Freeways result in loss of thousands of residents and billions of dollars Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadWhen will Michigan get out of recession? People have been asking that question for years. When real estate brokers and developers met recently at the University of Michigan, they said the economy wouldn’t get better until real estate does. And you won’t fix real estate until you spend more money on the right kind of transportation. Michigan Now’s Chris McCarus reports.
In the ’70’s, Gail Achterman took her law and natural resources degrees from the University of Michigan and moved to Portland. She now chairs The Oregon Transportation Commission. Achterman says 50% of the world lives in cities. And cities need vehicles that don’t take up as much space as cars.
“You have to invest in bicycle infrastructure. You have to create complete streets. You have to invest in street cars, commuter rail, etc.”
Achterman says Portland is not interested in big box retail. Not only do they pay low wages, they take up too much real estate. Chris Leinberger agrees. He’s a developer, researcher and U-M professor.
“The transportation system we the people select, dictates what we as real estate developers can build.”
Leinberger says 35% of America’s economy is made up of real estate. He and Gail Achterman spoke at The Urban Land Institute Real Estate Forum on the U-M campus.
“Without Real estate coming out of the ditch this economy is not going to be moving.”
And so Michigan will need drastic change. Leinberger built subdivisions in the 1990’s. That brought thousands of dollars for him and thousands of car rides for his customers. He says for the next 30 years, homebuyers will want walkable urban neighborhoods instead of drivable suburban ones. Leinberger says go ahead. Blame the recession and $4 a gallon gas on him and his colleagues.
“This is not that we’ve overbuilt a few products that we’re gonna have to wait 2-3 years, a few people are gonna have to go bankrupt, a few banks are gonna go down, but time will cure all. No. We have built the wrong product in the wrong location. That’s what’s caused this economic collapse.”
Many of those properties will never be worth what they cost to build. The National Association of Realtors 3rd quarter numbers showed Saginaw as the lowest priced market in the country. It’s down 6%. You would need to sell 10 houses in Saginaw to buy 1 in San Jose. Here, Leinberger stops blaming himself.
“You’ve built the first or second largest freeway lane miles per capita of any metropolitan area in the country. It’s a toss up between Kansas City and you. And I’m not certain about whether in Southeast Michigan you are first. Because obviously the roadways that you put in don’t go away when you lose population.”
This week, The Michigan State University Land Policy Institute is reporting that 46,000 people left the state in 2007. Over the last 8 years, says LPI, population loss has meant $4 billion dollars in lost real estate value and economic activity. So, the freeways built the suburbs that homebuyers don’t want to live in anymore. So do freeways lead to poverty? You bet, says Chris Leinberger.
“And if you don’t believe me just take the Southfield Freeway and look up at one of the overpasses. 60% of them have that well known structural support system known as plywood keeping the Spaulding concrete from dropping onto the roadway below.”
Only a Detroit mistake? If you believe Leinberger you would have disapproved of several Michigan road projects. Traverse City almost built a road through the pristine Boardman River Valley. Petoskey wanted to cut through farmland to avoid traffic downtown. Grand Rapids did build the M-6 Freeway that attracted a new set of malls and big box stores. L. Brooks Patterson still wants an extra lane on I-75. It will cost the same as a whole light rail system from Detroit to Royal Oak.
“The elected officials in communities around America don’t understand how to make the tool kit work…”
…..says Gail Achterman from the Oregon Transportation Commission. Federal funding for the Woodward Light Rail project is being decided this month in Congress. Ed Clemente is a state representative from Lincoln Park. He’s telling city and suburban officials don’t blow it.
ULI Realestate Transit: “If you have a region that does not have mass transit, you will not be on the map by 2025.”
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