How Motor City Came Back From the Brink…And Left Most Detroiters Behind

[DetroitBoy]

Strong on rhetoric. Lacking truth.

"while native Detroiters—...more than 80 percent of whom are black—often can only watch from afar"

I hear lots of engaged native Detroiters. They are voting. They make up the workforce. Many of the retirees who have been most vocal are 'native Detroiters'. Detroit preachers have been silenced and shut out? Prove this.

There's no truth in this statement. Just self-serving rhetoric.

Wesley, I agree with you. Lots of native Detroiters work for the mayor and participate in many different ways.

Peter Hammer sounds like another Mildred Gaddis with this race baiting drum beat. It's very tiresome. They have been here for years. What leadership have they provided? Other than stirring up people, I don't see them coming forward with any tangible plan or informed opinion.

Instead they should be focusing on supporting the business leaders who have taken the risk to invest in Detroit and its comeback.

[mwilbert]

Wesley, I agree with you. Lots of native Detroiters work for the mayor and participate in many different ways.

Peter Hammer sounds like another Mildred Gaddis with this race baiting drum beat. It's very tiresome. They have been here for years. What leadership have they provided? Other than stirring up people, I don't see them coming forward with any tangible plan or informed opinion.

Instead they should be focusing on supporting the business leaders who have taken the risk to invest in Detroit and its comeback.

I don't agree with the article, but I think you aren't getting the point that they are trying to make. The idea isn't that Detroiters aren't participating in city governance. The idea is that a lot of city governance is happening outside the normal channels of governance because the city doesn't have the resources either to fund projects itself or to be picky about what other people want to fund, and in that sense the future of the city is being shaped by others.

My view is that there is lots of city and plenty of room for everybody in the sandbox, but that doesn't mean that I always like the way it turns out. For instance, I'm happy the M-1 is being built, and I think it will be a significant asset to the city. Did they pretty much ignore the results of the planning process? It seems to me that they did, because it had to be built the way the Dan Gilbert and partners wanted it. Why, because he was paying for a big chunk of it. In a normal city, that isn't how it works, because public transit is financed with public money.