CRYSTAL BALL page 63 Ameritech will give you 1,000 FREE minutes... Just for signing a 1 year contract and using your own phone or 400 FREE minutes and a FREE phone too! (ends April 12, 1997) *Other restrictions may apply. Bernard Glieberman: Resurgence of downtowns. Gain A Presence on The World Wide Web SpeedLink • A Division of Speed Net, Inc. Tel: (810) 335-1309 Fax: (810) 332-5570 http://www.speedlink.net e-mail:speed@speedlink.net Get Results... Advertise in our new Entertainment Section ! Ca The Sales Department (810) 354-7123 Ext. 209 THE,JEy ■ D ial. NWS when I wanted to go for an ice cream cone, I had to go to a shopping center and sit in a parking lot. Where now, I can go into a downtown and buy an ice cream cone, and I can walk to all the shops.' Plymouth, "Northville, Brighton, Mt. Clemens, Royal Oak — look at all these edge cities with downtowns that are coming back now. Very few of them aren't. "But now if you live in West Bloomfield, tell me your down- town?" What is it going to be? Are you going to say my down- town is Orchard Lake and Maple? If you live in Bloomfield Hills, is it going to be Long Lake and Woodward? If you live in Novi, is your downtown Twelve Oaks Mall? "So you see, that's what hap- pened to kids. They grow up and they say, 'Well, where's my downtown?' "Cities that do not have down- towns are not going to do as well with urban lifestyles as the cities that do. Because with urban lifestyles, you've got to have a downtown. People have to relate to a downtown," Mr. Glieberman said. "Young people are saying, 'I go to see my friends in Chicago, I go to San Francisco, I go to New York. Why the hell can'twe have it here?' " Mr. Glieberman praises De- troit's mayor for his role in De- troit's rebirth. "Without [Dennis] Archer, this would never hap- pen. I really believe that Mayor Archer sacrificed an opportuni- ty to go to Washington because he felt he made a commitment to the business people of this community, so he gave it up and stayed. "That was a big fear of the banks. The banks are pouring billions of dollars into the city. The mayor's made some major commitments. That man de- serves the credit for how far we've gotten. Without Mayor Archer, we wouldn't be where we are today. And I think he can lead us into a turnaround of De- troit," said Mr. Glieberman. "Sure, there'll be bumps along the way. But I think it's going to happen bigger in Detroit than anywhere else. If they can do something with these casinos, and place them properly, and have the right controls over what they can do and can't do, then the city can benefit from the casinos. "The advantages can be more than the disadvantages if it is cleverly thought out. And I think he [Mayor Archer] has got a good commission working on it," Mr. Glieberman said. But not everyone thinks the future is heading back to De- troit. Scott Jacobson, president of S.R. Jacobson Development Corp. in Bingham Farms, is this year's president of the Building Industry Association of South- eastern Michigan (BIA). He thinks it's hard to say where we'll be living 20 years from now. "There are locations that a lot of builders are looking at, like U.S. 23 and M-59 in Livingston County. That could be a real ex- plosion, up and down the corri- dor of U.S. 23. It's already starting, and will get a lot more active," said Mr. Jacobson. 'We're looking at possible fu- ture development Downriver, which is stronger, because the infrastructure is already in place. That's what builders look for, sewers and water, although