Decisions that could have saved Detroit

[Danny]

Coleman A. Young should of made decisions to save Detroit from the 1970s to 1990s:

1. Get Detroit Police to patrol more in gang laden, crack infested ghettohoods.

2. Find private dollars to fund D-DOT's crippling bus system.

3. Lure private investors [[in any race) to Downtown Detroit and give them 10 year tax breaks.

4. Stop scaring the suburbanites by telling "It's time for all the crooks to hit 8 Mile Rd."

5. Stop calling President Reagan from calling him 'President Prumeface!'

6. Find a better location for the Dodge Main Plant instead of destroying Poletown.

[313WX]

I don't think the discussion necessarily needs to focus on Coleman Young. Certainly there are things that could have been done way before him that might have helped Detroit in the long run. For example, what if Michigan had invested in an anchor university in the city so that it would have a more diversified economy. Was that ever considered? And how could the effects of white flight been mitigated? I'm not an expert but think that if the entire region had been annexed into a single unit for tax purposes you wouldn't have seen Detroit's tax base collapse and people in the suburbs would have had more of an invest,met in the city. Just a thought.

My basic point though is that instead of explaining why Detroit is the way it is, it's interesting to consider what could have happened, but did not, to prevent that outcome.

Agreed.

If you don't know the past then you're bound to repeat it again in the future.

Also know what you do in the present very much has huge implications on the future.

[Detroitnerd]

I would submit that in 1951, the city council did not have massive staffs, bodyguards, or expensive vehicles. They might have a secretary and a free parking spot for council meetings.

That is true. Another reason why proposing today's prescribed "austerity measures" for the Detroit of 1951 is patently ridiculous.

[EastsideAl]

I don't think the discussion necessarily needs to focus on Coleman Young. Certainly there are things that could have been done way before him that might have helped Detroit in the long run. For example, what if Michigan had invested in an anchor university in the city so that it would have a more diversified economy. Was that ever considered?

I believe this is what Wayne State was conceived as being. From the early '50s onward, and especially after the state took the school over completely in 1956, state money was poured into the expansion of the university. That's why so many of the buildings on the Wayne campus date from the early '50s through the mid '60s.

The plan was to turn Wayne into a full-fledged research university, grow and expand its existing professional schools, and build Wayne a large centralized undergraduate campus that would eventually include dormitories. This was supposed to change what had been primarily a local commuter school into a largely residential university with strong graduate programs, thereby drawing students from throughout the state and elsewhere.

Wayne was even made the third of the state's "constitutional" universities, with its own dedicated funding and a board that's elected through a statewide election. But the problem was that Wayne stubbornly remained #3, behind UM and MSU, and a distant third at that. After the '67 riot, with the resentment and fear of a changing Detroit, and through the decline in the state's financial fortunes and the eventual decline in its commitment to higher education funding, Wayne pretty much got the short end of every stick. More money went to the establishment of new campuses or the expansion of existing ones elsewhere in the state than came to Wayne in a hated and feared Detroit.

So, many long range plans were delayed or abandoned and most of the continued expansion of the university was put on hold. Unlike UM or MSU, Wayne didn't have a lot of outside funding sources to draw on, or a high historical, academic, or athletic profile to attract such money. Large corporations, even local ones, were often loathe to be associated with anything in the City of Detroit, including Wayne, so corporate fund-raising became a tough sell for university administration. The school slipped into serious financial trouble for several years.

In the past couple of decades though Wayne has come back strong, has been able to grow again, and has done quite well. They've been able to build and expand, including the continuing expansion of dormitory capacity and a growing on-campus community. But it is still, at best, the #3 university in a state with a declining economy and population, and never will be #1 or #2. The very fact that you asked the question about an "anchor university," for a city that already contains a 32,000+ student research university, shows how far Wayne still is from fulfilling its potential and being taken seriously, at least in the public's perception.

[jolla]

But [WSU] is still, at best, the #3 university in a state with a declining economy and population, and never will be #1 or #2.

I don't consider it even close to #3. CMU, Oakland, Eastern, and Western all come to my mind as 'better' than WSU.

