Every year, millions of Americans vacation at resorts, theme parks, casinos, various tourist traps, or National Parks.  There is nothing wrong with such choices, but personally, my adventures involve hitting the road to visit all the places in America that I’ve heard about yet haven’t seen.  Therefore, I would be amiss to let my time in Appalachia slip past without venturing over to the Northern Midwest to see firsthand many of the places I’ve only heard about from time to time on news reports.  Thus, I packed up my Honda Civic with a week’s supply of food, clothes, and accessories, and then started my casual saunter around the Great Lakes. 

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Although I took time to stop at random towns and points of interest along the way, the general itinerary included: 

• Cleveland, Ohio;
• Detroit, Michigan;
• Michigan’s Lower & Upper Peninsulas;
• Green Bay, Wisconsin;
• Chicago, Illinois; and
• Toledo, Ohio

As I traveled across the Northern Midwest, I collected data points on various observations. I discuss many of these observations within this post. You can explore my observations on your own through an ArcGIS Instant Application at the link below.

Click Here to Explore A Map Showing my Overall Travel Observations

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the Northern Midwest.  Many areas throughout the region appeal greatly to outdoor recreation, and numerous small towns have achieved a tourist orientation and seem to be doing well economically.  From my observations, I assume that the real decline across the Northern Midwest is mostly limited to the inner city neighborhoods of large regions and rural towns whose economies never diversified beyond farming or agricultural products.  Based on this assumption and the other signs of new life that emerged along my journey, I could envision an economic rebirth of this Rust Belt region one day.  Meanwhile, as I drove from place to place, I noticed a potential indicator of economic wellbeing.  It appeared that the condition of the highway I was on aligned with my perception of the prosperity of the surrounding region.

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Cleveland, Ohio

My stay in Cleveland, Ohio was probably the most limited among the places I visited. I limited my stay for two reasons.  First, I was attempting to beat a growing system of thunderstorms that were chasing me back into Pennsylvania.  Second, I already live not too far from Cleveland and actually have the ability to visit the city easily as a day trip over the weekend.  However, despite limiting my stay in Cleveland, I managed to check out the historic Terminal Tower (Tower City) which I have not been around to visit before. 

Terminal Tower is one of the grandest buildings I’ve ever seen.  It must have been a sight during its heyday.  However, that heyday is long gone.  Just outside the mall, I was greeted by a horrific fight between two grown persons concerning the custody of a child.  The interior shopping mall was very undercapitalized.  To be quite honest, this is the only shopping mall that I’ve entered where I felt unsafe (even though I entered mid-day).  The kiosk merchants who approached me to sell their wares came off more like street hustlers than retail employees.  I was saddened by this experience and decided to limit the amount of time I spent there as a result.  This atmosphere mixed negatively with another issue in that the site appears to attract many people struggling with drug addiction as well as those experiencing homelessness.  Many of the storefronts were not leased out and the remaining tenant mixture was disjointed.  Even the food court hosting a Chick-Fil-A was almost entirely empty.  Sections of the mall felt so deserted that they appeared ripe for criminal activity. 

The shopping mall’s connection to the adjacent casino seemed to contribute to a less welcoming environment, and could potentially limit Terminal Tower’s revitalization or redevelopment potential going forward.  I thought about the casino somewhat as I walked around the interior atrium of the mall.  To me, the inclusion of the casino illustrates some of the tradeoffs that exist between redevelopment strategies in struggling communities.  I could imagine that the casino proposal may have come with the promise of delivering much-needed private investment and tax revenue into Cleveland – but at what cost?  This attempt at redevelopment differs from the approach employed in Chicago, Illinois where large-scale works of infrastructure and buildings are activated with the arts.  In that city, a given space might not have much going on from day to day but the introduction of public art displays can begin to attract at least casual visitors to the area.  Needless to say, there was not much art on display at Terminal Tower, and the grand hallways that once likely teemed with travelers and shoppers were so deserted that it felt like I shouldn’t be there either. 

