Hayward

Sure.......nothing to take photos of

Are you thinking of the area near that Distillery? No. Walk up and down Jarvis not Kalamazoo-esque. What bookstore? Across from Berczy park? There one really good one with tons of architecture books, and there's another shady used one down the street. Hip and trendy!

Precisely. Good leadership, innovative thinking, and investment in civic structures, museums, parks etc. are key to keeping people around. You want people to try and stick around, even when the job market is rough. I know some people who haven't found jobs yet and refuse to leave Grand Rapids no matter what, just because it's a nice place to live.

I was talking about the area around Lawrence Market

Great thread rob! Shay seems to be a popular name around Saginaw for families and businesses and such. Perhaps somehow related?

Yeah, all the lawn chairs near the HVAC was classic.

Really? I get that impression of about 95% of US cities. I'll admit there's a lot of glass and concrete, but there's a lot of grit and really old architecture mixed within. Where's the Old City shots Chris?

At my last job, one of my friends was in a hurry and didn't want to wait in line. We allow customers to put cash on the counter and walk out if they choose not to wait. But he said he only had a credit card, so what does he do? He gives me a post-it note with $1 written on it. Basically, I said "if you don't make up for this at your next sale, you are banned!!!"

Oh man I hear you on that. Looks it will be part time work for me for awhile in this region (though I've found some good full time leads out on the East and West coasts). I do disagree that these cities will shrink into ghost towns. We really can't accurately predict a future for rust belt cities, and there will always be people living in the Toledo and Detroit regions. It's just a matter of downtowns reshaping themselves as a center of commerce, and offering incentives for businesses (what are left) to concentrate there. The growth models for Detroit 2045 don't show further decline of the city below 700,000 residents. That's even after it is assumed the Automakers and their suppliers go completely out of business. I believe it. Take a town like Saginaw, MI where during the 70's they began to automate all the plants with robots, and began staffing some factories with cheaper labor. The East Side of the city pretty much collapsed, but the West side continued along as if nothing ever happened. People are starting to buy up these cheap homes on the East side, and moving back in. Saginaw is struggling, but it's not in crisis. This recession has no doubt had an impact in the number of workers downtown, but they'll rebound as the economy improves. These next few decades are about to get really interesting in the field of planning. Medium sized cities similar to Toledo are beginning to embrace this concept of reconcentrating populations to provide them better services and housing. It's a reaction against "the ghost town" phenomenon where there is islanding of occupied housing amongst swaths of abandonment.

Hmmm, last time I checked that was early 2008 before the economy got nasty. Alot of Bishop's pull came with adding additional airliners with non-stop flights. They actually took customers away from DTW because there were less hassles and short security lines. Even after they rebuilt the airport, it was already too small, they had construct new concourse space only a few years after. Flint's airport success is largely due to locational reasons. It's like, for example, a regional mall opening in a medium sized city surrounded by sparse populated areas 100 miles in each direction. No matter what, the mall is a success because there's no competition and everyone if forced to shop at it.

I don't think I've done a workout like that since high school. Being on the football team, we were required to stick to a strict workout during the off season. I miss those days when membership was FREE. So I finally did it the other day. I rode from Ann Arbor to Detroit. Downtown to downtown. It definitely deserves a photo tour if I can bring a small point and shoot next time. The most difficult part is that 2/3 of the trip is entirely urbanized. The rest involves riding on bike paths and road shoulders. My arms were pulsing because at least 2 hours were spent riding on sidewalks. The route had a lot of factories along it and it appears back when there were more people employed, automakers poured incredibly wide sidewalks leading to out-lot parking. So I was at least able to travel fast through some of the western suburbs despite being off the road.

I'm actually shocked they chose Lansing over Flint. Flint's Bishop Int'l is one of the fast growing airports in the nation

It's kind of interesting when you get out and grow up and start paying for things yourself. You rarely argue with the parents.

