Is Detroit Really Making a Comeback?

[Bham1982]

And, no, you were wrong. Don't try to pull a Bham and change you're original statement so that you still have an argument. You said 500,000 unskilled immigrants, clearly stating that ALL would be 'unskilled'.

Not sure what the hell this means, as I never commented in this thread.

Detroit needs immigrants, period. I don't care if they're skilled or unskilled, legal or illegal. ANY immigrants would be wonderful for Detroit, but not gonna happen under the current idiotic, anti-immigrant, fact-averse Russian puppet administration.

Even ultra-poor, uneducated, heavily undocumented immigrant populations are highly beneficial to cities. The only non-core neighborhood in Detroit with functional neighborhood retail and private enterprise is SW Detroit, which, not coincidentally, is the only immigrant neighborhood in Detroit. Immigrants would be a Godsend.

[BankruptcyGuy]

My reaction to this article can be summed up as follows:



Chicago's median home value is nearly 10 times that of Detroit?
St. Louis' is 4 times?
Has the author been to St. Louis?
Do authors of pieces like this understand that when they have a story line and seek out data to match the story [[instead of seeking out data and writing a story about what the data shows), they lose credibility?

I found the Zillow data that the author used. Zillow estimates are, and I'll use a technical statistical term here, garbage.

I am aware of the fascination with income inequality, but to use it as a measure of the health of a city is absurd. If you have one wealthy person and 9 working class, you will have income inequality. If the wealthy person leaves [[see Detroit, 1960's), you will have less income inequality and an unquestionably less healthy city.

[mwilbert]

The 2020 decennial census [[data available early 2021) should give us our first real clues if the pop. decline has been reversed. By April 1, 2020, if the 'reversal' is real we should see that the 2020 pop > 2010 pop.

If population stopped declining in 2016, there is still no reason 2020 pop would need to be higher than 2010 pop.

The statistic I really want to see going up is median income of city residents relative to the median income of the metro area. You might be able to see that clearly by 2020.

[iheartthed]

I don't know what "comeback" even means for Detroit. If the population decline stops, does that count as a comeback? Without a dramatic reversal of fortune that I think we all can agree is not happening right now, I don't think it will ever reach its mid-20th century glory. Detroit would need to add 5,000 residents per month to reach its peak population again in the next two decades. That's roughly the same amount of people that New York City is adding per month right now.

[mwilbert]

I don't know what "comeback" even means for Detroit. If the population decline stops, does that count as a comeback? Without a dramatic reversal of fortune that I think we all can agree is not happening right now, I don't think it will ever reach its mid-20th century glory. Detroit would need to add 5,000 residents per month to reach its peak population again in the next two decades. That's roughly the same amount of people that New York City is adding per month right now.

Detroit within its current boundaries will never be the 4th largest city in the US again. Maybe there is some version of the world where it could reach its previous peak population, but that seems super unlikely unless the population of the US grows wildly above what I would expect. Neither of those things would be required for me to think there was a comeback, because I don't define a comeback as requiring you to get all the way back to your peak, but rather recovering a decent way from your nadir. A stable, increasingly affluent population, reduction in the percentage of the population in poverty, more employment within the city, reduced physical decrepitude, all would be nice indicators of a comeback in my book.

[Colombian Dan]

Detroit is on par to have lost over 1.4 million residents since 1950 when the 2020 census comes out. This is an astronomical number that no other city in history has ever experienced. To put this loss in context, Mosul Iraq had a population of about 2 million before ISIS took over. During the ISIS occupation Mosul had about 1.5 million people.

[Junjie]

Detroit within its current boundaries will never be the 4th largest city in the US again. ... A stable, increasingly affluent population, reduction in the percentage of the population in poverty, more employment within the city, reduced physical decrepitude, all would be nice indicators of a comeback in my book.

Exactly. We've moved from obvious decline on all dimensions to a situation where we can debate whether the city is generally doing better or worse, which is progress.

Getting through the bankruptcy, relighting the city [[even though I know there have been complaints), making progress at DDOT with new routes and more reliable service [[so I understand), and seeing an influx of business and residents to downtown/midtown are unquestionable signs of progress. And yet I'm expecting that 2020 will show a continued population decline, the schools seem no closer to health, and crime remains way too prevalent.

