about rapidly gentrifying urban outliers like Staten Island
or rapidly deconstructing clusters like the other 135.8 miles of Detroit.
Urban observers who can write are especially welcome
Saturday, January 9, 2021
... Detroit is ready for a Post Covid Future ?
Renaissance City.Motown.Motor City.Arsenal of Democracy Detroit is ready for a Post Covid.Future
if you want to build it on an empty lot
2019
2011
2010
2008
The pictures tell a sad story but this is even sadder: Detroit charged its remaining citizens too much for their aging houses and cracked streets. They let the pensioner or that vet only drawing social security pay to the tune of 600 million dollars to make up for the short fall. The schools closed anyway. People of course walked away from their properties. Or Died in a cheaper place like the tiny southern town they originated from... So much so the city population was based on money from those no longer working :
The auction of properties improved. Rehabbed and ready houses hit the list. Foreclosures held by the city hit another list. Detroit Land Bank lists still needs improvement however. There are not enough people interested in buying a side lot to their property just to pay taxes on a Bigger Yard.
The links are here- Look for yourselves at the colored links. Just know that you need 25K in a Chase account just to start bidding. Unfortunately the houses in most of these auctions whether Rehabbed and Ready/Foreclosure or As is Lots/Derelict houses are in neighborhoods that are much more populated by housing valued well below your purchase. The following snapshot of a Foreclosure.com list tells me that 90K for a house is too much to pay in a residential neighborhood that does not have many mom and pops and no National chains nearby on a shopping avenue.
Tiny houses Anyone ? Yes for those socialized homeless . Detroit has done this already
Loosen up the provision that states only lots of 3000 square feet or more can contain temporary machinery and sheds to house materials used to re build. It makes sense to be able to store and watch your materials on your lot just like the big developers do. Authorize the Demolition czar to make sure no one overstays their shed welcome. The tools disappear form the property once its habitable by either a business or a household. RE-zone for more mixed use and the artists will come here , the creative, the next Genius who promotes middle class living standards because they could find the energy in Detroit.to make something so cool we have a new nickname.
Covid IS SO DREARY. Can't brighten up the landscape by creating more than just murals?? If it sounds like impatience it is because the possibilities depend on a change in how gentrification etc. is viewed. We are all in this together post COVID ,
We should not look at each other as Us and Them -but survivors who want to really build something NEW TOGETHER.
Not just writing. Planning to stick around to make it happen of course. After living in NYC you see the possibilities when you come back home. The meek do not have to inherit what is left...
I wonder how to live next to something that needs to be restored or torn down.... I would prefer more tiny house projects developed for the formerly homeless and more avant garde approaches to using space once land is cleared. Detroit is not ranked high in healthy walkable neighborhoods. I do not know if its the design /crime/or car culture that makes this place diabetes central.But one thing I do know- Detroit could be the Number One 21st century city of the future. Not suburban, not urban, not inner, not outer but something for all . I call it NeoUrban. A new living arrangement of people , living in connected neighborhoods. Connected walkable, safe with light rail for distances over 2 miles. See this fantasy transportation map?
Disclosure: I write a blog called diabeticslifeline.com I know that diabetes is managed by walking...
Also
My blogging is affected by the following --- I can dream of better things.
I was a kid growing up in a faux Cape Cod with a covered porch / Fixer Upper in Conant Gardens ...I used to look out my window over the city and imagine what it would look like with less houses, and winding lanes and lamps twinkling through the zillion trees. I saw the ravages of Dutch Elm disease, and left before the center fell @ 1985 for NYC. I am now back in Detroit with a unique perspective ...Isn't strange that I could see this city laid out differently years before it actually ended up with less houses?
So put in the twinkling lanes and zillion trees but add houses people can afford till death if need be...A thought : Once the mortgage is paid WHY can't we keep the taxes down? According to what I have been seeing since I left the very expensive East Coast and gentrified precincts of greater NYC ,
Detroiters pay way more than their houses are worth. I live in Oakland county and its also crazy here- we in Oakland are often paying more taxes than owners in Brooklyn Heights mansion owners who are blocks from the Riverfront with that crazy quintillion dollar view...
WHY SO MUCH $$$$ for Less in Mitten Land???????????
If the house is tiny /the taxes should be tiny -until your time is up! if only they would Chant this in the streets.... -regenerate cities- go tiny /rise up Detroit/time to be shiny/lets go people/lets be lively Disclosure: I have seen the marches in Buenos Aires circa 2003 - 3 points This is what will it take to deliver some fairness to the 99%-
Try to sell so that Tiny houses paid in full (no mortgages ) and at the same time , homeowners of tiny houses billed yearly for taxes held to a rule of 15 % of the occupants future earnings(social security, etc) No Increases!!
Use the 15% taxed of all homeowners of green/tiny houses for only 1 thing -the $$$ pays for school ... other taxes levied from other possible sources go to other structural needs of a city , and are subject to legislation
Social Contract of the Neo-urban city: All house taxes Must support the Year Around school for anyone who wants to learn (Mandatory 1-12 grades) . Learning as facilitated by Free Internet will be made available for all future generations to be educated to a BS or BA level Just make it non negotiable and not something voters wrangle over : Millages are stupid.
The third coast is the trendsetter for the rest of the country, and Detroit is the neo-urban leader...
Why should Detroit go tiny since NYC is not going tiny ? East Coast Cities like NY are going up (not tiny...) NY is building above existing buildings like Bladerunner - using the air space . (Maybe has to do with the rising ocean...) See the picture below??. I lived right around the corner from this house in Brooklyn . The other boros: Staten Island, Queens, The Bronx& Brooklyn are not as overbuilt as Manhattan .The possibility of space sans demolition makes these areas open to experimental container green housing. Puerto Rico take note ...Cheaper and Hurricane Proof Housing is available using your imagination and going tiny with railroad containers -cheaper than traditional materials (and can be installed quickly...before the next hurricane season......
see the video below in Williamsburg Brooklyn
(I lived near here in 2011, and passed by it often...)
If tiny is the new black then Square feet is the new bitcoin - unpredictable income equals instability for fboth the 1% and the 99 %.
Why spotlight Diana and Aretha ?
Entertainers make $$$ until they do not -which is when the entertainment is no longer hot, and enters a nostalgic phase. That is when the downsizing should occur - 2 homes and a lot can be a bit much- no?
Having a lot in Palmer Woods off the Golf course is also sensible.
Having a home in Bloomfield Hills is also sensible.
But not being able to maintain all three at the level of no worries would be the goal, especially as one gets older and works less. Something has to give. Guess what is teetering/ hovering above the swirling edge of the default drain? Guess where the property of the stars is that requires a Small infusion of liquid money in order to keep it off the Taxman/Auction list?? 18281 Hamilton Avenue- 1 house from 7 mile is just a cute lot Only .58 of an acre - the right size to put a tiny home cluster of 2 or 3 homes
and give some formerly homeless a chance to start anew ...not too far from the University District and the 8 mile border- Relatively safe- near the 12th precinct police station also. One less thing to worry about, and an opportunity to do good...
Aretha's Lot......Could look like thisProject called True North Near Wayne State University
in any case, the lot is around the corner from the
Frank Lloyd Wright home on 7 mile:
The Dorothy H. Turkel House is a private residence located at 2760 West 7 Mile Road in north-central Detroit, Michigan, within the Palmer Woods neighborhood. - wikipedia
