Excerpt from the above document...
Summary of Situation
Many years ago, we decided it was never productive to point fingers and assign blame to crisis situations. We found it was better to
analyze a situation, become a stakeholder in the issue(s) and work diligently toward finding solutions. This is the approach we will
be taking in this proposal. However, to frame a picture of the current crisis, it will be necessary to summarize the predominant
issues to some extent to preface our proposed position and possibly an approach to addressing some of the negative issues
impacting the urban areas; particularly and more specifically, Detroit, Michigan.
What is known about Detroit, Michigan is widely known through its’ automotive industry. What is not known about Detroit is most of
the automotive industry’s manufacturing component has long left the city boundaries and its’ surrounding suburbs. The city that
gave birth to the automobile and once housed the headquarters of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler Corporations (the Big 3), as
well as their respective manufacturing facilities, is now a shell of its’ past glory. Today, only General Motors claims Detroit as its’
primary home. Furthermore, when many of the manufacturing plants began to relocate and/or close (sometime in the early to mid
1970’s), the spiral downward began. Without industry replacement, abandoned factories left acres and square miles of blight and
urban decay, thus beginning the devastation to the City’s facade. The most devastating impact would not be felt until decades later.
As the factories closed and no new industry replaced them, the real impact began to be felt in the 1990’s. As the auto industry’s
manual manufacturing left the City first, then the region, the state and ultimately the country, the greatest impact was on the culture it
left behind. For over 50 years or two generations, Detroit had enjoyed high wages and disposable income, which gave birth to the
retail shopping mall, freeway transportation system and mass produced suburban homes. The City and its’ surrounding suburbs
were the envy of the world as citizens were actualizing the “American Dream”. Citizens from around the country and immigrants from
around the world sought to call the Detroit area their home to share in this new revenue-generating machine called manufacturing.
As the industry grew, so did the City and at the height of its’ growth (mid 1950’s to early 1960’s, when the city had a population of over
2.5 million), the model for a middle-class population was born.
This early model had few requirements. A good days work for a good and fair wage. Most people were accustomed to hard work, so
good employees were not hard to find. Life was good until technology began to replace hard work alone. The Japanese method of
“Just in Time” manufacturing maximized profits by controlling the amount of labor utilized to produce a given product. Soon the
American producers followed this method. The need for a massive labor force was no longer needed, nor was the need for large
vertically developed manufacturing plants. With the development of the integrated highway transportation system, cities like Detroit
were no longer the desired and necessary places to locate that they once were. The new method of manufacturing required open
spaces with a minimum number of employees to operate the technology of production. Detroit and others like it would soon feel the
loss of the manual manufacturing industry. By the late 1980’s, the City of Detroit had lost almost all of its’ former revenue generators
and was left with an infrastructure designed and built to accommodate twice the population it hosted at the time (the city had lost half
of its’ 2.5 million population and was down to 1.2 million). In addition to this, the real impact was the culture of hard work alone
being rewarded over educational attainment.
Americans are taught to believe in hard work being a critical pathway to success; its’ a cultural cornerstone to progress. What
Americans, particularly Detroit citizens, were not accustomed to was the idea of technology replacing exclusive hard work with “smart
work”. To many, it seemed unfair that a machine or robot was replacing thousands of human beings with families and histories.
Many felt betrayed by the “Big 3”. For over 50 years, these workers had worked hard in these factories to be shut out of the new
“technology”. For over 50 years, citizens could walk into a factory from the local streets with nothing other than a willingness to work
and begin a career that afforded their family a very comfortable life complete with a house, car, medical coverage and vacations. The
culture within Detroit had been defined as “hard work” over all else. Smart work seemed a foreign concept. As a result, in 2009
Detroit continues to have a culture that still values exclusive “hard work”, but rarely are these types of employees sought after
anymore.
