_ Listening to Detroit-Gentrification

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Listening to Detroit: Perspectives on Gentrification in the Motor City

by

Michael Williams

A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillmentof the Requirements for the DegreeBachelors of Arts with Honors in

the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Spring 2013


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ABSTRACT

As the city of Detroit continues to experience revitalization and redevelopment

efforts throughout the 21stcentury and grows a wealthier and more diverse base of

incoming residents in its inner city, this study sought out information about whether such

efforts are contributing to gentrification. Usually much attention is given to the aspect of

physical displacement that is most commonly associated with gentrification and its

typical transformation of low-income neighborhoods filled with people of color into

spaces for the White middle and upper class. However, the qualitative research of this

study aimed to uncover aspects of cultural displacement how individuals and

communities may experience a loss of social, cultural and historical connections that

normally allows them to comfortably identify with and frequent certain urban spaces.

Through in-depth interviews with Black, working- and middle-class Detroiters who

make up the dominant demography of the city this thesis researcher discloses that there

are several examples of growing cultural dissonance between Detroits Black, working-

class base and an incoming class of young, college-educated Whites. The findings

suggest that gentrification is not only occurring in the Motor City, albeit in a highly

nuanced form, but also that the definition of gentrification must be broadened to better

incorporate the aspect of cultural displacement.


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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my advisor, Professor June Thomas, for her guidance and for herbrilliance in the field of urban planning that continues to inspire me. I am especiallygrateful to the staff at the East Michigan Environmental Action Council and the membersof the Young Educators Alliance for their unwavering support and profound wisdomduring this experience. This effort would also not have been made possible withoutparticipation in the University of Michigans Semester in Detroit program and supportfrom the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. Lastly, I owe gratitude to myfamily to my grandfather for giving me the gift of Detroit, and to my father forinspiring me to love the city as much as he does.

This thesis is dedicated to the people of Detroit. May you soon rise from the ashes, onceagain.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER Page

1

INTRODUCTION5

BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY8

Examining Gentrification in Detroit..12

Interviewees...14

2 LITERATURE REVIEW17

What isGentrification?..................................................................17

Gentrification Today..18

The Urban Pioneer Spirit...22

Detroit isNotBeing Gentrified?....................................................23

3 GENTRIFICATION IS HAPPENING28

Its All in a Name...28

Defining Gentrification..30

The Complexity of Defining Gentrification..36

Community Input and A Lack of the Right Terminology.39

4

A TALE OF TWO CITIES..42

A New Culture...42

Urban Renewal by Another Name.45

What Lies Ahead47

5 CONCLUSION51

BIBLIOGRAPHY..53


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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

As I walk the streets of Midtown, I see new urban narratives being created and

interwoven into the framework of this Detroit neighborhood. These new narratives spring

from the opening of new small businesses and restaurants that join the ranks of

institutions such as the Detroit Institute of Arts and Coney Island restaurants that have

defined the neighborhood for decades. The main thoroughfare of Woodward Avenue is

now made complete with new developments such as the Great Lakes Coffee Roasting

Company coffee and wine bar and Good Girls Go to Paris Crepes. Luxury condominiums

and apartments residing in rehabilitated structures both small and grand in size, like the

Park Shelton are also included in this phase of redevelopment.

Weaving in and out of the smaller streets that diverge off of Woodward Avenue

and flank the area of Midtown Detroit, I see the new Seva restaurant, a staple of

vegetarian cuisine originally located in the young, culturally hip college town of Ann

Arbor, Michigan,1which opened its second branch in Midtown in January 2012 to be part

of a community that is turning around.2Still, within the periphery of my

neighborhood stroll are several construction sites for developments yet to be fully

realized, such as the site of Whole Foods Market the upscale, natural and organic foods

store set to open in June 2013.

1Evgeny Magidenko, "How to Be an Ann Arbor Hipster," The Michigan Review, June 5, 2008,http://www.michiganreview.com/archives/348 .2Quoted in Jon Zemke, "Seva Detroit, COLORS Restaurant Open in Midtown, Downtown,"Model D, January 17,2012, http://www.modeldmedia.com/devnews/sevadetroitcolors011712.aspx .


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This new opening of the grocery store chain has arguably created the most

contentious dialogue surrounding new arrivals to the city due to the controversy over

what its presence will signify in its Midtown location.3,4The voices of both excitement

as well as fear surrounding the opening of Whole Foods on Mack Avenue stem from

what is known as the Whole Foods effect;5the stores trend of catering to typically

well-educated and wealthy consumers who can afford their inflated prices incites further

residential and business development and increases housing values of the neighborhoods

for which they are located.6While some Detroiters are excited about the potential

economic development this will signal for the future of the neighborhood, others are

skeptical of the cultural shift that such a store will create.7

This conflicted dialogue around urban revitalization efforts in the city is bigger

than just the Whole Foods retailer; with new development comes a new population, and

vice versa. Whether establishments such as typically expensive, organic food stores,

coffee shops, and refurbished lofts attract more young, college-educated individuals or

merely cater to their already-existing presence due to their affiliation with Detroits

Wayne State University or the College of Creative Studies is irrelevant to this study. The

central question this thesis aims to confront is what does it mean for a college-educated

and financially well-off population to be growing in a city on the brink of financial

3Sarah Cox, "Whole Foods Detroit: The Brand's Ability to Bring Escape Velocity to Real Estate Doldrums," CurbedDetroit, May 7, 2012, http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2012/05/whole-foods-escape-velocity-to-break-free-of-real-

estate-doldrums.php.

4Will Doig, "Whole Foods Is Coming? Time to Buy," SALON, May 5, 2012,http://www.salon.com/2012/05/05/whole_foods_is_coming_time_to_buy/singleton/ .5Quoted in Adeline Goss, The Whole Foods Effect: A grocerys role in transforming cities, Next Generation

Radio, National Public Radio, aired in 2006, transcript,http://www.npr.org/about/nextgen/internedition/fall06/docs/transcripts/gosspercent20transcript.pdf.6Matthew Boyle, "The Man Who Brought Organics to Main Street," Fortune, July 12, 2007,http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/23/100134366/index.htm .7Sarah Cox, "The Detroit News Goes Looking For Gentrification, Trouble," Curbed Detroit, January 5, 2012,

http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2012/01/the-detroit-news-goes-looking-for-gentrification-trouble-1.php .


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bankruptcy8and with one of the worst high school graduation rates in the nation?9How

will this new wave of White middle-class residents influence a city where over 82.7

percent of its population is Black and 36.2 percent is below the federal poverty level?10

My study examines how a few longtime, Black working- and middle-class

Detroiters as well as those that they have interviewed or engaged with on this subject

matter are responding to the influx of these new residents and redevelopment efforts.

This thesis also inspects what implications race and class have in this dialogue. By

researching if and how individuals representing Detroits dominant demography of

residents are noticing the changing facades and faces occupying both Midtown and

neighborhoods across the city, this study explores if the transformation of the Detroit

landscape is connected to a larger phenomenon known as gentrification. This study

suggests how these demographic and economic changes are culturally displacing some

members of Detroits prevailing population and the implications they believe these

occurrences have on the future of the Motor City.

BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY

8Based on the findings of a Citizens Research Council of Michigan report completed in 2010 for the city of Detroit.The report identified exacerbated effects of population loss, poverty, and disinvestment on the City of Detroit (v),including an accumulated deficit well over $300 million among other issues. See Citizens Research Council ofMichigan, The Fiscal Condition of the City of Detroit, Report 361, April 2010,http://www.crcmich.org/PUBLICAT/2010s/2010/rpt361.pdf.9Detroit Associated Press, "Education Secretary: Detroit Schools at 'bottom of the barrel,'" The Oakland Press, April26, 2010, http://www.theoaklandpress.com/articles/2010/04/26/news/doc4bd593fe7fe5b732612169.txt .10U.S. Census Bureau, State and County QuickFacts: Detroit (city), Michigan, (Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau,2010), Last revised January 10, 2013, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2622000.html (accessed March 18,2013).


