Listening To Detroit-Gentrification

Listening to Detroit: Perspectives on Gentrification in the Motor City
by
Michael Williams
A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree
Bachelors of Arts with Honors in
the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Spring 2013
Williams
ABSTRACT
As the city of Detroit continues to experience revitalization and redevelopment
efforts throughout the 21st century and grows a wealthier and more diverse base of
incoming residents in its inner city, this study sought out information about whether such
efforts are contributing to gentrification. Usually much attention is given to the aspect of
physical displacement that is most commonly associated with gentrification and its
typical transformation of low-income neighborhoods filled with people of color into
spaces for the White middle and upper class. However, the qualitative research of this
study aimed to uncover aspects of cultural displacement how individuals and
communities may experience a loss of social, cultural and historical connections that
normally allows them to comfortably identify with and frequent certain urban spaces.
Through in-depth interviews with Black, working- and middle-class Detroiters who
make up the dominant demography of the city this thesis researcher discloses that there
are several examples of growing cultural dissonance between Detroits Black, workingclass base and an incoming class of young, college-educated Whites. The findings
suggest that gentrification is not only occurring in the Motor City, albeit in a highly
nuanced form, but also that the definition of gentrification must be broadened to better
incorporate the aspect of cultural displacement.
Williams
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my advisor, Professor June Thomas, for her guidance and for her
brilliance in the field of urban planning that continues to inspire me. I am especially
grateful to the staff at the East Michigan Environmental Action Council and the members
of the Young Educators Alliance for their unwavering support and profound wisdom
during this experience. This effort would also not have been made possible without
participation in the University of Michigans Semester in Detroit program and support
from the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies. Lastly, I owe gratitude to my
family to my grandfather for giving me the gift of Detroit, and to my father for
inspiring me to love the city as much as he does.
This thesis is dedicated to the people of Detroit. May you soon rise from the ashes, once
again.
Williams
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER
1
Page
INTRODUCTION5
BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY8
Examining Gentrification in Detroit..12
Interviewees...14
LITERATURE REVIEW17
What is Gentrification?..................................................................17
Gentrification Today..18
The Urban Pioneer Spirit...22
Detroit is Not Being Gentrified?....................................................23
GENTRIFICATION IS HAPPENING28
Its All in a Name...28
Defining Gentrification..30
The Complexity of Defining Gentrification..36
Community Input and A Lack of the Right Terminology.39
A TALE OF TWO CITIES..42

A New Culture...42
Urban Renewal by Another Name.45
What Lies Ahead47
CONCLUSION51
BIBLIOGRAPHY..53
Williams
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
As I walk the streets of Midtown, I see new urban narratives being created and
interwoven into the framework of this Detroit neighborhood. These new narratives spring
from the opening of new small businesses and restaurants that join the ranks of
institutions such as the Detroit Institute of Arts and Coney Island restaurants that have
defined the neighborhood for decades. The main thoroughfare of Woodward Avenue is
now made complete with new developments such as the Great Lakes Coffee Roasting
Company coffee and wine bar and Good Girls Go to Paris Crepes. Luxury condominiums
and apartments residing in rehabilitated structures both small and grand in size, like the
Park Shelton are also included in this phase of redevelopment.
Weaving in and out of the smaller streets that diverge off of Woodward Avenue
and flank the area of Midtown Detroit, I see the new Seva restaurant, a staple of
vegetarian cuisine originally located in the young, culturally hip college town of Ann
Arbor, Michigan,1 which opened its second branch in Midtown in January 2012 to be part
of a community that is turning around.2 Still, within the periphery of my
neighborhood stroll are several construction sites for developments yet to be fully
realized, such as the site of Whole Foods Market the upscale, natural and organic foods
store set to open in June 2013.
Evgeny Magidenko, "How to Be an Ann Arbor Hipster," The Michigan Review, June 5, 2008,
http://www.michiganreview.com/archives/348.
2
Quoted in Jon Zemke, "Seva Detroit, COLORS Restaurant Open in Midtown, Downtown," Model D, January 17,
2012, http://www.modeldmedia.com/devnews/sevadetroitcolors011712.aspx.
Williams
This new opening of the grocery store chain has arguably created the most
contentious dialogue surrounding new arrivals to the city due to the controversy over
what its presence will signify in its Midtown location.3, 4 The voices of both excitement
as well as fear surrounding the opening of Whole Foods on Mack Avenue stem from
what is known as the Whole Foods effect;5 the stores trend of catering to typically
well-educated and wealthy consumers who can afford their inflated prices incites further
residential and business development and increases housing values of the neighborhoods
for which they are located.6 While some Detroiters are excited about the potential
economic development this will signal for the future of the neighborhood, others are
skeptical of the cultural shift that such a store will create.7
This conflicted dialogue around urban revitalization efforts in the city is bigger
than just the Whole Foods retailer; with new development comes a new population, and
vice versa. Whether establishments such as typically expensive, organic food stores,
coffee shops, and refurbished lofts attract more young, college-educated individuals or
merely cater to their already-existing presence due to their affiliation with Detroits
Wayne State University or the College of Creative Studies is irrelevant to this study. The
central question this thesis aims to confront is what does it mean for a college-educated
and financially well-off population to be growing in a city on the brink of financial

3
Sarah Cox, "Whole Foods Detroit: The Brand's Ability to Bring Escape Velocity to Real Estate Doldrums," Curbed
Detroit, May 7, 2012, http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2012/05/whole-foods-escape-velocity-to-break-free-of-realestate-doldrums.php.
4
Will Doig, "Whole Foods Is Coming? Time to Buy," SALON, May 5, 2012,
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/05/whole_foods_is_coming_time_to_buy/singleton/.
5
Quoted in Adeline Goss, The Whole Foods Effect: A grocerys role in transforming cities, Next Generation
Radio, National Public Radio, aired in 2006, transcript,
http://www.npr.org/about/nextgen/internedition/fall06/docs/transcripts/gosspercent20transcript.pdf.
6
Matthew Boyle, "The Man Who Brought Organics to Main Street," Fortune, July 12, 2007,
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/07/23/100134366/index.htm.
7
Sarah Cox, "The Detroit News Goes Looking For Gentrification, Trouble," Curbed Detroit, January 5, 2012,
http://detroit.curbed.com/archives/2012/01/the-detroit-news-goes-looking-for-gentrification-trouble-1.php.
Williams
bankruptcy8 and with one of the worst high school graduation rates in the nation?9 How
will this new wave of White middle-class residents influence a city where over 82.7
percent of its population is Black and 36.2 percent is below the federal poverty level?10
My study examines how a few longtime, Black working- and middle-class
Detroiters as well as those that they have interviewed or engaged with on this subject
matter are responding to the influx of these new residents and redevelopment efforts.
This thesis also inspects what implications race and class have in this dialogue. By
researching if and how individuals representing Detroits dominant demography of
residents are noticing the changing facades and faces occupying both Midtown and
neighborhoods across the city, this study explores if the transformation of the Detroit
landscape is connected to a larger phenomenon known as gentrification. This study
suggests how these demographic and economic changes are culturally displacing some
members of Detroits prevailing population and the implications they believe these
occurrences have on the future of the Motor City.
BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY

8
Based on the findings of a Citizens Research Council of Michigan report completed in 2010 for the city of Detroit.
The report identified exacerbated effects of population loss, poverty, and disinvestment on the City of Detroit (v),
including an accumulated deficit well over $300 million among other issues. See Citizens Research Council of
Michigan, The Fiscal Condition of the City of Detroit, Report 361, April 2010,
http://www.crcmich.org/PUBLICAT/2010s/2010/rpt361.pdf.
9
Detroit Associated Press, "Education Secretary: Detroit Schools at 'bottom of the barrel,'" The Oakland Press, April
26, 2010, http://www.theoaklandpress.com/articles/2010/04/26/news/doc4bd593fe7fe5b732612169.txt.
10
U.S. Census Bureau, State and County QuickFacts: Detroit (city), Michigan, (Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau,
2010), Last revised January 10, 2013, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2622000.html (accessed March 18,
2013).
Williams
The Midtown neighborhood with its new businesses such as Whole Foods is an
anomaly in comparison to the city that resides outside of the Midtown and Downtown
radius the business, economic, arts and entertainment hubs of the city proper. A 2010
Social Compact study funded by the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation showed
Midtown to have the highest average household income of new homebuyers at $113, 788,
compared to about $51,000 for those who purchased homes between 2006 and 2008 in
the city as a whole.11, 12
While Midtown was the most commonly identified neighborhood by the
interviewees of this study as a primary testament to the demographic and economic
development changes occurring in the city, it does not stand alone. Other neighborhoods
in or near Downtown, such as the Central Business District, Indian Village, and the Near
East Riverfront among others, also boast new homeowners reported incomes that are
more than double the citywide average for new homebuyers.13 This revamped image of
these few square miles of Detroit revolving around Woodward Avenue is complete with a
growing number of 20- to 30-year-old White faces. While these faces would have
appeared unfamiliar to Detroit ten years ago, or even three years ago, they are not lost or
merely tourists; they are at home in their small pocket of a largely Black, working-class
city.
The findings of the 2010 Social Compact Study as well as the changes the
subjects of my research have noticed occurring in the city have been greater quantified by

