Very well said. I think that other Ingham county towns have automatic response that could be viewed as anti-Lansing or even a sort of jealousy. Another example would be deciding how and where to spend the trail and parks money. Many saying that Lansing's trails are getting too much even though it would be the tax payers of Lansing who fund the greatest majority of the trail fund and Lansing has the most used and most in need trails in the county. Lansing should have the best and most convenient county services even if they folks in Mason don't think so. There are obvious and simple reasons to put a new court and corrections facility in Lansing, we paid for it!
I noticed something of interest right in my old neighborhood. On the corner of Park Avenue and Hammond Street there was a large house that I would say was from the 1920's and was built before the majority of the houses on Park Ave.. It seems to have been abandoned on the googlemaps 2011 photo, and had been knocked down by at least by last year. Anyway they are building a new house on that lot, it looks really kind of cool and even seems to fit in the neighborhood. What I think is interesting is that it is the only place in Lansing I have seen a new house being built on a newly vacant lot. I was wondering if anyone else has seen new housing being built on vacant lots in older neighborhoods.
The owner of the condemned Life O'Riley on the southeast corner of I-96 and Washington on the far south side wants to turn it into a campground. Bernero is not having it. What I heard on other media today is that the city wants to develop the site into multi-family housing. I'm for that vision.
@gbinlansing I have seen some new houses go up on vacant lots in the city. The Land Bank was on a roll for a bit building houses on vacant lots they owned. I have seen some houses get built that weren't part of the Land Bank program but virtually all those were on the south west side of town on lots that were left empty from the initial development of the area.
@MichMatters I can't imagine there's any realistic chance of the owner being allowed to put a campground there, I'm glad the mayor is actively against the idea. I think putting a multi-family development there is a no brainer.
@gbinlansing The new builds on vacant lots that come to my mind are on Butler St just north of 496. There are about 6 or 7 if I remember. Built in the late nineties/early 2000s. I had the pleasure of being a teenage laborer on a few :) Rob Eschbach was the builder. The houses turned out great. The broader neighborhood (southwest corner of Downtown) has a lot of housing and good variety of options too. Any ideas on what could make this area better??? I think some small-scale retail could make the neighborhood more desirable...there's a little convenience store that always feels good going into. Actually, I could see a CVS doing great around here...especially being close to the freeway.
Looks like the Census Bureau's sub-county population estimates (cities, townships, villages) are out this morning. They'll all be released after 10AM. Anyway, the 2014 estimate of 114,260 was revised slightly up to 114,657. The estimate for last year was 115,056, a modest gain of 399 (+0.34%) over the previous year's estimate. Lansing is actually estimated to have grown quicker than Ann Arbor between the 2014-2015 though we're not likely to catch back up with them given how fast they've grown since 2010. This is all very modest growth since 2010, but is the third or fourth year of consecutive population growth after years and decades of population decline. Looks like only Delhi Township grew more by raw number in the county and then only barely.
EDIT: Got a chance to see the rest of the data, some observations:
- The fastest-growing community in Metro Lansing seems to be Aurelius Township in Ingham County, which is estimated to have added a whopping 762 new residents since 2010, which would be a growth of 21.6%! This strikes me as really odd, because with that kind of growth, you'd have to be adding quite a bit of housing, and there is really no reason why a township on no major road would be attractive. That said, I haven't been down this way. Anyone know about this place or know of any housing that's been built down this way in the past five years? This is the township immediately south of Delhi Township and west of Mason. It's bound by Howell Road on the north, College Road on the east, Plains Road on the south, and Waverly Road on the west. The only halfway major thoroughfare that seems to connect anything is Columbia Road, which would connect US-127 and Cedar Street in Mason to M-99 (Michigan Road/Eaton Rapids Highway/MLK Boulevard) near Eaton Rapids. An aerial does show a little lake with a housing subdivision around it off of Columbia Road, so I guess that could account for all of the growth, but I'm not sure how recent the subdivision is.
