Spraaawwl

[digitS']

This may be political but I'll give it a try. I hate commercial sprawl. Really, I don't have too much trouble with residential sprawl. I am out there in the exburbs a lot. Everywhere, I see lots that are waaay too big for the homeowners to care for beyond keeping the weeds down! Some don't do a very good job with that but, you see that on city lots, too. Fallow ground is fallow ground. It doesn't bother me much and I see misused & eroded farmland and it bothers me much more.

There are new vacancy numbers out on office buildings. They show a continuing improvement but as the experts say, not enough to raise rents or for new construction. Those are office buildings. Retail stores?! Who knows? I mean there are some national stats that aren't coming thru because of the shutdown but locally -- who knows!!

I am so sick of seeing block after block of strip mall & big box property sitting vacant while store construction takes place right down the street! What is with this plan of vacating a building after 20 years and putting up a new Big Box?! I hate it!

That old, vacant building or strip mall ruins the residential neighborhood that borders it - to the rear! It didn't do the residential neighborhood any good when it was up and running but now, there it sits - unused space and a decaying eyesore! Meanwhile, the same stinking company is putting in a building at a new location about a mile down the road!

Business friendly? I guess. How much of the infrastructure will be paid by what? Improved sales? Higher commercial taxes? What happened to that nice farm field that got ripped to shreds and covered with asphalt? Thanks very much Mr. Corporation and Mr. County Commissioner.

Steve

 

[seedcorn]

I hear you. Problem is that there are government grants to build new. Very little to repurpose. Other problem is that it costs more to strip and rebuild than to just build what you want in first place.

 

[Carol Dee]

Steve
We had that here several years ago. Some very nice farm land (good black Iowa soil) was taken and turned into a commercial industrial park. If the farmer did not want to sell for the low price offered they where condemned! (Immanent domain.) So far 90% of that sits empty! And they have even built a rail road spur to it. When they could have built along the track down by the river in an old abandoned warehouse/factory district. Makes no sense to me.

 

[so lucky]

I saw on 60 Minutes that Detroit has 80,000 abandoned buildings now.
I never could understand how European cities could have building, whole downtown areas, that are hundreds of years old and still occupied, revered even. Here if a building is a hundred years old, it's really something. I am one more person who just can't stand to see perfectly good buildings abandoned. And eminent domain is terribly abused by big business. What a waste of money, manpower and resources.....Grrr........ The whole process stinks!

 

[MontyJ]

I know exactly what you mean Steve. Wal-Mart built a brand new store in Weirton, then less than 10 years later, abandoned it and built another one just 2/10's of a mile down the road. The first one sat empty for a long time, but is now occupied by another company.

 

[bobm]

There are so many new rules and regulations to building codes enforced by the EPA, environmental codes, rights of way, earthquake regulations, labor codes, city /county building codes, etc. that make it almost impossible to rehab a building without going bankrupt . My brother is a licensed Contractor and Real Estate Broker in Cal. He bought 11 downtown riverfront stores with 9 of them vacant. He proceeded to renovate and he completely demolished 4 of them as economically unviable to lease or to remodel. Then he built new ones on those sites and remodeled the rest ... he leased all of the buildings within 2 months . Ever try to rehab an old house ? My cousin did ... he rehabbed a century old 2 story house plus basement in Chicago. He had to raise the house and rebuild the entire basement ( many cracks and leaks) , all floor joists ( didn't meet code as to load and numerous plumbing cutouts therefore all floors) , roof joists, most of the studs as they were spaced not to code . Also, some fire damage in the kitchen walls, all of the plumbing and electrical didn't meet code. Also, dry rot at the foundation, windows, doors, roof edges. He worked on that project for over 5 years and said that it cost him more than if he set a match to it and build new from the ground up. It cost him his marriage too and had to sell that house at a loss to settle the divorce. Edit to add : He had to replace all of the single pane windows with dual pane ones. He had to have a Haz Mat crew remove layers of lead paint inside as well as the outside of that house too.

 

[journey11]

I hear you. Problem is that there are government grants to build new. Very little to repurpose. Other problem is that it costs more to strip and rebuild than to just build what you want in first place.

That explains a lot. :/ I agree, Steve...total eyesore. Seems to draw more crime too, lots of drug deals, fights and such going on in those vacant lots. With no businesses to secure, the police don't frequent the area.

Get this...someone here had the bright idea to open a daycare in one of those vacant strip malls. Complete with a play yard out in the parking lot...and assortment of Lil' Tikes toys on asphalt enclosed by a chainlink fence. Looked more like a dog pound if you ask me. Of course, they did not stay open long.

 

[Jared77]

Detroit is a very unique place. Its full of potential, and heartache. Once time beauty is easily seen, but in the same glance is the harsh reality of the current situation.

Its been well documented in pictures Detroit's Beautiful, Horrible Decline, The Remains of Detroit, and my personal favorite The Ruins of Detroit.

I worked for the city so I saw it first hand. These are all haunting pictures. I've included even more below since they strike so close to home.

When you look at those pictures how do you rehabilitate that? Say you choose to tear it down and start over. Where does the money come from? The materials used then many times were not safe so your working against that. Plus what about the dumping that took place? How people just went outside and tossed any chemicals they didn't want to use? Just stored everything "out back" where it was left to be broken down by the elements?

There are huge factories that have to be removed. The Packard plant hasn't been in use since the 50's. Tiger Stadium is another horrible thing that for some reason they can't get rid of. The train station, even skyscrapers plus all the countless residential buildings just to name a few. I've been down whole neighborhood blocks where only 1 home was occupied (legally). The rest were boarded up or burned down, or just cement aprons that turned into grass fields. A perfect example Detroit's Urban meadows.

I've been on scenes where when we arrived the neighbors were hosing down their houses because there was a house that was on fire. Fully engulfed, almost burned to the ground. The call for the fire came in 5 minutes ago and you can tell the neighbors had been protecting their houses for a while judging by how soaked the lawn was, and the water would be running down the street a long ways. When asked if anybody lived there "nope its just a dope house. Darn shame that it caught on fire" and they'd go right back to protecting their property. Suspicious? Absolutely. But that's what local people did (err allegedly did) to help fight crime.

These are buildings that are right off the freeway. Where you could have immediate access to transportation for goods and supplies. Or prime waterfront real estate . But you can't develop it because the cost of the clean up alone would bankrupt most investors, and those who survived would never see the return on investment.

Now I work in a very little town and here sprawl isn't a problem because the local economy just won't support it. Walmarts not coming out this way, populations too low. Our service is funded by a collection of a number of townships and we cover all those areas.

I wish the city would green light the tear down old derelict buildings, heck give a tax break as an incentive.

And out here we get our fair share of weirdos too. Huge confederate flags with marijuana leaves on them hanging on the front porch, to people who look like they are preparing for a full on invasion, to the people who I swear must have junk hauled to their house by the truckload daily to be piled up. Amazing how much stuff people can pile up.

edited to fix broken links

 

[digitS']

Thank you Jared - I will take a look at those webpages.

It is important to know what happened and try to understand why and what is left to do today.

Maybe it is also important to remember what someone once said: people can cause problems but it takes industry to really mess things up!

Steve

 

[Jared77]

Its a lot of links but the city is huge. 1967 was the tipping point. http://life.time.com/history/detroit-is-burning-photos-from-the-1967-riots/?iid=lb-gal-viewagn#1 covers it well