Skyscraper Designer

Wow...I have missed a lot on this thread! I can't post on Simtropolis from school, since it won't let me login. For some strange reason it says that I need to enable cookies to login, even though I already have my cookies enabled. So if anyone needs to contact me, email me at probablyallan@gmail.com. I hope you all had fun at the meet downtown. I would've been there, but I had to go home for the weekend. I was on Belle Isle early to catch the skyline at sunrise, but the sunrise wasn't very good, so that didn't work out too well. Then I broke my camera...opps. I ordered a new one, so I'm hoping to get it by the end of the week. If anyone ever wants to meet up downtown (preferably on a weekend) just let me know. I'm at 10 Mile & the Lodge, so it's not that far for me. It looks like the BATs are coming along nicely. I've been meaning to work on some buildings for a while now, but I am in school now, so that just isn't going to happen.

Hey Everyone, I'm 17 years old & live in Grand Blanc, Michigan. I've been addicted to Sim City since the first version came out, and I can't wait for the release of Sim City 5. In the fall I will be attending Lawrence Tech in Southfield, Michigan (just north of Detroit), where I will be majoring in architecture. **waves to Phil**

I haven't been around much lately...I've been working on a massive project for my CAD class all week. I'm skipping 5 of my 6 classes each day this week so I can finish by the Tuesday deadline. I've been spending all day every day in the CAD room at school, and then trying to keep up on doing all my shoolwork at night. I've spent well over 30 hours on the project this week, and the week isn't even over! So I won't be around much until after Tuesday. 150 West Jefferson is really coming along! Great work!

Sorry DetroitINC, I took M-1 already. I'll get my Detroit pics ready, but I've got to resize them, so it'll probably take a couple days. I should have them resized by Sunday.

Thanks for the compliments! As for what happened to downtown Detroit...well, that is long and complex. Some of the other people here should be able to help me out. Basically, as the Detroit metro decentralized, and the focus of both businesses and residents was shifted from the city to the suburbs, low budget businesses moved into downtown. Finally, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, even the lower wealth businesses moved out of downtown. Basically the entire thing collapsed, as business after business left. The more businesses that left, the less pedestrian traffic was outside the remaining businesses, and they too eventually closed. The 1960s riots, and the high murder rates in the 70s and 80s did not leave a favorable impession on Detroit, and the city suffered even more. During the early 1990s, around the time downtown totally collapsed, there were plans in place to fill up nearly every single vancant space downtown. This would've helped to bring the city back, but then the recession occured. Projects like Two Detroit Center (Comerica's tiwn tower) were canceled. Finally, in the late 1990s, dowtown began to come back. Residential projects were beging built for the first time in decades. Slowly, residents began to trickle into downtown and midtown after being practically vacant for so long. GM's decision to buy the Renaissance Center, and Compuware's decision to build it's world headquarters helped bring people back downtown again. During this time, Comerica Park and Ford Field were both constructed downtown. All of these projects spurred residential projects, mostly converting old vacant building into residential uses. As more residents followed, so did some businesses. Recently, Hard Rock Cafe opened in Detroit. While not much, it is symbolic, in that a major chain opened a location in downtown Detroit. Borders books has also opened. A small grocery store will open in the Compuware building to serve the new downtown residents. Additionally, there have been a ton of restaurants opening up, and even a small clothing store. Slowly, but surely, Detroit is coming back. There are currently just over 5000 downtown residents, and somewhere between 75,000 and 80,000 downtown office workers (or so I've heard). Obviously Detroit has many problems to overcome, and it won't be easy, but I am confident that Detroit will rebound. It seems that there are several downtown improvements announced in the newspaper every week. That is a good sign, and hopefully the best is yet to come!

I finished uploading my Detroit photos this afternoon. I have posted them in four parts at UrbanPlanet.org, a website devoted to architecture, city planning, etc. Part One Part Two Part Four Part Five Other Detroit Photos I hope these help you all out! I've got a few more floating around, which I will post once I assemble a collection worth posting.

I've been gone for a couple days...It's great to see all this going on! I've got 200 photos of Detroit from Thursday that I just finished going through last night. I don't know how many will be of use to you all, but I'm sure some will be. I'll upload them later...I've got to finish some things for school before spring break is over.

Ok, I'm finally back from Detroit. I took nearly 500 photos...I took photos until all my CF cards were full. I haven't gotten the chance to go through and process them yet. And now my other computer with all the photos died on me. I hope to have the first of the Detroit photos available tomorrow. It's going to take longer because I have to install all the programs I use to process photos onto this computer. I got photos of the Comerica Tower base. I tried to get Ford Field photos, but the last of my cards filled up just as I was taking the first few photos of it. And I got photos of pretty much every major downtown building. I still didn't get a good pic of the Guardian Tower's base though. Fortunately there are many photos of it online. I don't know if it's been requested in this thread already or not, but we need a Fisher Building. IMO, it's the most beautiful building in Detroit. Until I get my photos ready, the best source for photos of Detroit that I've found can be seen here .

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^^^Am I the only one who is seeing Red X's for the above pics?

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