Fifty years of exclusive “hard work” being rewarded over all else develops a culture of indirectly devaluing everything else. Thus, in
2009 Detroit comprises a rapidly declining population that possesses a 47% illiteracy rate. What does this mean? It means, even if
modern employers wanted to locate in Detroit (and its’ suburbs, the culture was not isolated by geographic and political boundaries),
they would find it hard to find a workforce capable of receiving the training necessary to fill positions other than low paying entry level
or service oriented jobs. Consequently, other areas of human behavior are impacted by this phenomenon. High Crime rates are
inevitable when resources are not available. Teen pregnancies and other unplanned childbirths are higher in areas that lack
consistent and new opportunities to sustain life and families. Sexually transmitted diseases run rampant, due to lack of hope and
education. Substance abuse, in many cases, is inevitable, because any escape seems viable in this scenario. For all intents and
purposes, Detroit has become the microcosmic manifestation of what, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski suggested in his global analysis,
“Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century”.
It is easy to dismiss the City of Detroit as one of America’s former great cities now in ruin, but the real story of this city and its’
redemption has yet to be written. As an urban planning and design firm, our societal lens is focused on seeing areas and places as
they could be and not necessarily as they are. For these reasons, we see a new Detroit rising from the ashes to re-define itself.
This can be done, but not without major changes in thinking and behavior.
The Current Leadership’s Position
Currently, Detroit’s political leaders and business community (automotive industry dominant) believe the answers to most of Detroit’
s problems is to infuse more financial resources into the automotive industry and existing employment sectors. The major appeal is
to have the federal government give the Big 3 loans or financial resources to assist in their current failings. As citizens of this region,
we empathize with the many that have lost jobs and may be facing a health care shortage or even facing foreclosure (we are not
exempt), but we still believe the fall of the automotive industry’s manual manufacturing component, in this region, is inevitable;
whether its’ tomorrow or in 10 years. We do believe “Detroit” the automotive industry, as a whole, should be helped in some manner,
but the time for them to be helped in the Detroit area has passed. Detroit, the Place, must re-invent itself. The factors that led to the
automotive industry geographically locating in Detroit are no longer as relevant and dominant as they were at the turn of the 20th
Century.
No longer are the waterways used as a primary method for freight shipping; so the Erie Canal leading to the rest of the country is not
the dominant or primary means to transport goods to the Midwest and beyond. Detroit, being amongst the first to develop or
manufacture in a massive manner, is now classified as a “Rust Belt” city. This means the city contains environmental contaminants
to the soil (brownfields and/or grayfields) and air quality from an era prior to environmental protection that renders these areas
unattractive to new and other manufacturers seeking locations. Finally, as stated in the previous section, Detroit possesses a
culture that does not value education as a primary means of societal stability and therefore is not currently capable of hosting new
technology or modern technological manufacturing entities. All of these factors are not “politically correct” and therefore are rarely to
ever discussed in public forums or shared by political decision makers. Still, they must be addressed.
The current leadership in the City of Detroit, as well as the region, is focused on getting more resources to support more of the same
types of behaviors. The focus is to gain federal “Stimulus and Recovery” funds to support the status quo. The status quo may be a
continuation of educational programs that have failed over the last 30 years. The status quo may be sole sourcing contracts to those
in support of the political campaigns/agendas and large businesses within the region. Whatever the status quo is, it has not
worked. In fact, it can be argued that the failings within the Detroit area are amongst the worst seen in modern western societal
history. For these reasons, we make the appeal to force Detroit to change its’ failing behavior by offering new ideas within this
summary proposal.
Summary of Situation
Many years ago, we decided it was never productive to point fingers and assign blame to crisis situations. We found it was better to
analyze a situation, become a stakeholder in the issue(s) and work diligently toward finding solutions. This is the approach we will
be taking in this proposal. However, to frame a picture of the current crisis, it will be necessary to summarize the predominant
issues to some extent to preface our proposed position and possibly an approach to addressing some of the negative issues
impacting the urban areas; particularly and more specifically, Detroit, Michigan.
