Detroit Can Have a Bright Future, But the Clock is Ticking

When you have spent most of your life in Detroit, it is easy to become pessimistic about its future. The city has been in steady decline for almost 50 years. In the fifties, Detroit was home to almost two million residents living mostly in single-family houses in clean, safe neighborhoods. Most of America's automobiles were manufactured within the city in huge factories surrounded by those neighborhoods with the sturdy little houses where the factory workers lived. Today, about 875,000 people live in Detroit, within the same physical boundaries as when twice that number lived in the fifties. In sections of the city, particularly on its lower East Side, acres of open fields stand where bustling neighborhoods once thrived. Sadly, the majority of the city's remaining housing stock is in a state of decline. Certainly, there are neighborhoods that are holding on like Rosedale Park, the University District, Indian Village and the Lafayette Park area. And new condominiums and lofts continue to spring up in a decidely upbeat and reviving downtown. There is also the Riverfront walkway under construction spanning a five-mile stretch between the Ambassador and Belle Isle bridges. The Riverwalk is an impressive endeavor backed by the city's and Michigan's big business and big government and it will be a wonderful asset when completed in 2007. But with Michigan's dead-last, sagging economy, Detroit's 14 percent unemployment rate, its ranking as the city with the most crime and greatest number of poor, is there any chance that Detroit can someday be a great city again? I think it can. But it will take some time, and some new ideas that have yet to see the light of day. Time is running out.

Fortunately, community and corporate leaders and elected officials have thrown some new ideas on the table that have promise. Most recently, Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano unveiled a new plan for the expansion of Cobo Hall. We've been here before -- this is at least the fith plan for Cobo's expansion in the past 10 years. But this one has something extra going for it -- timing.

Six regional nonprofit groups recently rolled out One D, a plan work together the next six months developing a supposedly implmentable regional plan for economic development and turnaround that will be presented at the Mackinac Conference in June 2007.

Detroit Renaissance recently released its Road to Renaissance, an elaborate and detailed study with recommendations on how to revive Southeast Michigan and make it an economic force in the 21st century. So let's all roll up our sleeves and get busy.

Meanwhile, I will be examining these proposals and getting back to you.