"I admire it's purity, it's sense of survival; unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality"

--Ash from Alien

@treimel:
"renewal"

@squinko:
I simply meant stop pouring money into any urban rewal schemes, or the like. I didn't mean go in with flamethrowers. I just don't think it's a viable investment; let the "urban prairie" that's started continue.

What would that entail?

@sicknick:

I saw Chicago 20 years ago; I've seen Detroit lately. Detroit is in much, much worse shape. Why try to save it? What's wrong with simply letting nature takes it course? There was a time when the domestic auto industry could support a thriving city there, that time is no longer. That's how it goes.

Perhaps all Detroit needs is a megacorp to buy out the city from its financial burden! They could purchase the other 4/5ths of Detroit, blow it up, and start building houses there just like Robocop 3/Robocop Prime Directives.

I think neither you nor the flippers have thought this through. Likely, they'll put a few thousand dollars into the house and then let the thing rot when they realize that they can't find anyone in Detroit willing or able to pay $45k for the place.

Sure a city can die. See "ghost towns" in the west. Real ones, not ones that were built to be amusement parks...

That said, lots of vacant properties, no money for infrastructure, and easy accessibility make it seem like an ideal place for squatters/homeless.

Want something that's livable though may require some modest rehabbing in an area you can trust to leave your dead-bolted home unattended for 30 minutes? Better take a few days off work to bid for it against the speculators.

My big question is who the hell do the speculators think they're going to sell these houses to? The residents who didn't have enough money to outbid them? Are they seriously planning on turning a profit like this?

Or else, what I would have done, after it's fixed up, turn around and flip it, maybe get like 2-3 time back of what you put into it.

Last year was NFL record setting bad, but this year is actually looking better. They've still been losing, but at least they're putting up a decent fight.

Unlike the Oakland Raiders, who just get smooshed.

@TheOrtega: the problem with that is that Detroit needs the money from the back property taxes on these lots, and this is the only way they're getting paid. if they were to limit it only to people with residential plans they might as well of cancelled the auction b/c nobody would've bought them. as it is only 1/5 were bought

@squinko: I'm part of Blight Busters and Artists Village. Detroit isn't going to clean itself up. It needs help, and you can either write it off or say things like "Oh, it'll never change!" or worse, "I won't do anything until it's better." OR you can take the proactive approach and make a difference. Detroit is in no worse position then Baltimore was 15-20 years ago or Chicago was even longer back then that. They've both bounced back, but it took a lot of work.

No more excuses. Put up, or shut up. As I tell friends from other places "Yup, Detroit's a shithole, but it's our shithole, and we choose it's future."

@Orv: Never been to Detroit but have been to Atlantic City and it sounds the exact same as you descrived Detroit

What? Seriously? (And it's Hamtramck.)

I understand what you're saying about people seeing a game or concert and turning around and leaving, but that's all Detroit really has that other parts of Michigan don't. You can bring up restaurants and festivals all you want, but until Detroit cleans itself up, people are going to find other places that have the same things to do.

@Jfielder23: You're welcome to your opinion, but it's part of the problem as well. A friend of mine lives a couple blocks away from the Fisher building, one block off Woodward. His street is about half fixer uppers and half already fixed up 3000 sq foot mansions. He turned the third floor into an aprtment that the rent from pays most of his mortgage. He has a wide all wood staircase along with marble accents and two large fireplaces. He 1/3 what the McMansions out in Rochester were going for 10 years ago.

I grew up in Rochester and I've been moving south ever since. Too many white people (and yes, I'm white too, I just try not to act like a suburbanite jackass) north of 16, along with strip malls and chain restaurants. No culture at all. I currently live in Hazel Park (renting) and am looking to buy a house in the next year. The furthest north I'm looking is Ferndale and Hazel Park. I'm really interested in Hamtramack but the problem isn't the houses or the peopele in Detroit for me. It's the taxes. If I'm going to be paying that much in taxes I want services for them. I want snow removal and regular trash pickup.

People living outside of the city need to appreciate and travel into the city more often, though. Riverwalk, Dequindre Cut, Dally In the Ally, Tastefest as well as concerts and restaurants. Best burger in the SE Michigan area for the price? The Bronx (and yes, I've had the overpriced Red Coat Tavern BS). Best hot sauce? Rasta Sauce, Union Street. Too many people drive 75 or the Lodge into the city, go to see a game and then turn around and head home. The suburbs suck, they always will, and people need to stop moving north and start making an effort to help Detroit.