As a final thought on Terminal Tower, I noticed that there was formerly a Brooks Brothers retailer in the mall.  From research conducted after my visit, it appears that the upscale men’s fashion retailer closed with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.  However, what seemed telling, as I looked at the retailer’s former entry doors within the mall was how small and tucked away they were.  Brooks Brother’s front entry was not saying, “we’re here come on in!”  Instead, it appears that it may have once said, “great, you’ve found us, now enter quickly before others outside of our target demographic notice  that we’re here.” 

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The Motor City

The second day of my road trip, I fired up my car and began motoring on to the Motor City.  Wait, let’s pause for a moment.  Motor City.  Detroit is best known as being a center of automobile manufacturing in the United States.  What could be the significance of nicknaming a place after one particular type of industry?  What can we infer about a city that is nicknamed after only a specific type of economic activity?  Can anyone identify any major cities nicknamed in a similar manner?  The company of cities nicknamed in a similar fashion is not too encouraging.  These include the following.

• Flint, Michigan – “The Birthplace of General Motors” & “Vehicle City”
• Grand Rapids, Michigan – “Furniture City”
• Hartford, Connecticut – “Insurance City”
• Lexington, Kentucky – “Horse Capital of the World”
• Lincoln, Nebraska – “Hartford of the West”
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin – “Brew City”
• Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – “The Steel City”
• Stamford, Connecticut – “Lock City”
• Wilmington, Delaware – “Chemical Capital of the World”

With some exceptions, this is not exactly an all-star team of economic success stories.  Back to Detroit. 

Taken overall, the very center of downtown Detroit was nicer than I had anticipated.  I had anticipated a central core that would feel much more dangerous even during the middle of the day than the one I happened upon.  A central food pod and relatively open-air bar provided a great deal of foot traffic within the vicinity of Campus Martius Park.  This area was nice and could be improved upon to make an excellent community space.  As I walked a few blocks away from Campus Martius Park, I noticed that foot traffic dropped off sharply to levels not above that of any typical American neighborhood.  My sense of safety dropped as the level of foot traffic declined. 

“In essence, Detroit could easily widen its sidewalks, narrow its crosswalks, and otherwise reduce the width of its streets all throughout the city beginning with downtown.”

I got a sense of Detroit’s truly amazing industrial legacy while I drove into the city.  Some neighborhoods or areas were so dedicated to industrial production and natural resource extraction that they are completely unlike anything that I’ve experienced within a large city.  These vast areas of production facilities lying within the formation of a neighborhood street grid were unique in my opinion. 

As I drove into Detroit from its southwestern side, I got a feel for just how oriented the city’s transportation infrastructure is towards the private automobile.  I found the presumed age of the automobile-oriented infrastructure to be unique.  Many of the roadways as well as the automobile-oriented developments that lined them appear to have been intentionally created for vehicle use and access despite looking as though they were built before WWII.  This observation suggests that Detroit and its surrounding suburbs may have adapted their land use patterns and infrastructure for automobile usage before other cities in America followed suit. 

A Lack of Businesses

As soon as I entered the city limits there were no more businesses.  Unfortunately, it appears that conditions within the City of Detroit are interpreted by businesses such that they do not want to operate within its limits.  This could be caused by higher taxes, specific regulations, perceived cultural differences, safety concerns, not wishing to be subject to the political environment offered within the city limits, or some combination of these factors or possibly something else.  The land use pattern created by businesses only locating outside the city limits may set up a series of problematic conditions for Detroit including: 

• less tax revenue;
• longer commutes for residents;
• inconsistency between land use patterns and how the public transportation system was designed to facilitate mobility and access to jobs and services;
• the challenges of cooperation between different jurisdictions over areas that are important to city residents;
• the consumption of more space for human habitation than is otherwise necessary to sustain the urbanized region; and
• continued disinvestment in neighborhoods within the city limits. 

