Alex Alsup

...population would be growing faster if we hadn’t demolished so much of our housing supply.

Detroit's population grows for second straight year as prior estimates revised upward The Motor City gained nearly 7,000 people from July 1, 2023 to July 1, 2024, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data released Thursday.

Relatedly, the US Census just reported another increase in Detroit population, and also revised up the prior year's population increase. Good news, but this is a case study in "things happening in spite of something, not because of it"...

www.detroitnews.com/story/news/l...

So, one new-build single family unit for the cost of what could have been three rehabbed single family homes. And for your trouble you'll be gifted with a property tax bill around $10k - $15k / year on that new build.

Detroit rehabbed more homes than it demolished in 2022 The figures mark a turning point in a city that had "somewhere north of 40,000" dilapidated homes to demolish as of 2014, said Tammy Daniels, the land bank's CEO.

The City -- seemingly without appreciating what they're saying -- says as much these days:
"An improving housing market has led to more homes that would have been demolished in years past making the cut for sale."
www.crainsdetroit.com/real-estate/...

Study from the City's housing dept estimates new build single family home costs at ~$450k/unit. How many of the 30,000 homes Detroit demolished since 2013 were torn down b/c they would have cost $100k-$150k to rehab and the City's general sense was just "that'll never happen"?

t.co/mlw6mF3K7d

Detroit has demolished its way into housing scarcity. Just stunning stuff. Like being next to plentiful fresh water in the midst of a drought and deciding to just boil it all off. I guess we still have time to do that, too, though.

Yup, it's lucky for us that all of this happened long ago.

Today, Detroit is much more resilient to economic upheaval than it has been in decades. A new batch of mayoral candidates have actual visions for the city, and are not clearly striving for profile with unclear motivations for office beyond that.

Development was seen as a positive force and, after the pandemic, bus service and greater neighborhood-downtown connection meant that downtown didn't turn into a ghost town during the day.

Concerns about gentrification downtown, as a result, were rare and correctly ignored. Taxes on entertainment raised revenue for the city.

Neighborhoods were secured in their housing, speculators were held at bay due to our land value tax regime, and tax foreclosure was prevented thanks to the simple administration of property tax exemptions for homeowners in poverty.

...for public space, infrastructure, new housing development, and investment afforded by the Detroit Land Bank Authority being the 2nd largest land owner in the United States after the federal government (in terms of raw numbers of parcels of land owned).

We recognized and preserved "natural resources" like abundant cheap housing and did not wantonly sell-off the more than 100,000 city-owned vacant residential lots. We understood the unique opportunity...

Years ago we acknowledged the single-point-of-failure fragility of the local economy and ended embarrassing land deals with car companies.

In light of the current economic turmoil, it's fortunate that, after the long fallout from the 2008 financial crisis and municipal bankruptcy, Detroit long ago confronted the impossibility of doubling down on the auto-centric orientation & thinking that had so thoroughly failed the city.

Thing not clicking for me in White Lotus this season is that it seems like Tim Ratliff’s crimes are all legal now. Like, what’s he so bent out of shape for? Chill dude.

‘Peep Show’ Still Proves That ‘Self-Loathing Is Pretty Universal’ The creators, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, and others look back on the highly influential British comedy that remains a cult item for American audiences.

I probably started watching Peep Show in 2018. My repeated viewings since then have worn it into a mental river rock of unparalleled smoothness.

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/20/a...

As Detroit government officials deal with the deaths of two children who froze in their mother’s van because the family was homeless, they are ignoring the imminent expiration of a critical tool that’s helped end homeowner displacement from tax foreclosure:

detroit.substack.com/p/how-to-res...

Organized by Detroitography. Check it out:

t.co/skJRR8CXbu

Today @ 12:30 EST: I'll be talking about the state of tax foreclosure risk & the windfall profit recovery efforts in Detroit alongside folks from Outlier Media & Detroit Justice Center. Timely, as Detroit homeowner tax delinquency reversing years of declines. Will explain why.

Commentary in Detroit media: We're infiltrated by unaccountable privatized police forces and surveilled by corporate interests.

Also commentary in Detroit media: RoboCop is a shameful movie and offers nothing of value.

Been interested in Muscogee County, GA -- and Columbus in particular -- because I've noticed a lot of recent corporate acquisition of homes there. Right next to Fort Moore (formerly Benning), so maybe not surprising that would be seen as fertile ground for acquiring chunks of homes to rent out.

This map uses tax bill mailing address data from Regrid (www.regrid.com) to identify all single family homes in Muscogee County, GA where the tax bill is mailed to an address >50 miles away from the home itself.

regrid.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant...

What’s the fastest way to radicalize older relatives? Gifts that require them to remember a password and download an app.

You can see this in Campbell's embrace of Taleb’s antifragility:

In a system where everyone else is optimized to the rules, other teams are fragile to chaos (going for it on 4th down with the score tied, in field goal range, w/ <1min).

The Lions weaponize that, get stronger from the disorder.

You’re optimizing based on the rules' weaknesses, which leads to a narrowing of outcomes and gameplay.

The Lions do this too, I'm sure, but what's great about Dan Campbell is that he clearly still wants to play the game: "I like going for it on 4th down because it scares the other sideline."

On Dan Campbell after last night’s Lions game:

I think you can sum up refinement culture in sports by saying it's about "playing the rules, not the game.”

Which is to say, you're not just (or maybe even foremost) playing your opponent, you're playing against the rules of the sport itself.

Hence:

Detroit largely sought to eliminate our affordable housing rather than bother trying to figure out how to meet the market where it was.