Alex Alsup

Parcels & property taxes. Research & Development @RegridApp.
I also write about Detroit on Substack:

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

Rule for #Detroit: Believe none of what you read, half of what you hear, all of what you see.

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

Beauty

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

Dr. Van Nostrand on unlicensed research peptides, you say?

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

Don’t blame the Waymos. They’re only imitating the behavior of the auto-centric humans they observe.

[philip lewis @Phil_Lewis_]

Dozens of empty Waymos invaded an Atlanta neighborhood and circled a cul-de-sac for hours with no passengers

https://t.co/qvziT2fz2T

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

@willmenaker @Jara_Films Another Phoenix masterpiece

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

First time I got in a Waymo, I was really surprised by how quickly and acutely it felt like "the car" (as we commonly know it) was totally antiquated as a platform for the technology.

[Ryan Petersen @typesfast]

Robotaxi sighting in SF.

No mirrors.

[680 The Fan @680TheFan]

In the span of one week, Atlanta lost two giants. Ted Turner helped put this city on the global map, and Bobby Cox helped give it one of the greatest baseball dynasties ever seen.

Two icons who helped shape Atlanta’s identity, culture and sports history forever.

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

Guess I have to argue over price until I get ejected from every store I go to for the next 14 days in tribute to Bobby and his 14 consecutive division titles. Still miss watching him and Rockin’ Leo in the dugout.

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

We see you, Richard.

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

…you might even say… they *gentrified* the perception of Detroit by bringing outside narratives in that were inapplicable to the city, and pushing local narratives out! But that would be a really annoying thing to say…

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

Probably not effective anymore, but in the 2010's I felt writing about gentrification in a city like Detroit was a way for writers to make their work legible to the NYC media market / industry.

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

@2024dion There were lots. I found it very frustrating. Especially given how much it directed investment and policy thinking locally and distracted from what was actually happening.

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

Probably not effective anymore, but in the 2010's I felt writing about gentrification in a city like Detroit was a way for writers to make their work legible to the NYC media market / industry.

[Midwest Antiquarian @Eric_Erins]

Why is my TL filled with people talking about Detroit being gentrified. You can’t have a population timeline like this and have people moving into the city be a serious concern

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

It's a shame. The forces unique to Detroit that actually were harming the city were much stranger, much more challenging to understand and unpack, but they were also a harder story to sell outside Detroit, because they were intensely local manifestations of national problems.

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

None of which had anything to do with gentrification.

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

@ericnoterik Yeah absolutely. That’s what I mean by the “when you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail” thinking — people trying to force the market to support something it can’t.

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

I mean, this is flatly wrong. (Developer said it, not JC).
Detroit is not retracting. DOWNTOWN Detroit is relative to pre-pandemic activity, but the neighborhoods of Detroit are growing. Also not true as a universal fact that the suburbs are growing.

[JC Reindl @jcreindl]

"For awhile, the cities were growing and not the suburbs."
"If you look at what’s happened the last three or four years, the suburbs are growing and the city is retracting.”
https://t.co/L5aCbeC2t2

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

I should have said -- "DOWNTOWN Detroit is relative to pre-pandemic activity, but the neighborhoods of Detroit are growing as is Detroit overall."

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

Good example of 'when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail' thinking. Very common in Detroit operator thinking.

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

Weird to counter with three neighborhoods that were either 85% vacant lots that’ve since had some new housing built on them, and one neighborhood that was industrial buildings now with some residential, and call it gentrification. Like, that’s exactly what gentrification isn’t.

[Alex Alsup @ZugIslander]

For sure.

[. @Jaykelz]

Detroit ain’t been gentrified forreal. I don’t think y’all know what that truly is.