Challenge: Keep Detroit from Dying

[Hörnla]

As a European I have to add the un-American thought that while one might argue about the overall effectivity of large-scale federal tax-money transfers / resp. large scale support for introduction of other industries...once Detroit becomes eligible for such, it should give the city enough shots to slow down its death process.

At least tear down the most hideous industrial ruins and turn them into parks...
While the Ruhrgebiet, in whose vicinity I live, is in large parts not a nice place, still, such measures kept it from totally falling apart when coal- and steel industries faded.

[FDW]

Originally Posted by BigWillyG

Having just small town and rural people embrace the car en mass is still going to produce the sort of market which will feed healthy growth for car companies and might encourage suburb growth and a universal car culture despite more mass transit.

No it probably wouldn't. The suburban explosion of OTL was very much something that was government supported. Car Culture didn't really start to grow in the cities until the mass transit systems were completely ripped out.

[BigWillyG]

Originally Posted by FDW

No it probably wouldn't. The suburban explosion of OTL was very much something that was government supported. Car Culture didn't really start to grow in the cities until the mass transit systems were completely ripped out.

Are you sure, even '20s-'30s era footage of very car unfriendly and mass transit heavy NYC shows massive numbers of cars and trucks? It may not have had the Car Culture but it still had tons of personal vehicles. IOTL government was involved in roads and stopped supporting trollies in favor of bus systems for mass transit in major cities but I don't feel it's needed to make an ATL equivalent happen. Especially since the first big rise of Car Culture starts in the '20s while the old mass transit systems (trolleys, etc.) are still in place and before the massive growth of government power and economic involvement in the '30s and '40s.

[BigWillyG]

Originally Posted by Hörnla

At least tear down the most hideous industrial ruins and turn them into parks...

Would that fit the OP though? Seems like Detroit would already be a mess at that point and we just create a nicer looking mess.

[FDW]

Originally Posted by BigWillyG

Are you sure, even '20s-'30s era footage of very car unfriendly and mass transit heavy NYC shows massive numbers of cars and trucks? It may not have had the Car Culture but it still had tons of personal vehicles. IOTL government was involved in roads and stopped supporting trollies in favor of bus systems for mass transit in major cities but I don't feel it's needed to make an ATL equivalent happen. Especially since the first big rise of Car Culture starts in the '20s while the old mass transit systems (trolleys, etc.) are still in place and before the massive growth of government power and economic involvement in the '30s and '40s.

Oh sure, Car Culture started to emerge in the 20's, but most people in the major cities continued to primarily use Mass Transit until the late 40's OTL. I should point that most Transit systems in the US had a fair amount of investment put into them during the roaring 20's, but didn't get the ridership expected because of the difficult conditions of the depression (which also led to a lack of capital needed to keep the systems in good working order, and led to the abandonment of the systems that get that investment in the 1920's), and WWII made things even worse by further drying the pool of capital for repair while causing record use, which left most systems near-wrecks by the end of the war.

If you don't have the Second World War, then TTL's 1940's will see a lot more investment in Mass Transit than OTL, combined with some consolidation (Merging companies and getting rid of parallel lines) and contraction. While roads would certainly get some investment, it probably wouldn't be on the scale of OTL, and the result would be healthier, more advanced Mass Transit systems that are to continue to compete with cars.

[BigWillyG]

Originally Posted by FDW

Oh sure, Car Culture started to emerge in the 20's, but most people in the major cities continued to primarily use Mass Transit until the late 40's OTL. I should point that most Transit systems in the US had a fair amount of investment put into them during the roaring 20's, but didn't get the ridership expected because of the difficult conditions of the depression (which also led to a lack of capital needed to keep the systems in good working order, and led to the abandonment of the systems that get that investment in the 1920's), and WWII made things even worse by further drying the pool of capital for repair while causing record use, which left most systems near-wrecks by the end of the war.

If you don't have the Second World War, then TTL's 1940's will see a lot more investment in Mass Transit than OTL, combined with some consolidation (Merging companies and getting rid of parallel lines) and contraction. While roads would certainly get some investment, it probably wouldn't be on the scale of OTL, and the result would be healthier, more advanced Mass Transit systems that are to continue to compete with cars.