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The Midtown neighborhood with its new businesses such as Whole Foods is an

anomaly in comparison to the city that resides outside of the Midtown and Downtown

radius the business, economic, arts and entertainment hubs of the city proper. A 2010

Social Compact study funded by the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation showed

Midtown to have the highest average household income of new homebuyers at $113, 788,

compared to about $51,000 for those who purchased homes between 2006 and 2008 in

the city as a whole.11,12

While Midtown was the most commonly identified neighborhood by the

interviewees of this study as a primary testament to the demographic and economic

development changes occurring in the city, it does not stand alone. Other neighborhoods

in or near Downtown, such as the Central Business District, Indian Village, and the Near

East Riverfront among others, also boast new homeowners reported incomes that are

more than double the citywide average for new homebuyers.13This revamped image of

these few square miles of Detroit revolving around Woodward Avenue is complete with a

growing number of 20- to 30-year-old White faces. While these faces would have

appeared unfamiliar to Detroit ten years ago, or even three years ago, they are not lost or

merely tourists; they are at home in their small pocket of a largely Black, working-class

city.

The findings of the 2010 Social Compact Study as well as the changes the

subjects of my research have noticed occurring in the city have been greater quantified by

11Nathan Skid, "Whole Foods Moving into Midtown," Crain's Detroit Business, July 27, 2011,http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20110727/FREE/110729893/whole-foods-moving-into-midtown .

12Social Compact Inc., City of Detroit, Neighborhood Market Drilldown: Catalyzing Business Investment in Inner-CityNeighborhoods, December 2010, 10, http://socialcompact.org/images/uploads/2-9-2011_Detroit_DrillDown_Report.pdf.13Ibid.


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a more recent report known as 7.2 SQ MI.14As the title of this collaborative work

suggests, its findings identify a 7.2-square mileage region denoted as Greater

Downtown as a physically and economically changing place.15

See Figure 1.

Figure 1: Hudson-Webber Foundation, et al., Greater Downtown Detroit ByNeighborhood. 2013, Digital Image. Source: Hudson-Webber Foundation, et al. 7.2 SQMI: A Report on Greater Downtown Detroit, February 2013.http://www.detroitsevenpointtwo.com/resources/sevenpointtwosquaremilesfullreport.pdf,14.

Encompassing the aforementioned neighborhoods such as Midtown, the

Downtown Central Business District, and the Riverfront, Greater Downtown also

includes areas such as Corktown, Woodbridge, and New Center all of which the

14Hudson-Webber Foundation, et al., 7.2 SQ MI: A Report on Greater Downtown Detroit, February 2013,http://www.detroitsevenpointtwo.com/resources/sevenpointtwosquaremilesfullreport.pdf.15Ibid., 4.


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interviewees of my research identified as neighborhoods experiencing social and

economic shifts. With a decreasing Black population and an increase in White residents,

a 42 percent college education rate for residents ages 25-34 compared to 11 percent

citywide, and a per capita income that is 33 percent higher than the city as a whole, 7.2

SQ MItracks public and local data from 2000-2012 to show Greater Downtown as

increasingly more diverse, educated and wealthy than the rest of the city.16With

occupancy rates for rental units in central Downtown and Midtown at 97 percent and 95

percent, respectively, and rising apartment rental rates accompanying such demand, it

becomes apparent how $6 billion in investments in real estate development projects in

Greater Downtown since 2006 are altering the landscape of Detroits urban core.17

Already, some of the contributors to the report such as representatives from the Detroit

Economic Growth Corporation and Data Driven Detroit believe that the documents

findings may be slightly dated given the rapidly changing trends they expect to accelerate

in the area over the next decade.18

While some such as renowned urbanist and economist Richard Florida have

identified these changes as part of Downtown Detroits comeback,19this influx of new

residents to Detroit and the redevelopment efforts both accompanying and attracting them

are part of a broader and more complex dialogue in urban America: gentrification. Urban

studies scholarship and common knowledge have identified this process as more or less

16Quoted in John Gallagher, Downtown Detroit has more wealth, diversity than city as a whole, report says, DetroitFree Press, February 18, 2013, http://www.freep.com/.17Hudson-Webber Foundation, et al., 7.2 SQ MI, 64.18Gallagher, Downtown Detroit.19Richard Florida, Quantifying Downtown Detroits Comeback, The Atlantic Cities, February 20, 2013,http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/02/quantifying-downtown-detroits-comeback/4734/ .


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the transformation of a working-class or vacant area of the central city into middle-class

residential and/or commercial use.20

In addition to the overt socioeconomic variations, as is the case with economic

inequality in the United States, race matters. These middle- to upper-class residents

infiltrating the urban core and central city usually equate to White yuppie pioneers

moving into low-income neighborhoods with dense concentrations of ethnic

minorities.21

Typically, the narratives of gentrification and case studies of it have been

dominated by attention to areas such as the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in

Brooklyn, New York;22Harlem, New York; and the historically African-American U St.

neighborhood in Washington, D.C.,23

where population growth specifically of new,

young middle-class residents spills over into neighborhoods that are usually

underdeveloped and full of people of color. While the built environment of Detroit and its

unique set of urban challenges separate it from the likeness of more stable and affluent

regions like New York City or the nations capital, this does not mean that gentrification

cannot or is not occurring here. Coverage by Detroit online magazines, blogs, and news

sites such asModel DandMLive, have uncovered stories of displacement of Black

residents due to increases in rents stemming from economic development as well as the

urban gardening and farming movement generating significant attention in the city.24

Examining Gentrification in Detroit

20Quoted in Loretta Lees, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly, Gentrification (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group,2008), xv.21Ibid., 108.22Ibid.23Neil Smith, The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City(London: Routledge, 1996), 29.24Patrick Crouch, "Evolution or Gentrification: Do Urban Farms Lead to Higher Rents?," Grist, October 23, 2012,http://grist.org/food/evolution-or-gentrification-do-urban-farms-lead-to-higher-rents/ .


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In light of the ever-growing wave of revitalization efforts in Detroit as well as the

aforementioned transformation of its neighborhoods, my research aims to uncover how

everyday citizens with vested long-term interest in the city are responding to what is

arguably shaping sections of their hometown into a sought-after area for White, college-

educated Millennials. Through in-depth interviews with longtime Detroiters, this work

gathered thoughts and feelings toward ongoing and future gentrification efforts in the

Motor City. By particularly focusing on capturing the insights of Black, working- or

middle-class Detroiters who have lived in various parts of the city for their entire lives

and even have multi-generational and extended familial roots here, this thesis challenges

approaching the subject matter from a remote or removed perspective.

Most of the conversation surrounding gentrification focuses on the aspect of

physical displacement, in which increased real estate development, new businesses and

housing result in increased rents and neighborhood living standards that force the original

or lower-income residents out of their neighborhood experiencing transition. However,

this study sought out occurrences of what University of Michigan Sociology Ph.D.

candidate Meagan Elliott identifies as cultural displacement25, 26 the elimination and/or

ignoring of the sense of place, ownership, historical and familial/generational ties, self-

identification and pride associated with living in a certain place. Elliotts line of research

and the data she has collected thus far better defines cultural displacement as the removal

of a sense of place and community and feeling like you have the right to creating the

25Meagan Elliott, "Planning Appropriately for Our Future," The Huffington Post, January 10, 2012,http://www.huffingtonpost.com/meagan-elliott/detroit-gentrification_b_1194534.html .

26Meagan Elliott, interview with the author, Ann Arbor, November 16, 2012.