11
Nathan Skid, "Whole Foods Moving into Midtown," Crain's Detroit Business, July 27, 2011,
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20110727/FREE/110729893/whole-foods-moving-into-midtown.
12
Social Compact Inc., City of Detroit, Neighborhood Market Drilldown: Catalyzing Business Investment in Inner-City
Neighborhoods, December 2010, 10, http://socialcompact.org/images/uploads/2-92011_Detroit_DrillDown_Report.pdf.
13
Ibid.
Williams
a more recent report known as 7.2 SQ MI.14 As the title of this collaborative work
suggests, its findings identify a 7.2-square mileage region denoted as Greater
Downtown as a physically and economically changing place.15 See Figure 1.
Figure 1: Hudson-Webber Foundation, et al., Greater Downtown Detroit By

Neighborhood. 2013, Digital Image. Source: Hudson-Webber Foundation, et al. 7.2 SQ
MI: A Report on Greater Downtown Detroit, February 2013.
http://www.detroitsevenpointtwo.com/resources/sevenpointtwosquaremilesfullreport.pdf,
14.
Encompassing the aforementioned neighborhoods such as Midtown, the
Downtown Central Business District, and the Riverfront, Greater Downtown also
includes areas such as Corktown, Woodbridge, and New Center all of which the

14
Hudson-Webber Foundation, et al., 7.2 SQ MI: A Report on Greater Downtown Detroit, February 2013,
http://www.detroitsevenpointtwo.com/resources/sevenpointtwosquaremilesfullreport.pdf.
15
Ibid., 4.
Williams 10
interviewees of my research identified as neighborhoods experiencing social and
economic shifts. With a decreasing Black population and an increase in White residents,
a 42 percent college education rate for residents ages 25-34 compared to 11 percent
citywide, and a per capita income that is 33 percent higher than the city as a whole, 7.2
SQ MI tracks public and local data from 2000-2012 to show Greater Downtown as
increasingly more diverse, educated and wealthy than the rest of the city.16 With
occupancy rates for rental units in central Downtown and Midtown at 97 percent and 95
percent, respectively, and rising apartment rental rates accompanying such demand, it
becomes apparent how $6 billion in investments in real estate development projects in
Greater Downtown since 2006 are altering the landscape of Detroits urban core.17
Already, some of the contributors to the report such as representatives from the Detroit
Economic Growth Corporation and Data Driven Detroit believe that the documents
findings may be slightly dated given the rapidly changing trends they expect to accelerate
in the area over the next decade.18
While some such as renowned urbanist and economist Richard Florida have
identified these changes as part of Downtown Detroits comeback,19 this influx of new
residents to Detroit and the redevelopment efforts both accompanying and attracting them
are part of a broader and more complex dialogue in urban America: gentrification. Urban
studies scholarship and common knowledge have identified this process as more or less

16
Quoted in John Gallagher, Downtown Detroit has more wealth, diversity than city as a whole, report says, Detroit
Free Press, February 18, 2013, http://www.freep.com/.
17
Hudson-Webber Foundation, et al., 7.2 SQ MI, 64.
18
Gallagher, Downtown Detroit.
19
Richard Florida, Quantifying Downtown Detroits Comeback, The Atlantic Cities, February 20, 2013,
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2013/02/quantifying-downtown-detroits-comeback/4734/.
Williams 11
the transformation of a working-class or vacant area of the central city into middle-class
residential and/or commercial use.20
In addition to the overt socioeconomic variations, as is the case with economic
inequality in the United States, race matters. These middle- to upper-class residents
infiltrating the urban core and central city usually equate to White yuppie pioneers
moving into low-income neighborhoods with dense concentrations of ethnic
minorities.21 Typically, the narratives of gentrification and case studies of it have been
dominated by attention to areas such as the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in
Brooklyn, New York;22 Harlem, New York; and the historically African-American U St.
neighborhood in Washington, D.C.,23 where population growth specifically of new,
young middle-class residents spills over into neighborhoods that are usually
underdeveloped and full of people of color. While the built environment of Detroit and its
unique set of urban challenges separate it from the likeness of more stable and affluent
regions like New York City or the nations capital, this does not mean that gentrification
cannot or is not occurring here. Coverage by Detroit online magazines, blogs, and news
sites such as Model D and MLive, have uncovered stories of displacement of Black
residents due to increases in rents stemming from economic development as well as the
urban gardening and farming movement generating significant attention in the city.24
Examining Gentrification in Detroit

20
Quoted in Loretta Lees, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly, Gentrification (New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group,
2008), xv.
21
Ibid., 108.
22
Ibid.
23
Neil Smith, The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification and the Revanchist City (London: Routledge, 1996), 29.
24
Patrick Crouch, "Evolution or Gentrification: Do Urban Farms Lead to Higher Rents?," Grist, October 23, 2012,
http://grist.org/food/evolution-or-gentrification-do-urban-farms-lead-to-higher-rents/.
Williams 12
In light of the ever-growing wave of revitalization efforts in Detroit as well as the
aforementioned transformation of its neighborhoods, my research aims to uncover how
everyday citizens with vested long-term interest in the city are responding to what is
arguably shaping sections of their hometown into a sought-after area for White, collegeeducated Millennials. Through in-depth interviews with longtime Detroiters, this work
gathered thoughts and feelings toward ongoing and future gentrification efforts in the
Motor City. By particularly focusing on capturing the insights of Black, working- or
middle-class Detroiters who have lived in various parts of the city for their entire lives
and even have multi-generational and extended familial roots here, this thesis challenges
approaching the subject matter from a remote or removed perspective.
Most of the conversation surrounding gentrification focuses on the aspect of
physical displacement, in which increased real estate development, new businesses and
housing result in increased rents and neighborhood living standards that force the original
or lower-income residents out of their neighborhood experiencing transition. However,
this study sought out occurrences of what University of Michigan Sociology Ph.D.
candidate Meagan Elliott identifies as cultural displacement25, 26 the elimination and/or
ignoring of the sense of place, ownership, historical and familial/generational ties, selfidentification and pride associated with living in a certain place. Elliotts line of research
and the data she has collected thus far better defines cultural displacement as the removal
of a sense of place and community and feeling like you have the right to creating the

25
Meagan Elliott, "Planning Appropriately for Our Future," The Huffington Post, January 10, 2012,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/meagan-elliott/detroit-gentrification_b_1194534.html.
26
Meagan Elliott, interview with the author, Ann Arbor, November 16, 2012.
Williams 13
vision for that communitys future. Even if people are not forced from their homes due to
rising rents, they may feel like their community is less their own than it used to be.27
Typically, the present-day media coverage of gentrification highlights
gentrifiers frontier and salvation ideology28 upon moving into their new, lower-class
neighborhoods that places them culturally at variance with longtime residents interests
and well-being.29 This thesis aims to analyze that cultural dissonance from the
perspectives of those who are usually gentrified or displaced by addressing the issue of
what Loyola University of Chicago professor Japonica Brown-Saracino defines as social
preservation a set of political, symbolic, and private practices to maintain the
authenticity of [gentrifiers] place of residence, primarily by working to prevent oldtimers displacement.30 This line of work will largely focus on the experiences of Detroit
residents and how they conceptualize their own participation and inclusion, or lack
thereof, in what their neighborhoods and city have morphed into and are becoming, and
how their sentiments towards their surrounding environment have changed, if at all.
My line of inquiry based on the uprising of cultural dissonance in Detroit will
engage the scholarship around the complex topic of gentrification in a dialogue around
race, class, and the implications both items have on the future of the Motor City as it is
revitalized. The responses from interviewees, and the insight from many other Detroiters
they have interviewed and interacted with, will ultimately offer greater understanding on
how some residents are coping with the increase of White young professionals in a

27
Quoted in Elliott, Planning Appropriately for Our Future.

Quoted in Japonica Brown-Saracino, A Neighborhood That Never Changes: Gentrification, Social Preservation, and
the Search for Authenticity (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2009), 7.
29
Ibid.
30
Ibid., 9.
28
Williams 14
largely Black, working-class city. By amplifying the voices of this particular group of
Detroiters, this work aims to challenge the sentiment and trend of current media coverage
of Detroit that focuses primarily on new development projects in the Greater Downtown
area and incoming residents who are primarily White, while ignoring or rendering
invisible the occurrences and viewpoints of Detroits Black and working-class majority
yet another facet at the core of cultural displacement.31
Interviewees
Participation in Semester in Detroit, an experiential learning program at the
University of Michigan, created the opportunity for both residing in Midtown, Detroit
and working at a community-based internship there at the East Michigan Environmental
Action Council (EMEAC). Founded in the 1960s in response to environmental concerns
in southeast Michigan, EMEAC prides itself on influencing environmental policy and
legislation for the metro Detroit region through informed personal and public action.32
The non-profit organization is based in the Cass Corridor/Park neighborhood abutting the
northern edge of Downtown and forming the southwestern tip and beginning of what is
associated by the 7.2 SQ MI report as Midtown.33 From their headquarters known as the
Cass Corridor Commons a shared workspace and social gathering hub for various other
organizations and initiatives like the Sugar Law Center and Peoples Kitchen Detroit
the EMEAC team works to empower the Detroit community to build community power
through environmental justice education, youth development, and collaborative
relationship building. Members of the EMEAC staff served as interviewees for this

