it would be easy to argue a city that was a global centre of carmaking and musical innovation 50 years ago has passed the point of no return.
Easy, yes; but wrong. Detroit’s days as a manufacturing powerhouse – like those of many industrial cities in America, Europe and elsewhere – are irrevocable. But its downtown is rebounding, thanks to the kind of central location, affordable property, improved efficiency and productivity also bringing people and businesses back to struggling former industrial hubs such as Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
Thousands of residents, including designers, techies and music makers, have moved to Detroit’s old central business district. They are drawn, to borrow a phrase from Jane Jacobs’ 1961 work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, to the old buildings new ideas require. More than 40 per cent of the young adults living there are university educated, according to a recent report, compared with 11 per cent for the city as a whole, 29 per cent for the state of Michigan and 31 per cent for the nation. The urban centre is home to more than 600 new companies and draws 10.5m visitors to its leisure attractions each year.
(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
The artists make so little money that they need nearly free housing and work space. These hipsters are slightly better than squatters who live off public benefits.
There is a hipster bunch there moving in
Drawn by cheap space and community of themselves
Way early to tell how it goes
And completely surrounded by serious zombies
The movie industry just flits from freebies to freebies. Once they find a better deal they will be gone.
This looks like the typical new urbanism article: "All the cool kids are moving back downtown. You should be forced to do it to." How many of those same "cool kids" will sprint back to the suburbs as soon as they have a baby and start thinking about schools or their kids playing out in the street.
That is very, very far from critical mass.
For comparison Newark, NJ has about the same numbers of the same demographic in a city half the size.
Spot on!
Democrats still run the place. eom.
Is that you, Mayor Bing?
I could see Detroit being a draw for producers of movies about armageddon, urban decay, failed liberal policies...
Oh, what am I saying??? Movie producers marketing in truth?
Yeah, I had to read that sentence a few times to figure out that he meant the *history* of those days is what's irrevocable. The memory would be "irrevocable" if the crime hadn't driven out all of the producers with the memories, leaving the slag who don't remember anything except for the drugs and the great times they had in the '60's burning the place down.
I think the writer was just throwing around $10 words to impress the reader. It's pretty common in the financial media.
RE: I could see Detroit being a draw for producers of movies about armageddon, urban decay, failed liberal policies...
We have films about the apocalyptic future made earlier with titles like ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and ESCAPE FROM L.A.
We can make a similar film about Detroit and the setting could be in the present.
I looked it up and was a bit surprised you can open-carry in Detroit proper. I was not surprised to read the cops *will* stop you and harass you every time “to make sure you understand the law.” (Hey Officer brainiac, I’m carrying aren’t I? Then I know the law well enough.) LEOs there are the same as everywhere else: They’ll knowingly lie to the citizens and break the law if they think they can get away with it.
I was disappointed to read Tasers are illegal in MI.
He probably lives in a gated community.
No gated communities in Canada. No need for them either.
Oh....Canada
Mr. Google shows me there are gated communities in Canada.
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