And speaking of bridges to theCity...

I haven't followed this discussion very much, but I am now familiar with the name of the owner of the Ambassador Bridge, the present over-water link between Detroit and Windsor, CA.   Manuel "Matty" Maroun is also the owner of the Michigan Central Station, Detroit's iconic beautiful station that has fallen into such disrepair and stands as a symbol for all that has happened to this city.

Without learning much more for the moment, the Daily Show's take on the controversy about Canada's offer to build a new bridge is telling....

Bridge to Canada: Al Madrigal exposes slick-talking Canadian bridge builders operating in Michigan.

Some ideas are crazier than others...

Instead of fixing the city, good old American capitalism suggests the purchase of Belle Isle, a historic and so beautiful piece of land in the Detroit River that has been an escape for Detroiters for centuries, seceding it from the United States and making it a tax haven, a commonwealth for the wealthy. 

Yes it could bring a very needed One Billion Dollars to Detroit but we are back to times, even if it were legal which it is probably not, when a proposal such as this falls between one's soul and one's sense of well-being.   At the same time, it will become a fascinating discussion of what it really takes to help Detroit.

In many ways a suggestion such as this belies the very serious, also wealthy. corporations and individuals who are proposing, yes, radical schemes, that are concurrently healthy and forward looking for the PEOPLE as well.

Developer pitches $1B commonwealth for Belle Isle

This futuristic rendering of Belle Isle is one where it is a commonwealth separate from the U.S. with a unique governing tax system. (Artist's rendering)  From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130112/BIZ/301120319#ixzz2HmOhbhBV

This futuristic rendering of Belle Isle is one where it is a commonwealth separate from the U.S. with a unique governing tax system. (Artist's rendering

On a day in May 2011, arriving in the city in unseasonably hot and humid weather, I drove out to Belle Isle in late afternoon to see kids hanging on the perimeter road, cruising a little with music blending with the heavy atmosphere; families out for an end of winter picnic as the sun descending.  It felt free and safe in a city that does not often feel as such.

The land mass of Detroit is large, approx 120 square miles, with no doubt lots of land for parks and recreation but to develop it for commerce takes away its heritage and its romance.  I am naive to feel that one needs romance and mystery - a island across a bridge, a short one for sure, but even a bridge to nature, to relaxation;  destination within a city, is enough to hold citizens together, to meet on equal terms and understand how we all can combine to work and live.

From the article about other proposals for the city, some almost as crazy but some with more logic and human consideration behind them, especially from Detroit Future City: "It envisions a smaller city where the swaths of empty and blighted land become urban/green neighborhoods full of trees, ponds and urban farms. Detroit has 40 square miles of vacant land, according to city officials. That's close to the total land area of San Francisco.
"Even with all that vacant land, the wide open spaces of Belle Isle are unique. To decommission Belle Isle would be a great loss of a public purpose area," said John Mogk, a Wayne State University law professor who follows urban planning issues."

Hard Choices for Detroit

Thanks to Austin Black II of City Living Detroit for bringing this Detroit Free Press op-ed to my attention.

We who dash in and out of the city are not able to understand the complexity of failure, decision-making and risk, but are thankful to those within to give us material and opinion to better understand.

Stephen Henderson: In Detroit, there's no escape from hard choices

http://www.freep.com/article/20121205/COL33/312050018

Parking: Detroit

Yesterday I had to drive over the canyons in the rain to West Hills in, of course, the western region of Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley.  As it is getting on till christmas and out there on an errand but delighted that for once traffic was light on this rainy day, I stopped in at one of the Valley's ubiquitous malls to pick up a small item.

Driving through the acres of  concrete that consist of flat outside parking lots and then multi-level structures that accompany them and provide shoppers with as little foot traffic as possible so that all they can do is purchase is always an interesting experience, one necessitating certain social skills - who is that waiting an interminable amount of time for the one parking spot as close to the mall entrance as possible? - and time, while waiting to go around that one person, to engage in mind-numbing rumination of parking as a state of existence, at least in California.  

So it is with great curiosity and a bit of - wtf? - that I discovered, on Model D this morning, the website Michigan Needs More Parking, one of the oddest proposals for Detroit, and elsewhere that I've seen.

I started to lose it when I discovered their suggestion to turn beautiful Belle Isle into one large parking lot...


Below and posted before: my pic of the Michigan State Theatre, now turned into (turned back?) into a parking lot as well as one across from the historic Annis Furs Building of the parking lot where before existed Hudson's...

 

 

I have to admit I marvelled at the Facebook page's description of traffic in Detroit.

As a Californian who has to leave the beach two hours before a scheduled something in LA downtown, driving to appointments down Woodward, Detroit's historic first paved highway, or on the freeways even in the greatest rush hour seems like a Sunday drive.   In a city ripe for redevelopment, providing space to bring more cars into the city seems like the wrong direction in which to move.

Documenting the Turnaround/Europe

Detroit continues as a news item in both the American and European photo/news market.

In the States, some say, "enough already," about the many stories - positive and not - emanating from this city.  Some continue to worry - not without reason - that this almost caricature of decay over the decades could also happen to them.

Photos have been made, some haunting and emotional, most significantly by Andrew Moore in  his lush, poetic and startling project, exposition and book: DETROIT DISASSEMBLED.

In Europe, the Steidl book of photographs by the Marchand/Meffre team, taken at the same time as Andrew's, is also significant in guaging the interest in this decline of the American industrial power.

At November's LensCulture/FotoFest/Paris reviews I just attended, I found still an increasing amount of interest in what is happening to this city, a now fabled one perhaps more in the moral sense of Aesop, yet with hope expressed for the future.  I will return there this coming year of 2013 to continue my DETROIT: DEFINITION and I cannot wait to see the change after a year's absence.

In the interim, the Detroit Free Press, chronicles again hope for the turnaround that innovative spirit, youth and a government that is trying hard, seems to be successfully promoting:

http://www.freep.com/article/20121125/BUSINESS06/311250293/Is-Detroit-s-turnaround-turning-a-corner-Development-spreads-to-new-neighborhoods?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

It is not just Detroit

We have all known this, but perhaps choose to forget that Detroit is just an example of what has been happening for decades around the US. 

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/08/we-buy-houses-decline-and-opportunity-pittsburghs-east-suburbs/3013/


Detroit serves however as an example of people and business - those in and out of the city - who are working, often successfully, for its regrowth.  Here is one great example from Model D, always a terrific resource on what is happening in Detroit:

http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/detroitfellowslove712.aspx

Forgotten City

About Windsor, Canada from Atlantic Cities:

LIFE INSIDE THE BROKEN CITY  http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2012/06/how-mend-broken-city/2324/

Visited on a VERY cold spring Sunday last year, primarily to meet some East Coast friends at a casino and photograph the Windsor Chinatown, Windsor appeared in this short visit as a lovely quiet town.

Yet the vacancy and sense of abandonment was even then visible.