31
Elliott, Planning Appropriately for Our Future.

EMEAC, About Us, East Michigan Environmental Action Council, last modified November 8, 2010, accessed
February 13, 2013, http://www.emeac.org/2010/11/about.html.
33
See area labeled as North Cass in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.
32
Williams 15
research study. This included a particular focus on the organizations youth component,
the Young Educators Alliance (YEA) a small group of young adults, aged 14-24 years
old, who come together to identify issues in their environment and work collectively on
solutions, using their creativity and personal insight.
Not only did YEA members and EMEAC staff fulfill this studys desired subject
qualifications as self-identified Black, working- or middle-class, longtime Detroiters, but
they also provided particular expertise to the nature of this research project given their
own research and community-based education endeavors on the topic of gentrification in
Detroit. YEAs focus on establishing better dialogue around the topic of gentrification in
Detroit led them to creating a documentary video project titled The Untold Story of
Detroit,34 in which they informally interviewed about 40 Detroit residents to gain insight
on how these Detroiters culturally identified with their neighborhoods and the city as a
whole, and how the effects of redevelopment may be altering this relationship. The young
adult group then took their efforts further by organizing an educational and dialoguebased community forum on February 16, 2013 at EMEAC headquarters to garner more
public opinion on the topic of gentrification and brainstorm collective mitigation
strategies. The event, known as the Feed 1 Teach 1 on Gentrification in Detroit,35
brought together about 50-60 participants.

34
Quoted in Siwatu Salaama Ra, interview with the author, Detroit, January 23, 2013. Siwatu is the Youth Leadership
Team Coordinator at the East Michigan Environmental Action Council and the founder of the Young Educators
Alliance.
35
Patrick Geans-Ali, Gentrification to be the topic at Young Educators Alliance Feed1 Teach1 2013, The Michigan
Citizen, February 15, 2013, http://michigancitizen.com/gentrification-to-be-the-topic-at-young-educators-alliancefeed1-teach1-2013/.
Williams 16
Information gathered from YEAs video project and community forum were
captured in their responses during the in-depth interviews conducted for this study to
reflect the views of numerous other Black, working- and middle-class Detroiters. For the
purpose of this thesis, I interviewed four YEA members and three members of the
EMEAC staff who serve as supervisors or liaisons to the Young Educators Alliance. All
interviewees have resided in Detroit since birth, and in all cases, the subjects had familial
roots that extended back at least 1-2 generations from parents that were born and raised in
the city and grandparents that had migrated to the city from Southern states. They hailed
from numerous sectors of Detroit, including the West Side, the East Side, and the
Northwest area.
The total of seven interviews were conducted individually and were audiotaped,
transcribed, and analyzed to identify thematic connections. For the sake of privacy and
confidentiality, I do not reveal the names of these participants nor specific personal
information besides their responses provided in the interviews. The data analysis of my
qualitative research is presented in Chapters 3 and 4 following the Literature Review.
Chapter 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
What is Gentrification?
Williams 17
As stated before, gentrification generally signifies the action and effect of middleor upper-class citizens moving into lower-class and neglected neighborhoods, especially
in the central city of urban environments. The term also refers to the private capital of
businesses, retail, and real estate development and the public investment that enters into
the neighborhoods with the gentry36 typically young, highly-educated individuals.37
Converting these socially marginal and working-class neighborhoods into middle-class
residential use began in the 1960s with private-market investment capital into downtown
districts of major urban centers 38 and was originally viewed as a measure of
reinvestment in the urban core. The term was initially coined by British sociologist Ruth
Glass in 1964 to describe happenings of urban change in inner-city London at the time;
Glass documented how working-class quarters in London were being invaded by the
middle class, turning shabby cottages into expensive and luxurious pieces of real estate
until all or most of the original working-class occupiers are displaced and the social
character of the district is changed.39 Indeed, the influx of the gentry into a particular
area undoubtedly creates structural change in the built environment and a clear alteration
in residential demographics. But such factors consequentially lead to a reshaping of the
political, economic, and socio-cultural landscape of that area as well. Gentrification
possesses both a large stigma as well as factual support of primarily driving up real estate

36
Gina M. Prez, The near Northwest Side Story: Migration, Displacement, and Puerto Rican Families (Berkeley:
University of California, 2004).
37
Quoted in Brown-Saracino, A Neighborhood That Never Changes, 4.
38
Quoted in Sharon Zukin, "Gentrification: Culture and Capital in the Urban Core," Annual Review of Sociology 13.1
(1987): 129.
39
Quoted in Ruth Glass, London; Aspects of Change (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1964), xviii-xix.
Williams 18
values and property taxes in the gentrified neighborhood, leading to the exit and
relocation of many of the original residents who cannot afford such increases.40
My work is in conversation with the scholarship on gentrification, including the
work titled Gentrification by Loretta Lees, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly. As the first
textbook on the phenomenon, this work addresses how gentrification of urban areas has
accelerated across the globe to become a central engine of urban development. It also
presents major theoretical ideas, concepts with case studies, and suggestions for future
research. This thesis will expand on the work done in the textbook to relay the topic of
gentrification to Detroit, with a specific focus on cultural displacement. My study will
also focus more on the perspectives of everyday citizens rather than the point of view of
urban sociology, geography, and urban planning.
Gentrification Today
In the last few decades since the 1960s, American sociologists, economists, and
urbanists have more clearly defined the gentrification phenomenon to include a more
distinct reshuffling of the make-up of these neighborhoods in terms of race, class, and
social capital, including college-educated status. While the general actions of displacing
or relegating the residencies of marginalized groups including the urban poor and/or
people of color dates back to centuries before the 1960s, the trend of modern
gentrification, examined in this thesis, refers to a global phenomenon from the 1980s

40
Lees, Slater, and Wyly, Gentrification, 10.
Williams 19
onward that is especially present in postwar advanced capitalist cities such as Boston;
Washington, D.C.; and New York City.41
Columbia University Adjunct Associate Professor of International and Public
Affairs David J. Maurrasse details how Harlem, a specific region in the uptown area of
New York Citys borough of Manhattan, home to a large African-American population,
undergoes such racial and economic changes:
At 122nd Street, near Morningside Avenue, two white men peer into the window
of a brownstone, maybe speculating about the units and the neighborhoods
livability. Although some boarded-up buildings remain in this section, like one
red brick structure on 122nd Street and St. Nicholas Avenue, one is far more likely
to see various construction projects underway, ones that involved renovation of
old homes or sites starting from scratch on empty lots. At 120th Street and Lenox
Avenue, a new caf/bakery called Settepani looks like something youd find on
23rd Street. The storefront looks brand spanking new, the windows sparkling
clean. The mostly White but still relatively multiracial crowd inside conjures up
images of almost anywhere but what many would associate with Harlem. This is
quite a nice caf, by the way. And it is only one among a few others that have
recently opened in the neighborhood. 42
Maurrasse goes on to state:
Harlem is beginning to look more like the rest of Manhattan. But as Harvard
fellow John Jackson notes in his book, Harlerm World, Harlem is not Manhattan.

41
42
Ibid., 5.
David Maurrasse, Listening to Harlem: Gentrification, Community, and Business (New York: Routledge, 2006), 6-7.
Williams 20
Harlems significance as a center of African American life and culture may very
well be in jeopardy in the long run. But as these resources enter the neighborhood,
the challenge of ensuring that longtime residents benefit rather than lose is of
utmost concern. It could be that the residents are expected to sink or swim in an
increasingly competitive environment. If development is going to result in
widespread empowerment, residents, community organizations, corporations,
government, and real estate developers all must take some action, beyond market
forces, to ensure some degree of balance in Harlems current and future economic
development.43
Maurrasses documentation of the changing social and economic climate of
Harlem in 2006 as well as his concern for how current and longtime residents are being
affected by such changes leads him to investigate their viewpoints on the matter of their
gentrifying neighborhood. My research is in direct conversation with the framework and
intent of that of David Maurrasses in his book, Listening to Harlem: Gentrification,
Community, and Business. Through surveys and primarily in-depth interviews of
longtime residents, nonprofit community organizations, and small business owners, he
aimed to direct greater attention to the thoughts of those who make up the essence of
Harlem, and whose perspectives, he believes, are critical to shaping the future of the
neighborhood44 and offer suggestions for more effective policies that will bring
resources into urban neighborhoods without hurting longtime, especially low-income,
residents.45

43
Ibid., 39-40.
Ibid., 11.
45
Ibid.
44
Williams 21
The format of my data collection as well as the intent of my research also
parallels the work of Columbia University professor Lance Freeman in There Goes the
Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up.46 Freeman lives in Harlem placing
him in the midst of his field research and interacts with several residents and business
owners to unravel the complexities of gentrification, specifically from the perspective of
indigenous residents, as it unfolds in this particular uptown Manhattan neighborhood. His
findings provide a nuanced image of the displacement process, including conflicting
reactions from the constituents who must live and cope with the changes in their
environment everyday. Freemans qualitative research along with historical and
contextual information outlining the changes occurring in the historically Black, innercity neighborhoods of Harlem and Brooklyns Clinton Hill, reveal how long-term
residents are reacting to the steady entry of White, middle-class individuals as well as
new business and developments that are appearing simultaneously. His results and
conclusions challenge planning and policy efforts mainly those stemming from local
government to act on new ways of limiting gentrifications negative effects while
creating more positive experiences for both newcomers and native, in New York City and
any locality where neighborhoods are being gentrified.
The Urban Pioneer Spirit

While scholars argue that there are many reasons surrounding the complex issue
of why the gentry actually choose to move into such neighborhoods that are typically

46
Lance Freeman, There Goes the 'hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground up (Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP,
2006).