[[I'm not trying to start a which-school-is-better argument, I just don't agree that Wayne is taken that seriously.)

[Scottathew]

4. Keeping the residency requirement.

The thought has been thrown around for positions within Warren [[where I live), but I'm totally against it for Warren because I think it narrows down the pool too much, especially for positions that require certain skills.

I think a residency requirement might help Detroit, but I don't like the idea of a government employing people and telling them where they can and can't live.

[corktownyuppie]

I don't consider it even close to #3. CMU, Oakland, Eastern, and Western all come to my mind as 'better' than WSU.

[[I'm not trying to start a which-school-is-better argument, I just don't agree that Wayne is taken that seriously.)

I'd agree that their undergraduate program barely makes the radar screen. However, their med school and law school are very highly respected statewide.

[renf]

When Steven Mason was establishing the state of Michigan in 1837, there was an agreement that the state capitol would be moved away from Detroit. And, then, in 1840, the University of Michigan was allowed to relocate in Ann Arbor. One reason that Minneapolis-St. Paul escaped many of the economic problems of the Rust Belt is that its economic base includes the state capitol and the state's largest university.

[Detroitnerd]

It's an American thing. I was reading Kunstler's "Geography of Nowhere" the other day. He points out that "many states with big cities exiled their capitals to the provinces -- New York to Albany, Illinois to Springfield, California to Sacramento -- so the monumental architecture of government went up in cow towns where the great new capitol buildings looked bombastically out of proportion and served little civic purpose, while depriving the bigger cities of monuments and the large public gathering spaces that go with them."

I think he's dead-on there. We would have done well to retain the university and the seat of government in Detroit.

[jolla]

I'd agree that their undergraduate program barely makes the radar screen. However, their med school and law school are very highly respected statewide.

Agreed. [[Since my dad got his JD there, I'd better!)

[corktownyuppie]

When Steven Mason was establishing the state of Michigan in 1837, there was an agreement that the state capitol would be moved away from Detroit. And, then, in 1840, the University of Michigan was allowed to relocate in Ann Arbor. One reason that Minneapolis-St. Paul escaped many of the economic problems of the Rust Belt is that its economic base includes the state capitol and the state's largest university.

No kidding. I can't imagine what Detroit would look like with both the University of Michigan and the state capitol. A completely different city, indeed.

[EastsideAl]

I don't consider it even close to #3. CMU, Oakland, Eastern, and Western all come to my mind as 'better' than WSU.

[[I'm not trying to start a which-school-is-better argument, I just don't agree that Wayne is taken that seriously.)

Exhibit A. WSU has much larger student body than any of the universities mentioned above, is a full research university with a much wider range of graduate Ph.D. granting programs than any of those schools, has a law school unlike those universities [[and unlike MSU until very recently) and a med school unlike all but one of them [[Oakland has just opened a new med school in cooperation with Beaumont Hospital), is politically independent with its own statewide elected board and independent financial authority unlike those schools, and is generally rated higher academically. It was definitely set up to be the state's #3 university, at the very least.

Yet I believe that Jolla's perception is essentially correct, that the schools he names have a higher profile statewide than Wayne does and are in many ways perceived as "better" schools than WSU around here [[whether they actually are "better" or not is a different argument, and one I'm certain we can't solve here).

So, why is this? I have generally thought that this is almost entirely due to the "big bad Detroit" syndrome, where so many people seem to perceive that nothing any good can exist in the City of Detroit, and, even if it does, you wouldn't want to go there. There may also be some problem with minorities, since Wayne has traditionally enrolled a significantly larger number of non-white students than any other university in the state, and indeed one of the highest percentages of any big school in the country [[excepting historically black colleges and universities).

[Gistok]

I believe this is what Wayne State was conceived as being. From the early '50s onward, and especially after the state took the school over completely in 1956, state money was poured into the expansion of the university. That's why so many of the buildings on the Wayne campus date from the early '50s through the mid '60s.

