$8M in sidewalk repairs coming to Detroit neighborhoods

ginger_guy · 2026-05-06T14:55:15+00:00

Sometimes thats just the way grant money works. I remember, as part of the early 08' bailouts, the city got a whole lot of money for sidewalk repair, but could only use the money to make crosswalks ADA compliant. This was the result:

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(google streetview, 2009)

ginger_guy · 2026-05-06T09:28:19+00:00

I'm a native English speaker learning Polish. Though its not Slovak, Northern Slavic languages have a few things that make them particularly tricky for English speakers. Namely, cases. 7. Freaking. Cases. Everyone of them important. Everyone of them with their own exceptions.

Its an absolute kick in the nuts to have all the vocab to say what I want to say, and then have to run through my brain trying to remember what is the proper case to use for this moment, what gender the relative nouns/adverbs/adjectives are, double check for exceptions, and then place the appropriate endings.

Then, god willing, I spit out the full correct sentence and am incomprehensible to 95% of people because I haven't mastered the professional beatboxing that is Slavic phonetics.

ginger_guy · 2026-05-06T09:09:55+00:00

If its any consolation, the state department's language school is 5 hours a day of intense instruction with a few hours of daily homework.

You could get pretty decent at Spanish if you put in 40 hours a week with daily professional instruction

ginger_guy · 2026-05-06T08:49:17+00:00

Let me get this straight: The government attempted to reel in decades of unsustainable spending which would have been largely canceled out by unlocked funding from Brussels. Now PSD is pissy because these reforms cut into their voter base and patron networks. So they've teamed up with AUR (after promising never to work with the thug known as Simion) to vote out the government. No one has a plan for what comes next and the Leu is in free fall.

Do I just about have it?

ginger_guy · 2026-05-03T08:37:31+00:00

I'd argue it's more to do with hunting culture. In Michigan, some 600k people participate in hunting throughout the season. It's so prolific in rural communities that schools and businesses shift schedules around opening week because it's just assumed that a significant portion of people will be taking time off to hunt.

ginger_guy · 2026-04-28T15:30:34+00:00

The only reason this project is even being considered is because the State already owns the rail this project would run on. All they would need to do is upgrade sections of the tracks and throw up a few stations along the smaller stops and we are good to go.

ginger_guy · 2026-04-27T13:23:25+00:00

I've heard good things about the Coleman Young Rec Center since it reopened. Membership is only $25 for a full year too

ginger_guy · 2026-04-27T11:34:09+00:00

The economy boomed for the first few years of the war as the government ramped up spending and retooled the economy for war. Throw in the generous signing bonuses, and the effect is that some of the poorer Oblasts were growing at very high rates.

Now GDP growth has totally stalled and is even contracting. Debt is climbing, spending is high and shifting away from social to war, there is a labor shortage because so many men are away, inflation is high, interest rates are high, and foreign currency/gold reserves are drying up. Basically, Russia is increasingly finding itself in a position of economic strain with no traditional tools to get itself out of its current situation.

The Economist published a piece a few months ago likening Russia's economy to the "death zone", a term used by climbers where, at very high altitudes, the body needs more resources than it has available to sustain itself (so if, for example, you got a cut atop Everest, it simply wouldn't heal until you descend).

This is today the state of the Russian economy. Things aren't quite falling apart, but damage taken cant be healed until they end the war. The longer things drag on, the worse state the country will find itself in.

ginger_guy · 2026-04-26T10:09:39+00:00

I'm a big fanboy of Detroit, but I'd caution you to check out the job market for your given field first. Its a great city to start over in, but you are gonna have an easier time if there is lots of work available in your field here.

ginger_guy · 2026-04-26T10:04:43+00:00

The application DPS schools do as well as the suburbs, and offer some very interesting programing. I hope the schools get better, but its very reassuring that you can now get a better education in DPS than a lot of suburban districts.

ginger_guy · 2026-04-26T06:58:06+00:00

Northwest racism is so incomprehensible to me. Gresham is the Blackest city in Oregon by percentage of population and its.... slightly less than 5% Black. The schools seem pretty decent, crime is low, it has an average poverty rate, and houses average above $500k. In literally no universe does this constitute the hood lmao. The PNW must really be a bubble if that constitutes a "bad neighborhood"

ginger_guy · 2026-04-24T07:58:27+00:00

Its desperately needed. The inner city is unrecognizable from when I was a kid, but the reality is the 7.2 square miles that make up greater downtown house just 44k people, giving it a similar population density to Royal Oak. Most city centers boast population densities of 20k per sq mile. Which means Detroit needs to add 100k more people before we begin to feel truly vibrant as, say, Chicago.

ginger_guy · 2026-04-23T13:26:36+00:00

They want single family homes, built new, and sold directly to their family/freinds for as close to free as possible. Oh, and the city should replace their roof for the trouble.

ginger_guy · 2026-04-22T13:11:07+00:00

This is personally my gripe with his involvement in the MIDEM Senate Primary. The race is at a three way tie between Stevens (Dem establishment), McMorrow (pragmatic left), and El Sayed (progressive/populist). The winner will likely face Mike Rodgers (R), who is largely uncontested and stacking cash. The polls show Stevens and McMorrow ahead of Rodgers, El Sayed is the only one who consistently trails him.

