UK Article on "Gentrification" in Detroit

[erikd]

The Guardian ran this article condemning the recent renaissance/gentrification happening in greater downtown Detroit. It makes many forceful and absolute assertions, and I am interested to hear what DYes posters think about it.

"This new renaissance does not address why Detroit declined in the first place. It does little to address poverty, unemployment and access to resources for the vast majority of the city’s residents. What’s worse, the gentrification of downtown Detroit contributes to greater inequality and polarization..."

The author goes on to talk about the negative impacts that were created by the flight of business, jobs, and population leaving the city for the suburbs, yet somehow concludes that beginning to reverse this trend is somehow even worse.

While the recent influx of investment, jobs, and residents into the greater downtown is certainly noticeable and growing, it is still very much in the early stages, and certainly has not reached a point where it is outpacing the ongoing decline that continues to plague the majority of city. Nobody is saying otherwise. However, it is ridiculous to claim that the recent growth in greater downtown, which is starting to stem the losses and seeding growth, is even worse than continuing an unabated decline, and "contributes to greater inequality and polarization."

"The boundaries between revival and decay can be very severe. Travel three minutes by car from Midtown’s Wayne State University and you are surrounded by streets overgrown by vegetation and burned out factories. The gentrified Corktown neighbourhood, centred along Michigan Avenue, abruptly ends one block west of its famous Slows BBQ restaurant.Greater Downtown’s current revival will mean that this 5% of the city will pull further and further ahead of the other 95%."

The assertion that the current greater downtown revival will mean that "this 5% of the city will pull further and further ahead of the other 95%" is completely illogical and not supported by evidence. The very example used by the author is proof that he doesn't know what he is talking about. The "gentrified" Corktown section of Michigan Avenue is filled with new businesses that have just opened within the last few years. This stretch of Michigan Avenue was not what anybody would consider "gentrified" just five years ago. The opening of Two James, and the soon to be open Katoi, stand as evidence that the new businesses explosion recently seen in Corktown is indeed spreading outside of Corktown, and further away from downtown.

There is simply no evidence to suggest that greater downtown revival will not continue to expand further outward.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the greater downtown revival will expand throughout the entire city, or even most of it. Reviving greater downtown will not solve all of the city's problems, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. Claiming that it only makes things worse is a ridiculous assertion.

http://www.theguardian.com/public-le...es-race-divide

[mwilbert]

The article doesn't really capture the dynamics at work in Detroit, or where we are in that process. It is obvious that improving greater downtown isn't automatically going to fix the neighborhoods, but as you say, it fails to capture the spillover effects. If we start to see more redevelopment pushing up into the area between I-75 and the Lodge north of Grand Blvd, I think it is clear those neighborhoods will be benefiting from the revival of the core. In any case, the inequality problem in Detroit isn't primarily within the city, but within the region [[and country), and making part of the city more attractive to the better-off isn't very relevant to that problem.

[MAcc]

Slow's is part of merely 5 or 6 businesses that do decent in Corktown, which makes for a very generous definition of gentrification. The rest of the area is highly sketchy and undesirable to anyone visiting [[read: people who aren't biased homers and numb to the devastation).

[ABetterDetroit]

The article never mentioned the words bankrupt or bankruptcy. Restoration of a tax base has to happen if you want good city services for residents.

[Bobl]

A newspaper columnist with whom I often disagree recently wrote a piece questioning where the people of color are, after he spent time in midtown. His article was well written and raises a legitimate question. I hope that the changes and gentrification will soon bring improvements to more citizens from all walks of life and the neighborhoods. Time will tell.

[mwilbert]

Slow's is part of merely 5 or 6 businesses that do decent in Corktown, which makes for a very generous definition of gentrification. The rest of the area is highly sketchy and undesirable to anyone visiting [[read: people who aren't biased homers and numb to the devastation).

Gentrification isn't just about businesses. Corktown is one of the few areas of the city where the housing is substantially better now than it was in the 60s and 70s.