The plan was to turn Wayne into a full-fledged research university, grow and expand its existing professional schools, and build Wayne a large centralized undergraduate campus that would eventually include dormitories. This was supposed to change what had been primarily a local commuter school into a largely residential university with strong graduate programs, thereby drawing students from throughout the state and elsewhere.

Wayne was even made the third of the state's "constitutional" universities, with its own dedicated funding and a board that's elected through a statewide election. But the problem was that Wayne stubbornly remained #3, behind UM and MSU, and a distant third at that. After the '67 riot, with the resentment and fear of a changing Detroit, and through the decline in the state's financial fortunes and the eventual decline in its commitment to higher education funding, Wayne pretty much got the short end of every stick. More money went to the establishment of new campuses or the expansion of existing ones elsewhere in the state than came to Wayne in a hated and feared Detroit.

So, many long range plans were delayed or abandoned and most of the continued expansion of the university was put on hold. Unlike UM or MSU, Wayne didn't have a lot of outside funding sources to draw on, or a high historical, academic, or athletic profile to attract such money. Large corporations, even local ones, were often loathe to be associated with anything in the City of Detroit, including Wayne, so corporate fund-raising became a tough sell for university administration. The school slipped into serious financial trouble for several years.

In the past couple of decades though Wayne has come back strong, has been able to grow again, and has done quite well. They've been able to build and expand, including the continuing expansion of dormitory capacity and a growing on-campus community. But it is still, at best, the #3 university in a state with a declining economy and population, and never will be #1 or #2. The very fact that you asked the question about an "anchor university," for a city that already contains a 32,000+ student research university, shows how far Wayne still is from fulfilling its potential and being taken seriously, at least in the public's perception.

Huh??

Are we talking about the same university?

I went to Wayne in the late 1970s, and there was a LOT of construction going on there then and since. The undergrad library, life sciences, engineering, and about a dozen other buildings were added since then, including a new administration building, the inclusion of the 17 story Maccabees Building [[WDET), the additional use of the Rackham Building, the abomination of an addition to Old Main [[as well as Old Main's remodeling).

There has been a TON of changes and additions to the WSU campus... only thing that has not increased is the student population.

[EastsideAl]

When Steven Mason was establishing the state of Michigan in 1837, there was an agreement that the state capitol would be moved away from Detroit. And, then, in 1840, the University of Michigan was allowed to relocate in Ann Arbor. One reason that Minneapolis-St. Paul escaped many of the economic problems of the Rust Belt is that its economic base includes the state capitol and the state's largest university.

But that's been true in nearly every state in the country. Like Detroitnerd says, there was a bias against big cities in citing state capitols in the U.S., primarily because there was a real fear [[enunciated by Jefferson himself) of domination by urban and commercial interests over agrarian ones. This was, of course, at a time when rural people were the majority in almost every state. Similarly, there was a feeling, also following on from Jefferson, that universities should exist in a sort of sylvan academic isolation, away from the "corrupting" influence of large cities. So, other than Minneapolis/St. Paul, none of the other older major cities in the U.S. have both the state capitol or the state's biggest public university located in them, and only a very few have even one of those things.

So, having a state capitol or a major state university located here may have improved Detroit's prospects somewhat, but it seems to me that that can't be a truly major factor in the condition of the city. Otherwise, how can you explain why so many other major cities without these things have done so much better than Detroit?

[Detroitnerd]

But that's been true in nearly every state in the country. Like Detroitnerd says, there was a bias against big cities in citing state capitols in the U.S., primarily because there was a real fear [[enunciated by Jefferson himself) of domination by urban and commercial interests over agrarian ones. This was, of course, at a time when rural people were the majority in almost every state. Similarly, there was a feeling, also following on from Jefferson, that universities should exist in a sort of sylvan academic isolation, away from the "corrupting" influence of large cities. So, other than Minneapolis/St. Paul, none of the other older major cities in the U.S. have both the state capitol or the state's biggest public university located in them, and only a very few have even one of those things.

So, having a state capitol or a major state university located here may have improved Detroit's prospects somewhat, but it seems to me that that can't be a truly major factor in the condition of the city. Otherwise, how can you explain why so many other major cities without these things have done so much better than Detroit?

