Detroit Futures: Can the City Be Reimagined?

Abstract

Many Detroit business and political leaders, as well as many ordinary citizens, believe that the city can be restored to vitality. At least four visions of the future city animate their efforts: the city as a great international model for green planning and technology leadership, the city as an entertainment destination, the city as a metropolitan center, and the city as a pioneer destination on the urban frontier. As these visions have simultaneously played out, they have perhaps improved daily life in Detroit in the last decade, but each is finally a partial and inadequate vision. None speaks directly to the interests of the bulk of the city's working class and poor population. Some of the visions lack sufficient scale relative to the city's problems, and some cannot be realized for lack of resources. All of these visions finally represent failures of city–building.