Talk:Detroit/Archive 3

message: Much of Detroit's revitalization is built upon its ability to keep pace with ever-changing internet technologies. The World Wide Web has not only connected Detroit to the international community, but allowed for more robust business growth within the city itself. As Detroit moves to promote its advancements locally and around the globe, it will be well represented by the sheer volume and variety of websites dedicated to its progressive businesses. Several prominent manifestations of Detroit's online presence are frequently visited sites such as , , and . These, among other popular Detroit destinations, deliver a message that the new Detroit can, and will, remain a viable metropolitan city whose reach truly extends far and wide. Its roots founded in a unique American history and its future promoted via a strong internet presence. 
Community message boards such as  offer Detroiters an open forum for discussing views on city policies. Such sites also provide interesting historical information on the evolution of the city and the people instrumental to its growth as a famous American city.
Greensboro55 14:26, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What you say above may be true, but it doesn't alter Wikipedia's external link policy. -- Mwanner | Talk 21:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Detroit Reaching the World Via the Internet 

message: The current pronunciation listed is: [dɪˈtʰɹɔɪt].  Is that a bit narrow?  Do we need to show aspiration and the upside-down "r"?  [dɪ'trɔɪt] is a bit more readable for the average user, and anyone who cares enough about English phonology would realize that those details are implied.  Bamos 23:35, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have downloaded all the fonts I could find and still see mostly empty boxes there. I doubt that it matters at all to the average user what we put there - they won't see it. Now if we could get a sound file of the American English pronunciation that would be great. Rmhermen 01:03, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just noticed that only one pronounciation is mentioned. We need to discuss the fact the natives often pronounce the city name differently than the common pronounciation. De' troit instead of d@ troit (different first vowel and stress). Rmhermen 14:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You should hear how the Hockey night in Canada announcers say it. DaTroooyt.  —MJCdetroit 14:43, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Our late mayor, Coleman Young, pronounced it "D'trowit."--W8IMP 03:04, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And the next two mayors, including the present one, pronounce it "citiovdetroit".69.222.55.140 06:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  IPA pronunciation 

message: There is a survey in progress at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (settlements) to determine if there is consensus on a proposed change to the U.S. city naming conventions to be consistent with other countries, in particular Canada. 
:This proposal would allow for this article to be located at Detroit instead of Detroit, Michigan, bringing articles for American cities into line with articles for cities such as Paris and Toronto.--DaveOinSF 16:58, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: However the proposal would allow U.S. cities to be inconsistent with the vast majority of other U.S. cities and towns, which (with a few exceptions) all use the "city, state" convention. -Will Beback 23:42, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Survey on proposal to make U.S. city naming guidelines consistent with others countries

message: doesnt Mitch Albom live in detroit? - NJ Rock
:I don't know if he lives in Detroit, but he does live somewhere in the Metro area.69.222.55.140 06:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mitch Albom 

message: Is there a consensus for this deletion?  It seems to be well sourced.  The assertion in an edit summary that "Toyota is better" doesn't seem to justify this section's deletion.  -- Selket Talk 00:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits by [[User:Something14|Something14]] and [[User:69.237.93.187|69.237.93.187]] 

message: I think the general consensus on detroit's economic situation is "downtown is getting better, other neighborhoods aren't".  But mostly I've only seen anectodal backing; I can't find any statistics on number of jobs/business downtown over the years, etc.  Can anyone track some down?  Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 06:11, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  We need statistics! 

message: Population should remain consistent with other pages and not be updated until the entire MSA or CSA is updated for all cities.Thomas Paine1776 23:41, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Population

message: Err, FACTS?68.211.77.10 12:14, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The truth hurts! Blight is blight.  There are streets on the east-side that don't have a single livable house on them.  The only solution is to blight is a bulldozer. Take a drive down the 100 block of E. Dakota, by the Dakota Inn, not a single house, not one.  Thank God the church didn't get burned down.  Detroit has good parts and bad parts.  Its good parts are nice and its bad parts are really bad.  You can't judge Detroit solely by the nice restaurants, stadiums, or casinos downtown like the mayor's office would like.  It is a start, but it's not a balanced picture.  There are 8 miles between the city limits and downtown and they are hard to see at 75 mph on Chrysler freeway.  Don't dwell on the negative but you can't paint Detroit as a utopia either. Just because something is written that isn't so nice doesn't mean it is an anti-Detroit bash.—MJCdetroit 01:46, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