Well, that's true, but I think we're doing pretty well and searching pretty far back in composing this list of factors. [[And certainly the agrarian, pastoral ideal that runs through American culture hasn't helped cities in general.)

[EastsideAl]

Huh??

Are we talking about the same university?

I went to Wayne in the late 1970s, and there was a LOT of construction going on there then and since. The undergrad library, life sciences, engineering, and about a dozen other buildings were added since then, including a new administration building, the inclusion of the 17 story Maccabees Building [[WDET), the additional use of the Rackham Building, the abomination of an addition to Old Main [[as well as Old Main's remodeling).

There has been a TON of changes and additions to the WSU campus... only thing that has not increased is the student population.

Most of the construction that took place at Wayne during the late '70s was a filling in of the original plan for the mall up Second Ave. that had been funded several years previously. But the original plan in the 1950s was supposed to expand the campus both west of the Lodge Fwy. and north of the Ford Fwy. for quite a distance. The university bought up a lot of those neighborhoods and even cleared some of the land, but most of those expansions were never built or are only now being undertaken. Most of the other things you mention happened later, when Wayne was able to leverage some more funding or was able to obtain nearby buildings and land at low cost from other public uses [[the Macabees and Rackham for instance). The big dorms, which had been planned for decades [[they were originally supposed to go on the other side of the Lodge as an extension of the Jeffries projects), only finally went up a few years ago. There is no question that WSU was in a seriously bad financial condition from the mid '70s into the '90s. Building programs not funded by federal grants were stopped, facilities maintenance was deferred, hiring of faculty and staff slowed, and people I knew on the Board of Governors and in the administration were constantly appealing to folks in Lansing for more money. And Wayne always got substantially less than UM or MSU.

[EastsideAl]

Finally, getting back to the main question at hand, I'd say that 2 things really hurt this whole area very badly and are the major factors in both the decline and depopulation of the city itself and the general difficulties of the entire Detroit region: 1) Lack of economic diversity, and 2) An especially poisonous history of race relations.

These, in my view, are the 2 main things that separate us from other, more successful, American cites, and hold us back from progressing and moving forward in so many areas. Many other American cites had these problems, but they seem to have been less profound in those places, and therefore more easily overcome than they have been here. As for what led us here, well, how much time do we have...?

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Things were goin south before Young became Mayor. Don't play that card. Cavanagh, and Miriani his predecessors, did they're part as well. Not defending him, just saying.

[rjlj]

Super highways, mega block developments, and parking lots sure did not help things. The question is, do the leaders of today understand the negative affects these things have and do they have a plan to make things better?

Link copied from facebook:

http://blog.datadrivendetroit.org/2011/12/02/tearing-of-the-urban-fabric/

[Detroitnerd]

No. If anything they seem to want more superblocks and private "campuses" -- right in the middle of downtown's fragile street fabric. At least they finally killed off the idea of extending I-375 to the Lodge.

[Gistok]

DN, wasn't that extending I-375 south of Jefferson on into the RenCen? Or are we talking about 2 different expansions?

Then there was the wacky Dequindre Cut Freeway idea by Mayor Archer for the supposed Rivertown casinos.

[Detroitnerd]

DN, wasn't that extending I-375 south of Jefferson on into the RenCen? Or are we talking about 2 different expansions?

Then there was the wacky Dequindre Cut Freeway idea by Mayor Archer for the supposed Rivertown casinos.

I might be wrong, but as I heard it, the extension of I-375 south of Jefferson would have had access to Ren Cen, but also would have turned Jefferson into a limited-access road as well. You may be right.

I am glad I never heard of the plan to turn the cut into a freeway. My blood pressure is high enough as it is...

[beachboy]

What decisions, if any, could the city or state have realistically taken to save Detroit from the decline it faced?