Wider Streets Aren’t Safer

Even within the city, suburbanization was the trend.  Detroit should be turning away from the automobile industry – entirely.  The activity within the city that made me feel safe and welcome was not cars driving too fast along streets, roads, and “stroads” that were too wide but instead from my fellow pedestrians on the sidewalk.  Even when driving around downtown the extra wide streets actually created more hazardous and confusing driving conditions than what one might expect.  Despite visiting many unfamiliar cities during my road trip, Detroit was the only place where I incorrectly navigated an intersection and ended up driving in the wrong direction for a short distance before righting the course.  I argue that the only reason I misread the intersection was due to it being too wide and having poorly maintained street markings and signage.  This minor slip-up would have been a big problem during rush hour.  However, I’m willing to guess that Detroit has become so hollowed out that there may not be a “rush hour” anymore.  From my observations, I did not observe a line of cars at any one red light.  In fact, the lines of cars at nearly every red light were only one or two cars deep and either two or three cars wide. 

The Opportunities Created by Overly Wide Streets

In essence, Detroit could easily widen its sidewalks, narrow its crosswalks, and otherwise reduce the width of its streets all throughout the city beginning with downtown.  If this were to be undertaken, it might also be a great opportunity to introduce street trees into what was otherwise the most concrete grey city I’ve visited.  The one blessing of streets that are too wide is that they offer great opportunities for the use of the extra space.  Reducing the width of the streets through a variety of measures could also give off more of a sense of safety in that streets appearing to have more car traffic on them (that is to say deeper but manageable lines of cars at well-coordinated red lights) appear to be more active and therefore safer than completely or almost empty streets.  Of course, wider sidewalks will have to be activated with foot traffic in order to improve one’s sense of safety. 

Click Here to Explore my Detroit Observations on a Web Map

Some of my takeaway thoughts on Detroit’s urban form include:

1. The Detroit region appears to be extremely sprawling with many office activities located outside the central city.  This decentralized region may benefit from a new approach to public transit and a recognition that the central core is not and may never again be a strong core. 
2. Downtown Detroit could do without the entirety of its downtown interstate highway loop as well as the two suburban cloverleaf exchanges and spurs of Highway 10 and Interstate 75 that would still extend toward the downtown after the removal of the downtown highway loop. 
3. Arbitrary municipal boundaries appear to separate areas that ought to be Detroit neighborhoods from the city itself.  This circumstance is likely not rooted in any practical effort to allocate municipal services but probably in the aims of various political cleavages.

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Michigan’s Peninsulas

After spending time in Detroit, I made my way to another city that I’ve only heard things about but have never seen for myself – Flint, Michigan.  My remarks on Flint will be brief because I did not spend too much time there as I had to travel a great distance on the day of my visit.  Flint was clearly a hard up town.  However, there were some emerging signs of improvement or energy within the downtown area.  I came across one of these signs in the form of a very interesting alleyway adjacent to the Capitol Theater (see below).  The space included a mural, drinking areas, overhead lights, and other inviting features. This particular observation provided yet another demonstration of how communities can use the arts to bring positive attention back into struggling areas. 

Mackinaw City, Michigan

Beyond Flint, I enjoyed spending my time traveling through the rural and wilderness areas of Michigan’s lower and upper peninsulas.  On the second day of my road trip, I drove all the way from Detroit’s southernmost suburbs to Mackinaw City at the very northern tip of Michigan’s lower peninsula.  Once I arrived in Mackinaw City, I strolled around the town to explore its offerings.  I was impressed by how well this community has been able to orient its main street towards tourism.  The main street was structured similar to the streets of downtown Detroit in that it was very wide.  However, the wide expanse of space comprising the main street was used very differently.  In addition to having angle parking on both sides of the street, the center of the street contained angle parking that was even large enough to fit recreational vehicles (RVs) or trucks hauling campers (or two cars).  Additionally, traffic islands placed in the center of the street and at pedestrian crossings allowed for lighting and tree cover.  Although I don’t normally advocate for car parking, the abundance of car parking already present within the area of the main street appears to have minimized the demand for privately held or public surface parking lots that could break up the continuity of the pedestrian-oriented commercial district.  The surface parking lots that did exist within this area either applied to the large outdoor stores or the Mackinaw City Hall and were located behind the commercial buildings on the main street.  The overall effect of the site development and parking configurations within the main street area appeared to be the formation of a better pedestrian environment. 

