Driving Development

The Report of the Emergency Manager has been greeted with little enthusiasm. It has not offered any clarity on plans for the development of the city under the new regime. The vague promises of improving the quality of life, while stripping the city, are as hollow as the document itself.

Meanwhile the city is developing. Dan Gilbert now owns 17 downtown buildings, totaling 2.9 million square feet of commercial space. He employs 7,500 full time employees, rivaling the workforce of the entire city government. His plans for reshaping Woodward Avenue are far reaching, attracting national and international attention. They were developed without any public commentary or discussion. Presumably, he will claim public endorsement from the Detroit Works Strategic Framework, as his “placemaking” plan begins to take shape along the lower Woodward Corridor.

With less fanfare and on a much more ominous note, developers began eviction proceedings against hundreds of people in the Cass Corridor. A 127 unit building on Griswold followed the efforts to evict 300 people from Henry Street. These eviction efforts have been met with strong resistance and are helping bring into focus the real impact of development in pursuit of dollars. The human cost of driving people out of homes so that developers can increase rent is becoming a common practice in the city. In response, drawing upon the experiences of fighting foreclosures, deeper coalitions are emerging, raising questions of ethical, just development. The Moratorium Now! Coalition has been holding a series of public meetings, taking testimony from people facing evictions. This resistance is not only helping people regain homes from banks, but it raises critical questions about who our city is for and who we need to protect with public policies...