IMHO Detroit's decline was not so much a product of government blunders, but of phenomena such as [[a) population diffusion from the city core to sparsely populated outlying areas, [[b) bad management of a one-crop economy, and [[c) inattentiveness to underlying causes and effects of racial tensions. I don't know how government could stop such things from happening. The idea of "free trade" and the lifting of tariffs on imported manufactured goods [[esp. cars, machine tools, etc.) didn't help - maybe that's something Govt could have done better...

Wasn't government one of the casualties of Detroit's decline? Population diffusion led to a reduced tax base ... Bad management at auto companies led to complacency, shoddy products, and eventual loss of market share => reduced profits => reduced tax base. A similar argument could be made for imports and offshoring: loss of jobs => reduced tax base. The dominoes took a long time to fall - there were so many... Racial tensions drove the riots, which accelerated population diffusion into the burbs => reduced metro Detroit tax base. Now many burbs are hurting today as Michigan's economy shrinks: notice the red areas on the map below... Who is surprised?

From: http://www.austincontrarian.com/aust...arian/density/ [scroll to bottom of page]

25 percent population loss from Metro Detroit [[blue = growth, grey = stagnant, red = loss)

[Modusvivendi]

It's hard to think of much the city could have done to prevent the decline of the auto industry, but greater foresight could have led to investment in more high tech industries like in silicon valley. I keep on thinking that if there were some premier universities in the city that could have facilitated that, much like stanford, Carnegie Mellon, duke, and other schools have done for their hometown.

The race relations problem is also another one the city would have had a hard time fixing, although I honestly don't know what was tried. But one thing I keep wondering is why racial tensions seem to have been so much worse in Detroit. Perhaps because the working classes were competing for a declining number of manufacturing jobs, and those tensions manifested along racial lines?

The tide of events certainly were moving against Detroit over the last 60 years, and probably the best the city could do was hold its ground, but that didn't happen. The availability of cheap suburban land and access to it via freeways let detroiters "solve" problems relating to race, crime, etc by simply leaving the city, ensuring it's problems would never be solved.

[beachboy]

It's hard to think of much the city could have done to prevent the decline of the auto industry, but greater foresight could have led to investment in more high tech industries like in silicon valley.

Good point!! In retrospect, it seems it might have been so easy to fix... But the seeds of decline were sown in WW2, with the vast expansion of Detroit's wartime industries. After the war, the bloated employment rolls had nowhere to go but smaller... I recall attitudes in the 1950s through mid-70s ... not very flattering toward "hi tech" ... "nerds", "geeks", "head in the computer", "better learn something about the real world", and so forth. There were a few forward-looking community leaders, but they were a very small minority. There were some "hi-tech" companies, mostly associated with the one-crop automotive economy. UM, MSU, and oft-ignored MTU were bright spots - with smart leadership they grew and spawned some viable firms... not enough to soak up the employment declines...

The race relations problem is also another one the city would have had a hard time fixing, although I honestly don't know what was tried. But one thing I keep wondering is why racial tensions seem to have been so much worse in Detroit.

Why were racial tensions bad? Because black men and women were treated like shit. They were cheated or dismissed in stores, fleeced in contracts, ignored at their workplaces, taunted or beaten bloody by family members, hoodlums, or [[occasionally) by police, and generally shut out of upward mobility in most respectable neighborhoods or professions. It was only in the 1970s, after the civil rights laws of the 1960s took effect, challenges against those long-overdue laws were repulsed in the courts, and regulatory agencies began to have some clout, that black people as a group stood a better chance of realizing a few promises for a better life. By then, Detroit was burned out physically and economically, lurching drunkenly toward the bitter implosion that continues as the city's financial dominoes topple day by day...

The availability of cheap suburban land and access to it via freeways let detroiters "solve" problems relating to race, crime, etc by simply leaving the city, ensuring it's problems would never be solved.

Fear and pain drove Detroiters out of the city - fear of being beaten, mugged, burned out of their homes, fear and pain at their wives or daughters being raped, their children stupefied, bullied, multilated or occasionally murdered in failing schools or on battleground streets, ad nauseam. Whether or not those fears were fantasies depended on your personal or family circumstances. In the minds of those who left it all became sordid reality - veritas ex diaspora.