The main street of Mackinaw City not only made relatively wise use of its expansive street area to promote ease of use and a nice pedestrian environment, the addition of key public service amenities made for an even better experience.  Two public restrooms were made available and open for use and roughly located at each end of the main street area.  One of the public restrooms was actually carved out from the back portion of the city hall building.  This last configuration potentially represents a great example of the efficiency that can be achieved from dual-use public facilities.  To be blunt, every forward thinking community with its city hall already located on the main street should consider incorporating a convenient public restroom into its facilities for the benefit of the main street.  I’ll note that “convenient” in this contexts means accessible from the outside of the city hall without having to pass through metal detectors and security. 

Sandy Beaches & Alpine Forests

As I ventured across the Mackinac Bridge, I immediately noticed a major change in the vegetative cover of the landscape.  I was hoping to spot a moose as I made my way further into the upper peninsula of Michigan.  That didn’t happen.  However, I did manage to find a few excellent beaches located off the shores of Lake Superior before spending the night at a small lodge in Ontonagon, Michigan.  The temperature in northern Michigan was easily about ten or fifteen degrees cooler than what it was in Detroit on the same day. It was also far less humid. If this observation is typical, then the northern reaches of the Great Lakes region could become more desirable if the weather warms substantially. The next day, I went for numerous walks in the Porcupine Mountains.  Once I had enough of the great outdoors, I slowly headed south towards the Land O Lakes. 

Green Bay, Wisconsin

I never realized that the northern portion of Wisconsin is so wild.  People were few and far between and much of the land was either fallow or natural.  As I began to make my way down into the farmland of the state, I noticed just how nicely kept the dairy farms were and the artistic pride taken in the displays on their silos and barns.  I looked into these artworks afterwards and realize that they were a part of an agricultural tourism promotion. The displays within the short clip below don’t quite do the artworks I saw justice, but the clip does explain the program. The quilt board artworks were clearly visible from the roads and highways and they gave a storybook feel to the farmland of Wisconsin.

Green Bay was a very nice and quaint town with a small-to-mid-sized appeal.  In a number of ways it felt like Eugene, Oregon but instead of hosting a large university a similar commotion comes from the Green Bay Packers.  The town was low key but still had many things to explore over the course of a day or week even.  I particularly liked making my way around on their Bird Scooters.  The scooters could travel up to 15 miles per hour for easily twenty or so miles per charge.  They made getting around easy and fun, and also a little dangerous.

The riverwalk in Green Bay was the best one I’ve seen for a relatively small town.  Its amenities and design offered a little something for everyone, and I noticed a real diversity of people enjoying it.  My experience on the riverwalk was heightened by great weather that simply could not have been better during my visit.  From a urban planning perspective, the riverwalk could be accessed from the downtown and nearby neighborhoods through walkways, easements, and paths linking to dead end streets on every block.  The walkways, greenspaces, docks, and other spaces themselves were seamlessly integrated with the mixed-use development of downtown waterfront and adjacent neighborhoods.