Williams 22
under-resourced and viewed as undesirable by constituents of middle- to upper-class
stature, central arguments revolve around the incentives of housing affordability and
financial gain,47 and most interestingly, the cultural allure of the frontier and salvation
mentality that is the appeal of conquering and taming the wild, urban landscape and
rescuing the impoverished , dilapidated spaces, leading to feelings of personal benefit,
accomplishment and gain.48
Through a similar outlook applied to residents of Detroit, my research challenges
the sentiments expressed in an article produced by the web-based Detroit magazine
Model D titled Master activator: Tony Goldman envisions Detroit as capital of the
experimental.49 The article author Walter Wasacz, managing editor of Model D, praised
Tony Goldman, the CEO of New York-based Goldman Properties Co., for seeing a world
of potential in Detroit and his vision to re-make Detroit as the capital of the avant-garde,
the experimental.50 Goldman is known for resuscitating high-profile areas such as South
Beach and SoHo by turning dilapidated buildings into four-star hotels and art galleries.
My work challenges the very essence of Goldmans philosophy of suggesting Detroit to
fully embrace the frontier spirit that once drew Americans to the West.51 This urban
pioneer spirit is rooted in elitist, White, upper-class privilege that urbanists and
gentrification scholars identify as a systemic issue that leads to displacement and
dramatic sociocultural shifts in gentrified communities. My thesis will combat this issue
by amplifying the voices of longtime, Black, working-class Detroiters who are the most

47
Quoted in Brown-Saracino, A Neighborhood That Never Changes, 5.

Zukin, Gentrification, 130.
49
Walter Wasacz, "Master Activator: Tony Goldman Envisions Detroit as "capital of the Experimental,"" Model D,
May 10, 2011, http://www.modeldmedia.com/features/goldmanfeat511.aspx.
50
Ibid.
51
Quoted in Daniel Duggan, "Lost Potential: Remembering Tony Goldman, the Developer Who Wanted to Change
Detroit," Crain's Detroit Business, September 14, 2012, http://www.crainsdetroit.com/.
48
Williams 23
negatively affected by new economic development that fails to incorporate their insight,
needs, and desires.
Detroit Is Not Being Gentrified?
Unlike the typical case studies of gentrification that stem from predominantly
Black, working-class neighborhoods in large and highly dense cities, Detroit exists as an
anomaly given its status as low-density and with high amounts of vacancy and population
loss. According to the latest census, Detroit lost 25 percent of its population within the
last decade52 and the data collection firm Data Driven Detroit found 26 percent of the
citys residential parcels about 91,000 lots to be vacant in its 2010 Detroit Residential
Parcel Survey.53 With its position as a top shrinking city, there are some who scoff at the
idea of gentrification occurring within the city. Despite the findings of the
aforementioned 7.2 SQ MI report of how Greater Downtown, in particular, is undergoing
growing racial and socioeconomic changes, Data Driven Detroit director Kurt Metzger
affirmed, Were a long way from gentrification.54
It must be noted that claims of gentrification not occurring in Detroit that stem
from academicians and experts in the field of urban studies, and even everyday citizens in
the metropolitan Detroit region, are quite valid when assessed purely from the lens of
physical displacement. While some of the interviewees of this study presented first-hand
accounts of themselves or family members being displaced from their residences due to
the rise of gentrification in the city, it is difficult to find such concrete examples in any

52
SEMCOG, SEMCOG Quick Facts: 2010 Census Data for City of Detroit Neighborhoods, April 5, 2011, accessed
March 01, 2013, http://library.semcog.org/InmagicGenie/DocumentFolder/2010CensusDataDetroitQuickFacts.pdf.
53
Data Driven Detroit, Detroit Residential Parcel Survey: Citywide Report for Vacant and Non-vacant Housing,
February 15, 2010, accessed March 01, 2013,
http://www.detroitparcelsurvey.org/pdf/reports/DRPS_citywide_vacancy_housing.pdf.
54
Quoted in Gallagher, Downtown Detroit.
Williams 24
scholarship or present-day media coverage on Detroit, particularly at a rate comparable to
that in much more affluent cities or examples that extend beyond just hearsay.
For the sake of this thesis, the work of native Detroiter and UC Berkley Professor
of Law and Professor of African American Studies and Ethnic Studies john a. powell
(spelled without capitals) provides the most appropriate and accurate definition of
gentrification and the variances of its presence in rich cities compared to middle-class
and poor cities. This thesis is in direct conversation with powells analysis of the
phenomenon in his 1999 Forum for Social Economics journal article Race, Poverty, and
Urban Sprawl: Access to Opportunities Through Regional Strategies.55 The piece
supports the widely understood conceptualization of gentrification as the transition of
a neighborhood caused by the in-migration of middle and upper middle class residents
who are most often White, and the resulting forced out-migration of low-income
residents who are frequently people of color.56 However, powell clearly distinguishes
the redevelopment and economic resurgence efforts occurring in the last few decades in
poor cities from the more commonly known case of gentrification, in which central cities
with growing or stable populations and low poverty rates like Seattle or San Francisco
experience influxes of middle- or upper-class residents that result in pushing poorer
residents away from their neighborhoods, resources and opportunities, and the central
city altogether.57 powell suggests that the process of building new housing and businesses
on vacant land or rehabilitating existing housing, not being used, to attract more middleincome housing and increase the tax base in poor cities like Detroit and Cleveland,

55
john a. powell, "Race, Poverty, and Urban Sprawl: Access to Opportunities through Regional Strategies," Forum for
Social Economics 28, no. 2 (1999): 1-20,
http://search.proquest.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/docview/56865707?accountid=14667.
56
Ibid., 10.
57
Ibid., 8-9.
Williams 25
should be characterized as in-fill housing58 rather than gentrification since no one is
being pushed out. While partial or small-scale gentrification is conceivable in these cities,
it is far less exacerbated like the effects of physical displacement in rich cities and is
largely overshadowed by the more pressing urban planning and policy issues of suburban
sprawl and concentrated inner-city poverty.59
powell goes on to opine that in-fill housing that attracts middle-income residents
and housing actually serves as a rational strategy boosting the revenues and resources of
distressed cities but typically faces strong opposition from inner-city residents of color
for multiple reasons. Most prevalent of these reasons is a fear of physical displacement as
well as disempowerment via Whites returning to politically and economically reclaim the
city they primarily fled decades ago during White flight.60 This concern is echoed
throughout the qualitative research gathered from my interviews, and is grounded in
credent examples of racist, systemic oppression from Urban Renewal practices of the
1960s that benefited Whites while primarily displacing inner-city Black communities,
leading to further ghettoization and urban sprawl.
My research does not challenge john powells analysis of in-fill housing and
development versus gentrification, but more so expounds upon the said fears that innercity residents of color and low-income backgrounds may experience that provokes many

58
Ibid., 10.
Ibid., 12.
60
White flight refers to the large-scale migration of white people from various European ethnicities and backgrounds
moving out of central cities and into suburbs on the urban fringe during the mid-20th century. Several reasons are
attributed to this mass movement of citizens including the decentralization of industry into suburban regions,
overcrowding in cities proper, and incentives of suburban housing including federal-backed subsidies and the
construction of the federal highway system that made transport to and from the central city very accessible. In
addition, suburban housing choices were racially constrained by federal housing policies and banking practices that
strongly excluded Blacks from entering suburban neighborhoods. See Thomas J. Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban
Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 122.
59
Williams 26
of them to oppose the arrival of more middle- and upper-class Whites in the city. I also
aim to expand his definition of gentrification by incorporating the aspect of the erasure of
the emotional and psychological attachment to space and collective memory that leads to
cultural displacement.
My work does, however, challenge the sentiment communicated in author Jeff
Wattricks article in the Michigan online news source MLive, titled Complaints about
Detroit gentrification once again rooted in feelings, not logic.61 Wattrick argues that
increased rents and being outbid for select residences are merely consequences of
downtown real estate being treated as downtown real estate.62 Moreover, he is not
convinced that new residents infiltrating abandoned or neglected properties can be worse
than the abandonment and decay itself, widespread in the city. Wattrick concludes by
asserting that the conversation about gentrification picking up commotion in Detroit is
simply rooted in feelings, and that feelings dont count What one feels, no matter how
deeply they feel it, is irrelevant unless it can be backed up with arguments rooted in logic,
reason, and facts.63
While any urbanist, or even everyday citizen, understanding Detroits dire state of
population loss and financial despair over the past few decades would realize the need for
more prosperous newcomers, I argue that feelings, especially those of the residents
already here, do count. Ignoring what Wattrick trivializes as feelings limits the
definition of gentrification to only its physical aspect of higher rents and increased home
values and subsequent higher property taxes that discourages low-income residents from

