Looking at downtown, Midtown and Corktown, it would be hard to come to any other conclusion than Detroit is coming back with a roar.
But Laura A. Reese, a Michigan State University political scientist, and Gary Sands, a former urban studies professor at Wayne State University, put a damper on that view in The Conversation, a two-year-old Boston publication presenting "views from the academic and research community."
Under the headline "Detroit's Recovery, the Glass Is Half-Full at Most," the professors write:
Now academics and the popular press are documenting Detroit’s recovery and resilience. But does this positive image of Detroit reflect reality? Will the recovery culminate in a new Detroit that will provide all residents with a quality of life that is sustainable in the decades to come?
These rosy descriptions were not consistent with the reality of what we continued to see in many Detroit neighborhoods. To provide perspective on Detroit’s comeback story, we examined trends in a variety of indicators including population, poverty, income disparities, business recovery, unemployment, residential sales prices and vacancies, and crime.
Two major conclusions emerged from our data. First, by a number of measures Detroit continues to decline, and even when positive change has occurred, growth has been much less robust than many narratives would suggest. Second, within the city recovery has been highly uneven, resulting in increasing inequality.
Overall, citywide data suggest Detroit is continuing to experience decline that makes it worse off than it was in 2000 or even 2010 in the depths of the national recession. Population, employment and incomes continue to decrease, while vacancies and poverty have increased.
Real progress has occurred in recent years in the Downtown/Midtown core, which runs along Woodward Avenue for almost four miles and covers an area of just over seven square miles. In addition to corporate and government offices, it includes the Detroit Medical Center, Wayne State University, sports and entertainment venues, and the city’s major cultural institutions. Recent developments include restaurants, specialty retail and multifamily housing.
