Detroit: City on the Move

Here's a video promoting Detroit's bid for the 1968 Olympics. Mayor Cavanaugh sounds so optimistic about urban renewal. If he only knew ...

Light rail plans (not) reconciled

Light rail is a go. That was the word on Thursday, when Matt Cullen told reporters that Detroit's two proposed rail plans -- one public, one private -- had reached an accord, freeing the private group to begin construction on the first leg, from downtown to New Center.

Now the city's saying not so fast. If construction begins on the private M1 rail before DTOGS (the public plan) finishes its environmental review, then the federal government can't accept the $125 million behind the private effort as part of the local matching funds that the city will need to qualify for federal funding. In other words, DTOGS would be dead, because neither the city nor the state is likely to come up with that kind of money later on.

As it is, the two plans don't exactly mesh. They use different vehicles, run at different speeds, and have different alignments (curbside vs. center of the street). Naturally, they also have different operators. So even if both are built, the ride up Woodward won't be seamless. Riders will presumably have to get off at New Center and switch trains. Still, I'd gladly take two systems over none. I just fear that soon we'll be settling for just the one -- and waiting half a decade or more to see any progress on its expansion.

Cause for cautious optimism

Detroit's economy may be moribund, but thanks to some new initiatives, it may not remain that way forever. To start with, the New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan, a consortium of ten foundations formed last year, is putting $5 million behind a new training program for entrepreneurs that will lead to 400 new start-ups a year. The sessions will be hosted at Wayne State's TechTown and run by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, the nation's leading foundation on entrepreneurship.

Three smaller initiatives are also getting great press. TechTown itself has been exceptionally successful, attracting eighty businesses and a long waiting list to its New Center location. Open City, a monthly meeting of Detroit business owners, was recently profiled by CNN for the remarkable collaboration and community it has sparked. Quicken CEO Dan Gilbert's Bizdom U has also gotten recognition for its free, two-year training program for select entrepreneurs. None of these are quick fixes for the ailing economy, but by focusing on the fundamentals, they should spark more job growth in the long run than ineffective tax incentives or the usual splashy projects, like stadiums and casinos, ever could.

Restructuring DPS

Big changes are coming to Detroit Public Schools -- and just in time. The News reports the district has now lost a shocking 44% of its enrollment since 2000 to charters, the suburbs, and other areas of the country.

On Tuesday, the state-appointed emergency financial manager, Robert Bobb, announced the closing of 29 schools and the restructuring of 40 others deemed "miserably failing." On Wednesday, he took the unprecedented step of asking President Obama to issue a special emergency declaration to allow the district to receive emergency funding. (If granted, it would be the first emergency declaration not tied to a natural disaster.)

Obama's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, has promised to send millions of dollars to the district if it pursues fundamental change. Speaking in the city on Wednesday, he called Detroit "ground zero" for education in the United States. "Detroit is New Orleans two years ago without Hurricane Katrina," he said, "and I feel a tremendous sense of both urgency and outrage." He supports copying the model used in Chicago and letting Mayor Dave Bing take control of the district.

Both can be heard on Wednesday's edition of Detroit Today. Also worth watching: Geoffrey Canada at the New Yorker Summit. Liberals and conservatives alike (see David Brooks, for example) have championed his Harlem Children's Zone as the single best model for fixing urban education -- something Bobb and Duncan are surely looking at.

Thoughts on Bing

So Bing is the new mayor. Now that Cockrel's trial-run is up, Bing gets his own six-month shot at the job. I greet this news with cautious optimism. Bing is confident and competent, and he seems to get that revitalizing Detroit requires both a big vision and a business-like focus on all the basics. Almost better yet, Cockrel is back at the helm of City Council, meaning Monica Conyers loses her soapbox and both sides of government are run by competent, serious people.

Yet I have my doubts. He's a member of the business elite and plans to govern like it. With any luck, that will translate into streamlined government and new investment. But it might also mean yet more emphasis on big downtown projects -- like stadiums and casinos -- at the expense of neighborhood revitalization. I'm also unconvinced he gets what urban life is all about. He lived his adult life in the suburbs (gated ones at that!), has little to say on preservation, and has called for suburban-style "cities within the city".

Does he get what Detroit is all about? Is he in touch with community groups and the concerns of ordinary residents? I sure hope so.

Taking a cue from Braddock, PA

If Braddock can do it, so can we. That's the message out of Metro Mode this week, which profiles a dying industrial town just downriver from Pittsburgh that's trying to reinvent itself as a dirt-cheap refuge for artists, urbanists, and environmentalists. The mayor, John Fetterman, who looks like he just stepped out of the Old Miami, has set up a website, www.15104.cc, that sells the ruined city as "an unparalleled opportunity for the urban pioneer, artist, or misfit" to "create amidst destruction." He seems to be getting some traction, too, at least in the press and academy. He's been interviewed by the New York Times, the Colbert Report, the Daily Show, PBS, and NPR, and he recently spoke at U of M's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

I haven't read/heard it all yet, but I'd definitely like to learn more. What do the current residents really think of this all? Do they buy it? Are outsiders actually moving in? And, as Metro Mode asks, what can Detroit take away from this?