text: One sentence in the intro?? The article is fine...It's late, tuck the boys in and tell Carlita I said hi.  —MJCdetroit 02:32, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

text: The important statistic is employed percent of working-age population, not total popuation.  If the situation here is so great, why's it so hard to find a job?  Compare the Detroit and San Fran craigslist job boards (I try to avoid doing that too much 'cause it makes me want to move). Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 06:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Response to: If the situation is so great in Michigan, why is it so hard to find a job?: Michiganians have it better than they think. Reasons for the difficulty in job seeking appear to be there are more who seek, there are many new graduates Universities there who want the job, Michigan is a strong supporter of education.  There are simply more highly qualified or highly skilled workers in Michigan than some other states, so more compete for the good jobs. Michigan has an overage of teachers, for example, it produces more than it needs, and it pays teachers more than other states, more have master's degrees. So a master degreed teacher may be the preferred applicant at the bookstore over the retail worker.  There are more mechanics in Michigan, more technicans, more chemists, lawyers, engineers, and so on. Law schools are big business in Michigan, a law grad who isn't practicing may be the preferred applicant over the business grad. Michigan companies also are willing to keep dedicated workers a long time who didn't finish or didn't attend college, so turnover is probably much lower and loyality of is probably higher.  In states that have categories of so called employment shortages, there is a reason for the shortage, eg. a lack of qualified applicants or the pay is too low to generate interest.  Southern states have shortages, but the reason is there aren't enough qualified applicants. The percent employed is lower and the unemployment rate is lower statisically when they don't seek.  In Michigan there are an abundance of qualified applicants, a case made by the Governor when she courts new business for Michigan. In theory, Michigan's highly skilled workforce should be attracting new business, and it does, but it could be faster if the state gets more development capital.  It isn't that the Michigan economy is isn't good, its that there are many more qualifed people in Michigan seeking good pay. The pay in other many other states isn't very good. If everyone on the block were to panic and attempted to sell their house, the average price of houses would fall too creating a housing glut.  Another possible cause of a metro Detroit job seekers' difficulty or perceived difficulty to find work is they are specialized and are unwilling to try different jobs offered in the metro Detroit area. A financial service worker can just as easily be successful in customer service for a bolt maker, a trucking company, or an airline. The economy in metro Detroit is very robust. The unemployment rate refers to those seeking work, not the percent of those who are already employed. Michigan is fine with the percent employed. Michigan also forms new business at a competitive rate.  The solution is for Michigan to market itself and its products even more agressively, lure new companies with its workforce, and continue its quality of life/tourism development. The rise in tourism downtown, upscale development, and the increase in urban professionals is succeeding for the city. Thomas Paine1776 01:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What's with the anti-Detroit distortions

message: I didn't want it to have to come to this, but we're going to have to vote on each line in that lengthy 3rd paragraph, line-by-line, since we can't come to consensus.  Place your vote:
"Though the City of Detroit is struggling with economic issues, the most recent of several efforts to revitalize the historic downtown has seen success. "
;Keep it
I vote keep this line.  It summarizes everything nicely.--Loodog 19:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  revert, revert, revert, vote now and we decide 