What is known about Detroit, Michigan is widely known through its’ automotive industry. What is not known about Detroit is most of
the automotive industry’s manufacturing component has long left the city boundaries and its’ surrounding suburbs. The city that
gave birth to the automobile and once housed the headquarters of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler Corporations (the Big 3), as
well as their respective manufacturing facilities, is now a shell of its’ past glory. Today, only General Motors claims Detroit as its’
primary home. Furthermore, when many of the manufacturing plants began to relocate and/or close (sometime in the early to mid
1970’s), the spiral downward began. Without industry replacement, abandoned factories left acres and square miles of blight and
urban decay, thus beginning the devastation to the City’s facade. The most devastating impact would not be felt until decades later.
As the factories closed and no new industry replaced them, the real impact began to be felt in the 1990’s. As the auto industry’s
manual manufacturing left the City first, then the region, the state and ultimately the country, the greatest impact was on the culture it
left behind. For over 50 years or two generations, Detroit had enjoyed high wages and disposable income, which gave birth to the
retail shopping mall, freeway transportation system and mass produced suburban homes. The City and its’ surrounding suburbs
were the envy of the world as citizens were actualizing the “American Dream”. Citizens from around the country and immigrants from
around the world sought to call the Detroit area their home to share in this new revenue-generating machine called manufacturing.
As the industry grew, so did the City and at the height of its’ growth (mid 1950’s to early 1960’s, when the city had a population of over
2.5 million), the model for a middle-class population was born.
This early model had few requirements. A good days work for a good and fair wage. Most people were accustomed to hard work, so
good employees were not hard to find. Life was good until technology began to replace hard work alone. The Japanese method of
“Just in Time” manufacturing maximized profits by controlling the amount of labor utilized to produce a given product. Soon the
American producers followed this method. The need for a massive labor force was no longer needed, nor was the need for large
vertically developed manufacturing plants. With the development of the integrated highway transportation system, cities like Detroit
were no longer the desired and necessary places to locate that they once were. The new method of manufacturing required open
spaces with a minimum number of employees to operate the technology of production. Detroit and others like it would soon feel the
loss of the manual manufacturing industry. By the late 1980’s, the City of Detroit had lost almost all of its’ former revenue generators
and was left with an infrastructure designed and built to accommodate twice the population it hosted at the time (the city had lost half
of its’ 2.5 million population and was down to 1.2 million). In addition to this, the real impact was the culture of hard work alone
being rewarded over educational attainment.
Americans are taught to believe in hard work being a critical pathway to success; its’ a cultural cornerstone to progress. What
Americans, particularly Detroit citizens, were not accustomed to was the idea of technology replacing exclusive hard work with “smart
work”. To many, it seemed unfair that a machine or robot was replacing thousands of human beings with families and histories.
Many felt betrayed by the “Big 3”. For over 50 years, these workers had worked hard in these factories to be shut out of the new
“technology”. For over 50 years, citizens could walk into a factory from the local streets with nothing other than a willingness to work
and begin a career that afforded their family a very comfortable life complete with a house, car, medical coverage and vacations. The
culture within Detroit had been defined as “hard work” over all else. Smart work seemed a foreign concept. As a result, in 2009
Detroit continues to have a culture that still values exclusive “hard work”, but rarely are these types of employees sought after
anymore.
Fifty years of exclusive “hard work” being rewarded over all else develops a culture of indirectly devaluing everything else. Thus, in
2009 Detroit comprises a rapidly declining population that possesses a 47% illiteracy rate. What does this mean? It means, even if
modern employers wanted to locate in Detroit (and its’ suburbs, the culture was not isolated by geographic and political boundaries),
they would find it hard to find a workforce capable of receiving the training necessary to fill positions other than low paying entry level
or service oriented jobs. Consequently, other areas of human behavior are impacted by this phenomenon. High Crime rates are
inevitable when resources are not available. Teen pregnancies and other unplanned childbirths are higher in areas that lack
consistent and new opportunities to sustain life and families. Sexually transmitted diseases run rampant, due to lack of hope and
education. Substance abuse, in many cases, is inevitable, because any escape seems viable in this scenario. For all intents and
purposes, Detroit has become the microcosmic manifestation of what, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski suggested in his global analysis,
“Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the 21st Century”.
