Mayor Mike Duggan (file photo)
Politicians promise a lot. So far, Mike Duggan hasn't delivered on a promise to grow Detroit's population while he's mayor. He took office in January 2014.
Chastity Pratt Dawsey of Bridge Magazine writes:
If Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is to be taken at his word, perhaps he shouldn’t be running for re-election this year.
Since his 2013 election, Duggan has often said that Detroit would gain population while he was mayor. And that he should be judged by whether the city reverses a 60-year population decline during his term. Duggan even told the Wall Street Journal in 2014 that “the single standard a mayor should be defined on is whether the population of the city is going up or down,” adding that he didn’t expect to win another term in 2017 if the population didn’t increase.
So far, it hasn’t.
U.S. Census county data for 2016 released this month indicate the city is likely still losing residents. Wayne County’s population fell by to 7,696 to 1.75 million. It was the second worst county population loss in the nation.
The county data does not specifically say which cities gained or lost population; however, the city of Detroit comprises 39 percent of the county’s population and has accounted for about 60 percent of the county’s recent population losses, recent Census data show.
There’s still a slim chance. New Census estimates for cities come out in May. But demographers said it’s unlikely, if not impossible, for Detroit to have gained population based on the county numbers.
