I have the senior project term paper and will provide you with that. In addition, I have 9 sources that are needed for this paper. Feel free to include more sources that are relevant.

I N T E R N AT I O N A L J O U R N A L O F U R B A N A N D R E G I O N A L R E S E A R C H D O I : 1 0 . 1 1 1 1 / 1 4 6 8 - 2 4 2 7 . 1 2 8 5 8

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I would like to acknowledge the helpful advice of the anonymous IJURR reviewers, and for the support and vision of the handling editor. This work was funded in part by the UCLA Graduate Division and the Bunche Center for African American Studies.

— THE SHRINKING CITY AS A GROWTH MACHINE: Detroit’s Reinvention of Growth through Triage, Foundation Work and Talent Attraction

Lisa BergLund

Abstract Despite Detroit’s reputation for social and financial crisis, developers and investors

have successfully pursued growth and land-use intensification in recent years. However, in Molotch’s initial conception of the growth machine, environments of extreme decline go under analyzed. While scholars have investigated the role of growth in Detroit, they have narrowly focused on a single document: the Detroit Future City framework. This work looks more holistically at the development networks leveraged to pursue growth through a discourse analysis of a broader set of development documents and interviews with development professionals, uncovering ways the growth machine adapts to this unlikely environment for growth. Rather than proposing an alternative to growth for a shrinking city, growth elites (led by philanthropic foundations) propose development scenarios leveraging triage to channel diminished amounts of development resources. In doing this, Greater Downtown, with its investment potential, is polarized from other areas of the city seen as risky investments. In addition to focusing growth in investment-friendly areas, growth coalitions pursue incentives and branding campaigns to attract talent and affluence. These dynamics are a divergence from the growth machine model that supports the narrative that growth benefits all residents in favor of a narrative of triage.

Introduction This article aims to uncover new ways that growth regimes operate in Detroit, a

city that is often subject to a social imaginary of destituteness and financial collapse. This work seeks to understand the discursive practices that allow growth strategies to persist under these conditions, and how growth coalitions adapt their strategies to operate in the context of severe decline. Using discourse analysis of interviews with development professionals and prominent development documents in Downtown and Midtown, this article aims to uncover the discursive practices that help maintain strategies of boosterism of growth machine dynamics in the context of a declining city. In other words, this research asks what new discursive and economic practices are innovated in order to make growth seem feasible against all financial odds.

When Molotch (1976) wrote ‘The City as a Growth Machine’, he uncovered a dominant paradigm that allowed for a new understanding of who holds the power in development, and the social implications of such imbalances. This work described the unwavering commitment to growth in many cities at the hands of exclusive groups of land-owning elites. Through various strategies to leverage boosterism, these growth coalitions gain political support for publicly subsidized development projects such as stadiums and market rate housing, in addition to their shares in public institutions like museums and universities (Molotch, 1976). Today, many urban scholars still stand by Molotch’s growth machine thesis as the driving factor behind urban development (Jonas and Wilson, 1999).

However, the original conception of the growth machine and subsequent literature has not thoroughly outlined how it might function in environments of

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extreme fiscal austerity, as in Detroit. Scholars debate the degree to which the current development practices in the city resemble a typical growth machine. Hackworth (2015) and Akers (2015) argue that there is evidence that the strategy of urban triage is being used to create markets in what are seen as viable areas of the city, pursuing growth and land-use intensification by leveraging discourses of fiscal austerity; in other words, that the current development regime in Detroit is representative of austerity urbanism. On a quite different side of this debate, Schindler (2016) argues that development in Detroit represents a change of course towards a democratic and sustainability minded agenda, or as he has termed it, a ‘degrowth machine politics’. These debates are focused on an exceptional privately sanctioned master plan called Detroit Future City (DFC). The DFC is a 50-year land use and development plan for the city that was put together by a coalition of developers and philanthropic foundations, with political support from the municipality; though it is a privately developed plan, it has garnered significant endorsements from the city, and planning department staff (McGraw, 2015; interview, 2015). Recognizing that this unsettled debate focuses narrowly on inferences made about one high-profile development document, I aim to provide a more holistic appraisal of the development climate in Detroit. In doing so, I have analyzed a more diverse set of less sensationalized documents and development initiatives to uncover a more rigorous understanding of the architecture of the growth machine in conditions of decline. The inclusion of more typical strategies for development (like downtown placemaking and development plans) will bridge the gap between Detroit’s image as an outlier in decline, and allow for it to illuminate how the growth machine persists in the many cities facing decline and fiscal distress to a less severe degree. The inner cities of metropolitan areas across the country have fallen into decline in terms of population, finances and the decay of the built environment. The ability to analyze development conditions in Detroit in a way that may be generalized is an important strength of Detroit as a case study that is rarely fully exploited.