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vision for that communitys future. Even if people are not forced from their homes due to

rising rents, they may feel like their community is less their own than it used to be. 27

Typically, the present-day media coverage of gentrification highlights

gentrifiers frontier and salvation ideology28upon moving into their new, lower-class

neighborhoods that places them culturally at variance with longtime residents interests

and well-being.29This thesis aims to analyze that cultural dissonance from the

perspectives of those who are usually gentrified or displaced by addressing the issue of

what Loyola University of Chicago professor Japonica Brown-Saracino defines as social

preservation a set of political, symbolic, and private practices to maintain the

authenticity of [gentrifiers] place of residence, primarily by working to prevent old-

timers displacement.30This line of work will largely focus on the experiences of Detroit

residents and how they conceptualize their own participation and inclusion, or lack

thereof, in what their neighborhoods and city have morphed into and are becoming, and

how their sentiments towards their surrounding environment have changed, if at all.

My line of inquiry based on the uprising of cultural dissonance in Detroit will

engage the scholarship around the complex topic of gentrification in a dialogue around

race, class, and the implications both items have on the future of the Motor City as it is

revitalized. The responses from interviewees, and the insight from many other Detroiters

they have interviewed and interacted with, will ultimately offer greater understanding on

how some residents are coping with the increase of White young professionals in a

27Quoted in Elliott, Planning Appropriately for Our Future.28Quoted in Japonica Brown-Saracino,A Neighborhood That Never Changes: Gentrification, Social Preservation, andthe Search for Authenticity(Chicago: University of Chicago, 2009), 7.29Ibid.30Ibid., 9.


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largely Black, working-class city. By amplifying the voices of this particular group of

Detroiters, this work aims to challenge the sentiment and trend of current media coverage

of Detroit that focuses primarily on new development projects in the Greater Downtown

area and incoming residents who are primarily White, while ignoring or rendering

invisible the occurrences and viewpoints of Detroits Black and working-class majority

yet another facet at the core of cultural displacement.31

Interviewees

Participation in Semester in Detroit, an experiential learning program at the

University of Michigan, created the opportunity for both residing in Midtown, Detroit

and working at a community-based internship there at the East Michigan Environmental

Action Council (EMEAC). Founded in the 1960s in response to environmental concerns

in southeast Michigan, EMEAC prides itself on influencing environmental policy and

legislation for the metro Detroit region through informed personal and public action.32

The non-profit organization is based in the Cass Corridor/Park neighborhood abutting the

northern edge of Downtown and forming the southwestern tip and beginning of what is

associated by the 7.2 SQ MIreport as Midtown.33From their headquarters known as the

Cass Corridor Commons a shared workspace and social gathering hub for various other

organizations and initiatives like the Sugar Law Center and Peoples Kitchen Detroit

the EMEAC team works to empower the Detroit community to build community power

through environmental justice education, youth development, and collaborative

relationship building. Members of the EMEAC staff served as interviewees for this

31Elliott, Planning Appropriately for Our Future.32EMEAC, About Us, East Michigan Environmental Action Council, last modified November 8, 2010, accessedFebruary 13, 2013, http://www.emeac.org/2010/11/about.html.33See area labeled as North Cass in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.


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research study. This included a particular focus on the organizations youth component,

the Young Educators Alliance (YEA) a small group of young adults, aged 14-24 years

old, who come together to identify issues in their environment and work collectively on

solutions, using their creativity and personal insight.

Not only did YEA members and EMEAC staff fulfill this studys desired subject

qualifications as self-identified Black, working- or middle-class, longtime Detroiters, but

they also provided particular expertise to the nature of this research project given their

own research and community-based education endeavors on the topic of gentrification in

Detroit. YEAs focus on establishing better dialogue around the topic of gentrification in

Detroit led them to creating a documentary video project titled The Untold Story of

Detroit,34in which they informally interviewed about 40 Detroit residents to gain insight

on how these Detroiters culturally identified with their neighborhoods and the city as a

whole, and how the effects of redevelopment may be altering this relationship. The young

adult group then took their efforts further by organizing an educational and dialogue-

based community forum on February 16, 2013 at EMEAC headquarters to garner more

public opinion on the topic of gentrification and brainstorm collective mitigation

strategies. The event, known as the Feed 1 Teach 1 on Gentrification in Detroit,35

brought together about 50-60 participants.

34Quoted in Siwatu Salaama Ra, interview with the author, Detroit, January 23, 2013. Siwatu is the Youth LeadershipTeam Coordinator at the East Michigan Environmental Action Council and the founder of the Young EducatorsAlliance.

35Patrick Geans-Ali, Gentrification to be the topic at Young Educators Alliance Feed1 Teach1 2013, The MichiganCitizen, February 15, 2013, http://michigancitizen.com/gentrification-to-be-the-topic-at-young-educators-alliance-feed1-teach1-2013/.


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Information gathered from YEAs video project and community forum were

captured in their responses during the in-depth interviews conducted for this study to

reflect the views of numerous other Black, working- and middle-class Detroiters. For the

purpose of this thesis, I interviewed four YEA members and three members of the

EMEAC staff who serve as supervisors or liaisons to the Young Educators Alliance. All

interviewees have resided in Detroit since birth, and in all cases, the subjects had familial

roots that extended back at least 1-2 generations from parents that were born and raised in

the city and grandparents that had migrated to the city from Southern states. They hailed

from numerous sectors of Detroit, including the West Side, the East Side, and the

Northwest area.

The total of seven interviews were conducted individually and were audiotaped,

transcribed, and analyzed to identify thematic connections. For the sake of privacy and

confidentiality, I do not reveal the names of these participants nor specific personal

information besides their responses provided in the interviews. The data analysis of my

qualitative research is presented in Chapters 3 and 4 following the Literature Review.

Chapter 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

What isGentrification?


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As stated before, gentrification generally signifies the action and effect of middle-

or upper-class citizens moving into lower-class and neglected neighborhoods, especially

in the central city of urban environments. The term also refers to the private capital of

businesses, retail, and real estate development and the public investment that enters into

the neighborhoods with the gentry36

typically young, highly-educated individuals.37

Converting these socially marginal and working-class neighborhoods into middle-class

residential use began in the 1960s with private-market investment capital into downtown

districts of major urban centers38

and was originally viewed as a measure of

reinvestment in the urban core. The term was initially coined by British sociologist Ruth

Glass in 1964 to describe happenings of urban change in inner-city London at the time;

Glass documented how working-class quarters in London were being invaded by the

middle class, turning shabby cottages into expensive and luxurious pieces of real estate

until all or most of the original working-class occupiers are displaced and the social

character of the district is changed.39

Indeed, the influx of the gentry into a particular

area undoubtedly creates structural change in the built environment and a clear alteration

in residential demographics. But such factors consequentially lead to a reshaping of the

political, economic, and socio-cultural landscape of that area as well. Gentrification

possesses both a large stigma as well as factual support of primarily driving up real estate

36Gina M. Prez, The near Northwest Side Story: Migration, Displacement, and Puerto Rican Families(Berkeley:University of California, 2004).37Quoted in Brown-Saracino,A Neighborhood That Never Changes, 4.38Quoted in Sharon Zukin, "Gentrification: Culture and Capital in the Urban Core," Annual Review of Sociology13.1(1987): 129.39Quoted in Ruth Glass,London; Aspects of Change(London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1964), xviii-xix.


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values and property taxes in the gentrified neighborhood, leading to the exit and

relocation of many of the original residents who cannot afford such increases.40

My work is in conversation with the scholarship on gentrification, including the

work titled Gentrificationby Loretta Lees, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly. As the first

textbook on the phenomenon, this work addresses how gentrification of urban areas has

accelerated across the globe to become a central engine of urban development. It also

presents major theoretical ideas, concepts with case studies, and suggestions for future

research. This thesis will expand on the work done in the textbook to relay the topic of

gentrification to Detroit, with a specific focus on cultural displacement. My study will

also focus more on the perspectives of everyday citizens rather than the point of view of

urban sociology, geography, and urban planning.

Gentrification Today

In the last few decades since the 1960s, American sociologists, economists, and

urbanists have more clearly defined the gentrification phenomenon to include a more

distinct reshuffling of the make-up of these neighborhoods in terms of race, class, and

social capital, including college-educated status. While the general actions of displacing

or relegating the residencies of marginalized groups including the urban poor and/or

people of color dates back to centuries before the 1960s, the trend of modern

gentrification, examined in this thesis, refers to a global phenomenon from the 1980s

40Lees, Slater, and Wyly, Gentrification , 10.