61
Jeff T. Wattrick, "Complaints about Detroit Gentrification Once Again Rooted in Feelings, Not Logic," MLive,
January 5, 2012, http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2012/01/complaints_about_detroit_gentr.html.
62
Ibid.
63
Ibid.
Williams 27
staying in the specific neighborhood in transition. This narrow analysis ignores the
sociocultural ramifications of gentrification and the cultural displacement that occurs
when certain types of economic redevelopment fail to fully incorporate the existing and
longtime constituents of a particular neighborhood. How one feels about a place can
determine not just where they live, but also how they identify with a specific place and
behave in it. The qualitative research I analyze in the following chapters reveals how
some Detroiters actually feel about new developments and what implications such
insights bear for the future of their city and their presence in it.
Chapter 3
GENTRIFICATION IS HAPPENING
Yes, gentrification is the only word I know of to describe whats happening right
now.64
-- YEA member in response to a question asking
if gentrification accurately describes the changes
she sees occurring in the city of Detroit
Its All in a Name

64
Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, March 7, 2013.
Williams 28
The EMEAC staff is in no way ignorant to the process of gentrification, as they
define it. As an interviewee explained to me, a significant motive for their moving into
their current offices at the Cass Corridor Commons in summer 2011 was the unaffordable
doubling of their rents at their previous office space in the Medical Center area, deeper
into the Midtown neighborhood.65 The fortuitous timing of their being priced out by
new development along with the financial woes of a local church struggling to maintain
its large building allowed an agreement to take place that birthed the Commons, which
actually occupies the 95-year-old, 42,000-square foot home of the First Unitarian
Universalist Church of Detroit.66 EMEACs establishment of the Commons, then,
became not just a new permanent workspace for the organization but also a community
space rented out and shared to other environmental and social justice organizations
throughout the city. Establishing a strong social justice presence in their new home on the
corner of Cass and West Forest Avenues, on the southernmost fringe of the campus of
widely known Midtown landmark Wayne State University,67 was key to EMEACs goals
of resisting the very ever-growing tide of gentrification that forced them out of their
previous offices.
An EMEAC staff member voiced the motivation for their efforts by asserting that,
Gentrification is happening alarmingly fast. There is Midtown, which is good in and of
itself, but those business owners dont necessarily look like the people who have been
there of long standing.68 As a result, at the core of the mission of the Cass Corridor

65
See area labeled as Medical Center in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.

Kate Abbey-Lambertz, Cass Community Commons: Community Groups, Unitarian Church Come Together,
Huffington Post: Detroit, December 26, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.
67
See area labeled as North Cass in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.
68
Quoted in Larry Gabriel, A commons idea: Cass Corridor experiment would save a church and mitigate
gentrifications excesses, Metro Times, August 31, 2011, http://metrotimes.com/columns/a-commons-idea-1.1195774,
1.
66
Williams 29
Commons, and even the formation of its namesake, was a clear goal of mitigating the
excesses of gentrification by first [embracing] the name and sensibility of the old
Cass Corridor just as the rebranding of the area as Midtown seems to be taking off.69
Preserving the collective memory as well as cultural and historical significance of spaces
through their names is a strategy of resisting, what I identify in this study, as the cultural
displacement my research subjects and other working- or middle-class, longtime Black
Detroiters may be experiencing.
It must be noted that the area identified as Midtown did not even receive its
trendy and now widely publicized moniker until within the recent decade for the sake of
cultural rebranding and economic redevelopment efforts, primarily by community and
economic development corporations like Midtown Detroit, Inc.70 The renaming of the
area directly coincided with the agenda of revitalization and attracting more young
professionals to live, work and engage in recreation there. The Midtown name included
the virtual agglomeration of several neighborhoods meandering off of the main
thoroughfare of Woodward Avenue, including ones like Brush Park71 with histories
dating back to the early 20th and late 19th centuries. Its boundaries continue to expand to
this day to incorporate additional neighborhoods like New Center72 further to the north.73
Even what 7.2 SQ MI defines as Greater Downtown is yet another example of
renaming and rebranding, given that the title of Greater Downtown was largely
unheard of until the release of the report in February 2013. Regardless of whether or not

69
Ibid.
Midtown Detroit, Inc., "Who We Are," Midtown Detroit, Inc., accessed November 14, 2012,
http://midtowndetroitinc.org/about-midtown-detroit-inc/who-we-are.
70
71
See area labeled as Brush Park in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.

See area labeled as New Center in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.
73
Midtown Detroit, Inc., Who We Are.
72
Williams 30
these cases of renaming are merely marketing ploys and place-making strategies to attract
what john powell defined earlier as in-fill housing and development and middle-income
residents, they do not take away from the frustration and concern expressed by the
constituents of this study. The cynicism and skepticism surrounding neighborhood
rebranding does, however, highlight the discomfort that EMEAC staff and interviewees
felt about what they see as telltale signs of gentrification occurring in Detroit.
Defining Gentrification
EMEACs youngest members the Young Educators Alliance also expressed
concerns about how they are personally witnessing and experiencing gentrification in
their hometown. The groups collective interest in educating themselves more about the
topic of gentrification and ways to mitigate its ills was catalyzed by a negative experience
in summer 2012 recounted by an interviewee of this study:
YEA friends were walking around and were harassed at a community garden
around Wayne State and were not allowed to partake in the normal activities of
using some of the veggies and fruit in the garden because the owner says they had
been experiencing theft. But the purpose of a community garden is to use the
resources it provides. The main part about [this] [story], it affects the youth
young, Black teenagers and adults being oppressed by their Caucasian
counterparts. In this aspect, gentrification is affecting the youth in a cultural
aspect the different cultures not necessarily meshing very well.74
This particular story explains how these young adults felt personally excluded
from one of the many urban and community gardens steadily taking form in Detroit in
recent years, and how this experience of cultural displacement directly connects to their

74
Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, February 26, 2013.
Williams 31
conceptualization of gentrification. Every participant in this study accounted for changes
they observed happening in either their neighborhood or primarily in the city as whole,
most of which were associated with gentrification and acts of displacement. Most of the
changes they noted were in terms of race, class, and economic development or
redevelopment. For example, several interviewees noticed an influx of new businesses
and even larger franchises taking root in place of mom-and-pop stores. Rather than the
clich image of Detroit as a purely poor, dilapidated, and lifeless city that has plagued its
national and international media image for decades, I listened to interviewees describe
how Detroit is morphing into a more economically viable, business attraction. Of course,
participants also mentioned undeniable changes that fall outside the realm of
gentrification but still under the realm of what they deemed as displacement mainly an
increasing number of foreclosures and vacancy as neighbors, family and friends lose their
homes and can no longer afford their property taxes or rents. However, most responses
related the changing landscape of Detroit to changing demographics and new
development, including how Detroit is becoming more popular for more Caucasian
people to move to.75
Given that all interviews were conducted at EMEACs offices in the Cass
Corridor Commons, each of the study participants made several references to the
revitalization efforts occurring in Midtown. One interviewee, who is a student at Wayne
State University,76 commented on how she sees increasing amounts of new development
and White faces while lamenting at the fact that she cannot afford to live in the area
where she works and goes to school. Others explained how they heard of cases where

75
76

See area labeled as Wayne State in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.
Williams 32
individuals and families are being forced to move due to increased rents in Midtown.
Most popular and salient in the discussion around perceived and noticeable changes was
the observation of more upscale cars and commercial spaces in the neighborhood and
how this is complemented with more White people walking and engaging in recreation in
areas they normally would not expect to be seen. To more specifically identify the social
and cultural shifts rising in the area which are examined more in depth in Chapter 4
one individual summarized her perception of changes in the city and their connection to
gentrification by saying, I perceive these changes when you drive through Detroit, like
Midtown, and I keep seeing White people walking dogs. Like every other corner its
White people walking dogs. And it never used to be that way....you could never see that
in the 80s or 90s, maybe in the 2000s.77 Prohibitive pricing also emerged as a
detrimental form of displacement as one interviewee accounted for her recent visit at the
Union Street restaurant on Woodward Avenue, which she used to frequent on a
somewhat normal basis. She firmly believes that the restaurants prime location in
Midtown along with rise of more affluent residents in the area encouraged the
establishment to raise its menu prices to unaffordable amounts. She wont be back there
again.
It is important to understand how participants framed their thoughts on changes in
Detroit and their connection to gentrification by the context of specific neighborhoods,
the primary example being how they supported their claims of gentrification taking place
in Detroit by expressing what they currently observed in Midtown. This shows their
differentiation of current events such as increasing foreclosures from the process of
gentrification, as well as how they have come to define and view gentrification in their