I noticed that Green Bay appeared to have more manufacturing employment than I had expected.  It was relieving to see that the city does not revolve entirely around the National Football League franchise despite its presence playing a substantial role.  This observation seems to reinforce my earlier assumption about the impact of professional sports teams within their cities.  Although such teams provide a nice entertainment option along with good marketing and usually a community service outlet, they are not major economic drivers.  I assume that this is largely because professional sports teams do not bring in many “traded sector” jobs even though they do provide useful opportunities in “non-traded” sector occupations.  Based on this assumption and my prior observations that stack against viewing sports stadiums as ways to improve neighborhoods in most cases, I was pleased to see that the Green Bay Packers were not located downtown but instead within a nearby neighborhood.  Overall, my impression of Green Bay was very positive.  From its appearance alone, that town seems like a nice place to live and work. 

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Unfortunately, the morning that I woke up in Green Bay I wasn’t feeling one-hundred percent.  I wasn’t sick but may have been feeling a bit under the weather.  Despite feeling a little off, I forged ahead towards Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 

Milwaukee was a beautiful old city with much of its industrial legacy seemingly intact.  I found the layout of the city to be somewhat confusing.  But that is not a problem at all.  In my opinion, a little bit of confusion is a proper ingredient in a well designed city.  It is this minor element of chaos in the urban form that makes a place more interesting.  This chaos also contributes to a city appearing more vast.  From past conversations with individuals who are not too accustomed to visiting or spending time in cities, it seems that their top concerns are often centered on their worries about navigation, odd rules or right-of-way restrictions, getting lost, and the possibility of crime.  I’ve also felt that if we can somehow get people to be more comfortable with urban exploration that such a cultural shift would help struggling cities attract more visitors.  This idea deviates from the most common tactics used by American cities whereby cookie-cutter attractions are plopped over former neighborhoods rendering cities merely as old places to get-in and then get-out. 

Milwaukee’s dense urban core was paired with some streets radiating out from the center of town or bending to the contours of the river.  The resulting form gave off the impression of an urban jungle that did not reveal itself all at once.  Some of this effect could have been that this was my first time back in a sizable city after spending time on Michigan’s northern peninsula.  Despite some of the unique elements of Milwaukee’s urban form that I feel contribute to its appeal, the city still appeared to struggle with some of the problems that result when downtown is divided from adjacent neighborhoods by highways.

I had only stopped in Milwaukee for about an hour-and-a-half for lunch because I found out the time zone differential played against my plans for traveling into Chicago that evening.  After spending some time walking about, I came to the conclusion that seeing Milwaukee requires at least a few days of exploration.  It would have been nice to spend more time there.  Perhaps, I’ll come back again for a visit.  

The Windy City

Chicago is a great city.  To me, Chicago feels more magnificent or impressive than any other city in the United States.  One caveat being that I’ve never visited San Francisco or Los Angeles being the only two cities that I think could rival Chicago.  New York is certainly larger as well as more interesting and influential.  But New York was built more to the human scale and just doesn’t carry the sense of grandeur or triumph that I find in Chicago.  However, New York’s human scale feel and easily walkable neighborhoods give it a major advantage over Chicago whose urban form could either be the majesty of a thriving city or the curse of a dying one.  I remember that walking around Manhattan sort of felt like walking around downtown Portland, Oregon or Seattle, Washington just with more street life and boisterous people.  Regardless, Chicago is the greatest city ever founded and built by Americans and was informally intended to be the economic and cultural capitol of the United States.  Today, Chicago still takes pride in its grandeur without apology.  If this demeaner continues and larger economic trends begin to tilt back towards the nation’s heartland, then it is possible that Chicago could rise again.  Hopefully, the city that does such a great job showcasing its strength is humble enough to tackle the problems that seem present throughout its region. 

