Hope on the Horizon for the Motor City?

During a recent trip to Detroit, I was able to coax a family member into giving me a driving tour of the city. I had visited the suburbs several times, but never had the opportunity to get into the city. My father, who grew up in a small town just outside of Detroit, also went along for the ride. Our reaction to the tour was similar: awe, disbelief, and despair. I knew the state of Detroit was poor at best, but even my father noted the situation has worsened in the past twenty years. We have all seen pictures and heard the news reports on Detroit’s economic state, but one must see it for themselves to truly believe it. The sheer amount of dilapidated and vacant buildings is tremendous, but the fact that it can be found throughout the city is even more disheartening.

The amount of disinvestment in the city makes me cringe when I think about what the city must have been like 60 years ago at the height of the city’s industrial economy. Today, however, more than 50% of residents have moved out of the city due to deindustrialization, leaving over a third of Detroit’s 139 square miles vacant. So many beautiful buildings lie vacant because no one is willing to invest in one of America’s “Dead Cities.” Buildings like Michigan Central, the 500,000 square foot 20 story train depot and office building that has been inactive for over twenty years. Without a doubt a gorgeous building in its prime, the structure is in need of renovations that have been estimated at between $80-300 million to upgrade its current state. Similar cases of neglect and vacancy are all too commonplace throughout the city. Buildings that would make an awesome adaptive reuse or rehab project in another city have little hope for redevelopment because of how long they have stood vacant. While many pieces of property in the city’s downtown has recently been acquired, there is no word on when development will actually begin. So, how does a city with such minimal prospect for growth in the near future make redevelopment and rehabilitation projects happen? Right now the Detroit Works Project, a city-wide redevelopment planning effort, is looking to find some answers to that question. But even they realize that there is no complete magic roadmap to getting the city back to where it was. However, through extensive community involvement and realistic action steps, the DWP aims to create a plan to get the city moving back in the right direction.