77
Williams 33
everyday lives: the transformation of urban spaces from being easier and more
comfortable to access for people of color and those perhaps of low-income backgrounds
into spaces that cater to more White and middle- and upper-class individuals through new
businesses, housing projects like lofts, and more urbane aesthetic enhancements. Without
any mention of 7.2 SQ MI, and in some cases before the report was even publically
released, the interviews told of this racial, socioeconomic and business transformation
identified as gentrification in neighborhoods besides Midtown such as Corktown and
Woodbridge claims that are statistically supported by the report.
Within this definition of gentrification lies an innate and inextricably linked union
of both physical and cultural displacement. At the core of it is still a commonly accepted
and scholarly use of the term that looks to the physical removal of poorer peoples to
reshape an area by making it more appealing to more affluent citizens, who are
predominantly White. An interviewee captured the essence of the physical displacement
aspect of the process by describing it as the renewal of an area with often prohibitive
pricing thats usually not conducive to the [current] citizens in the area that makes them
have to leave by force.78 In perhaps the most emotional explanation by an interviewee of
how changes she sees in Detroit support what she defines as gentrification, particularly
physical displacement, one EMEAC staff member recounted the personal experience of
her family home undergoing eminent domain by the municipal government for the
construction of a new housing subdivision intended to attract a more stable, middleincome-resident base:
In 1999, my family lived on 64 Meadowbrook on Detroits lower east side, south
of Jefferson. We kept seeing all these surveyors and real estate people come to the

78
Williams 34
neighborhood through to buy peoples homes for cash, but we didnt know what
was happening. Come to find out that in 2000 some developer wanted the land.
They came to the city of Detroit in 2002, struck off under eminent domain, and
took 90.3 acres of land south of Jefferson, north of Prude, east of Waterworks
Park which is Marquette Avenue, and west of St. Jean, and kicked out over 400
families for a real estate development call Graimark Jefferson Village. They sued
us for the title of our house and kicked us out in 2006, well we settled in 2006.
They told us we were too poor and the neighborhood was too dilapidated and we
didnt generate any tax base and we had to leave out for better income people. I
fought them. They tried to give us only a few thousand dollars for our house and
property in East Riverfront. And we ended up trading them our house for another
house in the city. The people moving in were definitely higher-income and White
folks. So they kicked out a whole Black community for upper-income people a
few Blacks but mostly upper-income white people. And this was all under Dennis
Archer, the former mayor, and continued under Kwame Kilpatrick. They flipped
the whole neighborhood. We were the last people in Detroit to be eminent
domained from our houses. We fought them and it was the saddest case of
removal and displacement in Detroits recent memory.79
While it turns out that 151 occupied structures were acquired through eminent
domain clauses versus 400 families and that it is known that a significant number of
African-American households occupy the new construction in the development site, the
details of this account of physical removal are supported by the Neighborhood

79
Williams 35
Development Corporation project plan for the area.80 But as stated before, this aspect of
gentrification only comprises one part of the process, which participants found to be
accompanied by an infringement upon their social and cultural territory as well. As best
summarized by an interviewee, Its a scheme, strategy, process, and program of
removing undesirable elements of the people or the built environment for redevelopment.
It displaces people, it destroys the social fabric, it wipes out historical memory, and it is
removal.81
The Complexity of Defining Gentrification

The fundamental base of each interviewees definition of gentrification is
displacement. As they expressed the physical and cultural ramifications of such, many
acknowledged how the process may be interpreted in many ways, especially depending
on the context of who is being asked to define the term as well as the context of place,
such as examining gentrification in Detroit versus New York City. Every individual
interviewed felt affected by the gentrification they see taking place in the city, but three
of them expressed that they are not experiencing the effects of the shifts in the city as
much as family members and neighbors. Two YEA members admitted that while they are
aware of neighborhoods of Detroit being gentrified, they have yet to feel the full effects
given their status as high school students who do not own or rent property nor have full
80
Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, Neighborhood Development Corporation Project #1 Project Plan, March
20, 1998, accessed March 15, 2013, http://www.degc.org/images/gallery/JVpercent20projpercent20plan.pdf.
81
Williams 36
time jobs. They and their friends witness the process mostly from the standpoint of
cultural displacement given how they are noticing a pattern of feeling unwelcomed and
unwanted both in newly opened establishments that appear to be culturally White and in
spaces they used to frequent with regularity before pockets of Detroit became more
gentrified. As one YEA member articulates, Personally, there is a feeling of people not
wanting me to be in the space that they frequent. To clarify that, I mean those people as
in gentrifiers. I can tell that the majority of them dont like to see my Black face where
my Black face was before they came.82
Yet, the complexity of defining and assessing gentrification arises as two of the
same high school students who spoke of how they may feel culturally at odds interacting
with newcomers in some of Detroits business and entertainment venues also
communicated the positives that have come from the new development. They commented
on how a new sense of diversity is emerging and even the beautification of public and
once-vacant spaces that are improving the areas they like to visit with friends. One of
them went on to suggest that concluding whether or not gentrification is happening
depends on how one wishes to define it; he believes that while the term typically carries a
negative connotation, not all the revitalization is leading to displacement, but instead is
just reshaping the economy. In many respects, this frame of analysis complements how
john powell differentiates between status quo, extra-jurisdictional gentrification occurring
in rich cities compared to highly nuanced forms of gentrification and more so in-fill
housing and development in poor cities. In the latter case, powell assesses that inner-city
residents of color typically find revitalization efforts catering to higher-income Whites as

82
Williams 37
frustrating and an encroachment upon their own sense of place and political sovereignty
in the central city. One YEA supervisor addressed this notion directly:
I think that at YEA we use the term slightly different than the dictionary or
textbook definition of the word. The dictionary or textbook definition would mean
displacement or restructuring of a community based on higher income or people
of higher income moving into an area and over time, the real estate and
development and rents of that area coming to cater to that higher income with
resulting displacement of the original community, and then eventually it gets to
the point where there is a new memory and identity of that place and the old one
is washed away like a sandcastle in the tide and then people are often displaced to
other parts of the metro area. But I try to keep in front of YEA, in the context of
Detroit, is gentrification being not merely a thing about demographics but also
really of power and the attempt to disrupt Detroits identity as a place of where
there is a concentration of Black political and community power. And thats
where it gets tricky.83
While most participants recognized their nuanced classification of what comprises
gentrification, including the fact that some people refuse to believe that the phenomenon
is taking place in Detroit at all, they defended their definition of the term. Furthermore,
some individuals incorporated aspects of disempowerment into their responses by
alluding to political discourse and current events that were not associated with land use,
urban planning, or community and economic development per se. Specifically, a few
interviewees cited Michigan Governor Rick Snyders recent appointment of an

83
Williams 38
emergency manager over Detroit84 as a component of gentrification. While one subject in
particular ascribed this issue to what they coined as political displacement, I consider
this as merely yet another facet of the cultural displacement and what john powell
eloquently captures as a fear of White domination.85 Despite the fact that emergency
manager Kevyn Orr is Black, his appointment by a White, Republican governor over a
majority Black, Democratic city as well as the political power he will possess to address
Detroits gravest challenges has drawn considerable amounts of debate, frustration and
controversy. Such sentiments were echoed by another participant who blatantly expressed
a connection between gentrification and the public act allowing for the placement of an
emergency manager in Detroit due to the greater power the manager has in comparison to
the Mayor and City Council; he saw this as parallel to dictatorial leadership,
disenfranchisement, and thus, yet another form of displacement stripping away the
agency from everyday people to shape their communities how they see fit. To summate
these sentiments, the same YEA supervisor quoted on Page 36 explained, When you
look at institutions of Detroit, the emergency manager stuff, stuff going on with the
school board, and whats going on with regionalization and even privatization. I call that
gentrification, but if this were a game show, they would say thats an incorrect answer.
Im not using the word technically; Im using it as a catchall for a phenomenon we really
dont have a terminology for.86
Community Input & A Lack of the Right Terminology

84
State of Michigan, Contract for Emergency Financial Manager Services (Lansing: Department of Treasury, 2013),
http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4202209314.PDF, 1.
85
Quoted in powell, Race, Poverty, and Urban Sprawl, 12.
86
Williams 39
As the last quote from a YEA supervisor asserts, a general lack of words for
capturing and communicating all of the variances of displacement explains why some
interviewees have included various aspects of displacement under the umbrella term of
gentrification. This parallels the findings of YEA members and EMEAC staff from the
Feed 1 Teach 1 event they hosted, the documentary they created, and their interactions
with everyday people on this subject matter. My interviewees discovered that many other
Detroiters are definitely aware of changes occurring in the city in terms of demographics,
housing, and commercial developments that could be associated to gentrification, but
rarely use that word to describe the changes they see. In fact, a few participants noted that
they, themselves, did not even know or use the word until their work with YEA
introduced them to it within the past year. They believe ignorance of the word and rare
use of it in their neighborhoods and communities primarily stem from the fact that
gentrification is still a new and somewhat foreign concept to Detroit, and also because it
fails to be a part of the vernacular of everyday people.
However, limited use of the terminology associated with this urban studies subject
matter does not at all suggest that these everyday citizens are ignorant of the effects that
gentrification in Detroit is causing. Interviewees declared that it is quite the contrary. The
insights they have collected from interviews and community dialogues clearly show that
Detroiters notice the same trends of gentrifications that the interviewees of this study
identified and they are just as much puzzled and frustrated by these observations. YEA
members acknowledged that they have definitely heard multiple viewpoints on the issue,
including some that testify the positive outcomes gentrification in Detroit is creating such
as renewing a presence of small businesses back into the city. However, they noted that