The photo, by the way, is taken from the gallery of "Ruins" on the city's website --- probably the only municipal website in the United States that not only openly acknowledges its urban decay (and its Crips affiliation!) but embraces it, too, as "malignant beauty."

Urban gardening continues to grow

The News has a great review of urban agriculture in Detroit. In the past decade, dozens of community gardens have been planted across the city, like the inspirational Georgia Street Garden on the city's east side. And now, Model D reports, the movement has state backing. The new Garden for Growth program lets neighbors lease state-owned vacant land for one year tax-free if they create a park or garden on the lot. More than 6,000 parcels are eligible in Detroit alone!

Right-sizing the Rust Belt

The New York Times reports on proposals to "right-size" the city of Flint. Since the 1960s, the city has lost nearly half its population, and a third of those remaining are in poverty. To restore density and make city services more efficient, the County Treasurer would like to shrink the city's footprint by shutting down the city's least populated blocks and neighborhoods. “Decline in Flint is like gravity, a fact of life,” he says. “We need to control it instead of letting it control us.”

As I've written before, Youngstown, Ohio, has already adopted a plan to right-size the city as its population drops. Many believe Detroit should do the same, though it's a matter of considerable debate. Also sure to spark debate are mayoral candidate Dave Bing's recent remarks to the Detroit News's editorial board on rebuilding Detroit's vacated land:

Estimating there are about 70,000 parcels of vacant land citywide, Bing said his first priorities are to clear land near and around schools, churches and senior citizen complexes. He would eventually create areas similar to what people have come to expect in some suburban communities. "A lot of people who moved out of the city are middle-class people, and I don't think a lot of them feel we've got the communities they like to live in," Bing told The Detroit News editorial board. "Wouldn't it be great if we could look at some of this vacant land to build a city within a city?

"It would be great to have a city like Birmingham in the city or to have a (place) like somewhere in Grosse Pointe so that those middle class people have an option to come back."

Something tells me Bing will have some explaining to do.

Jobs, please

Rochelle Riley has a telling column on a Renaissance High and Harvard grad who chose to move back to Detroit but can't find a job in his field of choice, urban planning and development. The point here is pretty obvious. In a state rapidly losing population and half of its own college grads, shouldn't local businesses and agencies do everything they can to recruit and retain the local talent that actually wants to stick around? Yes, Detroit has a small, thriving do it yourself culture, and young entrepreneurs regularly kick off cool new businesses and non-profit projects, but let's be honest, that path is for the courageous few. Something needs to be done to keep the other 95% in town, starting with a clear path to whatever good, steady employment remains in our post-auto economy.

City going full circle

I'm still not sure what I think of the Hantz Group's plans to bring full-scale commercial farming to Detroit. There just aren't enough details yet, though this web chat with Matt Allen answers a lot of questions.

On the plus side, a large farm will put vacant land back to use, generate tax revenue for the city, and draw positive publicity from around the world. Best yet, it could help break the stigma that mars Detroit's abandoned lots. Most of this vacant land would be fairly easy to build on (red tape and taxes aside), but developers don't even consider it because of its fallen history. Vacant land in Detroit is just presumed worthless. A successful reuse project could change the perception of Detroit's vacant lots from an albatross to an opportunity.

Now for the caveats, mostly based on speculation:

• A third of the city's land is vacant, but most of it isn't contiguous. Will a farm displace people? By what process and for what compensation? In the web chat, someone asked if "people [would] be asked to move or relocated, or would the farm just go up around them? " Matt Allen responded, "... both. Our intention is to have the area inside the farm site empty."

• How much tax revenue will it really generate? When asked, Allen wrote, "well that is to be determined but we cant pay 81 mils, we are at the point where that is being discussed along with other issues." That is to say, Allen wants a special lower tax rate for the farm -- "an ag rate." Will other businesses get to pay this new lower rate or just them?

• What about pesticides and other runoff? Allen says MSU Extension is partnering with the farm to monitor the environmental impact, but it's worth worrying about. This won't be an organic farm. Allen says they'll be using "conventional ag methods" -- and conventional agriculture methods are toxic.

• How will the farm be secured? Are we talking cornstalks surrounded by barbed wire? This could look great or look terrible depending on the measures they take.

• And what about Matt Allen? I don't advocate guilt by association, but he is Kwame Kilpatrick's former Press Secretary after all (and he's been publicly arrested for domestic abuse). That does invite a certain level of scrutiny.
  

In short, I eagerly await their business plan.

Save Michigan Central Station

As most know by now, City Council has voted to demolish Detroit's most iconic landmark, Michigan Central Station, and if the mayor's request is approved, federal stimulus funds will pay for it.

We need to save this structure. Yes, it's in bad repair. Thanks to the neglect of its owner, billionaire Matty Moroun, the building is a shell of its former self, torn apart by scrappers and the elements. No, no one knows what to do with it. The size of the structure, its distance from downtown, and the prohibitive cost of rehabbing it have so far killed all the proposals to save it. Yet it should be left to stand.