As many have said the city is never coming back to 1.9 million densely situated souls. But, and again I know these plans have their critics and problems, I think there is hope for a Detroit Future City type of approach where the city builds up specific corridors and neighborhoods over time, buoyed by increasing employment opportunities in the CBD. Stabilizing population loss and creating safe, viable urban neighborhoods linked to job opportunities around the region by transit would be success in the context of what Detroit has suffered.

And if that doesn't work, just take in as many climate refugees as we can once Florida goes underwater and the southwest runs out of it.

[313WX]

Detroit is on par to have lost over 1.4 million residents since 1950 when the 2020 census comes out. This is an astronomical number that no other city in history has ever experienced. To put this loss in context, Mosul Iraq had a population of about 2 million before ISIS took over. During the ISIS occupation Mosul had about 1.5 million people.

I'll be shocked if Detroit still has over 500,000 people by 2030 [[it may barely stay above that number for 2020).

[Cliffy]

And, no, you were wrong. Don't try to pull a Bham and change you're original statement so that you still have an argument. You said 500,000 unskilled immigrants, clearly stating that ALL would be 'unskilled'.

Clearly, one does not need a college education to be considered 'skilled.' And since 44% of immigrants are currently entering the country with a college education, I think it a safe assumption that MOST immigrants are skilled, or even highly skilled.

The balance seem to be starting businesses or doing work the rest of don't want to do.

You really think that 500,000 people from "Central America" are going to be skilled. We'd be lucky if 5% were skilled. Food stamps galore.

[Richard]

500,000 Colombians would love to come to Detroit legally.....

That path was through Canada first and asylum but now that FARC has maybe laid down arms it will be interesting to see how the migration numbers
change in the coming years.

There are lots of highly skilled immigrants cleaning time shares in Orlando,a doctor degree from another country means nothing here.

[K-slice]

Reading through the article the author seems to have one big misconception; that Midtown, Eastern Market, Corktown, and New Center never really fell on hard times. That they have always been the stable, busy, trendy places they are today. He implies the vitality of these areas doesn't count because he apparently can't remember a time they weren't stable...

However there was a time, and it wasn't very long ago that these areas were as bad as the neighborhoods outside of them. A time when the Shiola store and Third Man Records were just abandoned buildings tagged with graffiti. When to walk around Brush Park was as scary as any outlying neighborhood. When Michigan Ave. in Corktown had just as many blighted storefronts as anywhere else.

Discounting the progress that has been made so far is to deny the truth that many of these areas were once just as rough as the outlying neighborhoods still awaiting investment.

[Richard]

Without reading the article.

I would say yes based on comparisons of other cities,granted Detroit carries its own uniqueness,the metrics are still the same everywhere.

I also think that whatever happens there it will be in a much stronger position faster then most other cites were able to achieve.

If one looks at what has been achieved in the space in time already one really needs to give the residents credit for pulling together and getting it done,it really shows that they do care about their city and that is the battle.

From bankruptcy you guys put an effective city government in place,it was not just the city government that deserves the attention it is also the residents that go above and beyond to make their city a better place to live,there are and will be hiccups,but most of the groundwork that has been put in place far surpasses what happened in other cities without the mistakes and wasting time having to come back and fix them that takes years.

On the average it has taken other cities in excess of 20 years to go from a position of not even close to the condition Detroit was in,to where it now looks like Detroit will be close in 10 years.That is a lot to achieve in that short amount of time.

It has not reached the outer rings yet and there will be some parts like in every other city,that it probably will never reach.But each step is one more that makes the city as a whole more desirable to want to move there,I would never limit the population expectations at 500,000,that is for places like Ann Arbor etc.

Detroit is and will always be a city that helped shape,build and defend this country,and that means something more then its destiny being a quaint little city on the river.

[313WX]

Reading through the article the author seems to have one big misconception; that Midtown, Eastern Market, Corktown, and New Center never really fell on hard times. That they have always been the stable, busy, trendy places they are today. He implies the vitality of these areas doesn't count because he apparently can't remember a time they weren't stable...

However there was a time, and it wasn't very long ago that these areas were as bad as the neighborhoods outside of them. A time when the Shiola store and Third Man Records were just abandoned buildings tagged with graffiti. When to walk around Brush Park was as scary as any outlying neighborhood. When Michigan Ave. in Corktown had just as many blighted storefronts as anywhere else.

