Blog
A Message from Detroit: What 713,777 Means
A lot has been made of the latest census figures for the city of Detroit. The following is a message from Declare Detroit, a movement to promote the principles, policies and actions that will lead to a more vibrant and successful Detroit. Instead of a sign of the end of a great city, the Declaration sees the census numbers released earlier this week as a reaffirmation to continue their efforts to challenge how we view our city and to implement policies to create a more sustainable city that can thrive in the 21st century.
We are here. In Detroit. We live and work in Detroit. We enjoy Detroit. We see social value in cultivating our community, developing our skills, our relationships, our discourse. We see economic value in living in Detroit, in working in Detroit and in growing our businesses in Detroit. We see intrinsic value in confronting some of the nation's most challenging social and economic issues in a passionate, tireless, asset-rich region.
A few thoughts on what the census data doesn’t mean: It doesn’t mean that 713,777 people are option-less. It also doesn’t mean that 713,777 people are urban "pioneers" willing to trade the amenities of a growing city for the “wild west” or “blank canvas” of Detroit.
While we’re in favor of making sure we’ve got the right data, the fact that the general response to this news has been a defeatist demand for a recount misses the point. No one believes that Detroit has actually grown over the past decade; so, regardless of the percentage, population decline has something to teach us. Specifically: that the policies, strategies, and culture that can grow a successful Detroit have been ignored by the city, and the state.
To the media: We are not pioneers. We are not stuck. We are residents, families, workers, community activists and business owners who have made the choice to live and work in Detroit. We are engaged in the education of our children, know our neighborhood police officer, pay our taxes, vote, walk to the grocery store or farmers' market, run the greenways and bike the streets. We enjoy riding the bus, engaging with different people, knowing our neighbors, keeping an eye out for each other, having picnics on Belle Isle and frequenting our many, world-class cultural institutions.
To our leadership, in every sector: While we are invested in Detroit, we remain committed to a better Detroit. Too many Detroiters have been voting with their feet, leaving the city in light of petty arguing, corrupt and unresponsive leadership, low expectations, broken promises and lackluster results. Our parks are not mowed enough; our good schools closed or threatened to be closed with no good reason (and, yes, a few good schools still exist); portions of our city government remain indifferent and unwilling to change and accept the rather controversial notion of "shared sacrifice"; our services stretched too thin and our tax burden too high in relation to quality of services received.
We are committed to a better Detroit, whether that Detroit is 1,000,000 strong, 750,000 strong, 713,000 strong or 600,000 strong. We believe that the Detroit Declaration and its principles set forth the roadmap towards a better Detroit. Local, regional and state leadership—our challenge is simple: apply those principles to your decision-making process. Develop responses, policies and programs that foster density, add value to city living and reverse the core issues behind much of Detroit's decline.
As a region, we can no longer afford to simply believe—we’ve been believing for 50 years that the same tired, out-dated, parochial strategies will somehow magically reverse the trends of disinvestment in our urban core. It is time to embrace a new set of principles that will lift up Detroit’s 713,777. It is time for action.
Declare Detroit