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onward that is especially present in postwar advanced capitalist cities such as Boston;

Washington, D.C.; and New York City.41

Columbia University Adjunct Associate Professor of International and Public

Affairs David J. Maurrasse details how Harlem, a specific region in the uptown area of

New York Citys borough of Manhattan, home to a large African-American population,

undergoes such racial and economic changes:

At 122nd

Street, near Morningside Avenue, two white men peer into the window

of a brownstone, maybe speculating about the units and the neighborhoods

livability. Although some boarded-up buildings remain in this section, like one

red brick structure on 122nd

Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, one is far more likely

to see various construction projects underway, ones that involved renovation of

old homes or sites starting from scratch on empty lots. At 120th

Street and Lenox

Avenue, a new caf/bakery called Settepani looks like something youd find on

23rd

Street. The storefront looks brand spanking new, the windows sparkling

clean. The mostly White but still relatively multiracial crowd inside conjures up

images of almost anywhere but what many would associate with Harlem. This is

quite a nice caf, by the way. And it is only one among a few others that have

recently opened in the neighborhood.42

Maurrasse goes on to state:

Harlem is beginning to look more like the rest of Manhattan. But as Harvard

fellow John Jackson notes in his book,Harlerm World, Harlem is not Manhattan.

41Ibid., 5.42David Maurrasse,Listening to Harlem: Gentrification, Community, and Business(New York: Routledge, 2006), 6-7.


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Harlems significance as a center of African American life and culture may very

well be in jeopardy in the long run. But as these resources enter the neighborhood,

the challenge of ensuring that longtime residents benefit rather than lose is of

utmost concern. It could be that the residents are expected to sink or swim in an

increasingly competitive environment. If development is going to result in

widespread empowerment, residents, community organizations, corporations,

government, and real estate developers all must take some action, beyond market

forces, to ensure some degree of balance in Harlems current and future economic

development.

43

Maurrasses documentation of the changing social and economic climate of

Harlem in 2006 as well as his concern for how current and longtime residents are being

affected by such changes leads him to investigate their viewpoints on the matter of their

gentrifying neighborhood. My research is in direct conversation with the framework and

intent of that of David Maurrasses in his book,Listening to Harlem: Gentrification,

Community, and Business. Through surveys and primarily in-depth interviews of

longtime residents, nonprofit community organizations, and small business owners, he

aimed to direct greater attention to the thoughts of those who make up the essence of

Harlem, and whose perspectives, he believes, are critical to shaping the future of the

neighborhood44and offer suggestions for more effective policies that will bring

resources into urban neighborhoods without hurting longtime, especially low-income,

residents.45

43Ibid., 39-40.44Ibid., 11.45Ibid.


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The format of my data collection as well as the intent of my research also

parallels the work of Columbia University professor Lance Freeman in There Goes the

Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up.46

Freeman lives in Harlem placing

him in the midst of his field research and interacts with several residents and business

owners to unravel the complexities of gentrification, specifically from the perspective of

indigenous residents, as it unfolds in this particular uptown Manhattan neighborhood. His

findings provide a nuanced image of the displacement process, including conflicting

reactions from the constituents who must live and cope with the changes in their

environment everyday. Freemans qualitative research along with historical and

contextual information outlining the changes occurring in the historically Black, inner-

city neighborhoods of Harlem and Brooklyns Clinton Hill, reveal how long-term

residents are reacting to the steady entry of White, middle-class individuals as well as

new business and developments that are appearing simultaneously. His results and

conclusions challenge planning and policy efforts mainly those stemming from local

government to act on new ways of limiting gentrifications negative effects while

creating more positive experiences for both newcomers and native, in New York City and

any locality where neighborhoods are being gentrified.

The Urban Pioneer Spirit

While scholars argue that there are many reasons surrounding the complex issue

of whythe gentry actually choose to move into such neighborhoods that are typically

46Lance Freeman, There Goes the 'hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground up (Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP,

2006).


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under-resourced and viewed as undesirable by constituents of middle- to upper-class

stature, central arguments revolve around the incentives of housing affordability and

financial gain,47

and most interestingly, the cultural allure of the frontier and salvation

mentality that is the appeal of conquering and taming the wild, urban landscape and

rescuing the impoverished , dilapidated spaces, leading to feelings of personal benefit,

accomplishment and gain.48

Through a similar outlook applied to residents of Detroit, my research challenges

the sentiments expressed in an article produced by the web-based Detroit magazine

Model Dtitled Master activator: Tony Goldman envisions Detroit as capital of the

experimental.49

The article author Walter Wasacz, managing editor ofModel D, praised

Tony Goldman, the CEO of New York-based Goldman Properties Co., for seeing a world

of potential in Detroit and his vision to re-make Detroit as the capital of the avant-garde,

the experimental.50Goldman is known for resuscitating high-profile areas such as South

Beach and SoHo by turning dilapidated buildings into four-star hotels and art galleries.

My work challenges the very essence of Goldmans philosophy of suggesting Detroit to

fully embrace the frontier spirit that once drew Americans to the West.51This urban

pioneer spirit is rooted in elitist, White, upper-class privilege that urbanists and

gentrification scholars identify as a systemic issue that leads to displacement and

dramatic sociocultural shifts in gentrified communities. My thesis will combat this issue

by amplifying the voices of longtime, Black, working-class Detroiters who are the most

47Quoted in Brown-Saracino,A Neighborhood That Never Changes, 5.48Zukin, Gentrification, 130.49Walter Wasacz, "Master Activator: Tony Goldman Envisions Detroit as "capital of the Experimental,"" Model D,May 10, 2011, http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/goldmanfeat511.aspx .50Ibid.51Quoted in Daniel Duggan, "Lost Potential: Remembering Tony Goldman, the Developer Who Wanted to ChangeDetroit," Crain's Detroit Business, September 14, 2012, http://www.crainsdetroit.com/.


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negatively affected by new economic development that fails to incorporate their insight,

needs, and desires.

Detroit Is NotBeing Gentrified?

Unlike the typical case studies of gentrification that stem from predominantly

Black, working-class neighborhoods in large and highly dense cities, Detroit exists as an

anomaly given its status as low-density and with high amounts of vacancy and population

loss. According to the latest census, Detroit lost 25 percent of its population within the

last decade52and the data collection firm Data Driven Detroit found 26 percent of the

citys residential parcels about 91,000 lots to be vacant in its 2010 Detroit Residential

Parcel Survey.53

With its position as a top shrinking city, there are some who scoff at the

idea of gentrification occurring within the city. Despite the findings of the

aforementioned 7.2 SQ MI report of how Greater Downtown, in particular, is undergoing

growing racial and socioeconomic changes, Data Driven Detroit director Kurt Metzger

affirmed, Were a long way from gentrification.54

It must be noted that claims of gentrification not occurring in Detroit that stem

from academicians and experts in the field of urban studies, and even everyday citizens in

the metropolitan Detroit region, are quite valid when assessed purely from the lens of

physical displacement. While some of the interviewees of this study presented first-hand

accounts of themselves or family members being displaced from their residences due to

the rise of gentrification in the city, it is difficult to find such concrete examples in any

52SEMCOG, SEMCOG Quick Facts: 2010 Census Data for City of Detroit Neighborhoods , April 5, 2011, accessedMarch 01, 2013, http://library.semcog.org/InmagicGenie/DocumentFolder/2010CensusDataDetroitQuickFacts.pdf.53Data Driven Detroit,Detroit Residential Parcel Survey: Citywide Report for Vacant and Non-vacant Housing,February 15, 2010, accessed March 01, 2013,http://www.detroitparcelsurvey.org/pdf/reports/DRPS_citywide_vacancy_housing.pdf.54Quoted in Gallagher, Downtown Detroit.