Good to see you found that. I discovered that trick too back in arch school. MPOs and CDCs are always protective of their data yet they don't train their employees properly to flatten their maps and layers prior to putting them out to the public. I was capable in a lot of my planning projects to retrieve data by using illustrator, and then dumping them into ArcGIS. I'm surprised you got the map down to 25 MB. I have a street map of just the city of Detroit converted from ArcGIS format to AutoCAD 2009 .dxf. It's 80 MB, but I think that's because the streets are actually drawn out as parallel lines with curb corners and everything.

Lately my hangouts have been few as I wait for a new job and try to spend less. I still go to my favorite bar in Ann Arbor, which is Ashley's They have hundreds of different types of imported beer from all over the world. Since I'm studying for the LEED NC exam, I hit up Sweetwaters in Ann Arbor's Kerrytown. Really good coffee, great people there, and comfortable.

Dan, I think my parents were in the same boat back when I was 18 and went to a party that served alcohol. The graduate lived on a large estate set way back from the road. There was to be a bonfire, plenty of beer, and attendees were forced to hand over keys to gain access to a barn where all the alcohol was. People were allowed to stay overnight at the house, and the family kept the guys in the basement and the girls on the second floor. There were a few designated drivers for anyone who chose to leave, and I did end up drinking that night, though I didn't get drunk. It was the first time ever drank openly at a party. Nothing bad happened that night, so there were never any complaints. At the time I felt there was nothing wrong with this party. Now 7 years later, I might think differently. I think it's too risky, and I don't think alcoholic beverages are appropriate for a high school graduation. They have plenty of time to drink when they get off to college whether parents like it or not. And if the law slaps them in the face, they deal with the consequences themselves. I think the venue is a bad choice if these types of beverages are served. I think this party in particular will no doubt be popular, and if a park official or officer were to pass on through during normal patrols, a bunch of teens near alcohol will be suspect. I'm sure your daughter would be quite angry if you didn't let her go. I'm only 25, yet I think if I had a kid I probably wouldn't let them go to this. If you do, you'd have to make sure she does not take a single drink of alcohol. I hope you have a lot of trust.

Oh wow, quite the contrast. Really nice work!

What's so overrated about Billings? I thought it was quite nice.

That looks like a place asking to be urbexed. Those home all look in good shape. I'll admit, if you could fill all those units with retirees, it may not be all that bad of a place to live.

Can't find photos of the new church, but a different church which owns that property is in a low 60's building with a neon cross on it....so you can already judge. Church 'n the mall - wow. Dixie Square of Harvey, IL should have thought of that.

Great video on the old Motown Headquarters. The city demolished the twin-building structure prior to the superbowl to make way for two dozen parking spaces. Days before demo, a group of people sledge hammered down a bricked up door at the back of the building drawing numerous explorers to the opened buidling to remove many valuable documents. The building was so hastily demolished, contents from offices scattered about along Woodward and across I-75. http://freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=videonetwork&videoID=1130560005

Yeah it was pretty interesting. Today I finally made the whole trip, from downtown Ann Arbor, to campus martius in downtown Detroit. I couldn't believe all the different types of cities and suburbs I hit. I really should photograph it sometime. The ride TO Detroit is not bad at all. Despite being 36 miles, the wind blows you the whole way there. I had to stop about 4 times for water, but it took me about 3.5 hours. I think any average cyclist could do this journey fairly easily. Going from Detroit to Ann Arbor may be more difficult though because of the wind direction.

Yeah, I've seen them become nightclubs, doctors offices, architecture firms, and even condos, but sometimes those purposes don't fit so well with the surroundings (such as this one). I just find it tragic since I believe they are a very important part of American architectural history.

http://www.mlive.com/living/saginaw/index.ssf/2009/05/wrecking_crew_tears_down_99yea.html#more This stuff is so painful to hear about. A beautiful century old church demolished for parking. There was very little hope for this structure as far as rehab opportunities being in a very high crime neighborhood, slightly fire damaged, and with most churches relocating out of the cities. But it was one of the oldest and most interesting structures surviving in the neighborhood. I think this is pretty much happening everywhere. Congregations are swapping these landmarks for metal sheds or warehouses in the suburbs (literally in some cases moving to recently vacated industrial facilities or big box stores).

Indy is still a city I have not spent a lot of time in. I really need to check it out.