Discounting the progress that has been made so far is to deny the truth that many of these areas were once just as rough as the outlying neighborhoods still awaiting investment.

It should be pointed out, when Midtown / Downtown were "rough," NE and NW Detroit were still relatively prosperous area [[enough so that we had places like Kroger and Bel-Air Centre) and some of the safest in the city.

[313WX]

I would never limit the population expectations at 500,000,that is for places like Ann Arbor etc.

1. There's nothing in itself wrong with a population in the 400,000 - 700,000 ball park. Several cities we consider "major" [[I.E. metro populations of 5+ million) have plateaud roughly around that range [[Boston, Washington D.C., Atlanta, San Francisco, etc.). The main difference is that none of those other cities proper ever achieved the scale that Detroit did only to decline and then plateau at such low numbers. On top of that, the economic / political landscape in Detroit is considerably far worse in comparison to these other places, which makes it harder to duplicate the success they've had.

The task will be getting Detroiters to understand that while the city can very well be a functional place to live and work again [[if that's how one defines a "come back"), its best days are ultimately behind it if we're talking in terms of size. prosperity and influence.

2. HA! at Ann Arbor ever reaching 500,000. Zero chance of that. It's has remained stagnant at just above 100,000 for several decades now and that's only because it's home to one of the largest public universities in the country [[besides Google, it's not home to any other major employers).

[Bham1982]

Reading through the article the author seems to have one big misconception; that Midtown, Eastern Market, Corktown, and New Center never really fell on hard times. That they have always been the stable, busy, trendy places they are today. He implies the vitality of these areas doesn't count because he apparently can't remember a time they weren't stable...

However there was a time, and it wasn't very long ago that these areas were as bad as the neighborhoods outside of them. A time when the Shiola store and Third Man Records were just abandoned buildings tagged with graffiti. When to walk around Brush Park was as scary as any outlying neighborhood. When Michigan Ave. in Corktown had just as many blighted storefronts as anywhere else.

Discounting the progress that has been made so far is to deny the truth that many of these areas were once just as rough as the outlying neighborhoods still awaiting investment.

That's a bit of an exaggeration. Downtown Detroit was plenty vibrant through the early 90's or so; it was just a different crowd. It was still a traditional shopping district, with women's clothing stores, shoe stores and the like. There was far more shopping downtown in 1987 than in 2017. Granted a different type of shopping, but definitely more. And if you want to go back to the early 80's downtown had a roster of Somerset-style luxury stores in the RenCen. Imagine Louis Vuitton-type stores downtown.

Restaurants were far less numerous, but this would be true anywhere. The U.S. has become much more of an eating-out society in recent years. And there was a decent amount of high-end dining- Caucus Club, London Chop House, 1940 Chop House, Opus One and the like.

I don't remember Brush Park as particularly scary. It was more active than now, with the Brewster Houses still occupied. I remember the solid, stately midrise buildings torn down for Comerica Park and surrounding parking moats. Eastern Market was always busy. And I don't think Corktown was ever vacant.

I would bet even the Cass Corridor was more intact and active 30 years ago. It was much poorer and scarier, but there were more people on the street, and fewer vacant lots.

[K-slice]

You paint a very rosy, yet inaccurate picture. Any worthwhile retail in Downtown died with Hudsons. Unless you were shopping for drugs or alchahol. There were of course a few exceptions like Sermans and The Broadway. The Ren Cen was a city onto itself and to say any shops inside it contributed to downtown is a very big streach.

Brush Park was scary until it was totally abandoned after the Brewster Douglas Projects were closed, but that was before most people remember now. As for Corktown, just take a look at the Google Street view maps from 2007 and 2016, it's amazing how many more blighted and abandoned store fronts there were.

[Bham1982]

You paint a very rosy, yet inaccurate picture. Any worthwhile retail in Downtown died with Hudsons. Unless you were shopping for drugs or alchahol.

This is total bull. I remember walking Woodward and the side streets with my dad as a kid [[he worked downtown) and there was a lot of remaining retail and street-level vibrancy well into the early 90's.

