Detroit: Analysis of a Comeback

When a place believes it can do better, that's half the battle. When people beyond that place believe it too, things actually happen.

The Joe Louis Fist monument in downtown Detroit. It’s a symbol of defiance and resistance in the face of adversity. Source: gettyimages.com

Sometimes, watching television offers fleeting, but definitive, glimpses into perceptions of a place. It could be done through montage scenes of street level hustle-and-bustle in Manhattan, something that virtually every show set in New York features, or cars stuck in gridlocked freeway traffic in southern California. One can think of other memes that quickly show general perceptions of a place: sandy beaches fronting skyscrapers in Miami; cable cars traversing the hills in San Francisco.

Detroit’s no different. I’ve kept mental tabs on how Detroit’s been depicted in the media over the last few decades, and it’s enlightening. In the ‘80s, ‘90s and early 2000’s, it was common to show images of assembly lines with workers moving big auto parts around, and then feature neighborhoods of neat but small single-family homes on small lots. About 10-15 years ago, it was cool to show off Detroit’s vacant land or abandoned buildings, especially factories. Sometimes this was done with views of the downtown Detroit skyline in the background to show stark contrasts, or sometimes the images just focused solely on the blighted ruins.

Recently, I’m finding Detroit depicted in new ways. While watching the Detroit Lions play the Minnesota Vikings Sunday, I noticed more shots being shown of Detroit’s skyline, especially highlighting the construction of the 70-story, 1.5 million square-foot Hudson's Detroit mixed-use development. I saw scenes of Detroit’s Riverwalk in use, ice skaters at Campus Martius Park, the Spirit of Detroit statue, or the Joe Louis fist sculpture. Detroit is now being depicted with a nod toward normalcy, as its achievements are highlighted. Detroit is also being depicted with a nod to its resilience – something that only an embodiment of the city’s spiritual essence, and a 24-foot tall, 4-ton bronze sculpture of a fist, can convey.

In short, two things are becoming clearer to me: 1) Detroit is beginning to get positive perceptions nationally, and that its revitalization is being viewed as real and lasting; and 2) that Detroit is finally shedding the fallen city stigma it acquired in recent decades, and is now being viewed the way other places are – a place with people, a place with amenities, a place with value.

This may not seem like a significant shift to you. Yes, it is a subtle change in perception. But this did not happen overnight. For most of my life Detroiters have been trying, in vain, to pump out positive messages about the Motor City. Now, the messages are resonating, and are being reflected in the public sphere.

The importance of narratives

I think cities succeed – or fail – in large part because of the narratives that define them. We create positive narratives for successful cities, and the positivity breeds more success. We create negative narratives for failing cities, and negativity accelerates the failure. There are a number of cities that have undergone narrative shifts from positive, to negative, to positive again. For example, I’d argue New York City’s narrative arc hit bottom in the late 1970’s, when the near-bankrupt city was denied a federal bailout by President Gerald Ford, violent crime was at its all-time peak, and a heat wave blackout in July 1977 that contributed to a sense of lawlessness in the city. New York was able to change its narrative fairly quickly; within a decade of the blackout, New York, and Manhattan in particular, became known for being the preferred location for a new demographic – yuppies. The emergence of that demographic was at the heart New York’s revitalization.

Detroit’s shifting narratives

To understand what the new narrative shift means for Detroit, I think it’s instructive to look at how the narrative arc ebbed and flowed over the last 70 years.

1945 – 1967: the tension narrative. Following WWII, Detroit gets right back into auto production. Lots of attention is given to strengthening the economy. Little attention is given to rising racial and inequality tensions in the city. In fact, it’s probably fair to say political and business leaders ignored the tensions, assuming that a booming economy would make them go away.

1967 – 1974: the crisis narrative. The 1967 riots, the 1970's Detroit Police STRESS (Stop The Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets) undercover unit, the rise of foreign auto competition, the Supreme Court case that put the entire Detroit metropolitan area at the center of a battle over school desegregation with Milliken v. Bradley, the tensions behind the 1973 mayoral election – all of them rocked the city.

1974 – 1994: the shunning narrative. Detroit spends 20 years in the wilderness. Detroiters, particularly Black Detroiters, begin to believe in the city again. However, few outside of the city, suburbanites and outsiders, do. The city-suburb relationship, and the city-state relationship, are at their worst. Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson, who ruled over metro Detroit’s second-largest and most affluent county from 1992 until his death in 2019, personified suburban feelings toward Detroit. A quote from his Drop Dead, Detroit! In the New Yorker in 2014 characterizes the region’s policy toward the city:

“I made a prediction a long time ago, and it’s come to pass. I said, ‘What we’re going to do is turn Detroit into an Indian reservation, where we herd all the Indians into the city, build a fence around it, and then throw in the blankets and corn.”

Nice.

What Detroit’s witnessing now is the fruits of efforts begun over the last 30 years. The city had to endure the extended shunning it received from the suburbs, state government, and national media outlets before it could transition to revitalization. Once it emerged from the shunning, things started happening.

1994 – 2013: Comeback narrative, part 1: the inner work. Detroit begins to take the steps needed to reorganize its leadership, business community, and priorities. New mayor Dennis Archer succeeds Coleman Young, after Young’s 20 years in office. There are green shoots, positives are taking place in the city. But much of this is unseen to the general public because of 1) the foreclosure crisis, and 2) the corruption of the Kilpatrick administration.

2013 - present: Comeback narrative, part 2: the outer work. The 2013 municipal bankruptcy was the culmination of the inner work, and the most significant evidence to the public of the city’s commitment to the outer work. It allowed suburbanites and outsiders to see the value and progress of inside work efforts. More progress comes to the city.

Here’s an observation. Detroit’s 1967-1974 narrative arc is eerily similar to that of Los Angeles in the 1990’s and early 2000’s, with one big caveat. Los Angeles’ narrative probably hit rock bottom in the early and mid-1990’s. The city’s riots in the aftermath of the Rodney King police beating acquittal, and the depth and scope of the LAPD’s Rampart corruption scandal, is very similar to what happened in Detroit during its crisis period 30 years earlier. Somehow (and LA experts would be better than me to discuss this), Los Angeles was able to go through an accelerated inner work/outer work phase that helped in changing the narrative. From my perspective, Los Angeles didn’t spend two decades being neglected by the federal government, its state legislature, its suburbs, or its business community. I’m guessing that LA’s leaders went about the quiet business of reorganizing its social infrastructure, and it paid off. Sure, LA’s not perfect. But it had a leadership class that was determined to keep the city thriving.

It took 20 years for Detroit’s leaders to come to the same conclusion. That’s the difference.