Williams 40
identity played a major role in the type of answers they received, particularly a persons
class and their status as a Detroit citizen or suburbanite. Overall, the most salient outcome
of their outreach was the knowledge of Detroiters confirming that gentrification is
happening here and that they are quite skeptical of the implications that such a truth
signifies. At their Feed 1 Teach 1 program, for example, YEA gathered input from
attendees that identified immediate challenges and foreseeable futures stemming from
gentrification, including corporate greed, city-approved land grabs, highly augmented
taxes and property values, speculation of cheap parcels of land to sell for large profits in
the long-term future, and growing inequality. While some of this information confirmed
viewpoints that YEA members had already been hearing, for one interviewee of this
study it evoked feelings of catharsis to realize that other Detroiters felt just as displaced
and frustrated as she was.
YEA members and EMEAC staff also commented on how other Detroiters they
have talked to are largely framing this conversation through the lens of identity and
cynicism towards a growing White population. Once again, the anger and frustration
being communicated is rooted in a fear of physical displacement and loss of Black
political power and sociocultural agency in Detroit. But more than just fear, the
skepticism towards an emerging young, White culture in Detroit targets the immense
cultural pride and the historical legacies, particularly of Black people, that form how
these Detroiters view their city, as a couple of YEA members affirmed. Thus, the
emergence of a new population and restaurants, stores and housing that cater to their
needs and desires, forms an attack on the cultural Blackness that has become synonymous
with the image and identity of Detroit for decades since the latter half of the 20th century,

Williams 41
especially for the senior citizens that YEA interviewed. It amasses feelings not just of
fear, but also of insult.
Chapter 4
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
I see two Detroits: one with resources and one without.87
-- EMEAC staff member in response to a question
asking if the gentrification she has identified in Detroit
is attracting a new culture to the city
A New Culture
As discussed multiple times before, identity forms the nexus of this dialogue, its
complexity, and why interviewees and those they have talked with feel culturally
displaced. It was made clear by several participants that understanding whether or not
gentrification is happening in Detroit, and the ethical implications it evokes if it is

87
Williams 42
occurring, is a contextual issue addressed by a diverse set of perspectives. This
framework of analysis is most clearly articulated through one interviewees words:
If I were a gentrifier, I would say it is a known good. It depends upon
perspective. If youre poor or working class or marginalized, its not a good thing.
If youre a developer, capitalist, or a person with higher income, gentrification is a
good thing for cheap land, access; you get to be fast-tracked, considered an
amenity, worthwhile, and encouraged and supported in a place. You get to placemake. If youre poor, you dont get to place-make.88
Woven in between this dynamic of gentrifrier versus the gentrified emerges the
politics of race and class, which interviewees unanimously contended form the most
significant factors in this discussion. Most of the changes that Detroiters observed
happening in the city dealt with the influx of the young, White and college-educated
professionals colliding with the dominant demography of Black, working-class citizens.
There is a widely growing perception of a new White culture invading the urban frontier,
ignoring the gravity of its challenges such as high amounts of crime and faltering
financial stability, and seizing upon the opportunity of Detroits crisis to capitalize off of
the cheap rents, housing, and potential for an urbane lifestyle. Viewed as Millennial
hipsters drawn to the grittiness and aesthetic quality of dense, urban environments, they
are seen as the members of urbanist Richard Floridas creative class,89 infiltrating the

88

The creative class is a posited socioeconomic class created by American economist and social scientist Richard
Florida. According to Floridas research, they compromise about 40 million workers or nearly 1/3 of the U.S.
workforce and are a key contributor to the economic resurgence of post-Industrial cities and will largely dictate the
economic growth of the country for at least the next decade. As their namesake infers, members of this class primarily
occupy creative job fields including the sciences, research, engineering, media, design, art, and technology with a
particular emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship. They also find themselves drawn to dense, urban, and diverse
89
Williams 43
urban landscape of post-Industrial metropolises across the Rustbelt and the rest of the
country. Supplying the creative and entrepreneurial force behind newly defined
neighborhoods like Techtown,90 and occupying the new lofts along Woodward Avenue
and cafs opening throughout Greater Downtown, they bring the spirit and facade of a
Bohemian culture all too familiar with cities like New York. Furthermore, these
newcomers are perceived to be all the new White faces walking dogs, jogging, and
running along the streets of Midtown and Downtown that my interviewees identified as
part of the changing landscape of Detroit.
Participants of this study and those that they have been in conversation with
directly correlate this new culture rising in Detroit to new developments and aesthetic
alterations in parts of the city. An EMEAC staff member noted that a prime example of
this is the addition of more bike lanes in Midtown and Corktown, which she describes as
unexpected and appearing virtually overnight. She explained how biking had not
traditionally been encouraged, but the presence of a newer population that engages in the
activity has resulted in the more bike trials and lanes particularly being placed in
neighborhoods of Greater Downtown.
All of the participants noted not only the presence of this emerging culture in the
city, but also expressed concerns of how this culture is creating tension with the
prevailing Black culture of Detroit. While some individuals manifested feelings of
frustration with the growing number of White people calling Greater Downtown home,
many interviewees did not pass any direct judgment or animosity towards the newcomers

environments that compliment their Bohemian lifestyle of Street Level Culture such as frequenting small cafs and art
galleries. See Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class: Revisited (New York: Basic, 2012).
90
See area labeled as Techtown in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.
Williams 44
as much as they did towards the market forces, developers, and even political and
economic growth initiatives catering to the new culture while ignoring the needs of the
majority. Nonetheless, they see social disruption emerging from the arrival of everyday
newcomers known as the gentrifiers. One participant described the situation of
economic development as a game of chess; while he is not mad at the new Whites who he
sees as merely pawns on the frontline playing their role in American urban development
and in no way possessing the power of market forces, which are the Kings and Queens,
he understands that the pawns will naturally collide first with the people of Detroit given
their position at the forefront.
Urban Renewal By Another Name

Regardless of who is considered the gentrifier and their intentions for
occupying space in Detroit, my qualitative research presented conclusions that will
predominantly show Whites as the higher-class group of individuals moving in and
displacing Blacks who make up the lower class. Even though two interviewees admitted
that these gentrifiers represent several different races and ethnicities, the Black versus
White dynamic strongly dominates perceptions of gentrification in Detroit, fueling
resentment towards many efforts to strengthen or cater to a White, middle- or upper-class
base. Most of this cynicism and feelings of cultural displacement stem from histories and
collective memory of decades- and centuries-old racist, urban planning and land use
regulation practices that benefitted White citizens at the expense of people of color and
Williams 45
low-income families. One interviewee explained hostility towards gentrification as rooted
in the oppressive tactics of colonialism and Manifest Destiny of the 19th century, in which
hegemonic American forces unlawfully seized land, expanding the countrys boundaries
westward and southward and destroying the resources and lifestyles of indigenous
peoples of color of the Americas. Thus, resisting the advances of gentrification onto the
frontier of the inner city is really a stake at combating White supremacist practices that
seek to displace marginalized peoples as dispensable beings and capitalize off of their
land for economic gain.
All of my studys participants, however, connected gentrification to the more
recent demon of Americas urban planning past known as Urban Renewal,91 which
unethically displaced Black and low-income peoples in cities across the country in the
mid-20th century, including some of the older relatives of the participants. Whether
known as historical truths or lived memories, visions of Urban Renewal and how it
uprooted entire Detroit communities at the heart of African-American life, strongly
influenced negative sentiments that people harbored towards gentrification and even the
thought of being physically and culturally displaced again. Memories of racist housing
policies and abandonment of the city via White Flight fuels lasting distrust and disdain
for White resurgence back into the city. More so than that, the legacies of Urban Renewal
that survive off of the urban sprawl that continues to sustain concentrated poverty in the

91
Urban Renewal refers to the set of local, state and largely federal initiatives, beginning in the late 1940s and carrying
into the 1950s and 60s, that saw the large-scale removal of what were determined as blighted neighborhoods in
Americas largest cities. This removal of mostly Black and low-income neighborhoods was accompanied by federal
funding to construct massive interstate highway systems and local freeways that usually took the place of the uprooted
blight. Also in place of the new vacancies were new civic buildings and housing projects ranging from low- to middleincome housing that aimed to revitalize inner cities and make them more conducive to commercial and business use. Its
usage of tactics such as eminent domain to seize land and even its subsidizing for the growth of suburbia and what is
identified as urban sprawl remains contested urban planning issues that plague the downfall of many American cities to
this day. See June Manning Thomas, Redevelopment and Race: Planning a Finer City in Postwar Detroit (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins UP, 1997).
Williams 46
inner city and truncate the resources and opportunities of the urban Black, lower class92
haunts the everyday lifestyles of Detroiters and substantiates the social, cultural, political
and economic tension between the city and its suburbs.
EMEAC staff and YEA heavily focused on the parallel relationship between
gentrification and Urban Renewal, and in some cases used the terms synonymously,
referring to gentrification as merely a modern-day form of Urban Renewal practices of
the not-so-distant past. There were strong sentiments expressed of a feeling of history
repeating itself and frustration with Whites deserting the inner city for more resources
and opportunities. Now that Whites are perceived as returning to possibly reclaim what
they feel was rightfully theirs to begin with, the issue and fear stands that lower-class
Blacks will remain largely disconnected from those same opportunities.
Living with the remnants of Urban Renewal assured a few YEA members that
Detroiters are aware of gentrification becoming more manifest in the city because it is
only a repetition of the past and an exacerbation of current realities that hinder the Black
working class from achieving upward social mobility and economic progress.
Referencing back to the data analysis in Chapter 3 discussing the rare use of the word
gentrification in conversation with everyday Detroiters, one interviewee argues that
there is no great need for usage of the word since the displacement of marginalized
peoples is a part of the status quo. She asserts that a lot of everyday people arent saying
the word gentrification because its life. Weve been being displaced and treated
unequally for so long, and we have to deal with it and get over it. Not to say that its not
right, but it aint never been right.93 For a similar reason, another EMEAC staff member

92
93
powell, Race, Poverty, and Urban Sprawl, 4.