The entire Woodward corridor up to the Fox was solid retail. Everything between Woodward and Washington Blvd. was active and full of retail. A lot of it was low end, but it was legit retail. We had lunch together countless times, and I remember the tacky shop windows, music blasting from stores and fairly heavy pedestrian traffic.

But it was a different crowd. Mostly black Detroiters taking the bus downtown to shop. Lots of shoe stores, wig stores, women's clothing stores. Stuff like Winkelmans, Tall Eez, Gantos, sneaker stores and the like. There were a lot more Detroiters back then, and many still shopped downtown. Those days are gone.

Brush Park was scary until it was totally abandoned after the Brewster Douglas Projects were closed, but that was before most people remember now. As for Corktown, just take a look at the Google Street view maps from 2007 and 2016, it's amazing how many more blighted and abandoned store fronts there were.

Corktown was never abandoned. Michigan Ave. always had retail, and the housing was always occupied and well kept. Brush Park was undoubtedly more dangerous back then, but it was also more active. It had people and buildings.

[Towne Cluber]

1. There's nothing in itself wrong with a population in the 400,000 - 700,000 ball park. Several cities we consider "major" [[I.E. metro populations of 5+ million) have plateaud roughly around that range [[Boston, Washington D.C., Atlanta, San Francisco, etc.). The main difference is that none of those other cities proper ever achieved the scale that Detroit did only to decline and then plateau at such low numbers. On top of that, the economic / political landscape in Detroit is considerably far worse in comparison to these other places, which makes it harder to duplicate the success they've had.

To clarify, Boston's population is now roughly equal to Detroit, while occupying 1/3 of the land mass of Detroit. Furthermore, SF's population is now well-over 850k, while also occupying only 1/3 of Detroit's land mass. Those two cities [[along with DC and others) have not plateaued, rather they are continuing to grow.

[mwilbert]

Boston is not close to its peak population, so in some sense it has been on a plateau for a century. It is certainly growing now, and it is possible it will get back to it, but probably not for at least a couple of decades.

[Bigdd]

From the Migration Policy Institute:

"In 2014, 29 percent [[10.5 million) of the 36.7 million immigrants ages 25 and older had a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to 30 percent of native-born adults. Notably, the share of college-educated immigrants is much higher.—44 percent—among those who entered the country since 2010. On the other end of the educational spectrum, 30 percent of immigrants lacked a high school diploma or General Educational Development [[GED) certificate versus 10 percent of their native-born counterparts."

We all need to keep in mind,.. that this is "Immigrants" and not illegal immigrants or refugees.

My wife was an immigrant. She graduated college the top of her class and was a college lecturer. Later she was brought here to the States by the government to teach.

The people sneaking into the country at night and refugees from places like Syria will not have similar resumes.

The USA has always let in a large number of immigrants,.. and it is why we are what we are. But for much of that time we did not have a large welfare system. With free health-care, Bridge Cards, etc.

Now that we do,.. we need to be even more selective about who we let in.

[dtowncitylover]

The people sneaking into the country at night and refugees from places like Syria will not have similar resumes.

That's literally not true. It's well reported that many of these refugees were students, teachers, doctors, dentists, lawyers, businessmen etc. One reason why they ran is because they a) members of Syrian's middle and working classes and therefore b) not soldiers and did not want to fight because they though never in a million years there would have been such a war. Yes, they don't have the same level of credentials as American counterparts but many of these people aren't Syrian hicks from the back country. They are/were cosmopolitan men, women, and families from Aleppo, Raqqah, etc.

Dare I say that these refugees are much more educated than any Irish refugee from the 19th century.

[Bigdd]

That's literally not true. It's well reported that many of these refugees were students, teachers, doctors, dentists, lawyers, businessmen etc. One reason why they ran is because they a) members of Syrian's middle and working classes and therefore b) not soldiers and did not want to fight because they though never in a million years there would have been such a war. Yes, they don't have the same level of credentials as American counterparts but many of these people aren't Syrian hicks from the back country. They are/were cosmopolitan men, women, and families from Aleppo, Raqqah, etc.

Dare I say that these refugees are much more educated than any Irish refugee from the 19th century.

Well,.. we have no idea really when they come from Syria because ISIS seized control of a couple of the main passport offices and are printing their own passports.