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scholarship or present-day media coverage on Detroit, particularly at a rate comparable to

that in much more affluent cities or examples that extend beyond just hearsay.

For the sake of this thesis, the work of native Detroiter and UC Berkley Professor

of Law and Professor of African American Studies and Ethnic Studies john a. powell

(spelled without capitals) provides the most appropriate and accurate definition of

gentrification and the variances of its presence in rich cities compared to middle-class

and poor cities. This thesis is in direct conversation with powells analysis of the

phenomenon in his 1999 Forum for Social Economicsjournal article Race, Poverty, and

Urban Sprawl: Access to Opportunities Through Regional Strategies.55The piece

supports the widely understood conceptualization of gentrification as the transition of

a neighborhood caused by the in-migration of middle and upper middle class residents

who are most often White, and the resulting forced out-migration of low-income

residents who are frequently people of color.56However, powell clearly distinguishes

the redevelopment and economic resurgence efforts occurring in the last few decades in

poor cities from the more commonly known case of gentrification, in which central cities

with growing or stable populations and low poverty rates like Seattle or San Francisco

experience influxes of middle- or upper-class residents that result in pushing poorer

residents away from their neighborhoods, resources and opportunities, and the central

city altogether.57powell suggests that the process of building new housing and businesses

on vacant land or rehabilitating existing housing, not being used, to attract more middle-

income housing and increase the tax base in poor cities like Detroit and Cleveland,

55john a. powell, "Race, Poverty, and Urban Sprawl: Access to Opportunitiesthrough Regional Strategies," Forum forSocial Economics28, no. 2 (1999): 1-20,http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/56865707?accountid=14667. 56Ibid., 10.57Ibid., 8-9.


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should be characterized as in-fill housing58rather than gentrification since no one is

being pushed out. While partial or small-scale gentrification is conceivable in these cities,

it is far less exacerbated like the effects of physical displacement in rich cities and is

largely overshadowed by the more pressing urban planning and policy issues of suburban

sprawl and concentrated inner-city poverty.59

powell goes on to opine that in-fill housing that attracts middle-income residents

and housing actually serves as a rational strategy boosting the revenues and resources of

distressed cities but typically faces strong opposition from inner-city residents of color

for multiple reasons. Most prevalent of these reasons is a fear of physical displacement as

well as disempowerment via Whites returning to politically and economically reclaim the

city they primarily fled decades ago during White flight.60This concern is echoed

throughout the qualitative research gathered from my interviews, and is grounded in

credent examples of racist, systemic oppression from Urban Renewal practices of the

1960s that benefited Whites while primarily displacing inner-city Black communities,

leading to further ghettoization and urban sprawl.

My research does not challenge john powells analysis of in-fill housing and

development versus gentrification, but more so expounds upon the said fears that inner-

city residents of color and low-income backgrounds may experience that provokes many

58Ibid., 10.59Ibid., 12.60White flight refers to the large-scale migration of white people from various European ethnicities and backgroundsmoving out of central cities and into suburbs on the urban fringe during the mid-20 thcentury. Several reasons areattributed to this mass movement of citizens including the decentralization of industry into suburban regions,overcrowding in cities proper, and incentives of suburban housing including federal-backed subsidies and theconstruction of the federal highway system that made transport to and from the central city very accessible. Inaddition, suburban housing choices were racially constrained by federal housing policies and banking practices thatstrongly excluded Blacks from entering suburban neighborhoods. See Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the UrbanCrisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 122.


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of them to oppose the arrival of more middle- and upper-class Whites in the city. I also

aim to expand his definition of gentrification by incorporating the aspect of the erasure of

the emotional and psychological attachment to space and collective memory that leads to

cultural displacement.

My work does, however, challenge the sentiment communicated in author Jeff

Wattricks article in the Michigan online news sourceMLive, titled Complaints about

Detroit gentrification once again rooted in feelings, not logic.61

Wattrick argues that

increased rents and being outbid for select residences are merely consequences of

downtown real estate being treated as downtown real estate.

62

Moreover, he is not

convinced that new residents infiltrating abandoned or neglected properties can be worse

than the abandonment and decay itself, widespread in the city. Wattrick concludes by

asserting that the conversation about gentrification picking up commotion in Detroit is

simply rooted in feelings, and that feelings dont count What one feels, no matter how

deeply they feel it, is irrelevant unless it can be backed up with arguments rooted in logic,

reason, and facts.63

While any urbanist, or even everyday citizen, understanding Detroits dire state of

population loss and financial despair over the past few decades would realize the need for

more prosperous newcomers, I argue that feelings, especially those of the residents

already here, docount. Ignoring what Wattrick trivializes as feelings limits the

definition of gentrification to only its physical aspect of higher rents and increased home

values and subsequent higher property taxes that discourages low-income residents from

61Jeff T. Wattrick, "Complaints about Detroit Gentrification Once Again Rooted in Feelings, Not Logic," MLive,January 5, 2012, http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2012/01/complaints_about_detroit_gentr.html .62Ibid.63Ibid.


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staying in the specific neighborhood in transition. This narrow analysis ignores the

sociocultural ramifications of gentrification and the cultural displacement that occurs

when certain types of economic redevelopment fail to fully incorporate the existing and

longtime constituents of a particular neighborhood. How one feels about a place can

determine not just wherethey live, but also how they identify with a specific place and

behave in it. The qualitative research I analyze in the following chapters reveals how

some Detroiters actually feel about new developments and what implications such

insights bear for the future of their city and their presence in it.

Chapter 3

GENTRIFICATION IS HAPPENING

Yes, gentrification is the only word I know of to describe whats happening rightnow.64

-- YEA member in response to a question askingif gentrification accurately describes the changes

she sees occurring in the city of Detroit

Its All in a Name

64Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, March 7, 2013.


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The EMEAC staff is in no way ignorant to the process of gentrification, as they

define it. As an interviewee explained to me, a significant motive for their moving into

their current offices at the Cass Corridor Commons in summer 2011 was the unaffordable

doubling of their rents at their previous office space in the Medical Center area, deeper

into the Midtown neighborhood.65

The fortuitous timing of their being priced out by

new development along with the financial woes of a local church struggling to maintain

its large building allowed an agreement to take place that birthed the Commons, which

actually occupies the 95-year-old, 42,000-square foot home of the First Unitarian

Universalist Church of Detroit.

66

EMEACs establishment of the Commons, then,

became not just a new permanent workspace for the organization but also a community

space rented out and shared to other environmental and social justice organizations

throughout the city. Establishing a strong social justice presence in their new home on the

corner of Cass and West Forest Avenues, on the southernmost fringe of the campus of

widely known Midtown landmark Wayne State University,67

was key to EMEACs goals

of resisting the very ever-growing tide of gentrification that forced them out of their

previous offices.

An EMEAC staff member voiced the motivation for their efforts by asserting that,

Gentrification is happening alarmingly fast. There is Midtown, which is good in and of

itself, but those business owners dont necessarily look like the people who have been

there of long standing.68

As a result, at the core of the mission of the Cass Corridor

65See area labeled as Medical Center in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.66Kate Abbey-Lambertz, Cass Community Commons: Community Groups, Unitarian Church Come Together,

Huffington Post: Detroit, December 26, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.67See area labeled as North Cass in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.68Quoted in Larry Gabriel, A commons idea: Cass Corridor experiment would save a church and mitigategentrifications excesses,Metro Times, August 31, 2011, http://metrotimes.com/columns/a-commons-idea-1.1195774 ,1.


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Commons, and even the formation of its namesake, was a clear goal of mitigating the

excesses of gentrification by first [embracing] the name and sensibility of the old

Cass Corridor just as the rebranding of the area as Midtown seems to be taking off.69

Preserving the collective memory as well as cultural and historical significance of spaces

through their names is a strategy of resisting, what I identify in this study, as the cultural

displacement my research subjects and other working- or middle-class, longtime Black

Detroiters may be experiencing.

