Terminal Rear.jpg

[labrujah]

Terminal Rear.jpg, originally uploaded by Reversible Skirt.

A great article from Harper's on the ruins of Detroit - Fordism, the blackest city in America, casinos, urban farming. I was amazed to hear that 1/5th of households in Detroit do not have a car! There is a peoplemover train downtown which we just assumed nobody ever rode except maybe tourists. It doesn't seem to go very far.

A good analysis of the shrinking of Buffalo, too.

Comments

[comfortslut.livejournal.com]

The article about Buffalo is really interesting. Especially the author's conclusion about "shrinking to greatness," which given the level of outside interest and private sector development that's hit in the last year (4 billion compared to 100 million over the last ten years combined), it's evident that somebody is betting on that strategy. This guy Bashar Issa has been sinking a tremendous amount of cash into downtown lately. His last playground was Manchester, England. It remains to be seen if he has the same impact here.

[labrujah.livejournal.com]

What is he investing in? real estate? or building something in particular?

[comfortslut.livejournal.com]

Both. He bought the Stadtler Towers, which is a landmark and was a bargain and he's pretty serious about renovating and updating the entire building, turning it back into class A office space. The other thing he's got going is a brand new building, gorgeous, that's already got 30% rental commitment. They break ground when it's 35%. If they hit fifty before they break ground, plans will go into effect for another one. Everybody's waiting to see what's going to happen. The other nice thing is that Buff State is building a brand new museum for the Burchfield Penney and it's going to be pretty impressive, if not all that pretty. I don't know, I think there's stuff brewing, but it's not what anyone who's from here had in mind...