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First off, my apologies as I feel like I'm insulting your home here, and I don't mean to, I really do love it so far - but I think this has been one of my biggest surprises and possibly biggest complaint about the region. It's not terribly aestheticly pleasing. I'm wondering if this is an effect of years of economic decline or if this is just how it's always been.
I don't mean just places like run down parts of Davison Street or the industrial parts of Schoolcraft, every city has those places, but like... the whole metro just feels a bit like people cared only for function and little for aesthetics. Even somewhat niceish areas like Plymouth or Rochester Hills have a pretty grungy feeling to them. Overhead powerlines, street signs tipping over, busted up roads, old brick buildings that haven't been taken care of and shopping areas which are basically just blocks on concrete. Then you have the older downtowns near where I live that just... feel... haphazardly put together. Downtown Royal Oak is fun and great, but some of the structures look like someone picked them up from Schoolcraft and set them in place by the new restaurant. Then you've got the strip malls all along main roads in what I understand to be nice towns like Troy or Livonia that look like they've not changed in 40 years. The town I came from was about the Salt Lake Metro equivalent to Warren, but most of it looked nicer than Troy. (It wasn't, schools were awful, crime was moderately high, there were landfills and smelly industry nearby, but from a completely shallow perspective of judging a book by its cover, it looked nice. Buildings were kept up, power lines were buried, roads were repaired, public spaces had cut grass, things like that.)
There are places which are absolutely beautiful and stunning. What I've seen of Birmingham looks like Zeus would feel at home there. Some of the newer subdivisions that I've seen in Macomb or Novi are beautiful, but I can't help but feel that the majority of the metro kind of put function waaayy above beauty on the list of priorities and in all reality I'll never spend much time in places like Birmingham, due to the income restrictions of working in the field I love and not the field that loves to pay, heh.
But I'm curious, has it always been this way? Do Michiganders prefer it? Is the rest of the midwest the same way? (What I saw of Davenport, the South Chicago burbs and Gary along I-80 looked similar)
First off, my apologies as I feel like I'm insulting your home here, and I don't mean to, I really do love it so far - but I think this has been one of my biggest surprises and possibly biggest complaint about the region. It's not terribly aestheticly pleasing. I'm wondering if this is an effect of years of economic decline or if this is just how it's always been.
I don't mean just places like run down parts of Davison Street or the industrial parts of Schoolcraft, every city has those places, but like... the whole metro just feels a bit like people cared only for function and little for aesthetics. Even somewhat niceish areas like Plymouth or Rochester Hills have a pretty grungy feeling to them. Overhead powerlines, street signs tipping over, busted up roads, old brick buildings that haven't been taken care of and shopping areas which are basically just blocks on concrete. Then you have the older downtowns near where I live that just... feel... haphazardly put together. Downtown Royal Oak is fun and great, but some of the structures look like someone picked them up from Schoolcraft and set them in place by the new restaurant. Then you've got the strip malls all along main roads in what I understand to be nice towns like Troy or Livonia that look like they've not changed in 40 years. The town I came from was about the Salt Lake Metro equivalent to Warren, but most of it looked nicer than Troy. (It wasn't, schools were awful, crime was moderately high, there were landfills and smelly industry nearby, but from a completely shallow perspective of judging a book by its cover, it looked nice. Buildings were kept up, power lines were buried, roads were repaired, public spaces had cut grass, things like that.)
There are places which are absolutely beautiful and stunning. What I've seen of Birmingham looks like Zeus would feel at home there. Some of the newer subdivisions that I've seen in Macomb or Novi are beautiful, but I can't help but feel that the majority of the metro kind of put function waaayy above beauty on the list of priorities and in all reality I'll never spend much time in places like Birmingham, due to the income restrictions of working in the field I love and not the field that loves to pay, heh.
But I'm curious, has it always been this way? Do Michiganders prefer it? Is the rest of the midwest the same way? (What I saw of Davenport, the South Chicago burbs and Gary along I-80 looked similar)
Southeast Michigan including its suburbs has suffered a decades long population decline, as well as declining property assessed values which affects tax revenue which affects infrastructure upkeep. Overhead powerlines are fairly present in the older burbs because those communities are older than most Salt Lake City suburbs. The cost to bury utilities is way more expensive than most people think and most municipalities cannot afford to do it.