I'm not sure, especially if we avoid WWII (which may require no Great Depression) and the resultant government growth wouldn't we just see the '20s Car Culture continue to grow in parallel with mass transit? I could see more major cities being mass transit heavy like NYC IOTL but you still have a huge part of the US population not living in major urban areas even before the '50s suburb boom. Even if the public funds that went to roads, highways, etc. IOTL go to mass transit you still have Car Culture growth just in a different style. The Model T era car were designed with limited roads in mind and had rough road/off road capability that's respectable today. I could see TTL seeing that trend in car design continue rather than the sedans/boats of OTL '50s being created.

[FDW]

Originally Posted by BigWillyG

I'm not sure, especially if we avoid WWII (which may require no Great Depression) and the resultant government growth wouldn't we just see the '20s Car Culture continue to grow in parallel with mass transit? I could see more major cities being mass transit heavy like NYC IOTL but you still have a huge part of the US population not living in major urban areas even before the '50s suburb boom. Even if the public funds that went to roads, highways, etc. IOTL go to mass transit you still have Car Culture growth just in a different style. The Model T era car were designed with limited roads in mind and had rough road/off road capability that's respectable today. I could see TTL seeing that trend in car design continue rather than the sedans/boats of OTL '50s being created.

I should also point out that by that time, a majority of Americans were living in cities. Also, you're generally ignoring the great interurban systems that existed during this time, practically covering every inch of many parts of the Northern States. So, while the more rural South would see a car culture arise, the North would probably use public transit to a large degree even in rural areas. (At the ones that had extensive interurban networks, certainly the case in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and much of New England)

[zippy]

Originally Posted by BigWillyG

Are you sure, even '20s-'30s era footage of very car unfriendly and mass transit heavy NYC shows massive numbers of cars and trucks? It may not have had the Car Culture but it still had tons of personal vehicles. IOTL government was involved in roads and stopped supporting trollies in favor of bus systems for mass transit in major cities but I don't feel it's needed to make an ATL equivalent happen. Especially since the first big rise of Car Culture starts in the '20s while the old mass transit systems (trolleys, etc.) are still in place and before the massive growth of government power and economic involvement in the '30s and '40s.

the ATL could be a PoD that sees a London Style ' New york passenger transport board' put in place during the 1920s or 30 and the development of public transport follwing London type paradigms ..

[BigWillyG]

Originally Posted by FDW

I should also point out that by that time, a majority of Americans were living in cities. Also, you're generally ignoring the great interurban systems that existed during this time, practically covering every inch of many parts of the Northern States. So, while the more rural South would see a car culture arise, the North would probably use public transit to a large degree even in rural areas. (At the ones that had extensive interurban networks, certainly the case in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and much of New England)

Wouldn't the West have a Car Culture on top of the South? I could see these inter-urban systems being huge in the Northeast, Greater Chicago and Pacific coast while the Car Culture becomes dominant in the rest of the country, kinda like NASCAR popularity IOTL. Also didn't the airplane have as much to do with killing the interurban rail lines as cars and highways?

[BigWillyG]

Originally Posted by zippy

the ATL could be a PoD that sees a London Style ' New york passenger transport board' put in place during the 1920s or 30 and the development of public transport follwing London type paradigms ..

What would a passenger transport board do? I've never heard of it.

[TheMann]

Originally Posted by FDW

It depends on the type of people who get into office, I mean despite FDR's prestige in the present day, it was still rather touch and go during his time in the 1930's. If he hadn't tried to roll back the New Deal after 1937, unemployment numbers might've continued dropping down, reaching maybe 10% by 1940. And abroad, the rise of Stalin in the Soviet Union, Militarism in Japan, and Nazism in Germany were hardly a sure thing in the 1920's, and it wouldn't be especially difficult to butterfly all those in a manner that leaves the 1940's peaceful.