A newspaper columnist with whom I often disagree recently wrote a piece questioning where the people of color are, after he spent time in midtown. His article was well written and raises a legitimate question. I hope that the changes and gentrification will soon bring improvements to more citizens from all walks of life and the neighborhoods. Time will tell.

It is a legitimate question to ask how much improving midtown is benefiting the general population of Detroit, but you literally would have to be blind not to see people of color all over Midtown. If nothing else, 40% of the students at Wayne are minorities, as are a large number of the employees of the university and the medical center. If someone wants to claim that there are broad areas of underrepresentation, or that most of the businesses in Midtown aren't focused that population, fair enough, if hardly unique to Midtown. But there isn't anything resembling an absence.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

I think the title of the article is absurd:"Detroit's gentrification won't give poor citizens reliable public services." The services declined because the city was broke. Now that its out of bankruptcy, they are already improving. Is there any reason to think an improving tax base would not lead to further improvements in basic services?

I also think this question is absurd: "why should downtown residents fight for better municipal services when they can buy their own private ones?"

A reader of the article would think that WSU police patrol a larger area than they do, and that downtown has its own private police force, fire fighters, etc. I really don't think that residents of downtown see their situation as independent of the rest of the city. If I were to buy a condo downtown, I would know that its value is ultimately tied to the perception of Detroit as a whole.

[iheartthed]

The article doesn't really capture the dynamics at work in Detroit, or where we are in that process. It is obvious that improving greater downtown isn't automatically going to fix the neighborhoods, but as you say, it fails to capture the spillover effects. If we start to see more redevelopment pushing up into the area between I-75 and the Lodge north of Grand Blvd, I think it is clear those neighborhoods will be benefiting from the revival of the core. In any case, the inequality problem in Detroit isn't primarily within the city, but within the region [[and country), and making part of the city more attractive to the better-off isn't very relevant to that problem.

I personally don't think you'll see the development spread without "plugging the hole in the bathtub." You'll see the obvious development in places where it has been deliberate, like along the light rail corridor. But you won't see a natural progression of rebounding neighborhoods like you do in places on the coasts for exactly the reason they say in the article: little is being done to address the decentralization of jobs and commerce in the region from a policy level.

[Wesley Mouch]

Author has his solutions, and he's having trouble figuring out how to work them into an article on Detroit.

One can argue that 'income inequality' [[or as I believe 'wealth inequality') is a major issue in the world. Sure. Elevating it to a 'cause' of Detroit's troubles is an exaggeration. Even if 'inequality' were magically solved -- which is quite the task in itself -- it wouldn't fix Detroit

The article is a gross over-simplification.

Right now, Detroit needs more inequality. The average level of income and wealth in the city is too low to support the city. Only by bringing in more money and wealth can Detroit be healed.

If you so desire, fight for overall equality of wealth. But realize that is a good national or regional policy. At the local / municipal level we need more inequality. The jobs will come only from those who have more wealth. Unfair. Inequal. True.

[Dexlin]

Right now, Detroit needs more inequality. The average level of income and wealth in the city is too low to support the city. Only by bringing in more money and wealth can Detroit be healed.

That first sentence feels so counter-intuitive on first blush, but it actually makes sense when you really think about it. Detroit is not the only city struggling with services, of course, but it has been pretty uniquely suffering relative to most others.

What I would add to this or perhaps disagree with, slightly, is that Detroit will be "healed" by wealth or a particular class/group of wealthy people. Detroit needs whatever over-average incomed citizens it can get, right now, but the true healing will come when the wages of the people who've stuck out the decline decide to stay behind. To be quite frank, what will ultimately sustain Detroit is when there is a major increase of folks who are able to get from the black working class in the city to the black middle class, since African Americans make up 80+% of the city and will continue to be a majority for decades to come. I think my only criticism is the media's nearly sole focus on the white suburbanite Millenials to "save" the city. If there were enough of them moving in to change the city's finances, then perhaps that focus would make sense. But, even with this return to the city, we're still only talking maybe a few thousand additional ones every decade. They are a welcomed component in all of this as far as I'm concerned, but it's keeping what's left of and then building up Detroit's black middle class which will stablize the city's finances.