MCS is a national landmark, a Beaux Arts marvel, and an icon of Detroit -- broken down, abandoned, but still beautiful. It embodies the history of the past century and should remain as a testament to those times. Ideally, MCS would be rehabbed, but even as a ruin, it will draw interest and attention for decades, like the ruins of old Europe. Perhaps, as a Detroit Yes poster suggests, just the facade could be saved and serve as the centerpiece of a renovated Roosevelt Park. Regardless, preserving some or all of this historic structure will be better for Detroit than the certain alternative -- another rubble-strewn, vacant lot.

Remember, nothing will replace MCS, not for many years. Many say the station stands in the way of new development, but there are no viable plans to reuse the space. Once destroyed, the lot will join the network of urban prairie spreading across the city. And at what expense? The city will not only lose its history and sense of self, it will waste its federal stimulus dollars, not on creating jobs, as they're meant to do, but on permanently destroying the urban fabric. This money should go toward creating the next economy, not destroying the remnants of the industrial past. Knocking down MCS is a mistake we'll long regret.

7/17 Update: Read about the volunteer effort to clean up and save Michigan Central Station.

Unexpected good news

To my surprise, the News is reporting that plans to build an $80-million outdoor mall at 8 Mile and Woodward are proceeding. Yes, the project has already been delayed for two years, and today is April Fools' Day, but if the developers are to be believed, construction could actually begin as soon as next month. If constructed, the Shoppes at Gateway Park would be the largest commercial development built in Detroit in fifty years.

The mall would also mark a major transformation of the corridor. While the neighborhoods to the west (Palmer Woods, Sherwood Forest) are among Detroit's most affluent, the area just south and east of the proposed mall is as desolate as any in the city, with vacant lots and burned out homes outnumbering occupied dwellings. What's more, the major anchor of the area, the State Fairgrounds, is being shut down by the state. So the new mall will truly be a turn of events.

The change we're stuck with

What a day to stop the presses. As the New York Times rubs in, Detroit's dailies ended home delivery on one of the heaviest news days of the year. General Motors and Chrysler will be forcibly restructured by the White House, L. Brooks Patterson wants to steal the Auto Show, Michigan State made the Final Four, and the fact that both papers stopped home delivery is itself national news.

As the headlines make so evident, Detroit has never needed its journalists more, but the recession is putting one paper after another out of print or out of business altogether. The casualties so far include Flint, Saginaw, Bay City, and Detroit, whose papers have all cut daily delivery, and the Ann Arbor News, which closed outright. If the economic downturn lasts much longer (and it's likely to last quite awhile), there may be no newspapers left standing to tell us about it.

Non-profits retrench

This weekend the New York Times ran an article on Detroit's struggling non-profit sector. Charities across the region are on the brink of fiscal collapse just as they're needed most, and Detroit's major foundations -- like Kresge, Skillman, and Hudson-Webber-- don't have the funds to save them all. As a consequence, non-profits are being forced to cooperate, combine, or close. Even the symphony and the opera may be forced to share an orchestra to cut costs.

History repeats itself

The New Yorker's George Packer points out this passage in a history of the twenties published in 1931:

The suburban boom itself did not begin to languish in most localities until 1928 or 1929. By that time many suburbs were plainly overbuilt: as one drove out along the highways, one began to notice houses that must have stood long untenanted, shops with staring vacant windows, districts blighted with half-finished and abandoned ‘improvements’; one heard of suburban apartment houses which had changed hands again and again as mortgages were foreclosed, or of householders in uncompleted subdivisions who were groaning under a naively unexpected burden of taxes and assessments.

Eerie, isn't it?

He also links to Sweet Juniper's haunting photo essay, "School's Out Forever," published recently in Vice Magazine. Definitely worth a look.

State takes over Pontiac's finances

According to the news, the state is appointing a manager to run Pontiac. Flint was state-run from 2002 to 2006, and other declining urban areas, Hamtramck and Highland Park included, have suffered the same fate. Local leaders have been unable to close deficits that keep growing every year as population and tax revenue declines.

Could Detroit be next? Not likely. The politics would be brutal. But the state has taken control of Detroit Public School's finances for the second time, and the city itself is facing a $300 million deficit -- the latest in a series of chronic, growing deficits that have no easy solution. Every tax hike drives more residents and businesses away, but so long as the city's population continues to slide, the city will continue to have less revenue each year to provide services to the same size area. This is an equation for disaster -- day by day, dollar by dollar.

Habitat switches to demolition

The New York Times has a report today on how Habitat for Humanity is now knocking down more homes in Saginaw than it's building. In partnership with the city, the group is paying low-income workers to dismantle dilapidated homes and recycle anything salvageable. In essence, the city is co-opting the scrappers, letting Habitat take the valuables instead and use the profits to finance new home construction. Still, it's awfully ironic to see Habitat workers wielding sledge hammers.

Bridge Watch

Last night the U.S. Coast Guard got more public input than it was anticipating when 500 people showed up to comment on the environmental impact of Matty Moroun's proposed new bridge. This could be a big setback for Moroun, who boldly went ahead and built on-ramps to the unapproved bridge without waiting for public comment or federal approval.