Salt Lake City on the other hand did not experience a population decline.
We have a union mentality ingrained in our culture that tells us if we do things ourselves - we're taking away the job from someone else.
For example, we don't clean up litter because if we were to pick up after ourselves - there would be no jobs for the people who pick up litter (who rarely do it). It drives me crazy - but drive down any freeway or street and you'll see the effects of that mentality.
I can't beleive I forgot to mention that. I am astonished at the volume of Big Mac wrappers and coke bottles just... everywhere! Yesterday I watched a trash truck pick up a canister to dump it and, largely due to poor design of the truck's lifting mechanism, trash went everywhere. The driver thought nothing of it, set the can down, drove off. Granted this was an industrial area of Redford, but still.. I was really surprised by it and how nobody around seemed to care. Edit: As I thought more about it, the litter tends to really only be an issue on highways and in industrial areas, which I just happen to frequent for my job. In most communities the residential public areas are typically free of litter from what I've seen. Sorry, I didn't want to paint an unrealistic picture to anyone who may read this later on. (End of edit)
The metro has experienced population stagnation. I definitely see that in the stats which show metro population at 4.0 million in 1960 and 4.2 million in 2010, but does the lack of new people somehow feed into a mentality of, "Yeah, we don't care how our stuff looks?" It's new to me as I've always lived in areas with growing populations (Los Angeles and Salt Lake regions). I suppose a decreasing median wage probably plays significantly into that, but median wages have been flat (or down) all over for about two decades now. Also, from what I've seen people outside of Detroit itself don't exactly seem to be hurting for money, here in 2016. Lots of new cars on the roads, private residence updates all over, and the parking lots at retail stores are always packed.
Last edited by Geo-Aggie; 01-29-2016 at 10:35 AM..
Reason: To clarify my litter remark
Southeast Michigan including its suburbs has suffered a decades long population decline...
That is simply not true. What southeast Michigan has experienced has been a population SHIFT. For decades, due to a host of reasons including federal and state subsidies for developers, we have encouraged urban sprawl to the detriment of established, inner communities. The City of Detroit has not been the only city to suffer, although the impacts have been most profound on Detroit.
I have to agree with the OP. Even though I've lived here all my life, southeast Michigan is generally a rather ugly area.
We have a union mentality ingrained in our culture that tells us if we do things ourselves - we're taking away the job from someone else.
For example, we don't clean up litter because if we were to pick up after ourselves - there would be no jobs for the people who pick up litter (who rarely do it). It drives me crazy - but drive down any freeway or street and you'll see the effects of that mentality.
We love to litter!!
I'm no union fan, but that's simply BS. What I've never understood is why we don't require people who receive welfare to at least do some work, even if it's only picking up litter. If we had such a requirement, we'd have some of the cleanest cities in the country!
First off, my apologies as I feel like I'm insulting your home here, and I don't mean to, I really do love it so far - but I think this has been one of my biggest surprises and possibly biggest complaint about the region. It's not terribly aestheticly pleasing. I'm wondering if this is an effect of years of economic decline or if this is just how it's always been.
I don't mean just places like run down parts of Davison Street or the industrial parts of Schoolcraft, every city has those places, but like... the whole metro just feels a bit like people cared only for function and little for aesthetics. Even somewhat niceish areas like Plymouth or Rochester Hills have a pretty grungy feeling to them. Overhead powerlines, street signs tipping over, busted up roads, old brick buildings that haven't been taken care of and shopping areas which are basically just blocks on concrete. Then you have the older downtowns near where I live that just... feel... haphazardly put together. Downtown Royal Oak is fun and great, but some of the structures look like someone picked them up from Schoolcraft and set them in place by the new restaurant. Then you've got the strip malls all along main roads in what I understand to be nice towns like Troy or Livonia that look like they've not changed in 40 years. The town I came from was about the Salt Lake Metro equivalent to Warren, but most of it looked nicer than Troy. (It wasn't, schools were awful, crime was moderately high, there were landfills and smelly industry nearby, but from a completely shallow perspective of judging a book by its cover, it looked nice. Buildings were kept up, power lines were buried, roads were repaired, public spaces had cut grass, things like that.)