BTW, it almost feels silly to speak about gentrification in Detroit as it has occurred in other cities. Detroit's inner-city is so incredibly depopulated - a member here recently presented a map showing population declindes of 70-80% in most of the areas around the central business district - that we'd have to add tens-of-thousands of people to the inner-city before it started pricing anyone in the residential neighborhoods immediately outside of these inner-city neighborhoods. Will there be and has there been people forced out of where they live in the past five years or so? Sure. But, it's not even close to being an inner-city issue yet on raw numbers, let alone in what we call "the neighborhoods."

So, anyway, Detroit is going to be "saved" on a macro level when Detroit stops losing its high school students and college graduates to the rest of the region and the nation, who just happen to be overwhelmingly African American. I'm glad and excited for downtown's rise, and I think it's silly when people of any stripe resent what's happening down there. But it's a tiny piece of the city's comeback. This is a micro-movement even if it continues to accelerate. To really illustrate this, downtown Chicago had it's strongest decade in population [[and thus wealth) growth in from 2000 to 2010. The population of the Loop proper increased a staggering 80%...but that was still just 13,000 in a city that ended up losing a net 200,000 residents over the same period and whose finances are in pretty poor shape because of that. This should really be an example Detroit about just how micro a movement a downtown revitalization is. Downtown Detroit isn't going to add anywhere close to 13,000 people this decade - hell, the entire greater downtown likely won't even add that many people.

I know I've been rambling but to sum it all up while downtown gentrification is not even close to being a problem, and is in fact necessary, it's not even close to being a major part of the cure for the city's ills, let alone the entire cure. While Detroit has been pretty uniquely mismanaged over the years, there also needs to be some honesty about the fact that even when Detroit stops working against Detroit, which is something that's actually starting to happen, there are still national trends working against Detroit and all cities, really [[stagnant wages, the dismantling of public education, f%cked-up national economic priorities, etc) which will make anything the city does on a municipal level almost meaningless in terms of quick, city-wide revitalization.

[mwilbert]

I personally don't think you'll see the development spread without "plugging the hole in the bathtub." You'll see the obvious development in places where it has been deliberate, like along the light rail corridor. But you won't see a natural progression of rebounding neighborhoods like you do in places on the coasts for exactly the reason they say in the article: little is being done to address the decentralization of jobs and commerce in the region from a policy level.

I guess I just disagree with you. I think we are already seeing it. The problem is that there is a lot of Detroit that is relatively unattractive, and very far away from the reviving areas, and may indeed never be affected significantly, or at least not for a really long time. I don't actually think there are any policies available that would fix that problem--even if you had more sensible regional planning, most likely those areas would be bypassed for redevelopment in favor of other parts of Detroit or inner suburbs.

[belleislerunner]

People forget that downtown's and midtown's development are done by the owners of those properties. The owner of Hopcat renovated it and made it what it is. The owner of the block of Shinola renovated it and made it what it is. The owner of Slows remodeled it and make it what it is. Ditto for Crown Plaza.

The question should be turned around to the neighborhoods that are decaying and the anger should be directed to the owners. Why aren't you fixing your roof? Why aren't you remodeling your house? Why aren't you adding to the curb appeal?

The owners of the properties are the true culprits. And those owners can be landlords and occupants alike.

The city picks up trash, installs streetlights, provides police/EMS - but the city, no city, is ever going to mow your lawn, fix your broken doors/windows, patch your roofs, clean up the trash in the yard. That's the owners fault.

Put a handful of these owners in a row and you have the recipe for a block of ruin evolving into a block of Hantz urban tree farms.

Often it's too hard to look in the mirror and admit its we as the collective owners fault - so we blame it all on "downtown/midtown" leaving us behind.

