Whose Future City Is This?
Clearly the gentrification process of the downtown area won’t expand to reach most of the city’s 140 square miles. Detroit Future City, a plan developed by various foundations, outlines the fate of neighborhoods. Some will be devoted to water catchments or tree farms, others to industry or strengthen industrial corridor that links the Midwest to Ontario, and some to working-class neighborhoods.
When we label this process racist, officials and developers reply that those of all colors who have the money are welcome, and so they are. They are designing a future Detroit in a place where the affluent will live, work, eat and play. Resistance, hampered by big money and structural barriers, continues, facing powerful forces. So far it seems that we are able to win an individual case or two, but in a world where life for the working class is precarious, barriers are firmly in place.
Dianne Feeley is a retired autoworker active in Detroit Eviction Defense and an editor of Against the Current.
Sources:
ACLU of Michigan, Other Groups Make Joint Call for Moratorium on Mass Tax Foreclosures in Wayne County, 5/12/15, http://www.aclumich.org/issues/housing/2015-05/moratoriumletter051215 and Letter to Wayne County Treasurer, 5/12/15, http://www.aclumich.org/sites/default/files/file/Letter%20to%20WCT%205-1…
“Despite city efforts to help, water cutoffs loom,” by Joe Gillen and Matt Helms, Detroit Free Press, 4/19/15.
Detroit Eviction Defense website, http://detroitevictiondefense.org.
“With Detroit’s water payment plan a massive failure, Mayor Duggan plans changes,” by Curt Guyette, Michigan Democracy Watch Blog, 4/18/15, http://www.aclumich.org/democracywatch/index.php/entry/with-detroit-s-water-payment-plan-a-massive-failure-mayor-duggan-plans-changes.
Map of Detroit foreclosed properties and video, Loveland Technologies, https://makeloveland.com/2015/mi/wayne/detroit#11/42.3532/-83.0989.
Article Appeared @http://www.blackagendareport.com/detroit_foreclosure-disaster