Metro Times: Detroiters Explain Their Reasons for Leaving

[Hypestyles]

Steve Neavling's news article about former Detroit residents who have left the city in the modern day:

Black Detroiters are fleeing the city at an alarming rate |
Metro Detroit News | Detroit | Detroit Metro Times

excerpt:

Jessyka Faison was tired of watching the displacement of Black artists.
As a DJ who relied on a thriving nightlife, she watched in frustration as the creative space that catered to Black artists continued to shrink.
“I love my city and everything that came with it but I must say it’s been heartbreaking to watch the Black creative community lose their spaces to gentrification,” the 29-year-old says. “It really sucked the air out of everything I know. It’s heartbreaking. I feel really small. What can you do? Every time you take two steps forward, you have to take three steps backward.”
In August 2021, Faison, also known as DJ Lauren Jay, moved to Washington, D.C. Within three months, she was booking her first gigs as a DJ. Since then, she’s had DJ residencies at a club and a restaurant.
While she struggled to get consistent gigs in Detroit, she says she’s thriving in Washington, D.C.
For Faison, it was demoralizing to see an influx of new people at the expense of longtime Detroiters. She pointed to the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax incentives to two white billionaire developers — Dan Gilbert and the Ilitch family — at a time when the city’s neighborhoods are struggling.
It was too much for her to watch.
“Detroiters are paying for themselves to be displaced,” Faison says. “It’s really unfair. A lot of people don’t even realize that their tax dollars are being used to push them out of the city that they know and love.”
In the meantime, Faison hopes to help Detroit’s creative scene by connecting artists to Washington, D.C. and vice-versa.
“Now it’s a goal of mine to return to the city to play, reconnect with those creatives, and build bridges to expand Detroit’s culture beyond the city limits,” she says.