It must be noted that the area identified as Midtown did not even receive its

trendy and now widely publicized moniker until within the recent decade for the sake of

cultural rebranding and economic redevelopment efforts, primarily by community and

economic development corporations like Midtown Detroit, Inc.70The renaming of the

area directly coincided with the agenda of revitalization and attracting more young

professionals to live, work and engage in recreation there. The Midtown name included

the virtual agglomeration of several neighborhoods meandering off of the main

thoroughfare of Woodward Avenue, including ones like Brush Park71with histories

dating back to the early 20thand late 19thcenturies. Its boundaries continue to expand to

this day to incorporate additional neighborhoods like New Center72

further to the north.73

Even what 7.2 SQ MIdefines as Greater Downtown is yet another example of

renaming and rebranding, given that the title of Greater Downtown was largely

unheard of until the release of the report in February 2013. Regardless of whether or not

69Ibid.70Midtown Detroit, Inc., "Who We Are," Midtown Detroit, Inc., accessed November 14, 2012,http://midtowndetroitinc.org/about-midtown-detroit-inc/who-we-are.

71See area labeled as Brush Park in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.72See area labeled as New Center in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.73Midtown Detroit, Inc., Who We Are.


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these cases of renaming are merely marketing ploys and place-making strategies to attract

what john powell defined earlier as in-fill housing and development and middle-income

residents, they do not take away from the frustration and concern expressed by the

constituents of this study. The cynicism and skepticism surrounding neighborhood

rebranding does, however, highlight the discomfort that EMEAC staff and interviewees

felt about what they see as telltale signs of gentrification occurring in Detroit.

Defining Gentrification

EMEACs youngest members the Young Educators Alliance also expressed

concerns about how they are personally witnessing and experiencing gentrification in

their hometown. The groups collective interest in educating themselves more about the

topic of gentrification and ways to mitigate its ills was catalyzed by a negative experience

in summer 2012 recounted by an interviewee of this study:

YEA friends were walking around and were harassed at a community garden

around Wayne State and were not allowed to partake in the normal activities of

using some of the veggies and fruit in the garden because the owner says they had

been experiencing theft. But the purpose of a community garden is to use the

resources it provides. The main part about [this] [story], it affects the youth

young, Black teenagers and adults being oppressed by their Caucasian

counterparts. In this aspect, gentrification is affecting the youth in a cultural

aspect the different cultures not necessarily meshing very well.74

This particular story explains how these young adults felt personally excluded

from one of the many urban and community gardens steadily taking form in Detroit in

recent years, and how this experience of cultural displacement directly connects to their

74Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, February 26, 2013.


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conceptualization of gentrification. Every participant in this study accounted for changes

they observed happening in either their neighborhood or primarily in the city as whole,

most of which were associated with gentrification and acts of displacement. Most of the

changes they noted were in terms of race, class, and economic development or

redevelopment. For example, several interviewees noticed an influx of new businesses

and even larger franchises taking root in place of mom-and-pop stores. Rather than the

clich image of Detroit as a purely poor, dilapidated, and lifeless city that has plagued its

national and international media image for decades, I listened to interviewees describe

how Detroit is morphing into a more economically viable, business attraction. Of course,

participants also mentioned undeniable changes that fall outside the realm of

gentrification but still under the realm of what they deemed as displacement mainly an

increasing number of foreclosures and vacancy as neighbors, family and friends lose their

homes and can no longer afford their property taxes or rents. However, most responses

related the changing landscape of Detroit to changing demographics and new

development, including how Detroit is becoming more popular for more Caucasian

people to move to.75

Given that all interviews were conducted at EMEACs offices in the Cass

Corridor Commons, each of the study participants made several references to the

revitalization efforts occurring in Midtown. One interviewee, who is a student at Wayne

State University,76

commented on how she sees increasing amounts of new development

and White faces while lamenting at the fact that she cannot afford to live in the area

where she works and goes to school. Others explained how they heard of cases where

75Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, March 7, 2013.76See area labeled as Wayne State in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.


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individuals and families are being forced to move due to increased rents in Midtown.

Most popular and salient in the discussion around perceived and noticeable changes was

the observation of more upscale cars and commercial spaces in the neighborhood and

how this is complemented with more White people walking and engaging in recreation in

areas they normally would not expect to be seen. To more specifically identify the social

and cultural shifts rising in the area which are examined more in depth in Chapter 4

one individual summarized her perception of changes in the city and their connection to

gentrification by saying, I perceive these changes when you drive through Detroit, like

Midtown, and I keep seeing White people walking dogs. Like every other corner its

White people walking dogs. And it never used to be that way....you could never see that

in the 80s or 90s, maybe in the 2000s.77

Prohibitive pricing also emerged as a

detrimental form of displacement as one interviewee accounted for her recent visit at the

Union Street restaurant on Woodward Avenue, which she used to frequent on a

somewhat normal basis. She firmly believes that the restaurants prime location in

Midtown along with rise of more affluent residents in the area encouraged the

establishment to raise its menu prices to unaffordable amounts. She wont be back there

again.

It is important to understand how participants framed their thoughts on changes in

Detroit and their connection to gentrification by the context of specific neighborhoods,

the primary example being how they supported their claims of gentrification taking place

in Detroit by expressing what they currently observed in Midtown. This shows their

differentiation of current events such as increasing foreclosures from the process of

gentrification, as well as how they have come to define and view gentrification in their



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everyday lives: the transformation of urban spaces from being easier and more

comfortable to access for people of color and those perhaps of low-income backgrounds

into spaces that cater to more White and middle- and upper-class individuals through new

businesses, housing projects like lofts, and more urbane aesthetic enhancements. Without

any mention of 7.2 SQ MI, and in some cases before the report was even publically

released, the interviews told of this racial, socioeconomic and business transformation

identified as gentrification in neighborhoods besides Midtown such as Corktown and

Woodbridge claims that are statistically supported by the report.

Within this definition of gentrification lies an innate and inextricably linked union

of both physical and cultural displacement. At the core of it is still a commonly accepted

and scholarly use of the term that looks to the physical removal of poorer peoples to

reshape an area by making it more appealing to more affluent citizens, who are

predominantly White. An interviewee captured the essence of the physical displacement

aspect of the process by describing it as the renewal of an area with often prohibitive

pricing thats usually not conducive to the [current] citizens in the area that makes them

have to leave by force.78In perhaps the most emotional explanation by an interviewee of

how changes she sees in Detroit support what she defines as gentrification, particularly

physical displacement, one EMEAC staff member recounted the personal experience of

her family home undergoing eminent domain by the municipal government for the

construction of a new housing subdivision intended to attract a more stable, middle-

income-resident base:

In 1999, my family lived on 64 Meadowbrook on Detroits lower east side, south

of Jefferson. We kept seeing all these surveyors and real estate people come to the



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neighborhood through to buy peoples homes for cash, but we didnt know what

was happening. Come to find out that in 2000 some developer wanted the land.

They came to the city of Detroit in 2002, struck off under eminent domain, and

took 90.3 acres of land south of Jefferson, north of Prude, east of Waterworks

Park which is Marquette Avenue, and west of St. Jean, and kicked out over 400

families for a real estate development call Graimark Jefferson Village. They sued

us for the title of our house and kicked us out in 2006, well we settled in 2006.

They told us we were too poor and the neighborhood was too dilapidated and we

didnt generate any tax base and we had to leave out for better income people. I

fought them. They tried to give us only a few thousand dollars for our house and

property in East Riverfront. And we ended up trading them our house for another

house in the city. The people moving in were definitely higher-income and White

folks. So they kicked out a whole Black community for upper-income people a

few Blacks but mostly upper-income white people. And this was all under Dennis

Archer, the former mayor, and continued under Kwame Kilpatrick. They flipped

the whole neighborhood. We were the last people in Detroit to be eminent

domained from our houses. We fought them and it was the saddest case of

removal and displacement in Detroits recent memory.79

While it turns out that 151 occupied structures were acquired through eminent

domain clauses versus 400 families and that it is known that a significant number of

African-American households occupy the new construction in the development site, the

details of this account of physical removal are supported by the Neighborhood



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Development Corporation project plan for the area.80But as stated before, this aspect of

gentrification only comprises one part of the process, which participants found to be

accompanied by an infringement upon their social and cultural territory as well. As best

summarized by an interviewee, Its a scheme, strategy, process, and program of

removing undesirable elements of the people or the built environment for redevelopment.