I've never been anywhere in Michigan.

Is Flint like my creepy scenario?

But, take away the smoke and the mirrors, you get this.

Detroit's major problem is that there's no focus as to where development happens, which is partly political and partly the fact that white flight left a massive, sudden void in the city that left it so sparsely populated it became inadministrable.

To create a parallel: imagine that New York City, today, saw the same sort of population outflux with an 8 million population that Detroit did starting in 1968. In forty years (2049), NYC's population, proportionally, would by 1.8 million people.

You try running that.

Ask Oakland, Kansas City, Cleveland, Tampa Bay, and perhaps even Washington D.C.

You have five seconds to comply.

This way you can separate the trash with normal citizens..

As a native Michigander, those are two cities that need to be wiped off the map. That, and the term "Michigander."

@ElizabethD: Have you ever been to Flint?

@ovalseven: Sorry. ^ That comment ended up in the wrong thread.

@mythago: In which case I think "suggesting" isn't working out. Sometimes beating around the bush doesn't work and you need a clue-by-four.

Ever been to Flint?

Yes, you are right. Detroit needs ED-209.

@dohtem: Most cities 10 miles north of 8 Mile are still pretty decent as long as you stay away from Mount Clemens.

Nah, that was just my screenplay concept. ;-)

@H3ion: Id say $500 is a pretty nominal payment for a house...the one guy is pissed becasue he got outbid, the high bid was 15k. 15k is barely a downpayment where im from.

@Jfielder23: They need to do what they did in parts of Baltimore several years ago. The city just needs to give the property away for next to nothing (enough money to cover the cost of the paperwork/deeds etc.)but require that the purchasers stay in the houses and fix them up. This will in turn revive an entire neighbiorhood, increase property assesments and increase tax revenue.

You can also work out special grants and loans for businesses to invest and improve in their businesses (which will inturn encourage growth of residental areas and increase taxes.

The truly sad part is most of the homes were once very beautiful, but after many years of neglect, they would cost far too much to rehab. Just a couple weeks ago, I tooled down East Grand to go to Belle Isle. The homes on that final stretch were majestic once upon a time, and there are a few hold outs, but for the most part it's just severe decay.

Banks with civic responsibility? (giggle)...

What detroit needs is an ED-209 to clean up the streets

@dilbert69: that's funny. heart.

This is why I hate cities. That and they smell usually.

@mythago: you failed at reading!

[www.theonion.com]

@Orv: And who don't bother to maintain the property. Then the shell corporation that bought it goes bankrupt or fails to pay taxes, the property reverts to the city, rinse and repeat.

@Chris Walters: May I suggest that I did read your post all the way through, after first reading your headline?

@cowboyesfan: I'm pretty sure people commit crimes indoors.

@dohtem: The whole's state's bleeding. The suburbs are finding out that Detroit is actually part of their economy, rather than merely something about which to make veiled racist comments.

@montusama: Except he is...but only in areas with an active volcano..like Hawaii.

As just noted, Detroit has some deals if you like to own worthless land that goes sideways in value.

I think there are parts of the Alaska frontier where you can still gain title to land just by living on it long enough...

I disagree, for me I would tear the houses done and probably put a garden there or something, so I could live where I live and not lower the land of what I bought.

How would I buy some of this "crappy" land.

My post is only two sentences long, and the second sentence is all about that. May I suggest that in the heat of piling on the Consumerist for doing something that pissed you off, you didn't bother to read the post all the way through?

Speculators ruin homes. I say Habitat for Humanity (or similar groups) can have them if they don't want to care for them.

Consumerist, in the joy of piling on for a Detroit-bashing fest, apparently didn't read all the way through the article.

The real story isn't that lots went unsold. It's that people who wanted to buy homes to live in were being outbid and pushed aside in favor of speculators. You know, like the ones who got the properties in arrears in the first place.

But he was quickly outbid. An unidentified investor at the front of the room who had scooped up several dozen properties took the home Wallace wanted for about $15,000.

@Jfielder23: The problem is that fixing the city services and infrastructure takes money...and there isn't any money.

Mind you, you couldn't pay me to live in the Detroit-area suburbs, either.

I live in the suburbs of Detroit... and until they start paying me to live there, I will certainly not be living in Detroit. The residential areas of that city (with a couple exceptions) are in general, bad news... a friend of mine lived in a "good area" of Detroit and his car still got broken into on a monthly basis. It is an absolute wasteland, and nothing is going to change until all of the crooked politicians are out of that city.... which I don't see happening anytime soon.