Comprehensive Public Transit

Chicago’s issues were evident as I entered the city from its northern side.  The traffic attempting to circulate through the neighborhoods of Chicago’s far northside was ridiculous.  Those neighborhoods could clearly benefit from increased urbanization to promote a more walkable or transit friendly environment.  Potentially, the construction of a series of circulator streetcars could conveniently link the residential portions of the city’s outer neighborhoods to the numerous regional train stations that run into The Loop (downtown).  I did not see any streetcars in the city or its neighborhoods during my visit.  Providing these circulator streetcars could potentially increase the reach and effectiveness of Chicagoland’s regional rail lines.  Given the abundance of Chicago’s existing regional train stations, it is possible that “circulator” streetcar lines might not even need to circulate at all.  A potential configuration could comprise a streetcar running in a perpendicular line to the trajectory of each regional rail line for about a mile on each side of a commuter station.  This method of circulation could make transit use more convenient for people residing within the interstitial areas between regional rail lines. 

My impression of Chicago was that the city is teeter-tottering between the natural push of American consumers towards an irrational automobile oriented lifestyle and the type of urbanization that we typically only see in central Philadelphia, Boston, or throughout most of New York City.  I believe that efforts to move the city’s urban form towards a more transit and pedestrian orientation could not only improve the local quality of life but result in better economic prospects. 

Residential Downtowns will be key to success

I was pleasantly surprised by how Chicago has been working to accommodate a greater residential population within and near its downtown core.  The presence of these residents added a consistent flow of street life throughout the central portions of the city.  It was amazing to be reminded of just how much more street activity Chicago has over Cleveland, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh among others.  However, the foot traffic declined considerably on Sunday morning – I assumed that this was resulted from lower tourism on that day paired with the onset of rain.

Based on casual observations during my travels, I’ll rank the level of foot traffic and street life in each of the cities I visited as follows:

1. Chicago (very high on most blocks within central areas, some steady crowds)
2. Milwaukee (high throughout the central core)
3. Green Bay (moderate on the main street but high along the riverfront)
4. Detroit (moderate within a block or two of the core and dropping off almost completely beyond)
5. Mackinac City (high on main street and moderate at points of interest)
6. Toledo (low throughout with some areas approaching moderate)
7. Cleveland (low throughout downtown, but moderate with the “down and out” crowd)
8. Ontonagon (low but steady along main street)
9. Flint (low along main street)
10. Antigo (low)

Chicago highlights the importance of bringing people to live within the central urban core of cities.  A key problem often standing in the way of building residential downtowns is the challenge of providing sufficient educational opportunities for students.  Since the issue of fixing urban schools has been an ongoing challenge with little results, maybe it is time to rethink the concept of a school.  Perhaps kids can attend a mostly online education but socialize with their peers in neighborhood groups or some other similar arrangement instead. 

The role of public art

While spending time in Chicago, I was consistently confronted by unique works of creative public art. A diverse mixture of artworks are employed throughout the city’s public realm including modern, classical, abstract, poppy, avant garde, digital, historical, and more. Some of these artworks were used to tell great stories of individuals who have made important contributions to society while others shared tales of civic pride. The most impressive public artworks were successfully able to bring people to areas of the city that would otherwise sit dormant based on their surrounding land uses. A particular stand out was Art on the Mart. I enjoyed watching this digital light and music show on the façade of the Mercantile Exchange Building. The video below is a short clip showcasing the unveiling of Art on the Mart provided curtesy of the Chicago Sun Times in 2018. You can also check out their website to learn more – https://artonthemart.com/

Even though Chicago has soo much going for it already, a continued focus on quality of life improvements and crime reduction could serve the city greatly in the future. 

Click Here to Explore my Chicago Observations on a Web Map

Toledo, Ohio

Toledo appeared to have nice bones (buildings, infrastructure, public facilities) left over from its days as a larger manufacturing center.  Although the town appeared fairly hollowed out during my visit, the downtown shows signs of sprouting some interesting businesses and the years of population decline made parking easy.  In general, the lack of street activity on the day of my visit made me feel less safe, and I didn’t want to spend too much time there as a result.  I did manage to find a very nice coffee shop and enjoy walking around a few of the more attractive parts of the downtown before heading back to Pennsylvania. If the Midwest starts to turn around in terms of economy and population, then Toledo might be a city to watch. 

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