Thomas J. Sugrue: Now Detroit Has to Face Its Real Self Again
[THOMAS J. SUGRUE is Kahn Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is author of "The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit"]
Super Bowl XL brought the international limelight to the Motor City. Travel writers and out-of-town visitors for the most part marveled at the "new" Detroit. And minus a little post-game litter, Detroit's downtown sparkles.
Downtown's new businesses include a Borders and a Hard Rock Cafe. Suburban empty nesters and young artists are colonizing long-abandoned buildings. The views are better than ever from the city's surreal People Mover, the usually empty, elevated train that snakes through downtown.
Scroll back to 1980. The Big Three auto companies are hemorrhaging market share to the Japanese. Detroit is ravaged by thousands of layoffs. As the city's long downward spiral accelerates -- as the Motor City becomes an international symbol of urban crisis -- city planners seize on the idea that a downtown
"renaissance" will bring Detroit back. And a big event will be the catalyst.
"Detroit Loves a Good Party" was emblazoned on T-shirts and billboards as the city prepared to host its biggest extravaganza ever. The Republican National Convention brought a deluge of national leaders, celebrities and journalists.
The streets were gussied up with 10,000 new trees and shrubs. Dozens of rundown buildings were bulldozed.
"There is little doubt that Detroit has turned the corner on some of its most obvious problems," gushed the Washington Post. "Middle-class whites are moving back into the city, and a visitor senses a new vitality downtown. People are coming downtown to eat in restaurants ... and visit its glistening Renaissance Center."
When the last delegate left town, the nearly universal consensus was that the convention had been a success. Detroit got dressed up and threw one helluva party.
The convention boosted Detroit's spirits. But the highly touted downtown renaissance did not do much for the city. In the next 20 years, Detroit lost more than 250,000 people and tens of thousands of jobs. By the turn of the century, large sections of the city were empty.
Unfortunately, there are striking parallels between Detroit 2006 and Detroit 1980. The Big Three have announced massive layoffs and plant closings. Paralyzed by the depressing news of downsizing, Detroiters are looking again to downtown as the city's savior. If somehow we can persuade the glitterati that Detroit is hip, if we can attract the "creative class" to renovated lofts, if we can get suburbanites to spend their money in downtown restaurants and clubs, and, above all, if we can attract tourists, we'll rise from the rust.
This is trickle-down urbanism -- the belief that a new, improved downtown will save the city. And it won't work.
Look at some of Detroit's peers. Cleveland struggles with rates of poverty as high as Detroit's despite its Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and revivified waterfront. Baltimore has tens of thousands of vacant lots and abandoned houses, even with its gentrified Inner Harbor and world-class Camden Yards stadium. Philadelphia now has the nation's third most populous downtown, its streets bustling with suburban empty-nesters and international tourists. But in its shadow are vast, desolate wastelands, pockmarked block after block, and stunningly high rates of unemployment.
Even where downtown gentrification has been most successful, it has not done much for urban blue- and pink-collar workers. In U.S. cities, the poor have gotten poorer. The massive subsidies and tax abatements that cities use to lure developers exact a high price. Working-class taxpayers bear the burden of the cost of casinos and stadiums and loft apartments. What do they get in exchange? Cuts in city services to their own neighborhoods and, for the most part, poorly paying service sector jobs....
Detroit instead has to think creatively about how to bring back the good-paying and secure jobs that made it one of the mightiest cities in the world just a few generations ago. A weekend of parties -- even a year of them -- won't do the trick. For most Detroiters, the party has been over for a long time.
Read entire article at Detroit Free Press
Super Bowl XL brought the international limelight to the Motor City. Travel writers and out-of-town visitors for the most part marveled at the "new" Detroit. And minus a little post-game litter, Detroit's downtown sparkles.
Downtown's new businesses include a Borders and a Hard Rock Cafe. Suburban empty nesters and young artists are colonizing long-abandoned buildings. The views are better than ever from the city's surreal People Mover, the usually empty, elevated train that snakes through downtown.
Scroll back to 1980. The Big Three auto companies are hemorrhaging market share to the Japanese. Detroit is ravaged by thousands of layoffs. As the city's long downward spiral accelerates -- as the Motor City becomes an international symbol of urban crisis -- city planners seize on the idea that a downtown
"renaissance" will bring Detroit back. And a big event will be the catalyst.
"Detroit Loves a Good Party" was emblazoned on T-shirts and billboards as the city prepared to host its biggest extravaganza ever. The Republican National Convention brought a deluge of national leaders, celebrities and journalists.
The streets were gussied up with 10,000 new trees and shrubs. Dozens of rundown buildings were bulldozed.
"There is little doubt that Detroit has turned the corner on some of its most obvious problems," gushed the Washington Post. "Middle-class whites are moving back into the city, and a visitor senses a new vitality downtown. People are coming downtown to eat in restaurants ... and visit its glistening Renaissance Center."
When the last delegate left town, the nearly universal consensus was that the convention had been a success. Detroit got dressed up and threw one helluva party.
The convention boosted Detroit's spirits. But the highly touted downtown renaissance did not do much for the city. In the next 20 years, Detroit lost more than 250,000 people and tens of thousands of jobs. By the turn of the century, large sections of the city were empty.
Unfortunately, there are striking parallels between Detroit 2006 and Detroit 1980. The Big Three have announced massive layoffs and plant closings. Paralyzed by the depressing news of downsizing, Detroiters are looking again to downtown as the city's savior. If somehow we can persuade the glitterati that Detroit is hip, if we can attract the "creative class" to renovated lofts, if we can get suburbanites to spend their money in downtown restaurants and clubs, and, above all, if we can attract tourists, we'll rise from the rust.
This is trickle-down urbanism -- the belief that a new, improved downtown will save the city. And it won't work.
Look at some of Detroit's peers. Cleveland struggles with rates of poverty as high as Detroit's despite its Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and revivified waterfront. Baltimore has tens of thousands of vacant lots and abandoned houses, even with its gentrified Inner Harbor and world-class Camden Yards stadium. Philadelphia now has the nation's third most populous downtown, its streets bustling with suburban empty-nesters and international tourists. But in its shadow are vast, desolate wastelands, pockmarked block after block, and stunningly high rates of unemployment.
Even where downtown gentrification has been most successful, it has not done much for urban blue- and pink-collar workers. In U.S. cities, the poor have gotten poorer. The massive subsidies and tax abatements that cities use to lure developers exact a high price. Working-class taxpayers bear the burden of the cost of casinos and stadiums and loft apartments. What do they get in exchange? Cuts in city services to their own neighborhoods and, for the most part, poorly paying service sector jobs....
Detroit instead has to think creatively about how to bring back the good-paying and secure jobs that made it one of the mightiest cities in the world just a few generations ago. A weekend of parties -- even a year of them -- won't do the trick. For most Detroiters, the party has been over for a long time.