- Aside from Aurelius Township, the growth in the rural townships seems to be very, very modest, which means that population growth is being reconcentrated in the cities and urban townships of the region. Seems like sprawl is being roped in a bit. It's definitely a change from recent decades past. The only other rural township showing really significant growth is Watertown Township just west of the airport having grown 7.5% since 2010.
- The urban townships around Lansing are also picking back up with growth after a big of stagnation. Delta has had a 1.9% growth since 2010, DeWitt +2.1,% Delhi +2.9%, Meridian +6.3%, and Bath at +6.8. Of the smaller incorporated villages and cities in the tri-county area, only DeWitt (city) seems to be showing any significant growth having grown 3.2% since 2010.
- Suprisingly, they have East Lansing having stagnated losing 98 people since 2010. While this might be wrong, it's also completely possible that as all of these student apartments are being added to the city that the homeowner class continues to move out at the same rate, though, I suspect that will be more than offset by decades end. The Census did end up being wrong with its estimates for East Lansing last decade showing it had fallen between 2000 and 2010, but the actual count showing a significant increase in population. It's always harder to estimate college towns, which may account for why the estimates and actual counts ended up so different.
The houses on N Butler look so much like the surrounding neighborhood I did not know they were newer. You really have to look closely to pick the new ones out. Wow how did those get built? I am truly hoping that the next group of government leaders will turn back to our cities,and help build quality housing in the city that will help stop suburban sprawl by having people live on already developed urban land.
It would seem that I am one of those 399 people who moved to Lansing last year, and let me say it's so nice to be here. Thanks for giving a forum for my Old Lansing stories and my hopes for today and for future Lansing. It is an exciting time to be here.
Comments
@MichMatters I can't imagine there's any realistic chance of the owner being allowed to put a campground there, I'm glad the mayor is actively against the idea. I think putting a multi-family development there is a no brainer.
EDIT: Got a chance to see the rest of the data, some observations:
- The fastest-growing community in Metro Lansing seems to be Aurelius Township in Ingham County, which is estimated to have added a whopping 762 new residents since 2010, which would be a growth of 21.6%! This strikes me as really odd, because with that kind of growth, you'd have to be adding quite a bit of housing, and there is really no reason why a township on no major road would be attractive. That said, I haven't been down this way. Anyone know about this place or know of any housing that's been built down this way in the past five years? This is the township immediately south of Delhi Township and west of Mason. It's bound by Howell Road on the north, College Road on the east, Plains Road on the south, and Waverly Road on the west. The only halfway major thoroughfare that seems to connect anything is Columbia Road, which would connect US-127 and Cedar Street in Mason to M-99 (Michigan Road/Eaton Rapids Highway/MLK Boulevard) near Eaton Rapids. An aerial does show a little lake with a housing subdivision around it off of Columbia Road, so I guess that could account for all of the growth, but I'm not sure how recent the subdivision is.
- Aside from Aurelius Township, the growth in the rural townships seems to be very, very modest, which means that population growth is being reconcentrated in the cities and urban townships of the region. Seems like sprawl is being roped in a bit. It's definitely a change from recent decades past. The only other rural township showing really significant growth is Watertown Township just west of the airport having grown 7.5% since 2010.
- The urban townships around Lansing are also picking back up with growth after a big of stagnation. Delta has had a 1.9% growth since 2010, DeWitt +2.1,% Delhi +2.9%, Meridian +6.3%, and Bath at +6.8. Of the smaller incorporated villages and cities in the tri-county area, only DeWitt (city) seems to be showing any significant growth having grown 3.2% since 2010.
- Suprisingly, they have East Lansing having stagnated losing 98 people since 2010. While this might be wrong, it's also completely possible that as all of these student apartments are being added to the city that the homeowner class continues to move out at the same rate, though, I suspect that will be more than offset by decades end. The Census did end up being wrong with its estimates for East Lansing last decade showing it had fallen between 2000 and 2010, but the actual count showing a significant increase in population. It's always harder to estimate college towns, which may account for why the estimates and actual counts ended up so different.
It would seem that I am one of those 399 people who moved to Lansing last year, and let me say it's so nice to be here. Thanks for giving a forum for my Old Lansing stories and my hopes for today and for future Lansing. It is an exciting time to be here.