You have to butterfly away the Treaty of Versailles to get rid of Hitler or somebody like him, and Japan's militarism was a consequence of their demand for raw materials and the fact that they were not keen on being dictated to by other nations. Stalin can be butterflied away, but the other two are rather hard, and while getting rid of Hitler isn't hard, that won't stop the problems that Versailles added to Germany and the resentment it caused.

Originally Posted by FDW

I've never said anything about stopping suburbanization, just slowing it down and changing it's character without the billions of dollars in subsidies and capital that caused the boom OTL.

In favor of what, though? America's attempts at building high-rises to provide modern housing in their cities were at the very least not sky-high successes (In New York, for example) at worst, with places like Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis and the Cabrini-Green and Robert Taylor Homes projects of Chicago, outright disasters that turned rough neighborhoods into outright shitholes. Yes, more money poured into these areas will reduce problems, but especially with desegregation looming, there are gonna be problems in these cities. Population growth will force expansions, but even if you try to have more people live in the cities, what happened at Pruitt-Igoe and Cabrini-Green and the Robert Taylor Homes is gonna cause big turnoffs by the early to mid 1960s, and more people will want single family homes, which means sprawl begins all over again.

From a social and civil engineering perspective, higher-density neighborhoods have many advantages, but trying to get that in post-war America is extremely hard, as you'll find the government battling the wants of the people and many developers, as well as builders like Moses. Beating all of that would require vast mass transit systems making it possible for people to get where they want to go quickly and easily and at any time they wish, which is expensive and probably not feasible, even if you gave many of the transit companies enormous power in the post-war era.

A better idea might be for the civil rights movement to happen but with many people choosing to not abandon the neighborhoods they've lived in all their lives, and this causing comfortably integrated neighborhoods by the early 1970s, followed by an energy crisis that lasts longer and has a harder hit on the American psyche, to the point that the car-oriented lifestyle of the suburbs seems less desirable than the denser neighborhoods of the cities. The broken windows theory comes fifteen years earlier, and is widely used in several American cities. While projects like Pruitt-Igoe and the Chicago projects are still messes, the combination of broken-windows policing strategies and active residents leads to major cleanups of neighborhoods in many American cities. Combined with what I said earlier about keeping America's middle class strong, and you can by the 1980s see the movement into the suburbs reversed, with people wanting to raise children in the more walkable, cosmopolitan neighborhoods of the cities themselves, causing large sections of old suburbs to be torn down or redeveloped in the 1990s and 2000s.

Originally Posted by FDW

BULLSHIT. And I'll say it again BULLSHIT. It's all about the amount of support cities were willing to give, which was very little until the past 40 years.

First, Los Angeles is actually a very dense city, it just has a shitload of parkland and low-density areas within city limits than deflates it's density somewhat (Several of the cities neighboring LA are better indicators of LA's density than LA's average, the metro area as a whole is also surprisingly dense). Secondly, while it's geography is inferior to cities like San Francisco and New York in favorability to transit, it does a fair number of geographic "pinch points" that give boosts to Public Transit, and it's Downtown has the fortune of sitting of sitting at the exact center of the metro area, with nearly all major corridors feeding into it. Thirdly, LA had a tremendous mass transit system in the form of the Red and Yellow cars that could've very survived had they not been brought under control of people who sought to dismantle them, and with them, LA could've easily had transit ridership several times that of OTL.

All of that is very true (about the denser portions, that is - most of the Sunset, Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevard regions are quite dense), but Los Angeles is still a very, very spread out city, you can drive for hours there and not leave the city there, and as a result its car usage is still going to end being very high, even if you do massively increase its mass transit usage. (I lived there for four years, man, and I took the subways lots of times, but the city is not mass transit friendly.) Even if you kept the Pacific Electric system and built subways and heavy rail to complement them, you will still never get to 25% of trips done by mass transit. You might get 10-15%, which would still make for a public service that very easily covers its costs or a quite profitable private business, but you will still have a pile of cars on the road in Los Angeles. Population growth in Los Angeles also works against the anti-sprawl idea - LA's population more than doubled between 1920 and 1930, and it kept on going after that - the city itself grew from 577,000 in 1920 to 1,970,000 in 1950 to 2,967,000 in 1980, and that's just the city of Los Angeles, not counting the explosive growth in the cities between Long Beach and the city center (Torrance, Compton, Inglewood, Marina del Rey, Redondo Beach, Lakewood) and the cities around the city of Los Angeles itself (Pasadena, Glendale, Santa Monica, Santa Clarita, Downey) and the inland empire communities (Ontario, Riverside, Pomona, West Covina) or Orange County. The idea packing all of these closer to downtown LA goes against the very idea of what California was to many of those who went there during the 20th Century. Yes, you can get the PE to serve most of these places, and you could get Southern Pacific Lines and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe to provide commuter rail service to most of these areas, but that won't stop the car culture and it won't stop the suburban growth.