Quoted in an interview with the author, Detroit, March 9, 2013.
Williams 47
fails to see the return of more White faces to Detroit as the growth of a new culture, but
instead as constituents of a White capitalist regime making their way back into city
jurisdictions.
What Lies Ahead
Again, while the allure of diversity seems appealing, most of those interviewed
found the reality of genuine inclusivity to be unfathomable considering present-day
circumstances. As much as the urban opportunity of Detroit attracts households of
various races, ethnicities, incomes and backgrounds, interviewees foresee this
opportunity creating boundaries that will lead to increased tension. Attitudes of cultural
displacement along with the changing demographics, themselves, bolster a growing
divisiveness and bifurcation between the Greater Downtown and the rest of the city.
What exists is a Detroit of two different worlds, coexisting side by side: one being the
dominant, Black working-class culture that has been invested in the city for generations,
and the other being of a younger, more educated, wealthier, and diverse (particularly
more White) culture of newcomers. One culture is perceived as weakening and
experiencing economic hardship, while the other is predicted to flourish and thrive. As
communicated to me:
Its creating a two-tiered Detroit. Theres the Detroit of the old rooted in the
auto industry, the Motown sound, Hastings St., Black Bottom, Great Migration of
African-Americans from Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Tennessee, what
turned Detroit into a chocolate city and built the middle class and allowed for
Black self-sufficiency. That Detroit thats 80, 90 and 100 years old and 2-3
generations deep is being supplanted by a brand new technology-driven,
Williams 48
Facebook, Twitter, iPhone-having, latte-sipping, hipster White people. Theres
the gritty and the musical and the labor class and hardworking community thats
African-American and is here. Then theres another culture of what they call the
creative class of artists and bloggers and communications people and designers
and makers showing up here and thinking Detroit is a blank slate.94
This tale of two cities narrative is also becoming less foreign in media coverage
of Detroit. While it was stated in the Literature Review section of this study that Data
Driven Detroit director Kurt Metzger believes the city is far away from gentrification, he
is found in an MLive article somewhat ironically supporting the notion that there are two
very distinct stories at play in the citys current state. Metzger affirms, You have the
exciting story about Midtown and Downtown and Woodbridge and Corktown and a few
other neighborhoods around this core. You've got this population coming in. You've got
the business development Downtown... Then you've' got the rest of the city.95 He
believes that constituents of Detroit cannot just focus on the cool stuff96 in Greater
Downtown, but that more serious attention must be given to working with people who are
already here and engaging in the difficult work of community-building and addressing K12 reform.
If the hard questions are not answered and the difficult work is prolonged, then
YEA members and EMEAC staff foresee an even more challenging and troublesome
future for the Motor City. Nearly all interviewees envisioned the tale of two cities
narrative becoming more full-blown, seeing the unperturbed growth of gentrification,

94
Quoted in an interview with the author, Detroit, February 28, 2013.

Quoted in Khalil AlHajal, Electing City Council by district could change the conversation, spur a new kind of
Detroit recovery, says demographer, MLive, February 1, 2013,
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2013/02/electing_city_council_by_distr.html.
96
Ibid.
95
Williams 49
particularly in Greater Downtown, to a point where physical displacement will evenly
match the already-growing sense of cultural displacement. This equates to the
exacerbation of the systemic inequality via racial and socioeconomic stratification that
has remained steadfast in the metropolitan Detroit region for decades. Land in the city
will become a commodity for multi-national corporations and there will be considerable
efforts to transform the image of Detroit into one that is highly attractive to various
businesses, commercial endeavors, and tourism. Two individuals went as far as to say
that Detroit will become the next Washington, D.C.; after decades of White abandonment
and loss of population and financial resources that gave this city its Black majority,
gentrification will dramatically transform the city with an influx of young White
professionals and creation of unaffordable neighborhoods leading to the loss of its Blackmajority status as it did in the nations capital.97 Straight out of the tumultuous racial
pasts of both of these cities, some interviewees believe that this future could also involve
a resurfacing of social unrest and rebellion, commonly known as riots.
But this is all only if YEA, EMEAC, and the people of Detroit do nothing to stop
the problem at hand. As one interviewee addresses Detroits challenges from
gentrification to financial woes and even vacancy, Now that we have nothing, we have
everything. We have each other, and a bunch of land.98

97
Garance Franke-Ruta, The Politics of the Urban Comeback: Gentrification and Culture in D.C., The Atlantic,
August 10, 2012, http://www.theatlantic.com/.
98
Quoted in an interview with the author, Detroit, February 7, 2013.
Williams 50
Chapter 5
CONCLUSION
In the midst of already formidable challenges, the growing threat of gentrification
now faces Detroit. While some may scoff at the validity of such a statement and others
may not be privy to using the exact terminology, the findings of this study clearly suggest
that it is time that we stop ignoring the telltale signs of this process, specifically in terms
of racial, socioeconomic and cultural dynamic shifts in the city. Given Detroits status as
a poor city in dire need of greater capital and a mixed-income tax base, most
redevelopment efforts occurring here will, in fact, be nothing more than in-fill housing
and development to meet that need. Even with the possibility of small numbers of highly
nuanced cases, The Motor City will likely never reach the critical mass of extrajurisdictional gentrification consuming rich cities like New York or even middle-income
regions such as Washington, D.C. in the near future of the coming decades.
Williams 51
However, this does not mean that the conversation of gentrifications presence in
Detroit stops here. As my research proposes, it is important that everyone from scholars
in this field to urban planners and policymakers to everyday citizens expand our
definition and understanding of gentrification to include its sociocultural ramifications
and the aspect of cultural displacement. This means recognizing that being excluded and
unwelcome from a space can be just as much cultural as it is physical, and that the
emotional toll can be comparably detrimental. After all, issues of land use, housing and
economic development have never been truly distinct from the historical, familial and
cultural ties that complement them.
Through this realization, we can properly move forward from the unjust mistakes
of our past, such as in Urban Renewal, to collectively craft a more inclusive, responsible,
equitable, and sustainable future for Detroit. In doing so, we can turn the challenge of
gentrification in Detroit into an opportunity to confront racial and class climate issues in a
way that embraces newcomers while also preserving the Black cultural heritage of the
city and working with residents who are already here. This is a call for better community
and civic engagement strategies as well as public education on urban planning issues,
particularly informing inner-city residents on how and why in-fill development can lead
to more municipal resources. This would also provide the opportunity to focus our
attention on more pressing challenges, mainly correcting regionalization strategies to
begin to cease generational cycles of concentrated poverty in the inner city.
While putting an end to feelings of division and displacement appear to be
daunting, we must begin this journey, as the title of this thesis suggests, by listening to
each other.
Williams 52
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Listening To Detroit-Gentrification

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Listening to Detroit: Perspectives on Gentrification in the Motor City

A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment

A TALE OF TWO CITIES..42

BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY

Figure 1: Hudson-Webber Foundation, et al., Greater Downtown Detroit By

Quoted in Elliott, Planning Appropriately for Our Future.

Elliott, Planning Appropriately for Our Future.

Lees, Slater, and Wyly, Gentrification, 10.

The Urban Pioneer Spirit

Quoted in Brown-Saracino, A Neighborhood That Never Changes, 5.

Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, March 7, 2013.

See area labeled as Medical Center in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.

See area labeled as Brush Park in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.

Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, February 26, 2013.

Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, March 7, 2013.

Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, February 28, 2013.

Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, February 5, 2013.

Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, February 28, 2013.

The Complexity of Defining Gentrification

Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, February 7, 2013.

Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, February 13, 2013.

Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, March 12, 2013.

Quoted in interview with the author, Detroit, February 28, 2013.

See area labeled as Techtown in Figure 1 on Page 8 of this study.

Urban Renewal By Another Name

powell, Race, Poverty, and Urban Sprawl, 4.

Quoted in an interview with the author, Detroit, February 28, 2013.

Postwar Detroit. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1997.

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