Why I am an old urbanist and not a new suburbanist

The burned-out, boarded-up boyhood home of Jerome Bettis stands abandoned in Detroit on Saturday, Jan. 28, 2006. The NFL's fifth-leading rusher will be the brightest star in the days leading up to the Super Bowl on Sunday, Feb. 5, 2006, because the charismatic, 13-year football veteran will likely end his career at Ford Field, about eight miles from his childhood home. (AP Photos/Carlos Osorio)

Flush with the success of their work in Mississippi, some New Urbanists have suggested doing a massive charrette system in Detroit, comparable to that of the Mississippi Renewal project. But it was suggested that a big focus be on retrofitting suburbanism.

Meanwhile the center cities, for the most part, with the exception of a handful of cities like Washington and the boroughs of Brooklyn and New York (Manhattan), maybe Chicago, are leaking population and businesses at a still furious pace.

More people commute out of Detroit daily than people commute into Detroit, which is an indicator of the centrality of the "center city" in that exceptionally de-concentrated region.

Detroit has 55 square miles of vacant land, and plenty more land that is built upon, but unoccupied.

The suburbs can wait...



Index Keywords: urban-revitalization