Ambitious moves to revitalize the Fitzgerald area on Detroit's northwest side will "answer a lot of questions about the city's intervention" in neighborhoods, writes Metro Times columnist Larry Gabriel, who used to live in that area near Livernois and Marygrove College.
The stakes are huge, matter to all of us and could have an impact elsewhere, in his view.
"If successful, this may well be the model that other Rust Belt cities follow to turn their fates around," Gabriel suggests.
Work to renovate 115 vacant homes, which Mayor Mike Duggan announced April 5, is "the defining project that will answer the question of whether Detroit truly comes back or will remain a wilderness dotted with a few shiny, moneymaking islands," the columnist writes starkly.
Larry Gabriel: " If the city can't shepherd this area back to vitality, then what hope is there for other neighborhoods?" (Facebook photo)
Gabriel, a musician-writer who was Metro Times editor from 1997-2002, returned this month to a once-vibrant area he knew well. He saw "a lost Detroit neighborhood," a cityscape he describes as "ravaged."
Now Duggan promises that residents will begin to see the progress quickly as vacant lots are cleaned up and repurposed, and houses are either rehabbed or torn down.
It's crucial for the neighborhood, and Detroit as a whole, that the optimism of the announcement turns into the reality of meaningful development. This effort is important at so many levels.
This is the city's first strategic foray into a residential neighborhood since Detroit's highly touted turnaround has taken off. Downtown and Midtown have exploded with investment and development, but can that kind of initiative work in a residential neighborhood?
This specific neighborhood is going to answer a lot of questions about the city's intervention. Fitzgerald borders on the more stable Bagley and University District neighborhoods, and is bookended by the University of Detroit Mercy and Marygrove College. If the city can't shepherd this area back to vitality, then what hope is there for other neighborhoods that lack these stabilizing influences?
The timing is no coincidence, Gabriel notes. As a runs for a second term, "Duggan will need to point to something in the neighborhoods to show that the city's agenda is moving forward beyond the central city," this week's column says.
But a partly political motive doesn't undercut the significance of what feels -- possibly -- like a turning point at last.
"I've been waiting some 40 years to see something like this come around," the lifelong Detroiter writes. "Maybe this thing will work."
-- Alan Stamm
Related post:
City Moves to Renovate 115 Vacant Homes in Fitzgerald Neighborhood, April 5
City rendering shows some abandoned homes to be renovated in the The Fitzgerald Revitalization Project.