But the data indicated that 9.4% have some type of higher education [[technical, college, graduate school, etc). Much of that however has to do with a large percentage of them being quite young. So perhaps 2% were doctors, dentists, or lawyers?

And I totally agree on the Irish. But at that time there wasn't free housing, free health-care, free food etc,.. so they came here knowing they were going to have to work extremely hard or starve to death. And then there weren't worker's rights, overtime, or minimum wage laws.

Our current refugee / illegal immigrant situation is costing us upwards of $90 BILLION a year in social services. Money that we could be using for Veterans, our poor, vocational training, etc.

[Bham1982]

The people sneaking into the country at night and refugees from places like Syria will not have similar resumes.

Putting aside the cartoonish, false description [[undocumented immigrants don't "sneak into the country at night"; they come by plane via tourist visas), why do you assume that such folks don't have similar resumes?

Steve Jobs is the son of Syrian refugees. Google was founded by a refugee. And lots of famous Americans who came as undocumented immigrants, everyone from Salma Hayek to the First Lady.

The USA has always let in a large number of immigrants,.. and it is why we are what we are. But for much of that time we did not have a large welfare system. With free health-care, Bridge Cards, etc.

Also not true. The U.S. had, for decades, racist, exclusionary immigration policies that weren't somewhat loosened until the late 1960's. This is why there are comparatively few immigrants, excepting war refugees, from the interwar period until Vietnam.

Immigrants, both legal and illegal, use public services much less than native-born Americans, and are net contributors to the public purse. If you're making immigration policy based on economic concerns you would want more immigrants, not fewer. The U.S. receives far fewer immigrants proportionally than our competitor nations.

Now that we do,.. we need to be even more selective about who we let in.

No, we need to be far less bureaucratic and somewhat less selective. The current system is ridiculously stringent.

If the U.S. is to thrive, we need to welcome immigrants as Canada and Western Europe have. The U.S. once received the best and brightest; now we lose tons of talent to competitor nations.

I have personally lost recruits to Canada because of our arcane and cumbersome immigration process, which is only becoming worse under the new administration. I have high salary positions going unmet, but the Americans who whine about immigrants don't have the skill set to get these jobs. Then they wonder why the U.S. economy underperforms, why they can't get a job, and blame immigrants and brown people, rather than blaming themselves.

[Bham1982]

That's literally not true. It's well reported that many of these refugees were students, teachers, doctors, dentists, lawyers, businessmen etc. One reason why they ran is because they a) members of Syrian's middle and working classes and therefore b) not soldiers and did not want to fight because they though never in a million years there would have been such a war. Yes, they don't have the same level of credentials as American counterparts but many of these people aren't Syrian hicks from the back country. They are/were cosmopolitan men, women, and families from Aleppo, Raqqah, etc.

Dare I say that these refugees are much more educated than any Irish refugee from the 19th century.

Exactly. Syria was a middle class country, with a large professional class.

Syria has tons of engineers and skilled professionals who are powering the German and Canadian economies. Yes, there are some challenges with integrating newcomers, but the migrants have been huge net positives for the recipient nations [[as well as saving lives and fighting radicalization).

I laugh when people [[who have never been to Europe) claim there are "no go zones" in European cities and claim countries are supposedly on the verge of Sharia law. In reality, Germany has almost full employment, has solved its demographic crisis, and overall crime has actually dropped [[and is like 1/10 that of the U.S.). Syrians have been a Godsend for Germany.

Unfortunately, the U.S. has decided to be the global idiot, and now immigrants are considered a threat to, rather than the key to, prosperity. Sad!

[GMan]

Exactly. Syria was a middle class country, with a large professional class.

Syria has tons of engineers and skilled professionals who are powering the German and Canadian economies. Yes, there are some challenges with integrating newcomers, but the migrants have been huge net positives for the recipient nations [[as well as saving lives and fighting radicalization).

Unfortunately, the U.S. has decided to be the global idiot, and now immigrants are considered a threat to, rather than the key to, prosperity. Sad!

Wow! With that type of credentialing, Vetting should take say 5 mins.
They certainly won't need any food stamps or relocation assistance since their job skills will immediately be marketable in the U.S.
They just need to be trained to spend money on sporting events and how to properly BBQ and they will fit right in with the rest of the U.S.
Detroit better get that soccer stadium ready fast!