message: I pull this out as an example; others can be found: "With one of the world's most recognizable skylines, Detroit's waterfront panorama shows a variety of architectural styles. The past meets the present as the city's historic Art Deco skyscrapers blend with the post modern neogothic spires of the Comerica Tower at Detroit Center (1994). Together with the gleaming Renaissance Center, they form the city's marque." This is writing that belongs in a tourist brochure. The prose needs to be systematically audited for things like this, but I'm afraid of being reverted. Marskell 09:21, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Art is not advertising. It's 'two' sentences in the intro of the section are intended to keep the readers attention.  It is also a highly accurate description that contains a 'mininum' of well written appeal. I'll temper it a bit and take out gleaming, though I like the term.   Detroit's skyline is a panorama. It's often photographed for that reason. The terms would be appropriate for other cities with panoramic skylines.  Detroit has historic skyscrapers and buildings together with modern, the achitects of its more modern structures obviously took great care in their designs to blend the past with the present to complement the city's architecture. The Renaissance Center is the city's marque skyscraper, its effigy is omnipresent for the area.  The intent is to keep the article interesting so the the reader will want to read it and to convey its essence for the city.  The architectural critic and expert reviewers who wrote Detroit Architecture were praising of Detroit's architecture. Diplomatically speaking, when readers perceive a sort of 'organized' negativity, they won't want to read an article or consider it credible.  Thomas Paine1776 23:52, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Also... 

message: The article says it dropped from #4 in the country. I always thought Detroit was #3 at its largest, after NYC and Chicago. This was prior to places like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston growing at fast rates due to migration away from places like Detroit to the Sunbelt. So from 1920 to 1940 what was #3? Philadelphia? Or was Detroit #3 afterall and this is a mistake? Let me know so I can stop telling people that Detroit was #3 if it wasn't. Thanks. Ypsidan 19:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, Philadelphia was #3 and Detroit was #4 from 1920 to 1940. See Rank by Population of the 100 Largest Urban Places, Listed Alphabetically by State: 1790-1990. -- Avenue 13:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Rank at largest population size

message: Is it really appropriate for us to use, as a citation for the line, "Though Detroit is struggling with economic issues, recent efforts to revitalize the center city have seen success," a speech from Mayor Kilpatrick?  I don't necessarily disagree with this line, but I'd like to see a citation from a more objective source. Funnyhat 05:07, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Appropriate source? 

message: The weather 'records' cited are really 30-year records (i.e. for the last 30 years). The all-time records may be higher or lower. In fact, I know the record high was 106 in 1936.68.211.77.10 11:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Weather records

message: Now can we honestly call Detroit a Midwestern city? I mean with roots from northeastern states like Ohio and everything, Eastern Michigan isn't anything like the Great Plains.
:Yes, it is Midwestern - just like Ohio is. Rmhermen 14:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Midwest]]?

message: What about a section about what to look forward to in detroit in the future.
Is there a time-line of any big changes that are planned for detroit? Tkjazzer 04:14, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, there are many big changes happening in Detroit, some of them are in the sub articles.  Its difficult to properly inform readers when others denegrate it as promotion. Thomas Paine1776 21:27, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about future projects, etc 

message: I think there should be a section about what proposed things are happening for detroit.  What is the city planning? Tkjazzer 04:35, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The city articles I've seen have shyed away from prophesizing.  Wikipedia isn't a time portal, plus, descriptions of future development tend to get boostery.--Loodog 14:23, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Future section 

message: Nothing like this section appears in any other city articles. We don't need a long list of how great Detroit's public relations committee says the city is.  If you want one, put it in a separate article, not here, where it's already covered later.  A city isn't defined by how many buildings it's currently putting up.--Loodog 16:21, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. —MJCdetroit 16:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The How Great Detroit Is section, er.. i mean "New Changes" 

message: People could create a ton of quality sub-articles and then link them to this article via a nice city template.  I still think there are public trans articles which could be improved verses other cities' Public trans articles.  I still would like to see an article about the rumor that GM assisted in the removal of train tracks in the Detroit area to bolster the auto industry. Even if controversial, there should be a neutral article on this. Tkjazzer 13:50, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Tkjazzer has an excellent point.  There's all the space in the world to talk about Detroit's new construction in a separate article.  The Providence, Rhode Island article has done something like this with Recent construction projects in Providence.  The main point is that the main article doesn't have the space for this level of detail, especially when its disproportionate to the level of detail of the article as a whole.--Loodog 14:01, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  improve sub articles instead of fighting over this 

