There are probably legal-aged adults that have never known a world where I was not writing snarky blog posts about Detroit. But they're well-founded snarky blog posts. Detroit's peak of population was 1950. A healthy City of Detroit is quickly vanishing from living memory. A young adult who actually experienced a growing Detroit would be pushing 90. History is a heavy weight that grows with time. With each passing year it gets harder and harder to take the "Detroit Renaissance" narrative seriously. (For you it's harder. For me...I never bought it to begin with.)
David Perell's Thoughts on Detroit is a cut above most entries into this genre as it is more a list of observations than taking a position. Many of his observations line up with mine, although he concludes the glass is half full, whereas I think it's been smashed on the floor.
Although he is left with a positive impression, the only overwhelmingly optimistic sign he specifically mentions is that everyone has local pride. But confusingly, that seems to get conflated with Dan Gilbert. Dan Gilbert is the guy behind Quicken Loans, the largest employer in Detroit. That he will subsidize folks in five-figures if they relocate to Detroit (presumably to work for his entities) is named as a good source of civic pride. It doesn't seem like something to be proud of. Forty-five minutes away you have to subsidize Ann Arbor that much in property tax and you're grateful.
I don't doubt that everyone Perell met who lives there was enthusiastic about the city. And here's where my cynicism makes its grand entrance. I have observed before that the the big thing Detroit has to offer is authenticity. A statement that you are from Detroit will carry weight with a certain crowd -- progressive young-ish hipsters -- who want their place of residence to make a certain statement about them. The late hipster idol Anthony Bourdain once said he could think of nothing cooler than being able to say you were from Detroit. If you live in Detroit because it makes you sound cool, you'll sound cool praising Detroit.
Kudos to Perell also for noticing that all the recent vibrancy in Detroit is quite limited. "Except for Woodward Avenue, downtown Detroit is surprisingly empty. At times, it feels like a ghost town. Foot traffic stays on just a couple streets between Bricktown and Downtown Detroit." He also mentions all the abandoned buildings and boarded up windows.
More interesting to me is this statement: "City dwellers were overwhelmingly optimistic about Detroit. But people outside the city, especially those I met in Northern Michigan, were overwhelmingly pessimistic. The people I spoke to who live outside the city, most of whom were wealthier, rarely go into downtown Detroit. They spend most of their time in the Northern suburbs instead." This jibes with my experience.
As I mentioned, Perrel is optimistic about Detroit, although the reasons he gives besides how enthusiastic the residents are rather thin. He is impressed with the Arab ethnicity in Dearborn (immediately west of Detroit) and thinks there is opportunity for more Middle Eastern immigration -- but it's unclear to me how that benefits Detroit rather than Dearborn and what the specific benefit of that is. He sites the proximity of two large Universities (University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan State in East Lansing) and suggests there is opportunity to recruit skilled employment from these places, especially if there are tax benefits to doing so. His quote: "Many of the younger people I spoke with want to stay in-state. Chicago is too big for them and New York is too far." I can understand wanting to stay in-state. Michigan, especially in the north and the U.P. is remarkably lovely. But even if this is true for a broader mix of young people, "in-state" does not translate to Detroit. It doesn't even necessarily translate to the suburbs. There are plenty of mid-sized cities in central-lower Michigan that are tremendous places to live -- Grand Rapids, Lansing, Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo -- and are actually growing. For 20 years, part of my day job has been recruiting tech talent; software developers often right out of those schools. In all that time I have encountered exactly one person who would have counted a Detroit location as a plus.
Quick aside: Praise to Perell for differentiating between Detroit, the suburbs, and greater Michigan. Although, he seems to count Dearborn as Detroit.
There are two battles going on here. One is over whether the "badness" of Detroit is real or simply reputation. The exchange is between those who say it is awful and have the stats to back it up, and those who say "it's not that bad" and point out that they themselves are OK with life in the Big D. There is an obvious winner in that battle.
The other is whether Detroit is improving or not. I will grant the there has been a slight improvement in the third-world hellhole level statistics of the past. I will also grant that there is about one square mile that has returned to some semblance of economic viability. And I have no doubt young professionals and artist-types who don't yet place a high value on personal and financial security might carve out a decent life (or at least a decent "lifestyle"). But that is little more than window dressing. For a city to thrive it needs a strong and stable middle-class. It needs to not just collect fashionable and high-profile businesses via financial incentives, it needs to support plumbers and convenience stores and various services and -- this is key --the families of those running those services. As far as I can tell, Detroit has made exactly zero progress on that point.
Lately I have had the opportunity to make some visits to Houston and it really highlights the vast difference between a city that dying and one that is living. Houston is about 4 times the size of Detroit. I don't think there is a single aspect of life in Detroit that measures up to Houston, other than it being less crowded. You can claim Houston has revenue that Detroit doesn't have, but why? Is that cause or symptom? Also, it wasn't always so. It wasn't until 1980-ish that Houston overtook Detroit as the fifth largest city in the U.S. Now Houston is fourth (behind NY, LA, CHI) and, next year, Detroit will slip out of the top 20. My point is that these trends are not just about public relations and tax incentives. They are deeply ingrained in the essence, character, and culture of these places.
I was born in Detroit, but at age 4 moved to the suburb of Southfield, just over the northern city border of 8 Mile Rd. I now live outside Ann Arbor. I know a handful of people who like to go into Detroit for a night out, but such trips are few and far between. I have not been to Detroit in decades, I don't even go into the northern suburbs unless I have to. We are far less culturally dependent on cities than we used to be. (Thanks, Internet.)
Lastly, note that all the good vibes about Detroit just aren't having the desired effect. The population decline that started in 1950 has not abated for a single year. I am 58 years old and Detroit has been dying for my entire life. I suspect it will continue to die for the remainder.
