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The Master Plan For The Motor City Detroit: What Is To Be Done?

The Master Plan For The Motor City Detroit: What Is To Be Done? image The Master Plan For The Motor City Detroit: What Is To Be Done? image The Master Plan For The Motor City Detroit: What Is To Be Done? image
Parent Issue
Day
19
Month
November
Year
1975
OCR Text

By Kathie Neff

Suppose you are the mayor of Detroit. A recent survey indicates that unemployment in your city is at a staggering 23.5 percent. The vacancy rate in the city's housing units is something like 15 percent. Outsiders have begun to refer to your town as "the murder capital of the country." Industry and commerce continue to desert you in droves, searching for areas with cheaper land, labor, and production costs. Your financial mainstay, the auto industry, has been especially hard-hit by inflation and recession. Federal aid does not seem forthcoming. Your own advisors say the city is in the midst of a depression. What do you do?

This was the situation which faced mayor Coleman A. Young when he assumed office two years ago. 

His response was to formulate a broad consensus including the city and the state, and other governmental units; private industry and business; labor; and community groups. With input from these sectors, Young and his staff put together a comprehensive plan charting a 10 to 15 year-economic revitalization strategy for Detroit. The private sector was persuaded to contribute a total of $1.2 billion to the long-range effort to revitalize the job market, industry, commerce, housing, transportation, and public safety.

This spring, the Mayor and his entourage, along with 25 representatives from the above-mentioned sectors, look the problem right to the top and presented their blueprint for change -- labeled "Moving Detroit Forward" -- to President Ford. Among those making the trip as part of the city's new coalition were Governor Miliken; Common Council President Carl Levin; Sens. Philip Hart and Robert Griffin; and Rep. Charles Diggs. Industry was represented by Henry Ford II, Lynn Townsen of Chrysler, and Thomas Murphy of General Motors, as well as Max Fisher of Detroit Renaissance. Leonard Woodcock of the UAW, Robert Holmes of the Teamsters, and Tom Turner of the AFL-CIO represented human labor interests. Among representatives of community groups were the Rev. Roy Allen of Chapel Hill Missionary Baptist Church, Monsignor Clement H. Kern of Holy Trinity Cathedral, and Gladys Woodard of the Delray United Action Council.

According to those who developed "Moving Detroit Forward," the plan is the first of its kind. 

"We are the first city to put out a total proposition to the state, federal government, and private sector simultaneously," says Bill Smith, former city planner and current head of the City's Community and Economic Development Department.

To meet the problems facing the city, the plan calls for unprecedented and radical action. Among its bolder propositions, it calls for bulldozing blighted areas to make way for new housing and commercial development; constructing housing and service facilities to attract the more affluent to the city; and providing public funds for private industries as a means of encouraging them to stay in the city.

According to city officials, however, only radical action will alleviate the problems. "It's the worst kind of mental masturbation to pretend that people are going to be better off if overt actions are not taken," says Smith.

Considering the scope and potential impact of "Moving Detroit Forward," the plan has received surprisingly little publicity to date. One reason may be that few are convinced that Mayor Young, a Democratic National Committeeman, can obtain such a massive commitment -- $2.5 billion in federal funds -- from a conservative Republican President, especially when Ford seems determined to deny help to the city of New York as it verges on bankruptcy. 

Assuming the entire program were funded, however, "Moving Detroit Forward" could produce 100,000 jobs in the city; provide much-needed mass transportation; and revitalize the city's housing, commerce, and industry.

EMPLOYMENT: The plan calls for an immediate $555.1 million for 30,000 public service jobs. These funds would go to retrain people for employment in fields where there is a growing demand, such as service, and would provide workers for programs that would benefit the city -- in health care, police work, housing, public libraries, and environmental beautification.

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: the plan proposes to locate new industrial parks on vacant land in the city. One of its more controversial propositions calls for encouraging companies to stay in Detroit by offering them public funds with which to construct updated facilities. Another would offer public subsidies to temporarily "incubate" new or developing industries which have difficulty establishing themselves in Detroit's comparatively specialized industrial climate (dominated by the automobile industry and related enterprises). New legislation will be necessary to implement these concepts, and city sources admit they expect a court battle over the issue. 

Smith says the city expects annual appropriation of $8 to $10 million over the next two years from federal Economic Development Assistance (EDA) funds, much of which could be used to develop the industrial parks systems. Funding is also reportedly in progress for the "incubating industries" program.

Other aspects of the industrial strategy include funding expansion programs at Detroit Medical Center, Detroit General Hospital, and Metro City Airport; renovation of water mains and sewers; and establishment of a "resource recovery" or recycling program. The Federal Commerce Department is funding a study of the riverfront, and funds may be forthcoming for a new riverfront seawall in areas where industrial activity would result.

COMMERCIAL REVITALIZATION: Similar projects would be undertaken to boost the commercial sector, including development of a downtown shopping mall and redevelopment of blighted commercial strips in the city. Detroit has so far been unsuccessful in obtaining funds for the commercial strips, but Smith says he "expects the money next year."