message: I created and article entitled New Detroit which lists all the projects and planning happening and what it's doing for the city.Please take a look and leave me comments before editing=)—Preceding unsigned comment added by TheCoolOne99 (talk • contribs) 
:Some constructive criticism:
*The term "New Detroit" might not be the most encyclopedic, especially since I can't find "New Detroit" recognized as anything official, except for a nonprofit organization trying to improve race relations.  Also, sounds like a buzzword.  Recommend moving article to something a bit more detached like Recent construction in Detroit.
*The article has no sources on it (as yet).  Recommend providing sources for all projects.
*Article is entirely in list format.  Which, for the purpose I think you intend, is generally discouraged in wikipedia. Read listcruft for why.  I get the sense you want to convey the economic energy the new projects have breathed into the city.  Recommend expanding into dynamic prose, maybe giving a timeline of the developments in paragraph form, explaining how projects got underway, who's developing, the government's involvement, something that gives a sense of the political and social environment in which these developments are rising.  
Good luck with it.--Loodog 00:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, you seem to have a few recurrent typos: commas should have spaces after them, a few spellings are off, and some extra Capitalization.  I'd recommend a good copy-editing before you save changes to the page.--Loodog 00:45, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Detroit 

message: I think that all of us are content with both articles of Detroit and new Detroit and they are doing very well to provide information.
TheCoolOne99 18:13, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I think we have reached a content point. 

message: I have changed this: "More accelerated urban development in Detroit is a mainstay in the city's efforts to reinvent itself as a new Detroit through tourism, neighborhoods, and economic activity."
back to this:
"This new urban development in Detroit is a mainstay in the city's earnest desire to reinvent its economic identity through tourism."
# "More accelerated" is inaccurate since the developments aren't coming in any faster.  Language depicts snowballing.  The city also doesn't choose to have immense development though it can provide auspicious conditions, so the sentence is wrong grammatically as the city is a passive agent.
#Whether the city "reinvents itself through neighborhoods" is of debate.  There are points of contention as to whether the neighborhoods are even seeing any of the newfound downtown spending, which is a point of contention in all US cities trying to improve their downtown image. Another one.
#"economic activity" is vague and egregiously superficial.  What kind of "economic activity"? For sure, there's economic activity in tourism now, which is already mentioned.  If we could say something like Detroit is trying to invite new development in financial services, for example, we could avoid ambiguous and unsourced additions like "economic activity".
#"Reinvent itself through neighborhoods" or "Revinvent itself through economic activity" are also classic wikipedia anti-contextualism: insertion of an additional phrase or word without regard for the wording around it or parallel structure.  "Reinvent itself through tourism" does not sound absurd; I can't say the same for the other two.
--Loodog 23:17, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ending history 

message: As of right now, we have five different population figures for differently defined areas in the introductory paragraph:
*City proper
*Metropolitan area
*Urbanized area
*Metropolitan statistical area
*Windsor-Detroit
These should be in "demographics".  But to give some sense of the scale of the city, anything more than three in the intro is excessive detail, especially when the larger areas are 4, 4.5, 5.5, and 6 million respectively.  I would favor city proper, metro area, and Windsor-Detroit figures (if we can get a source for the latter).--Loodog 03:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you actually care? seriously mate.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.89.103.84 (talk) 04:32, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bloated number of population stastistics in lead 

message: I luvv this city.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.89.103.84 (talk) 04:24, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not a useful comment but I wont comment because if you like Detroit so much, chances are you would shoot me.71.238.71.180 15:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Put your hands up 4 detroit. 

message: These items don't each have to be addressed in their own article paragraph, but it's simplest to list them separately here.
I'd say there should be a brief mention of the following:
* Pronunciation of "Detroit"
* City's origin, reason for existence.  (Major port, french, etc.)
* City's size (absolute as well as relative)
* What constitutes "Detroit" in various usages (metro area, etc.)
* Nicknames for the city
* Most important cultural contributions (basically, motown and techno)
* The aspects of Detroit's history that best explain the city as it is today:
** henry ford,
** world war two,
** the rise of suburbia / population loss,
** the decline of the american automotive industry,
** racial and economic tension,
** attempts to revive the city, and how successful they have been (for this we need hard statistics on job loss and creation, economic numbers, etc.)
Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 06:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Intro should include...