[ABetterDetroit]

"Gentrification" is just not a real problem at this point in time. Everywhere including the downtown has a plenty of vacant land to build whatever is required. If more lower income housing is needed it can be built. Ditto for market rate. There has to be a genuine scarcity of land and buildings available for devolopment in a specific area and the D doesn't have that issue. We have enough real problems to tackle, it is not necessary to invent new ones we don't have like gentrification.

[Wesley Mouch]

That first sentence feels so counter-intuitive on first blush, but it actually makes sense when you really think about it. Detroit is not the only city struggling with services, of course, but it has been pretty uniquely suffering relative to most others.

Wealth inequality is only a problem when taken to extremes. We may be there now, or perhaps not. But that's nothing to do with Detroit, is it.

Detroit has a lot of less wealthy people, and fewer wealthy people. An appropriate balance is a goal everyone should agree with. More wealthy people means more capital available for investment, more home repair, more retail, more dining, etc.

What I would add to this or perhaps disagree with, slightly, is that Detroit will be "healed" by wealth or a particular class/group of wealthy people. Detroit needs whatever over-average incomed citizens it can get, right now, but the true healing will come when the wages of the people who've stuck out the decline decide to stay behind. To be quite frank, what will ultimately sustain Detroit is when there is a major increase of folks who are able to get from the black working class in the city to the black middle class, since African Americans make up 80+% of the city and will continue to be a majority for decades to come. I think my only criticism is the media's nearly sole focus on the white suburbanite Millenials to "save" the city. If there were enough of them moving in to change the city's finances, then perhaps that focus would make sense. But, even with this return to the city, we're still only talking maybe a few thousand additional ones every decade. They are a welcomed component in all of this as far as I'm concerned, but it's keeping what's left of and then building up Detroit's black middle class which will stablize the city's finances.

I don't see this as a racial issue at all. Plenty of Detroit professional, entrepreneurial, and wealthy BLACK middle class have left the city, too. For the last decade, the loss of BLACK wealth to the suburbs has probably been the major financial problem for Detroit. The black tax base left, following the whites north. Whether this justifies the earlier white move or not is a matter for your political activism circle. But true it is -- at least from my personal experience. My black co-workers have been leaving Detroit's neighborhoods. But I never hear this discussed.[/quote]

BTW, it almost feels silly to speak about gentrification in Detroit as it has occurred in other cities. ...

IMO, the concern about gentrification is really a concern about WHITE gentrification. The black political class hates the loss of black voters in urban areas. The black underclass doesn't see that an influx of wealth is a good thing to a poor area. It may hurt them [[increased rents) or help them [[increased property value = retirement nestegg). The race is irrelevant. Detroit needs wealth to stop departing. Detroit needs wealth to return to re-establish an economy in the neighborhoods. Until money is willing to return, nothing else matters. If money returns, we can then fight about how to be provide social services.

[iheartthed]

I guess I just disagree with you. I think we are already seeing it. The problem is that there is a lot of Detroit that is relatively unattractive, and very far away from the reviving areas, and may indeed never be affected significantly, or at least not for a really long time. I don't actually think there are any policies available that would fix that problem--even if you had more sensible regional planning, most likely those areas would be bypassed for redevelopment in favor of other parts of Detroit or inner suburbs.

I think Detroit is still missing a key ingredient of urban renewal/gentrification which is land scarcity on a regional scale. I don't think you'll see large scale urban renewal in Detroit while land on the fringe is still easy to acquire and cheap to build on.

[sumas]

"Gentrification" is just not a real problem at this point in time. Everywhere including the downtown has a plenty of vacant land to build whatever is required. If more lower income housing is needed it can be built. Ditto for market rate. There has to be a genuine scarcity of land and buildings available for devolopment in a specific area and the D doesn't have that issue. We have enough real problems to tackle, it is not necessary to invent new ones we don't have like gentrification.

Have to agree. No one is being forced out. Did get annoyed about cracks at seniors. We as a group tend to vote, spend our money in the community. Volunteer time, Personally not at all wealthy but we have no debt of any sort. I love my home and neighborhood but down the road who knows????

