Shrinking Detroit can map out its future with census data

STEVE NEAVLING
DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER


As alarming as the 2010 census figures were for Detroit, they provide insight into how the Bing administration can reshape a shrinking city by creating denser residential areas with stronger services.

Take Midtown, Woodbridge, New Center, Corktown and parts of downtown, where an increase in young professionals in the past decade helped drive population increases at a time when the rest of the city lost residents.

"While there are challenges, this shows that Detroit is a place where entrepreneurs and creative young people are thriving," Mayor Dave Bing told the Free Press. "They understand that we are transforming Detroit, and they want to be a part of the rebirth of this city."

And in the tree-lined neighborhoods of Boston-Edison and East English Village, where Bing is already attempting to lure police officers to move to, the exodus of a quarter of those areas' populations left behind more than 2,300 habitable homes -- or a quarter of the two areas' houses -- largely because of foreclosures, city officials and demographers said.

The high vacancy rate in areas with strong housing stock is an advantage to Bing, said demographer Kurt Metzger, because plenty of good homes are available to those leaving more desolated areas.

"The city has to figure out how many vacancies there are and who owns the properties to tackle the problem," said Metzger, director of Data Driven Detroit, a nonprofit that analyzes the region's demographic shifts. "The vacancies can work to your advantage."

Along with Midtown, Bing has identified Boston-Edison on the west side and East English Village on the east side as key areas under his ambitious Detroit Works Project, a plan aimed at repopulating neighborhoods that have quality housing stock and are close to schools, services and parks.


Continued at: http://www.freep.com/article/2011040...0562/1001/news