It is easy to dismiss the City of Detroit as one of America’s former great cities now in ruin, but the real story of this city and its’
redemption has yet to be written. As an urban planning and design firm, our societal lens is focused on seeing areas and places as
they could be and not necessarily as they are. For these reasons, we see a new Detroit rising from the ashes to re-define itself.
This can be done, but not without major changes in thinking and behavior.
The Current Leadership’s Position
Currently, Detroit’s political leaders and business community (automotive industry dominant) believe the answers to most of Detroit’
s problems is to infuse more financial resources into the automotive industry and existing employment sectors. The major appeal is
to have the federal government give the Big 3 loans or financial resources to assist in their current failings. As citizens of this region,
we empathize with the many that have lost jobs and may be facing a health care shortage or even facing foreclosure (we are not
exempt), but we still believe the fall of the automotive industry’s manual manufacturing component, in this region, is inevitable;
whether its’ tomorrow or in 10 years. We do believe “Detroit” the automotive industry, as a whole, should be helped in some manner,
but the time for them to be helped in the Detroit area has passed. Detroit, the Place, must re-invent itself. The factors that led to the
automotive industry geographically locating in Detroit are no longer as relevant and dominant as they were at the turn of the 20th
Century.
No longer are the waterways used as a primary method for freight shipping; so the Erie Canal leading to the rest of the country is not
the dominant or primary means to transport goods to the Midwest and beyond. Detroit, being amongst the first to develop or
manufacture in a massive manner, is now classified as a “Rust Belt” city. This means the city contains environmental contaminants
to the soil (brownfields and/or grayfields) and air quality from an era prior to environmental protection that renders these areas
unattractive to new and other manufacturers seeking locations. Finally, as stated in the previous section, Detroit possesses a
culture that does not value education as a primary means of societal stability and therefore is not currently capable of hosting new
technology or modern technological manufacturing entities. All of these factors are not “politically correct” and therefore are rarely to
ever discussed in public forums or shared by political decision makers. Still, they must be addressed.
The current leadership in the City of Detroit, as well as the region, is focused on getting more resources to support more of the same
types of behaviors. The focus is to gain federal “Stimulus and Recovery” funds to support the status quo. The status quo may be a
continuation of educational programs that have failed over the last 30 years. The status quo may be sole sourcing contracts to those
in support of the political campaigns/agendas and large businesses within the region. Whatever the status quo is, it has not
worked. In fact, it can be argued that the failings within the Detroit area are amongst the worst seen in modern western societal
history. For these reasons, we make the appeal to force Detroit to change its’ failing behavior by offering new ideas within this
summary proposal.
It Was Sent!!!
The Following are exerts from a urban proposal sent to President
Obama in March of 2009. The complete proposal, "Detroit: City in
Ruin? Or America’s Newest Gateway?” was sent to President
Obama, Vice President Biden, the President's Cabinet.
A complete copy of the proposal summary can be downloaded by
clicking the icon picture on the "right". Upon review, please tell us your
opinion of the proposal and contact us if you would like to work toward
the implementation of the ideas within it.
The Following are exerts from a urban proposal sent to President
Obama in March of 2009. The complete proposal, "Detroit: City in
Ruin? Or America’s Newest Gateway?” was sent to President
Obama, Vice President Biden, the President's Cabinet.
A complete copy of the proposal summary can be downloaded by
clicking the icon picture on the "right". Upon review, please tell us your
opinion of the proposal and contact us if you would like to work toward
the implementation of the ideas within it.
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