There are places which are absolutely beautiful and stunning. What I've seen of Birmingham looks like Zeus would feel at home there. Some of the newer subdivisions that I've seen in Macomb or Novi are beautiful, but I can't help but feel that the majority of the metro kind of put function waaayy above beauty on the list of priorities and in all reality I'll never spend much time in places like Birmingham, due to the income restrictions of working in the field I love and not the field that loves to pay, heh.
But I'm curious, has it always been this way? Do Michiganders prefer it? Is the rest of the midwest the same way? (What I saw of Davenport, the South Chicago burbs and Gary along I-80 looked similar)
As a life-long resident of Southeast Michigan, but also have traveled to and spent significant time in other areas of the country, I do tend to agree with the sentiment expressed by the original poster. Vast swaths of Southeastern Michigan are visually unattractive, have deteriorating and/or functionally obsolete infrastructure, or have outdating mindset of urban planning or zoning from decades ago.
I do agree, a large area of City of Detroit, inner-ring suburbs, and even some of the newer sprawl suburbs just lack a lot of visual appeal or are representative of our throw-away culture.
Now, I will say there are other areas of the country that also look this way too, its not just a Detroit thing. Areas of suburban Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, parts of NYC, suburban Los Angeles, suburban Phoenix, older parts of Denver all kind of have the tired,dated,worn-out look. Much of the building styles, architecture, infrastructure, and urban planning from the 1950s-1980s has not aged well over time.
Now, that being said, Metro Detroit is showing at about its worst this time of the year. Wintertime, without snow cover is always looking rather brown, bleak, dirty, gray, and wet. When the snow melts there is always more litter and trash blowing around that was buried in melting snow piles and the road crews aren't out picking up trash or street sweeping this time of the year. The trees lack leaves which really shows the overhead power lines and clutter more. It always looks better when things are greener, with fall colors, or with a nice fresh snow cover.
First off, my apologies as I feel like I'm insulting your home here, and I don't mean to, I really do love it so far - but I think this has been one of my biggest surprises and possibly biggest complaint about the region. It's not terribly aestheticly pleasing. I'm wondering if this is an effect of years of economic decline or if this is just how it's always been.
I don't mean just places like run down parts of Davison Street or the industrial parts of Schoolcraft, every city has those places, but like... the whole metro just feels a bit like people cared only for function and little for aesthetics. Even somewhat niceish areas like Plymouth or Rochester Hills have a pretty grungy feeling to them. Overhead powerlines, street signs tipping over, busted up roads, old brick buildings that haven't been taken care of and shopping areas which are basically just blocks on concrete. Then you have the older downtowns near where I live that just... feel... haphazardly put together. Downtown Royal Oak is fun and great, but some of the structures look like someone picked them up from Schoolcraft and set them in place by the new restaurant. Then you've got the strip malls all along main roads in what I understand to be nice towns like Troy or Livonia that look like they've not changed in 40 years. The town I came from was about the Salt Lake Metro equivalent to Warren, but most of it looked nicer than Troy. (It wasn't, schools were awful, crime was moderately high, there were landfills and smelly industry nearby, but from a completely shallow perspective of judging a book by its cover, it looked nice. Buildings were kept up, power lines were buried, roads were repaired, public spaces had cut grass, things like that.)
There are places which are absolutely beautiful and stunning. What I've seen of Birmingham looks like Zeus would feel at home there. Some of the newer subdivisions that I've seen in Macomb or Novi are beautiful, but I can't help but feel that the majority of the metro kind of put function waaayy above beauty on the list of priorities and in all reality I'll never spend much time in places like Birmingham, due to the income restrictions of working in the field I love and not the field that loves to pay, heh.
But I'm curious, has it always been this way? Do Michiganders prefer it? Is the rest of the midwest the same way? (What I saw of Davenport, the South Chicago burbs and Gary along I-80 looked similar)
I can only imagine how you might characterize El Camino Real through the San Carlos - San Mateo strip.
I don't think it has anything to do with the mentality of the people and the population has been fairly stagnant every decade except this last decade. I think most of has to do with the leadership, in which I think alot of our leadership is money hungry and cater to rich fat cats and could give 2 sh*ts about the "beauty" of their infrastructure. Michigan infrastructure, especially the roads are **** poor. What I think you should do is email a few local politicians about the matter, that would be a good idea. Some of it, like many other older big cities however is sort of our of their control. Some of the stuff truly is just, old. Warren for example is pretty old I think and on top of that, industrial.
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