eric j s p

@ZugIslander Anecdotally: 2 abandoned houses on my east side block were torn down in the last year bc the owners (neighbors) sat on them for 4-5 years and they became hazards. I don’t know how you prevent/ fix those cases. Meanwhile 3 others on my block were rehabbed in the last 2 years.

@ZugIslander Genuine question as a big appreciator of your research: who should have been on the hook for maintaining vacant/ blighted homes for years until there was market demand to buy them? The city faced awful timing in the gap between abandonment and the recent rise in demand.

“Starter homes at finisher prices.”

@ZugIslander I’d be surprised if it sells at that price. Some of the other Greatwater new builds were going for quite a bit less. New construction costs are almost at $250s sq ft. The city’s permitting/ zoning bureaucracy is broken and drives up all costs. Plus tariffs/ trades labor shortages

@PolarBarrett Parking will be added at a different area next to Butzel. 40% of Islandview is vacant or blighted. This project has income/restricted rents more affordable than any other new build. Charlevoix Villages blocking over a NIMBY fake parking grievance is outrageous.

@ericnoterik One of my regrets in leaving reporting for now is not getting to follow up on this. That loss of parking was one concern I had heard, but the nonprofit developer had proposed a few options to mitigate it, so I wonder if that assuaged most concerns. New housing can be contentious.

@PolarBarrett Have you followed up on this proposed affordable housing development? Went to the hearing yesterday and a single resident is blocking 48 units with a grievance because some surface parking at Butzel will be temporarily removed. bridgedetroit.com/will-kercheval…

@bheiligenthal @JoshLipnik How much identity did these vacant blighted lots have

@JoshLipnik This city finds a way to become identity-less more and more every day

Kind of an interesting new housing development under construction on the west side of Detroit. Looks like they’re going for a 1930s Nordic functionalism look.

@JoshLipnik I spoke with one of the architects; I believe they’re all built from modular pre-fabricated components. Some people think they look ugly, but they’re somewhat of an experiment in innovative construction techniques which can be much cheaper at scale.

An exhibit of paintings by Modernist architect Louis G. Redstone at the Detroit Waldorf School in Indian Village @JoshLipnik

@mnolangray Rich West Coast homeowner NIMBYs have the highest ratio of accidental rentier wealth to general understanding of basic finance & housing markets

mfw I was at a ramen bar in San Francisco and the older couple next to me was complaining about how their young adult kid told them that he couldn't afford to move his family back to [their North Bay suburb].

How much of a bitch do you have to be to be protesting someone who hasn’t been in office in over a year and not the guy that’s planning to build a military base in Gaza with a 10 billion dollar war chest to do God knows what.

@JoshLipnik Took these ones in 2018 or so

burned down today

@nickrmanes Manhattan? The college town in Kansas?

Saw a Facebook Marketplace listing for an apartment described as "Manhattan style apartment living." The apartment is in Clinton Township

@JoshLipnik Tavern style is also not good

Whenever people make fun of deep dish Chicagoans have to remind you they also have another subpar pizza style

@DE_Gifford @UrbanCourtyard The city needs to stop appeasing undemocratic NIMBY groups

@UrbanCourtyard Oh I know, its current residents who get upset when new developments get built. They fear they will get displaced.

The Detroit–Warren–Dearborn metro area has about 4.4 million residents, yet fewer than 700,000 live within the city of Detroit itself. The overwhelming majority of the region’s population resides in auto-oriented suburbs. There is a credible path to re-urbanizing a meaningful share of that suburban population, but it would require building urban neighborhoods in a form Detroit has largely never produced at scale. Specifically: --High residential density, sufficient to support retail, transit, and schools Large, family-capable units (the equivalent of suburban “big houses”) -Protected private outdoor space (yards, terraces, or ground-floor gardens) -Shared public space of real quality and enclosure (In other words, not small apartments in traffic-dominated corridors, and not megaslab multifamily blocks, but dense, perimeter-based neighborhoods that deliver both urban convenience and domestic amenity.) If Detroit can offer families urban proximity plus quality space, rather than forcing a trade-off between the two, middle class will return. Many millennials and younger are disenchanted with suburbia, want something walkable and connected and urbane

@DE_Gifford @UrbanCourtyard There are so many vacant lots and undemocratic neighborhood groups still oppose any new construction with NIMBY arguments. It’s absolutely asinine & backwards. The city is just getting around to changing zoning rules for multi units and possibly ADUs.

@UrbanCourtyard Only ideas the city has had are building solar fields on empty lots & selling off side lots to residents. Rebuilding Detroit is touchy because building new housing is viewed with hostility as gentrification. How do you rebuild an area without displacing residents?

@2024dion Land Value Tax would help.

The problem with data centers or logistics or large scale urban ag is that blocks empty out unevenly and rarely completely, so you'd have to do land acquisitions to build anything big. It's been done in a few places but is expensive, typically unpopular locally, and very time consuming. Solar works much better because it can be done modularly one lot at a time, but even then it's more expensive to maintain than greenfield solar farms (and Michigan's climate isn't ideal for solar in any case). Most of this land is quite likely to still be vacant in 100 years, tbh. x.com/Atomic_Ferret/…

What is the future of urban neighborhoods like this one? It is genuinely hard to imagine. The population just keeps dropping until no one is left? Brightmoor, Detroit

@JoshLipnik Some film photos I took a few months back

Eastern Market Detroit, MI

@TonyWellin66170 @JoshLipnik Most of the SC Johnson desk chairs notoriously had 3 legs, and the employees would often tip over in the chairs. FLW accused them of “sitting incorrectly” and refused to send different chairs.

@ericnoterik @JoshLipnik Thats what it Is

Come see me in Chicago on February 21, 4pm at Mouse Arts & Letters Club. I’ll be giving a presentation on modern design in West Michigan.

@JoshLipnik Used to be McGuire’s Motel, I lived down the street for a period as a teen. Sturgill Simpson recorded his album “Sound & Fury” inside one of the motel rooms.

Cass Lake Hotel Waterford, MI