One year after bankruptcy, Detroit's pension debts still loom
One year after exiting its historic Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy, the city of Detroit’s balance sheet shows the city making some financial progress. In a Nov. 24 report to the governor, the city’s Financial Review Commission notes that on the plus side, the city projects a $35 million surplus for the budget year that ends in June. That bonus is far outweighed, though, by projections that now add $83.4 million to the city’s 2024 pension obligations, a 75 percent increase. The city’s bankruptcy removed about $7.4 billion in debt from the city’s books. “It’s still very early in the cycle,” noted Matt Fabian, managing director of Municipal Market Advisors, an independent municipal finance research firm that kept a close eye on the city’s financial restructuring. Said Fabian: “Detroit’s plan is a fragile one.” The city’s 1,165-page plan of adjustment for life after bankruptcy came together quickly, and some of its projections may already be off. Both of those things appear to be happening.
Whites moving to Detroit, city that epitomized white flight
DETROIT — Whites are moving back to the American city that came to epitomize white flight, even as blacks continue to leave for the suburbs and the city’s overall population shrinks. Detroit is the latest major city to see an influx of whites who may not find the suburbs as alluring as their parents and grandparents did in the last half of the 20th century. Unlike New York, San Francisco and many other cities that have seen the demographic shift, though, it is cheap housing and incentive programs that are partly fueling the regrowth of the Motor City’s white population. “For any individual who wants to build a company or contribute to the city, Detroit is the perfect place to be,” said Bruce Katz, co-director of the Global Cities Initiative at the Washington-based Brookings Institution. “You can come to Detroit and you can really make a difference.” “A young person can move here with $10,000 and start up a small flex space for artists or artists’ studios,” Seger said. Elizabeth St. St.
Detroit’s white population rises
Detroit’s white population rose by nearly 8,000 residents last year, the first significant increase since 1950, according to a Detroit News analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. The data, made public Wednesday, mark the first time census numbers have validated the perception that whites are returning to a city that is overwhelmingly black and one where the overall population continues to shrink. Many local leaders contend halting Detroit’s population loss is crucial, and the new census data shows that policies to lure people back to the city may be helping stem the city’s decline. “It verifies the energy you see in so many parts of Detroit and it’s great to hear,” said Kevin Boyle, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and historian who studies the intersection of class, race, and politics in 20th-century America. “The last thing I want to do is dampen the good news, but the problem is Detroit is still the poorest city in the U.S. “I think it’s a trend. “It’s not creating an even playing field.”
Industrialism; urban decay; Census; The collapse of Detroit - latimes
Imagine for a moment that every single person living in the city of San Jose, plus another 150,000 or so, just up and left. Vanished. Poof. Gone. Leaving their homes, business buildings and factories behind. That is, in effect, what has happened to the city of Detroit, according to 2010 U.S. It's an unprecedented collapse of a major American city. In Detroit, the loss amounts to a staggering 60% of the city's peak population. There are all sorts of implications here, both for Detroit and for the nation. But there are two larger issues that have broader national implications. The second is, what are we going to do about it? Detroit has played a significant role in my life. The collapse of Detroit has roots in intentional de-industrialization by the Big Three automakers, which in the 1950s began aggressively spider-webbing operations across the nation to produce cars closer to regional markets, and to reduce labor costs by investing in less labor-friendly places than union-heavy Detroit.
Investors see farms as way to grow Detroit - latimes
Reporting from Detroit — On the city's east side, where auto workers once assembled cars by the millions, nature is taking back the land. Cottonwood trees grow through the collapsed roofs of homes stripped clean for scrap metal. Wild grasses carpet the rusty shells of empty factories, now home to pheasants and wild turkeys. This green veil is proof of how far this city has fallen from its industrial heyday and, to a small group of investors, a clear sign. "There's so much land available and it's begging to be used," said Michael Score, president of the Hantz Farms, which is buying up abandoned sections of the city's 139-square-mile landscape and plans to transform them into a large-scale commercial farm enterprise. "Farming is how Detroit started," Score said, "and farming is how Detroit can be saved." In Detroit, hundreds of backyard gardens and scores of community gardens have blossomed and helped feed students in at least 40 schools and hundreds of families. It will start small.
Whose Neighborhood Is It?
Photo On June 25, 1974, suburban residents of Detroit won their four-year battle to overturn court-ordered busing of black city students across county lines into their schools. In a key 5-4 Supreme Court decision, Milliken v. Bradley, Chief Justice Warren Burger declared that 41 white suburban governments had not committed “significant violations” of the Constitution. Burger wrote: No single tradition in public education is more deeply rooted than local control over the operation of public schools; local autonomy has long been thought essential both to the maintenance of community concern and support for public schools and to quality of the educational process. The victory in Milliken was based on the assumption that African-Americans would be bused in, not that they would be living next door. Southfield, Mich., for example, which had been 0.7 percent black in 1970, by 2010 had become 70.3 percent black, and its schools nearly 95 percent black. According to Schelling, Zhang writes,
Gentrification of Detroit Leaves Black-Owned Businesses Behind
Downtown Detroit has been fashionably in redevelopment and undergoing resurgence since the economic downturn, but not everyone is feeling welcome. With its shiny new facades on chic eateries, cafes and microbreweries, the bright transformation and new attitude has often been called "New Detroit." It's all a point of pride for Mike Duggan, the first white mayor elected in 40 years who took office last year. His efforts ranging from urban landscaping to lowering the crime rate to incubating booming businesses have brought new hope for the Motor City—consistently plagued for decades with scandals, crime and blight. Yet, many black Detroiters are crying foul, saying Detroit is becoming a tale of two cities; while young, white residents enjoy a stylish, prosperous downtown, black business owners say they are being systematically forced out of business. The Mo' Better Blues Jazzy Bistro closed after a legal battle over the lease. "It's about race and it's about class," she said.
to do list
