Brian Doucet
Brian Doucet, a Canadian-born assistant professor of urban geography at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, has written a column in the Guardian entitled: "Detroit's gentrification won't give poor citizens reliable public services."
It's essentially another piece on the tale of two cities: The prosperous and the poor.
He writes:
For the past two years, I have taken postgraduate students in urban geography to Detroit, where a prosperous downtown is rising. The city’s transformation is being celebrated and seen as potential model for other places.
But George Galster, professor of urban studies at Detroit’s Wayne State University told my students to imagine the city as a bathtub. The new investments and activities are like water pouring into the tub. But nothing has been done to plug the giant hole at the bottom of the tub.
This new renaissance does not address why Detroit declined in the first place. It does little to address poverty, unemployment and access to resources for the vast majority of the city’s residents. What’s worse, the gentrification of downtown Detroit contributes to greater inequality and polarisation, which are growing challenges for cities around the world.
He goes on to write:
Greater Downtown’s current revival will mean that this 5% of the city will pull further and further ahead of the other 95%. Those able to afford to live there enjoy great restaurants and bars, well-paid employment, safe and attractive neighbourhoods and reliable public transit. The problem is most Detroiters cannot afford to live here. And like everything else in Southeast Michigan, race is one of the dominant factors. In a city that is 85% African American, Greater Downtown is becoming increasingly white.
There are also growing divides between public and private services. While most Detroiters wait hours for the police to arrive, private security forces patrol Downtown and around Wayne State University. When problems arise in adjacent neighbourhoods, you don’t call 911, you call campus police, who respond in minutes, rather than hours. Detroit has some of the worst municipal services in the country so the gentrifying areas increasingly turn to their own private amenities to compensate.
And he concludes by saying that Detroit shouldn't be celebrating just yet.
Politicians and planners love a good success story. But cities are rarely so simple. And celebrating Detroit’s current renaissance would be the wrong lesson to draw from this great American city.
