WHY DETROIT MATTERS

Contents

List of contributors

List of figures and tables

Figures

Table

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: why Detroit matters

Visiting Detroit

Detroit and the “next Detroit”

Narratives of Detroit: toward a metonym for urban decline and failure

Why Detroit matters

Approach and aims of the book

Outline and structure of the book

Section One: Lessons from Detroit

2. Detroit’s bankruptcy: treating the symptom, not the cause

Introduction

The origins of decline: theoretical overview

Structural forces eroding Detroit’s tax base

Fiscal retrenchment by federal and state governments

Detroit’s fiscal response and the death spiral

Race as the accelerator of decline

Will Detroit’s revitalization relieve its fiscal plight?

Proposals for structural changes

Conclusion

3. Detroit in bankruptcy: what are the lessons to be learned?

Introduction

Detroit: Why did the city enter bankruptcy in 2013?

Detroit: the bankruptcy proceedings and the resolution

What may we learn from the bankruptcy of Detroit?

A concluding comment about the federal government and cities approaching bankruptcy

4. Between economic revival and social disruption: the redevelopment of Greater Downtown and the emergence of new socio-spatial inequalities

Introduction

Understanding urban decline

Managing decline to generate growth

Detroit’s one-sided revival and its socio-spatial consequences

Conclusion: Detroit as a trendsetter for urban development in capitalism?

5. A new urban medicine show: on the limits of blight remediation

Introduction

Situating blight

Blight production

Mortgage and tax foreclosures

Conclusion

6. Reshaping the gray spaces: resident self-provisioning and urban form in Detroit

Introduction

Rearranging people in space

Negotiating accessing to external resources

Constructing contingent moral geographies

Conclusion: outside the mainstream of entrepreneurial governance

7. Preserving Detroit by preserving its baseball history

The Navin Field Grounds Crew

The Tigers and Detroit: an intertwined history

Fans move to preserve Tiger Stadium’s ball field

Personal connections to baseball stadiums: Tiger Stadium as sacred ground

Navin Field and conflicting visions for Detroit

Epilogue

8. This is (not) Detroit: projecting the future of Germany’s Ruhr region

Introduction

The Ruhr region: Germany’s Detroit?

Referencing “Detroit” in the Ruhr

Conclusions

Intermezzo 1: You may not know my Detroit

Section Two: Practices from Detroit

9. Evolution of municipal government in Detroit

Introduction

Creative solutions for the delivery of municipal services

Factors contributing to more successful operations

Key conditions must be met

10. Detroit’s emerging innovation in urban infrastructure: how liabilities become assets for energy, water, industry, and informatics

Introduction

Innovative urban infrastructure

Renewable energy

Blue and green infrastructure

Building infrastructure: reindustrialization

Information infrastructure

Conclusion

11. Visions in conflict: a city of possibilities

Introduction

Two visions

Bankruptcy

History of resistance

US Social Forum/shrinking the city

Contested land

Water, human rights, and public trust

What time is it? Creating consciousness/creating structures

12. Reconstructing Detroit: the resilient city

Introduction

A history not to be repeated

Left behind, looking forward

Limited government support, boundless community vision

Reconstructing the resilient city

Conclusion

13. Reawakening culture among Detroit’s resident majority

Culture and its interpreted context

Detroit’s ambivalent relationship with creative placemaking

A history of master planning in Detroit

Toward shared experiences, values, and goals

Conclusion

14. Make sure you are helping: experts, solidarity, and effective partnering with locals

Introduction

The problem of charity

Searchers versus planners

How to create meaningful change

15. New Strategies DMC, takin’ it all back home: lessons from Detroit for arts practices in the Netherlands

Introduction

Expodium and the city

New Strategies DMC (Detroit Motor City)

Bringing it home: lessons from Detroit

Public space and industrial history in Utrecht

Conclusion

Intermezzo 2. My Detroit

2 + 2 = 8

Section Three. Conversations from Detroit

16. Lowell Boileau

17. Sandra Hines

18. Malik Yakini

19. Dan Carmody

20. Jackie Victor

21. Phil Cooley

22. Wayne Curtis and Myrtle Thompson-Curtis

23. Julia Putnam, Amanda Rosman, and Marisol Teachworth

24. Yusef Bunchy Shakur

25. Grace Lee Boggs

26. Conclusion: Detroit and the future of the city

Perspectives within this book

Policy insights

Concluding thoughts and final questions

Index