It displaces people, it destroys the social fabric, it wipes out historical memory, and it is

removal.81

The Complexity of Defining Gentrification

The fundamental base of each interviewees definition of gentrification is

displacement. As they expressed the physical and cultural ramifications of such, many

acknowledged how the process may be interpreted in many ways, especially depending

on the context of who is being asked to define the term as well as the context of place,

such as examining gentrification in Detroit versus New York City. Every individual

interviewed felt affected by the gentrification they see taking place in the city, but three

of them expressed that they are not experiencing the effects of the shifts in the city as

much as family members and neighbors. Two YEA members admitted that while they are

aware of neighborhoods of Detroit being gentrified, they have yet to feel the full effects

given their status as high school students who do not own or rent property nor have full-

80Detroit Economic Growth Corporation,Neighborhood Development Corporation Project #1 Project Plan, March20, 1998, accessed March 15, 2013, http://www.degc.org/images/gallery/JVpercent20projpercent20plan.pdf.81Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, February 28, 2013.


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time jobs. They and their friends witness the process mostly from the standpoint of

cultural displacement given how they are noticing a pattern of feeling unwelcomed and

unwanted both in newly opened establishments that appear to be culturally White and in

spaces they used to frequent with regularity before pockets of Detroit became more

gentrified. As one YEA member articulates, Personally, there is a feeling of people not

wanting me to be in the space that they frequent. To clarify that, I mean those people as

in gentrifiers. I can tell that the majority of them dont like to see my Black face where

my Black face was before they came.82

Yet, the complexity of defining and assessing gentrification arises as two of the

same high school students who spoke of how they may feel culturally at odds interacting

with newcomers in some of Detroits business and entertainment venues also

communicated the positives that have come from the new development. They commented

on how a new sense of diversity is emerging and even the beautification of public and

once-vacant spaces that are improving the areas they like to visit with friends. One of

them went on to suggest that concluding whether or not gentrification is happening

depends on how one wishes to define it; he believes that while the term typically carries a

negative connotation, not all the revitalization is leading to displacement, but instead is

just reshaping the economy. In many respects, this frame of analysis complements how

john powell differentiates between status quo, extra-jurisdictional gentrification occurring

in rich cities compared to highly nuanced forms of gentrification and more so in-fill

housing and development in poor cities. In the latter case, powell assesses that inner-city

residents of color typically find revitalization efforts catering to higher-income Whites as



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frustrating and an encroachment upon their own sense of place and political sovereignty

in the central city. One YEA supervisor addressed this notion directly:

I think that at YEA we use the term slightly different than the dictionary or

textbook definition of the word. The dictionary or textbook definition would mean

displacement or restructuring of a community based on higher income or people

of higher income moving into an area and over time, the real estate and

development and rents of that area coming to cater to that higher income with

resulting displacement of the original community, and then eventually it gets to

the point where there is a new memory and identity of that place and the old one

is washed away like a sandcastle in the tide and then people are often displaced to

other parts of the metro area. But I try to keep in front of YEA, in the context of

Detroit, is gentrification being not merely a thing about demographics but also

really of power and the attempt to disrupt Detroits identity as a place of where

there is a concentration of Black political and community power. And thats

where it gets tricky.83

While most participants recognized their nuanced classification of what comprises

gentrification, including the fact that some people refuse to believe that the phenomenon

is taking place in Detroit at all, they defended their definition of the term. Furthermore,

some individuals incorporated aspects of disempowerment into their responses by

alluding to political discourse and current events that were not associated with land use,

urban planning, or community and economic development per se. Specifically, a few

interviewees cited Michigan Governor Rick Snyders recent appointment of an



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emergency manager over Detroit84as a component of gentrification. While one subject in

particular ascribed this issue to what they coined as political displacement, I consider

this as merely yet another facet of the cultural displacement and what john powell

eloquently captures as a fear of White domination.85Despite the fact that emergency

manager Kevyn Orr is Black, his appointment by a White, Republican governor over a

majority Black, Democratic city as well as the political power he will possess to address

Detroits gravest challenges has drawn considerable amounts of debate, frustration and

controversy. Such sentiments were echoed by another participant who blatantly expressed

a connection between gentrification and the public act allowing for the placement of an

emergency manager in Detroit due to the greater power the manager has in comparison to

the Mayor and City Council; he saw this as parallel to dictatorial leadership,

disenfranchisement, and thus, yet another form of displacement stripping away the

agency from everyday people to shape their communities how they see fit. To summate

these sentiments, the same YEA supervisor quoted on Page 36 explained, When you

look at institutions of Detroit, the emergency manager stuff, stuff going on with the

school board, and whats going on with regionalization and even privatization. I call that

gentrification, but if this were a game show, they would say thats an incorrect answer.

Im not using the word technically; Im using it as a catchall for a phenomenon we really

dont have a terminology for.86

Community Input & A Lack of the Right Terminology

84State of Michigan, Contract for Emergency Financial Manager Services(Lansing: Department of Treasury, 2013),http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4202209314.PDF, 1.85Quoted in powell, Race, Poverty, and Urban Sprawl, 12.86Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, February 13, 2013.


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As the last quote from a YEA supervisor asserts, a general lack of words for

capturing and communicating all of the variances of displacement explains why some

interviewees have included various aspects of displacement under the umbrella term of

gentrification. This parallels the findings of YEA members and EMEAC staff from the

Feed 1 Teach 1 event they hosted, the documentary they created, and their interactions

with everyday people on this subject matter. My interviewees discovered that many other

Detroiters are definitely aware of changes occurring in the city in terms of demographics,

housing, and commercial developments that could be associated to gentrification, but

rarely use that word to describe the changes they see. In fact, a few participants noted that

they, themselves, did not even know or use the word until their work with YEA

introduced them to it within the past year. They believe ignorance of the word and rare

use of it in their neighborhoods and communities primarily stem from the fact that

gentrification is still a new and somewhat foreign concept to Detroit, and also because it

fails to be a part of the vernacular of everyday people.

However, limited use of the terminology associated with this urban studies subject

matter does not at all suggest that these everyday citizens are ignorant of the effects that

gentrification in Detroit is causing. Interviewees declared that it is quite the contrary. The

insights they have collected from interviews and community dialogues clearly show that

Detroiters notice the same trends of gentrifications that the interviewees of this study

identified and they are just as much puzzled and frustrated by these observations. YEA

members acknowledged that they have definitely heard multiple viewpoints on the issue,

including some that testify the positive outcomes gentrification in Detroit is creating such

as renewing a presence of small businesses back into the city. However, they noted that


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identity played a major role in the type of answers they received, particularly a persons

class and their status as a Detroit citizen or suburbanite. Overall, the most salient outcome

of their outreach was the knowledge of Detroiters confirming that gentrification is

happening here and that they are quite skeptical of the implications that such a truth

signifies. At their Feed 1 Teach 1 program, for example, YEA gathered input from

attendees that identified immediate challenges and foreseeable futures stemming from

gentrification, including corporate greed, city-approved land grabs, highly augmented

taxes and property values, speculation of cheap parcels of land to sell for large profits in

the long-term future, and growing inequality. While some of this information confirmed

viewpoints that YEA members had already been hearing, for one interviewee of this

study it evoked feelings of catharsis to realize that other Detroiters felt just as displaced

and frustrated as she was.

