Quote:
Originally Posted by john70t
I always believed in the concept that metropolitan hubs expanded more and more out into the suburbs until the maximum travel time/density limiter was bumped against.
-During this time the downtown would suffer.
-Eventually the exodus wave would start reversing, and it would again became fasionable to work closer to whatever the draw of the "big-city downtown" was: offices, manufacturing, universitys, ports, transportation hub, rivers, whatever...
In Detroit's case they were faced with international labor and tax advantages, high medical costs, myopic unions, cancerous corruption on all levels, racial contentions, and an extra large tablespoon of apathetic stupid in every glass.
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This was the way it was in the New York city area...everyone was fleeing the hostile and expensive city to go live in the suburbs. You remember...the bad old days back when they made films about New York like
The Warriors and
Escape From New York
The came Rudy Guiliani
He concentrated on quality of life issues: Get the hobos off the street, jail the muggers, no graffiti,don't cater to fringe political groups, instead cater to businesses, give sales tax holidays...and what do you know? Suddenly New York became a GREAT place to live.
Cities that emulated this prospered, those that didn't suffered.