Originally Posted by FDW

Secondly, Detroit and Chicago were very dense cities that also had well developed streetcars systems, and Chicago's streetcar system actually extended into the suburbs, and was one of the largest in the world, carrying more than three times as many passengers as the L did (about 1.9 million to the metro's 660,000) , with even more on bus and rail. If that system was modernized properly (connecting the Commuter lines and Streetcar lines with subways under the central area), then getting ridership up to proportion I suggested would be simple.

To 25% of trips with how wide the Chicago area is? Not gonna happen, man. I don't mean to be a downer, but you aren't gonna get everyone who lives in Gary and Joliet and Hammond and Waukegan who travel to Chicago to work onto trains every time. Likewise, Chicago's center is dense, but its subrubs are quite wide as well. Chicago and 2012 Toronto have a lot of similarities, and while both cities have excellent (and well-patronized) commuter rail systems and mass transit systems (which certainly could be improved further), you aren't gonna get 25% of all trips in either place to go by transit instead of cars without raising fuel prices a lot, and as I said before, the odds of that happening in America are very slim.

Originally Posted by FDW

Houston is a special case, as they were one of a few major cities that abandoned their streetcar systems before WWII. And with the type of POD I'm mentioning, it's possible that Miami might not be a major city TTL, even so Miami too actually has favorable geography for Mass Transit, as like Salt Lake City, the Urbanized area is a narrow strip of land running North to South. And Atlanta might not even be as big as it is if wasn't for WWII, which caused it to turn into a major industrial hub.

Miami was a pretty remote city in the greater scheme of things until Castro caused a mountain of Cubans to flee to South Florida and act as a catalyst for the development of the whole area, so you could make that one into a transit-heavy city, but that has a political problem because of said Cubans, who will not be keen on government efforts to make the city center denser - and after about 1970, those guys dominated the city's politics to such a degree that Miami might be the only city in the Western Hemisphere to not accept a visit by Nelson Mandela - because he thanked Castro for his support of the ANC during its time as a banned organization in South Africa. Salt Lake City is pretty similar to Miami, except it was much slower to grow - the Salt Lake City metro area didn't pass one million people until 2001, and the fact that the metro area of Salt Lake is divided rather heavily and local governments are not particularly in favor of government-support for transportation schemes doesn't help matters there.

Atlanta's development has many things going for it which stopping WWII isn't gonna stop, namely its status as a major transport hub. And like Los Angeles, you could make its mass transit far better, but that won't stop the growth of car culture.

FDW, I know where you are going with this, but keeping while said interurbans and mass transit networks going during the post-WWII era is possible, it's not gonna knock off a huge number of trips done by cars. The best you can hope for outside of very dense cities like New York is about 15% of trips being done using mass transit. That's still billions of trips in a year in American cities, mind you, but its not gonna stop Detroit rise and its not gonna stop the introduction of many cars, and population growth is invariably going to make for more cars out there as well - the population of the United States rose 106.0 million in 1920 to 151.3 million in 1950 to 226.5 million in 1980. The cities are gonna grow out, particularly as the growth of both manufacturing and service industries grows major cities. You can't avoid this short of measures that are simply ASB for the post-war United States.