YEA members and EMEAC staff also commented on how other Detroiters they

have talked to are largely framing this conversation through the lens of identity and

cynicism towards a growing White population. Once again, the anger and frustration

being communicated is rooted in a fear of physical displacement and loss of Black

political power and sociocultural agency in Detroit. But more than just fear, the

skepticism towards an emerging young, White culture in Detroit targets the immense

cultural pride and the historical legacies, particularly of Black people, that form how

these Detroiters view their city, as a couple of YEA members affirmed. Thus, the

emergence of a new population and restaurants, stores and housing that cater to their

needs and desires, forms an attack on the cultural Blackness that has become synonymous

with the image and identity of Detroit for decades since the latter half of the 20thcentury,


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especially for the senior citizens that YEA interviewed. It amasses feelings not just of

fear, but also of insult.

Chapter 4

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

I see two Detroits: one with resources and one without.87

-- EMEAC staff member in response to a questionasking if the gentrification she has identified in Detroit

is attracting a new culture to the city

A New Culture

As discussed multiple times before, identity forms the nexus of this dialogue, its

complexity, and why interviewees and those they have talked with feel culturally

displaced. It was made clear by several participants that understanding whether or not

gentrification is happening in Detroit, and the ethical implications it evokes if it is

87Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, March 12, 2013.


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occurring, is a contextual issue addressed by a diverse set of perspectives. This

framework of analysis is most clearly articulated through one interviewees words:

If I were a gentrifier, I would say it is a known good. It depends upon

perspective. If youre poor or working class or marginalized, its not a good thing.

If youre a developer, capitalist, or a person with higher income, gentrification is a

good thing for cheap land, access; you get to be fast-tracked, considered an

amenity, worthwhile, and encouraged and supported in a place. You get to place-

make. If youre poor, you dont get to place-make.88

Woven in between this dynamic of gentrifrier versus the gentrified emerges the

politics of race and class, which interviewees unanimously contended form the most

significant factors in this discussion. Most of the changes that Detroiters observed

happening in the city dealt with the influx of the young, White and college-educated

professionals colliding with the dominant demography of Black, working-class citizens.

There is a widely growing perception of a new White culture invading the urban frontier,

ignoring the gravity of its challenges such as high amounts of crime and faltering

financial stability, and seizing upon the opportunity of Detroits crisis to capitalize off of

the cheap rents, housing, and potential for an urbane lifestyle. Viewed as Millennial

hipsters drawn to the grittiness and aesthetic quality of dense, urban environments, they

are seen as the members of urbanist Richard Floridas creative class,89infiltrating the

88Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, February 28, 2013.89The creative class is a posited socioeconomic class created by American economist and social scientist RichardFlorida. According to Floridas research, they compromise about 40 million workers or nearly 1/3 of the U.S.workforce and are a key contributor to the economic resurgence of post-Industrial cities and will largely dictate theeconomic growth of the country for at least the next decade. As their namesake infers, members of this class primarilyoccupy creative job fields including the sciences, research, engineering, media, design, art, and technology with a

particular emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship. They also find themselves drawn to dense, urban, and diverse


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urban landscape of post-Industrial metropolises across the Rustbelt and the rest of the

country. Supplying the creative and entrepreneurial force behind newly defined

neighborhoods like Techtown,90

and occupying the new lofts along Woodward Avenue

and cafs opening throughout Greater Downtown, they bring the spirit and facade of a

Bohemian culture all too familiar with cities like New York. Furthermore, these

newcomers are perceived to be all the new White faces walking dogs, jogging, and

running along the streets of Midtown and Downtown that my interviewees identified as

part of the changing landscape of Detroit.

Participants of this study and those that they have been in conversation with

directly correlate this new culture rising in Detroit to new developments and aesthetic

alterations in parts of the city. An EMEAC staff member noted that a prime example of

this is the addition of more bike lanes in Midtown and Corktown, which she describes as

unexpected and appearing virtually overnight. She explained how biking had not

traditionally been encouraged, but the presence of a newer population that engages in the

activity has resulted in the more bike trials and lanes particularly being placed in

neighborhoods of Greater Downtown.

All of the participants noted not only the presence of this emerging culture in the

city, but also expressed concerns of how this culture is creating tension with the

prevailing Black culture of Detroit. While some individuals manifested feelings of

frustration with the growing number of White people calling Greater Downtown home,

many interviewees did not pass any direct judgment or animosity towards the newcomers

environments that compliment their Bohemian lifestyle of Street Level Culture such as frequenting small cafs and artgalleries. See Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: Revisited(New York: Basic, 2012).

90See area labeled as Techtown in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.


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as much as they did towards the market forces, developers, and even political and

economic growth initiatives catering to the new culture while ignoring the needs of the

majority. Nonetheless, they see social disruption emerging from the arrival of everyday

newcomers known as the gentrifiers. One participant described the situation of

economic development as a game of chess; while he is not mad at the new Whites who he

sees as merely pawns on the frontline playing their role in American urban development

and in no way possessing the power of market forces, which are the Kings and Queens,

he understands that the pawns will naturally collide first with the people of Detroit given

their position at the forefront.

Urban Renewal By Another Name

Regardless of who is considered the gentrifier and their intentions for

occupying space in Detroit, my qualitative research presented conclusions that will

predominantly show Whites as the higher-class group of individuals moving in and

displacing Blacks who make up the lower class. Even though two interviewees admitted

that these gentrifiers represent several different races and ethnicities, the Black versus

White dynamic strongly dominates perceptions of gentrification in Detroit, fueling

resentment towards many efforts to strengthen or cater to a White, middle- or upper-class

base. Most of this cynicism and feelings of cultural displacement stem from histories and

collective memory of decades- and centuries-old racist, urban planning and land use

regulation practices that benefitted White citizens at the expense of people of color and


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low-income families. One interviewee explained hostility towards gentrification as rooted

in the oppressive tactics of colonialism and Manifest Destiny of the 19thcentury, in which

hegemonic American forces unlawfully seized land, expanding the countrys boundaries

westward and southward and destroying the resources and lifestyles of indigenous

peoples of color of the Americas. Thus, resisting the advances of gentrification onto the

frontier of the inner city is really a stake at combating White supremacist practices that

seek to displace marginalized peoples as dispensable beings and capitalize off of their

land for economic gain.

All of my studys participants, however, connected gentrification to the more

recent demon of Americas urban planning past known as Urban Renewal,91which

unethically displaced Black and low-income peoples in cities across the country in the

mid-20th

century, including some of the older relatives of the participants. Whether

known as historical truths or lived memories, visions of Urban Renewal and how it

uprooted entire Detroit communities at the heart of African-American life, strongly

influenced negative sentiments that people harbored towards gentrification and even the

thought of being physically and culturally displaced again. Memories of racist housing

policies and abandonment of the city via White Flight fuels lasting distrust and disdain

for White resurgence back into the city. More so than that, the legacies of Urban Renewal

that survive off of the urban sprawl that continues to sustain concentrated poverty in the

91Urban Renewal refers to the set of local, state and largely federal initiatives, beginning in the late 1940s and carryinginto the 1950s and 60s, that saw the large-scale removal of what were determined as blighted neighborhoods inAmericas largest cities. This removal of mostly Black and low-income neighborhoods was accompanied by federalfunding to construct massive interstate highway systems and local freeways that usually took the place of the uprooted

blight. Also in place of the new vacancies were new civic buildings and housing projects ranging from low- to middle-income housing that aimed to revitalize inner cities and make them more conducive to commercial and business use. Itsusage of tactics such as eminent domain to seize land and even its subsidizing for the growth of suburbia and what isidentified as urban sprawl remains contested urban planning issues that plague the downfall of many American cities tothis day. See June Manning Thomas,Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit(Baltimore:Johns Hopkins UP, 1997).


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inner city and truncate the resources and opportunities of the urban Black, lower class92

haunts the everyday lifestyles of Detroiters and substantiates the social, cultural, political

and economic tension between the city and its suburbs.

EMEAC staff and YEA heavily focused on the parallel relationship between

gentrification and Urban Renewal, and in some cases used the terms s

_ Listening to Detroit-Gentrification

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