TRANSPORTATION: The systems projected in "Moving Detroit Foward" would involve rapid transit lines along Woodward, Gratiot, and Michigan Avenues; an elevated "people mover" loop in the downtown central business district; bus rapid transit; and commuter rail service from Pontiac and Ann Arbor.

The state of Michigan has guaranteed the city $4 million for mass transit systems, and the federal government has agreed to split the remaining 20 percent of the cost with the city. Construction may begin within a year.

PUBLIC SAFETY: the master plan includes a new courthouse, for which funds are expected from the State, and a new city jail. This expansion of physical facilities, along with the goal of putting more police on the streets, comprises o the core of the plan's approach to curbing crime in the city; it does not specifically address the underlying causes of crime.

PARKS: According to Smith, state and federal agencies have agreed in principle to funding of riverfront parks in Detroit, but are having difficulty implementing the plans because the park concept is so novel. The figure being talked about is around $7 million.

HOUSING: The master plan proposes a number of new housing developments. It sets forth a program for transferring homes currently owned by the federal government's Department of Housing and Urban Development to a private corporation, which would then renovate and rent them - a task at which HUD has failed miserably. Assistance would also be provided for individuals rehabilitating their own homes.

The explicit strategy of attracting monied interests back into the city, while at the same time tearing down "unsalvagable" areas, sounds suspiciously like the earlier "urban renewal" programs that had such disruptive consequences for communities -- displacing blacks, poor people, and ailing businesses already situated in the city. Smith says the plan is deliberately vague concerning the displacement of families and small businesses because those holding the purse strings -- especially the federal government -- "don't want to hear about poor people. They want a saleable package."

"There's no such thing as not hurting poor people," he opines. "The only thing a city can do is reorganize so the pain is less and the benefits are more equitable." Smith says most of the demolition would be carried out in vacant neighborhoods, and that those few families which are forced out by new construction will be provided with alternate housing. He also points to the Young administration's track record in meeting the needs of the city's disenfranchised. 

In the case of the downtown area, the Downtown Development Authority proposed in the master plan could levy ad valorem, taxes on those living within the affected development district without a vote of the people. Revenue bonds for public improvements could also be sold without a vote.

HUD has recently released more Section 235 funds for Detroit -- the same type that led to the infamous HUD scandals of note too long ago. However, the income limits for participation in the program have been raised, which may reduce somewhat the chances of a repeat performance.

Aside from the political and economic possibilities of wringing $2.5 billion from the federal government at this point in time, serious questions will have to be answered concerning some aspects of the industrial and housing programs set forth in "Moving Detroit Forward." Do depression-level unemployment and the urban financial crisis justify the use of public money to entice private industry into the city? What will be the extent and effect of the demolition of run-down neighborhoods and commercial strips? What provisions will be made for those displaced by these operations?

"Moving Detroit Forward," if largely implemented, would undercut traditional state and federal authority and concentrate enormous power in the hands of a few people at City Hall. What reassurance would residents have that these administrators would act with their interests at heart? Would there be provision for popular input into the implementation of the city's program?

"Moving Detroit Forward" was developed in the early days of Mayor Young's tenure by Smith, Deputy Mayor bill Beckham, Finance Director Dennis Green, Mayoral assistant Bill Cillufo, and others as a "pie in the sky" program for the city's revitalization. Smith describes it as a sophisticated selling device designed to get around federal agencies' recalcitrance in doling out funds to the area. It would accomplish this by suggesting approaches that are, in Smith's words, "real enough" to merit funding. 

As such, millions of federal dollars have already been shaken loose since the Mayor's contingent visited Washington in the spring. The expected $8 to $10 million in EDA funds represents an exponential increase in the city's allotment -- previously in the neighborhood of $300,000 a year. "

We've seen notable changes on the part of some of the departments in Washington as a result of that effort," says Smith. "Before, especially with HUD, when you threw up the word "Detroit," everybody sneered. The Mayor's strategy was right on the button.

What may be more significant than the dollars is the cooperation that the master plan has produced among those agencies, public and private, who are in a position to save or sink the city. Smith calls the Mayor's vast new coalition a piece of "political wizardry," and the unified support of government, business and industry, labor, and community groups certainly stands as a unique and impressive stroke of urban consensus politics. 

"More than the dollars," says Smith, "it's the working relationship that's going to come through this that will help in the future. The plan allows for a lot of interesting hand-holding."

Whatever its controversial provisions, the master plan's insistence on coordinated efforts by city, state, federal, and private sources places it in the forefront of American cities' struggle for survival. From New York to San Francisco, cities searching for a way to reverse the process of decay will be watching to see what happens in Detroit. And for the first time in the history of the city, a consistent, long-range strategy has been developed, which is vastly preferable to the hit-and-miss grant-seeking of the past.

Whether "Moving Detroit Forward" realizes its potential as a strategy for the economic revitalization of the city, or remains no more than a spectacular political feat, will depend on the political continuity of concern in City Hall over the next ten to fifteen years, as well as the nature of national leadership during that period. There can be little doubt, in any case, that the Coleman Young administration has taken the lead among the nation's urban areas in developing a unified, comprehensive, long-range approach to "saving the cities."

Kathie Neff is a freelance writer who formerly worked for a suburban Oakland County Newspaper.