And even if you were to get 20% of the American car market cut away because of mass transit, you're still looking at a car market of millions. The record for most cars registered in a year in the US (in 1985) is 11.1 million, and the lowest number in modern times was in 2009, with a number of new cars sold in the United States was 5.6 million. Taking away 20% of either of those numbers still leaves a vast sum, more than enough to still make GM, Ford and Chrysler into industrial giants. Short of busting the four US automakers into six or seven, you won't stop that growth.

[FDW]

Originally Posted by BigWillyG

Wouldn't the West have a Car Culture on top of the South? I could see these inter-urban systems being huge in the Northeast, Greater Chicago and Pacific coast while the Car Culture becomes dominant in the rest of the country, kinda like NASCAR popularity IOTL. Also didn't the airplane have as much to do with killing the interurban rail lines as cars and highways?

Not really, Interurbans were much shorter distance than the big railroads, usually made for like journeys up to about 20-100 miles, similar to the commuter rail systems we know today.

And by West, you mean interior west, right? Then yeah, given how lightly populated those states were. Though if they do end up growing like OTL (a possibility, given the favorable climate), they'll probably end up developing Mass Transit systems of their own at some point. (Maybe we have the Feds take an OTL Soviet idea and decide to build a metro system for a city once it meets the proper qualifications)

[BigWillyG]

Originally Posted by FDW

Not really, Interurbans were much shorter distance than the big railroads, usually made for like journeys up to about 20-100 miles, similar to the commuter rail systems we know today.

And by West, you mean interior west, right? Then yeah, given how lightly populated those states were. Though if they do end up growing like OTL (a possibility, given the favorable climate), they'll probably end up developing Mass Transit systems of their own at some point. (Maybe we have the Feds take an OTL Soviet idea and decide to build a metro system for a city once it meets the proper qualifications)

Would Western cities develop mass transit if they develop around the same time they did OTL? They would have come after the car has matured technologically and exist in places which would be the heart land of this ATLs car culture. If anything I think they would develop much like LA in OTL to be car dominant and car friendly since they'll be large small towns in growth patterns. Some sort of Fed mass transit system might make cities build them but the history of such projects IOTL like Amtrak make me wonder if the first couple of attempts would turn into a real life version of the monorail episode of the Simpsons. Also the changes you need to have the Fed do that would probably have massive butterflies that mean the OP events never happen in the first place.

[zippy]

Originally Posted by BigWillyG

What would a passenger transport board do? I've never heard of it.

effectively run the bus, local rail and subway systems and provide integration and cross ticketing for the services

[BigWillyG]

Originally Posted by zippy

effectively run the bus, local rail and subway systems and provide integration and cross ticketing for the services

I think alot of cities already have those. I know NYC has a metro board running the subways and buses. Not sure of having those in more cities would change things though.

[Pellegrino Shots]

This is a longshot, but IMO possible (very remote, however). I think it falls a little short of ASB, though, so...

Let's start with GM. Roget Smith is fired in 1983 after two dismal years heading GM.

Lets also say Detroit is not "dead" by the mid 1980s (we can argue one way or another, but personally, I think Detroit was on life support in 1984 and Roger Smith's GM10 was what pulled the plug)...

Michigan Gov James Blanchard creates the Detroit Renaissance Zone in 1985, similar to the one passed in Flint, Michigan. Tax free for individuals and companies based in Detroit.

(info on Flint Renaissance Zone= http://www.cityofflint.com/economic/zoning.html )

In January of 1986 the Iran Contra scandal breaks (about ten months earlier than OTL)

In 1986 President Reagan's advisors tell him that his planned Immigration Reform and Control Act may cause a backlash with his fellow Republicans, and he needs their support with Iran-Contra in full swing.

Reagan signs a much more limited General Amnesty than originally planned. Citizenship will not automatically be granted to anyone who can prove that they lived in the USA prior to 1982, but rather anyone who lived int he USA prior to 1982 and is willing to relocate to a "renaissance zone" and live and work there for five years.

MI lawmakers ease up the requirements to obtain property via "adverse possession".

The United States accepts hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees in 1988 after Saddam uses chemical weapons on them.