On the surface, the existence of development strategies that resemble a growth machine seem to be at odds with the description of Detroit as a ‘shrinking city’. In recent years, scholars in urban planning have begun to analyze a group of shrinking cities, identified principally by population loss and financial crisis (Pallagst et al., 2009). Post- industrial cities like Cleveland, Ohio, Youngstown, Ohio and Flint, Michigan are popular cases in this literature, and often sites posed as development problems that are in need of planning solutions. These discussions are centered on ‘planned shrinkage’ strategies that right-size existing infrastructure to suit smaller populations. Like these other cities, Detroit is often at the center of shrinking city conversations. This article observes the conundrum of development in a shrinking city with little in the way of conventional revenue generation (such as tax revenue), taking place alongside strategies that seem to in many ways resemble the growth machine as outlined by Molotch. The question of how the growth machine adapts to conditions of extreme decline is the central focus of this article.

Since the beginning of its population decline in the 1950s, Detroit has suffered from a reputation of large-scale economic decline, abandonment and crime. At its peak population in the 50s, the city had 1.8 million residents, but today there are about 675,000 Detroiters (Sugrue, 2005; US Census, 2010). The social crisis of the city is evident in increasing rates of racialized concentrated poverty: about one third of the population lives in poverty, and of these residents, over 80% are black (US Census, 2010). The lack of public resources in the city can be seen in its high vacancy rates (about a third of homes in the city are vacant) and the crisis of Detroit Public Schools that has garnered attention in national headlines (Bosman, 2016).

Although it is regarded as a shrinking city, Detroit is no exception to the pursuit of growth that informs development in the cities experiencing expanding economies and populations. In spite of the city’s bankruptcy and high poverty and unemployment

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rates, there is much attention on a supposed ‘renaissance’ of the city in terms of recent large-scale developments and investments in Downtown and Midtown (Safransky, 2014; Gregory, 2015). These development projects, like so many others, are often publicly subsidized through tax abatement and other incentives (Aguilar, 2013; Lawrence, 2017). In this same context of megaprojects and public subsidy, the unprecedented context of bankruptcy of a large US city has brought about extreme austerity measures with regards to public services, and the subsequent privatization of such services (Clement and Kanai, 2015; Peck and Whiteside, 2016). This article will shed light on the discursive practices used by growth coalitions that allow for the pursuit of growth as a development tactic in seemingly the most unlikely of contexts: post-bankruptcy Detroit.

Studying development in Downtown–Midtown Detroit Data for this research were collected during five months of fieldwork in the city

of Detroit. Downtown and Midtown, as adjacent areas of focused development that has intensified over the past five years, serve as the case for this study. Semi-structured interview data and development documents (including promotional materials for projects, development reports and planning frameworks) were collected from investors, architects, urban planners, urban designers and real estate developers practicing in Downtown and Midtown. For this study, practitioners generally fall into one of two categories in terms of their professional objectives: development and investment strategy or project promotion and branding. Development professionals such as designers and planners are mainly defined by the use of their training to devise the specific plans for projects to be implemented. Some take on a role that is more associated with project promotion, serving as public relations consultants. These individuals are employees who are involved in projects in the city of Detroit, either for organizations that are based in or that have satellite offices there. Interviews focused on current work of participants and the vision of such work as it contributes to the future of Downtown–Midtown.

