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Devolving Detroit

Devolving Detroit

Last updated on: May 29, 2015 at 8:45 am by Jane the Actuary

Devolving Detroit 2015-05-29T08:45:36-06:00 Jane the Actuary

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By Jengod at en.wikipedia [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/), GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], from Wikimedia Commons

Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. It is a form of decentralization. Devolved territories have the power to make legislation relevant to the area.

That’s from Wikipedia. The context in which I’m most familiar with the term is from the UK and the ongoing devolution of power to Scotland. Maybe that’s just because of reading The Economist.

But I was thinking about this the other day in connection with Detroit.

Detroit, as you know, is losing population steadily, and, since it’s predominantly a city of single-family houses, its population decline manifests itself in abandoned, burned-out and, eventually demolished homes, as far north as 8 Mile itself. A couple weeks ago, I speculated that its downfall has been particularly spectacular due to the single-family nature of its housing. (By the way: can I propose a new grammar rule, or rather the restoration of an old rule, and add the apostrophe back into its/it’s as a possessive? I’m tired of backspacing and correcting all the time.)

The usual remedy is some variant on urban farming — planting orchards or vegetables on all those vacant lots. But this makes no sense.

The population of suburban metro Detroit is still growing — slowly, to be sure, in recent years, but growing nonetheless, and if I could hive off some of the more Detroit-like suburbs, I expect the suburban growth would be more striking yet. (See wikipedia for the Metro Detroit population and the population of Detroit proper, as well as this slideshow of places with heavy growth and others with declines.) On our last trip, coming into metro Detroit from the north, we observed just how far north development stretched, far more so than when I was growing up near 16 Mile Road; heck, the new “Detroit” aquarium is in the far north suburb of Auburn Hills, and I’m probably dating myself in calling that far north.

So, when it comes down to it, it makes no sense (outside of Hollywood) for the sprawl to proceed ever-northward, ever-westward (Novi, Northville, and wherever further west development is occuring now), and into Ann Arbor and beyond, while Detroit remains hollow.

Hence, devolution. That is, could parts of Detroit shake off their curse if they weren’t “Detroit”?

The city is already trying to do this, in a way. Not long ago, a new development was announced in a now-mostly-vacant area, Brush Park, adjacent to the so-called “midtown” area, once home to stately mansions, of which virtually none are left. (If it works, it’ll be a good sign — talk of revitalizing that neighborhood has been around for decades.) And the article, as I read it at least, implies a plan to prioritize policing in this area:

Gilbert said the solution to having people move back into the city was the revitalization of neighborhoods with good schooling and a strong police presence.

Also, back a year ago, there was reporting around a law intended to permit Detroit neighborhoods to choose to levy a homeowner’s association-type fee to pay for supplemental private security.

Detroiters, who have had to deal with a lack of city services, now have the option to pay for enhanced security, snow removal and mosquito abatement in their neighborhood through a special assessment that would show up on their property tax bill.

Supporters of the new special assessment district ordinance passed unanimously by the City Council last week say that it can enhance quality of life services that the city can’t afford, stabilize neighborhoods and eventually increase property values. And although many residents may generally be in favor of amenities that make life easier, the devil is in the details — and the dollars. But they’re willing to listen.

A state law passed in 2011 allows Detroit to set up the process for collecting special fees specifically for snow removal, security and mosquito abatement.

So what if you dismantled Detroit — its neighborhoods, at least — into smaller autonomous units, each of which would share in the revenue from the downtown/industrial areas (such as exist), would keep their own revenues otherwise (plus block grants as necessary), and would generally manage their own affairs? In a way, you’d be restoring Detroit to some version of its pre-annexation borders, though I’m unable to quickly find any information on whether the areas annexed by Detroit in the early 20th century had any cohesive identity prior to their being swallowed up (it’s my understanding that, in Chicago, some or all of the neighborhoods which make up the last several stops on the Metra line before leaving the city — Edison Park, Norwood Park — had their own identities before being annexed).

Great idea, huh? Yea, I thought so, except: there are two cities within the city limits of Detroit which could be seen as test cases for my little idea: Highland Park and Hamtramck. And each of these cities is worse off than Detroit, though, to be sure, perhaps not worse than its neighboring Detroit neighborhoods (see the Census explorer if you have time on your hands).

According to the Census Bureau,

Hamtramck – poverty rate 43.5%; per capital money income $10,890

Highland Park – poverty rate 51.1%; per capita money income $13,539

Detroit – poverty rate 39.3%; per capita money income $14.870

(The rates for Hamtramck actually surprised me; I had had the impression that they were doing OK in maintaining their “we’re a special enclave unaffected by everything going on in Detroit” approach.)

Oh, and their population declines: Highland Park is down 77% from its peak, and Hamtramck 60%, though it did have a considerable uptick in the 2000s.

So that’s what I have for you this morning.

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