Who were the best and worst Mayors in Detroit History/

[5thSFGP]

Yes. Perhaps you should . . . .

[mwilbert]

By all accounts I have seen, Hazen Pingree was best.

I think CAY was the worst of my life [[KK didn't last long enough), but I have to defend him a bit. He certainly had people skills, but he liked pushing people's buttons [[anyone else remember "President Pruneface") and maybe he would have had better relationships if he could have suppressed that a bit more. I think he thought it played well with his supporters and he was probably right. Maybe he can be faulted for that--he kept playing to his base even though it probably wasn't the best strategy for the city.

I think he viewed becoming mayor [[and the perks that came with it) as being a goal and a symbolic accomplishment in itself, and didn't devote a lot of effort to actually running the city. I also don't think there is any reason to think he had the skills to do it. In any case he had clearly lost interest in doing anything constructive by the end of his second term.

All this might have just made him sort of a poor mayor, rather than the worst, except that he was in office for so long during a rather challenging time. James Buchanan may not have been intrinsically a much worse president than Millard Fillmore, but he was in office in more difficult circumstances, so he gets to be the worst, at least for the moment.

[softailrider]

The fact remains that when Young took office the city was very livable .At the end of his tenure, vast areas of the city had become wastelands. I do not believe that this was his fault competely, I do believe he exacerbated the situation markedly.