Result: Thousands of undocumented aliens relocate to Detroit and squat in abandoned homes. Several companies, recognizing a "tax-free zone" full of desperate workers who cannot afford to leave the city relocate to Detroit. Thousands of middle-eastern immigrants, and in particular Kurdish immigrants, relocate to Detroit to take advantage to it's close proximity to Dearborn and its cheap property and abundance of employment opportunities. By 2012 Detroit's population, after nearly 20 years of slow, but steady growth, surpassess 1 million. With a heavy Latin American immigrant population, a strong Somali presence, and a thriving Middle Eastern population, Detroit looks nothing like the dying city of 1985. It is projected to be the first city in America to have a majority population of Muslims (in 2012 the numer is at 38%, but 2050 it is projected to be 51%) and also has the largest percentage of Latinos of any northern city excluding NYC.

[FDW]

Originally Posted by BigWillyG

Would Western cities develop mass transit if they develop around the same time they did OTL? They would have come after the car has matured technologically and exist in places which would be the heart land of this ATLs car culture. If anything I think they would develop much like LA in OTL to be car dominant and car friendly since they'll be large small towns in growth patterns. Some sort of Fed mass transit system might make cities build them but the history of such projects IOTL like Amtrak make me wonder if the first couple of attempts would turn into a real life version of the monorail episode of the Simpsons. Also the changes you need to have the Fed do that would probably have massive butterflies that mean the OP events never happen in the first place.

Not quite require, just be eligible for funding from the Feds. And the first time the US tried building a metro system after WWII, it did turn into the Monorail episode of the Simpsons, the result being BART. The second they tried though, the result (the DC Metro) ended doing wonderful. From there on out, there've been a number of hits and misses with more hits than misses. Very few home runs though.

Originally Posted by BigWillyG

I think alot of cities already have those. I know NYC has a metro board running the subways and buses. Not sure of having those in more cities would change things though.

Yeah, almost every metropolitan area in the US, and a surprisingly large number of rural areas have Transport agencies, with the main exceptions being Arlington and Grand Prairie in Texas. The Problem tends to be is that the Transit agencies are balkanized heavily, and do a poor job co-operating with each other.

[BigWillyG]

Originally Posted by Pellegrino Shots

(info on Flint Renaissance Zone= http://www.cityofflint.com/economic/zoning.html )


.

The United States accepts hundreds of thousands of Kurdish refugees in 1988 after Saddam uses chemical weapons on them.

Result: Thousands of undocumented aliens relocate to Detroit and squat in abandoned homes. Several companies, recognizing a "tax-free zone" full of desperate workers who cannot afford to leave the city relocate to Detroit. Thousands of middle-eastern immigrants, and in particular Kurdish immigrants, relocate to Detroit to take advantage to it's close proximity to Dearborn and its cheap property and abundance of employment opportunities. By 2012 Detroit's population, after nearly 20 years of slow, but steady growth, surpassess 1 million. With a heavy Latin American immigrant population, a strong Somali presence, and a thriving Middle Eastern population, Detroit looks nothing like the dying city of 1985. It is projected to be the first city in America to have a majority population of Muslims (in 2012 the numer is at 38%, but 2050 it is projected to be 51%) and also has the largest percentage of Latinos of any northern city excluding NYC.

Very interesting ideas. I live in a town with a large Kurdish pop so I think you're on to something.

[Arachnid]

A factor that people are forgetting is that similar surbanisation happened outside the USA, most especially in Australia and NZ (and I presume Canada). Look at Melbourne for an example of the city that has massive urban sprawl, very low population densities and still has an inner city you can walk in at night.

[BigWillyG]

Originally Posted by Arachnid

A factor that people are forgetting is that similar surbanisation happened outside the USA, most especially in Australia and NZ (and I presume Canada). Look at Melbourne for an example of the city that has massive urban sprawl, very low population densities and still has an inner city you can walk in at night.

That make's me think of an interesting idea if the OP includes to keep Detroit less crime ridden as part of preventing its dying. What about avoiding the crack epidemic or maybe the whole drug war? Detroit would still have depopulation and the rise of slums but we avoid some of the extremes of crime like powerful organized crime and high murder rates.