In June I published an op-ed in the Detroit News describing my research on urban renewal in Detroit in the 1940s. I concluded with the observation: The voices of citizens affected by renewal must be heard. Dramatic, large-scale projects can have harmful and unexpected consequences. The history of urban planning has shown success occurs through […]
How Should Detroit Plan for the Future?
The Detroit News published an op-ed I wrote about lessons learned about urban renewal from my undergraduate thesis. Detroit is facing big problems: declining population, budget deficits and a stagnant economy. Discussions about fixing the city has generated dramatic ideas, including the Detroit Works Project — Mayor Bing’s roadmap for the city’s future. The plan […]
Detroit and the Limits to Urban Decline
Since the middle of the 20th Century, no American city has experienced the severe economic shock experienced in Detroit. Analyzing the housing of the city, I found the city’s shrinking housing stock has declined at almost precisely the same amount per year, every year: 1% of the existing stock lost. This underlying regularity, independent apparent […]
Detroit Plans Airport City
But will the aerotropolis be ‘cool’? Cities have always developed around modes of transit, whether they were key crossroads, strategic port harbors and rivers, or major railroad depots. Why not around airports? That question is being asked more often as the volume of air travel continues to increase and airports and the land around them […]
Detroit’s ‘Dream Cruise’
Last Saturday’s Woodward Dream Cruise, billed by organizers as “the world’s largest one-day celebration of car culture,” is a car show featuring over 40,000 cars cruising along a 16-mile stretch of Woodward Avenue through nine different suburban cities. (I was able to catch a bit on Friday when I was in the Detroit area visiting […]
Good Urbanism In Downtown Detroit
When I was in Michigan last week on vacation I took a trip to downtown Detroit with my girlfriend Libby to go ice skating at Campus Martius Park and dine in Mexicantown in the city’s Southwest side. Campus Martius park re-opened in 2004 after undergoing a major upgrade to coincide with the recent opening of […]
The Detroit Solution
From Detroit’s WDIV: DETROIT — Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said Thursday afternoon that the city would open its doors for victims of Hurricane Katrina, Local 4 reported. Kilpatrick said he has been working with Alphonso Jackson, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and other White House officials to find local […]