Transit again

In a recent podcast of the Smart City radio program, a researcher from the National Housing Institute, Alan Mallach, discussed a new report he recently published on the factors that help revitalize neighborhoods. The way it is done, he says, is to increase the demand for housing, and that is accomplished by adding or changing neighborhood features that make it desirable. The number one factor: adding a light rail station. This feature will change a neighborhood more quickly than anything else. He cited two examples, such as the increase in development that has happened in East Los Angeles after they announced a new light rail line to the area. Transit is part of neighborhood amenities, one of six factors that affect the housing market. The entire report is available in .pdf format here.

Links to Detroit Webcams

I just added links to webcams in Detroit, just for fun. The links are in the right column of this blog page.

The Detroit River Webcam is user-controlled, which can be great... but if the camera is panning and zooming all over the place when you log on, that just means that someone is playing with the controls. This one is used by a lot of freighter hobbyists. You'll see a listing of vessel passages on this page. Actually, the Detroit News keeps a similar log every day. There are a lot of people who follow which boats (that's what huge lake freighters are called) and ocean-going freighters pass through each day. And, for those of you who don't know, the Detroit River isn't a river: it is a straits between Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie. If Lake St. Clair were included in the list of the Great Lakes, what would happen to the acronym used to memorize the names of all of the lakes? HOMES=Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior. HOMESS? SHOMES? HOMSES? SOMESH?

Work Starts on Grand River

Construction on the Grand River project started about three weeks ago. The work started at Southfield, and currently goes west to Artesian. They have torn up the sidewalks on the north side of the avenue, and have actually poured some concrete close to Southfield/Fenkell/Grand River.

BUT... I DON'T SEE ANY BUMP-OUTS! We'll see how this all progresses.