Would like affordable senior housing perhaps. Definitely in the core city.

[Gpwrangler]

Folks are arguing about gentrification when housing that could be fixed up and offered to those in need is being left to the scrappers.

the guardian's reporters certainly must be experts on Detroit.

[sumas]

Folks are arguing about gentrification when housing that could be fixed up and offered to those in need is being left to the scrappers.

the guardian's reporters certainly must be experts on Detroit.

you are so right it is almost scary. reporters do come in from all over the world and despite their cover stories/aliases they are easy to spot. Getting a little sick of them. Just vultures circling.

So many beautiful homes just left vacant for various reasons. It hurts the heart. Isn't there a song, "another one bites the dust"? On a good day we hear less than 12 fire sirens.

I try not to feed trolls. Housing stock is in great need but see little creativity in helping homeless get into homes. It just saddens me.

[night-timer]

One of my photos [[Detroit skyline at sunset, seen from Belle Isle) was used to illustrate a news story in the Guardian newspaper in the UK.

http://www.theguardian.com/public-le...es-race-divide

As usual , I don't agree with much of what gets published in newspapers next to my photos. The author [[from the Netherlands) has very few good things to say about Detroit's current - albeit limited to certain areas - 'gentrification'.

Seems to me Detroit's regrowth will happen along the spoke roads [[Woodward, Jefferson, Grand River, Michigan, etc) and gradually expand out from there. The same thing happened for Detroit in the Industrial Age. Until that happens, I just don't see a demand for housing in Detroit's currently empty suburbs.

[Gpwrangler]

The article paints investors as the bad guys because they are buying and fixing up individual properties and unfairly "ignoring" the rest of the city. Reading this article was five minutes I'll never get back.

The writer needs to get some boots and a lawn mower and actually undertake the task himself instead of complaining that rich investors don't do it.

[JBMcB]

An interesting article, but I don't see him offering up any alternatives. Detroit desperately needs cash to operate basic services. The majority of Detroit's income comes from just a few large corporations [[mostly GM, DTE and BCBSM if I recall correctly.) The fastest way to get more income is getting more companies to come in.

It's not an ideal solution, but it's probably the best out of a lot of bad ones.

[Jason]

tbh I think that author and people with similar viewpoints just want to be morally superior and contrarian.

Having a healthy functioning greater downtown benefits everybody.

Or, if downtown is so bad for the city of Detroit, how about we completely demolish downtown? Who benefits from that?

People are getting priced out of downtown because almost everything is either new renovations or new construction, which makes them more expensive to live in at first to cover those costs. Things are also expensive because there's so much demand and very little supply. This is the cost to restarting from so little.

The problem isn't that downtown is growing, the problem is that downtown is not big enough. The bigger downtown gets the more of it there is to go around and the more inclusive of different incomes it will be.

[ronaldj]

Nice shot. By the looks of it you and Django were within a short distance to our house. I am glad to see the trip and its associated mayhem is paying off.

[CrashDummy]

"The new investments and activities are like water pouring into the tub. But nothing has been done to plug the giant hole at the bottom of the tub."
The author claims that "nothing" is being done, but offers absolutely no information backing up that claim. Seems to be the same assumption a lot of people have that just because you are doing one thing, it means you are not doing something else. Yes, The Guardian, we can chew Gum AND bowl.

[night-timer]

Nice shot. By the looks of it you and Django were within a short distance to our house. I am glad to see the trip and its associated mayhem is paying off.

Thanks, Ron. How are you and Sue? I'm trying to get US permanent residency. If I don't get it, I'll try for Windsor, Ontario, residency. Close enough.

I, for one, would definitely invest in Detroit if I had the money to throw around dollars to buy property. Not trying to get rich, I just see genuine potential in Detroit. In some ways, Detroit's fearsome reputation is cliche'd and outdated. You should be proud of the successes Downtown. Here's a pic I shot from Windsor. I have no problem with living in Detroit. Michiganders are friendly and every major American city has its rough areas.