Re: Historic Packard Bridge Collapses

Posted by RogerDetroit On 2019/1/24 19:48:46

Hello Howard:

Yes, there are plenty of old automotive and parts supplier buildings still standing vacant in Detroit. And they are dangerous. Last week a guy fell 9 stories to his death in an open elevator shaft.https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2019/01/15/hide-and-seek-death-detroit/2581816002/

Remember this city has imploded, losing 1,200,000 people in the past few decades. Detroit is still losing 2,500 people a year. How many empty buildings would there be in your town if it lost two-thirds of its population?

The City of Detroit is screwing around with the American Motors Factoryhttps://abandonedrelics.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/amc-headquarters-in-detroit/ Even the venerable Ford Highland Park Plant is mostly vacant and looking for someone to save it. We have an oversupply of industrial buildings waiting for redevelopment or demolition.

Beside the industrial buildings, Detroit has between 44,000 and 72,000 (they cannot keep an accurate count) of vacant and blighted homes and small business buildings that should be boarded up or demolished.https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/despite-demolition-effort-blight-spreads-undetected-throughout-detroits-neighborhoods/Content?oid=17692371 Howard, do the math. It take about $20,000 to tear down a home, cart it away to an approved landfill and fill in the basement with clean dirt. So, $20,000 X 44,000 sites = $880 MILLION just to have vacant lots. The City has a goal of tearing down 8,000 homes a year, but they have fallen short of that goal the last few years.

Those This Old House episodes were aired in 2016, about a year after the City of Detroit exited Chapter 9 bankruptcy. I don't know where the City received those funds to help fix up that house. Any redevelopment activity has been centered around Woodward Avenue from downtown Detroit out to the Cultural Center just south of the old GM Headquarters. Very limited redevelopment has occurred outside of the city center.

So, for the most part, it has been wishful PR at best or outright propaganda.