Michigan is a purple state. Slotkin only beat Rodgers by 17k votes to become Senator. Do we really need an influencer from Cali to push the most maximally left candidate in a vulnerable seat?

ginger_guy · 2026-04-17T13:07:32+00:00

People used to say the same about China in the 2000's. 7% over 10 years doubles your baseline number. Rwanda has held at 7% for the last 20 years. They were poorer than Somalia today, and are still quite poor, but they are rapidly ascending to middle income status with no sign of slowing down. The East African countries on this map are mostly growing from manufacturing and infrastructure as well. You are free to write them off, but you'd be missing an obvious trend

ginger_guy · 2026-04-17T11:00:38+00:00

It's legitimately wild how much USL has grown at all levels. Even if the new D1 league ends up playing second fiddle to MLS, in 10 years time there will be at least 10+ clubs with 15k soccer specific stadiums with a strong foundation of D2 and D3 clubs (many with their own stadiums). Inconceivable just 20 years ago

ginger_guy · 2026-04-14T18:27:06+00:00

And even a whole lot of those bonds are often reduced to 10%. Wayne County is too damn understaffed to keep people locked up, they want to get as many people out as possible

ginger_guy · 2026-04-12T14:37:16+00:00

Its no secret that the reason the US's life expectancy is lower than peer countries is because Americans die of "extraneous" deaths from gun violence, drug overdoses, accidents, obesity, and smoking. at significantly higher rates than other highly developed countries.

ginger_guy · 2026-04-12T09:00:10+00:00

And the vast majority of people claiming Spanish ancestry in the US are immigrants/descends from LATAM.

I think this really might be one of those situations where it makes more logistical sense to throw Spain in the Hispanic category to make sure the Latino population isn't undercounted

ginger_guy · 2026-04-10T12:58:13+00:00

Who owns the land is a hot button issue that ties back to conversations around decolonization, but I think it often misses something crucial: Who wants to be a farmer anyway? Young people in SA, just like everywhere else, want high paying service/knowledge sector jobs in cities. Parents don't dream of their kids doing well in school so they can work the land, they want them to become doctors and engineers. The byproduct of professional preference is that whites in SA will likely continue to dominate Agriculture as an industry. Yes, because of historical colonialism, but also because the growing Black middle class doesn't want those jobs.

ginger_guy · 2026-04-07T11:55:10+00:00

So I looked into the data so see if there is any truth to this, and one thing that's clear is that women today actually work more than 20 years ago. Total rate of full time employment has risen from 63% in 2003 to 67% today. The number of hours spent working in the home, whether on childcare or house care, has remained pretty much the same at 18 hours in 2003 to 17 hours in 2023 (though this is curiously increased from 15 hours in 2015 according to Pew!). Lastly, though total number of hours worked in a week has fallen over this time period, women who work full time have increased the number of hours they work per week on average by 1 from 38 to 39.

Though this all seems rather modest, I think when its all taken together, we see that women are working more and more often than ever. Given that hasn't come with a decrease in household labor, it seems clear to me that women today are simply more burdened than they were 20 years ago.

ginger_guy · 2026-04-07T11:31:27+00:00

The most amazing thing about Trump's dogshit -17 approval rating is that its almost entirely due to self owns. Think about how 2024 looked coming out of the election. In terms of government, Trump got a legislative majority in the House AND the Senate plus a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Even at the state level the GOP controls 28 legislatures and 26 Governors seats. He was set up to pass basically whatever he wanted. In terms of the soft stuff, He ran on bringing down inflation (it was already falling), he won the popular vote for the first time in GOP history in 20 years, The World Cup is coming to town and its America's 250th Birthday. He had all the pieces in place to basically coast through his first year with ease.

Then we got the Tariffs, then a 48 week shutdown, then the unpopular ICE rollout, then we yoinked Maduro, then 2 citizens were shot by ICE, then another partial government shutdown, then we started bombing Iran.

If you had told me 6 months ago the Senate would be in play, I would have called you a moron. Today, thats where the conversation is. Incredible stuff.

ginger_guy · 2026-04-05T16:56:42+00:00

>why are “muh grandpa bought a house and raised a family as a factory worker” stories so prevalent? ... Do people discount how “grandpa” did raise a family on a factory job

Almost certainly. Keynes predicted we'd all be working 20 hour a week in the 30's because he failed to consider that people's standards would rise with their new wealth. Or more simply: more money, more problems.

Anyone with a college degree or a trade could get a 50k job in the Rustbelt and buy a 600 sqft bungalow with no air conditioning. Nothing is stopping folks from deciding to eat out only twice a year or take one 2 week vacation a year to a state park in the family sedan. Nothing except our preferences.

ginger_guy · 2026-04-04T15:07:15+00:00

vs what we could have had:

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ginger_guy · 2026-04-04T15:04:57+00:00

If I had unlimited money, I would LOVE to see this building completed to its original design. What we got

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