Participants were selected using emergent sampling, beginning with directors of projects and organizations frequently discussed in the media. The developers and designers of projects receiving abundant media attention in the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press over the past five years that large-scale development has taken place in Downtown–Midtown served as a point of departure for emergent sampling. From these initial interviews focusing on highly publicized projects, the additional relevant participants for this study were determined by triangulation, or their mention by multiple interview participants. The majority of interviews were conducted in person with several done over the phone when the participant was not available to meet; they were recorded and then transcribed. In all, 25 participants were interviewed, and seven leading planning documents were analyzed. The participants consist of employees of the following: Wayne County or municipal government (5), real estate development firms (3), design firms (10), private foundations (4) and community development non-profits working with for-profit development entities (3). Of these 25 participants, all were college educated. Three were black and 22 were white; seven were women and 18 were men. This sample was reflective of what I observed to be a racial bias in the development professions in Detroit, which were not consistent with racial demographics of the city.

The transcribed in-person and phone interviews were analyzed by coding, paying special attention to key themes related to the interview questions. Major themes included: (1) the projects being worked on; (2) the process of completing these projects; (3) the actors involved and their roles; (4) the role of the work in larger development trends in the city; and (5) the future of the city envisioned by the participant and/or their organization. To efficiently and systematically compare data across these main themes, coding was done using the software ATLAS.ti. An initial round of coding identified perspectives related to the above described information. Another round of coding was then done to determine patterns in the data, including similarities among perspectives

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as well as idiosyncrasy that some argue should be regarded as a pattern in itself (Saldaña, 2012). Additionally, this study’s use of discourse analysis aims to uncover the habits and beliefs of development professionals who, unlike historically marginalized populations, increasingly control the lives of others (Nader, 1972; Carr, 2010). An understanding of investment and development strategy through the analysis of interviews and documents will shed light on the broader workings of social and economic power in this context of financial crisis.

The growth machine and its alternatives This literature review aims to help situate the current and historical growth

in the Downtown core of Detroit within discourses promoting growth as a necessary component to productive cities. Building on the original work of Harvey Molotch (1976) that coined to term ‘growth machine’, scholars have explored the necessity of growth- oriented ideologies that foster civic pride and boosterism, creating loyalty to place and inter-city competition. Scholars have also addressed economic development strategies of shrinking cities and declining neighborhoods that rely on ‘urban triage’ or ‘planned shrinkage’, promoted as innovative alternatives to the dominant paradigm of growth (Akers, 2015; Hackworth, 2015; Kirkpatrick, 2015; Mallach, 2017). Finally, this literature review covers arguments that such plans, implemented in shrinking cities like Detroit, are merely a continuation of urban austerity of the last decades, prompting considerable concerns about equitable outcomes of these strategies (Akers, 2015; Hackworth, 2015).

— The growth machine The ‘growth machine’ described by Molotch (1976) and, Logan and Molotch

(1987) is an argument that coalitions of land-holding elites pursue an agenda of growth, which has ultimately become the dominant paradigm in urban development. These land- based elites, or rentiers (that include developers, real estate investors, property owners and other direct beneficiaries of development) stand to profit from the intensification of land uses. This intensification, for example, can take place in the form of upzoning and rehabilitation, and in many cases features the development of mega projects such as stadiums and convention centers. As a foundational component of enhancing profits, land-use intensification is a primary goal of land-based elites. From this intensification of land uses, land-based elites are also responsible for the multiplier effects like services, housing and retail that accompany it. In this strategy to enhance the exchange value of property through land use intensification, these elites often work together towards the goal of pursuing growth in a particular geography, which can take place on a block, neighborhood, city or even regional scale. With this pro-growth agenda, elites working together as growth coalitions have the power to shape the urban landscape, and pull political strings that create a positive business environment for those in pursuit of profit through urban growth.

Collusion of actors within local government is necessary for the pursuit of a growth agenda; land use and development regulations are seen by land-based elites as counterproductive to their goals. As a result, these elites become deeply embedded in the workings of cities in many ways. Local politicians often support the belief that

‘growth strengthens the local tax base, creates jobs, provides resources to solve existing social problems, meets the housing needs caused by natural population growth, and allows the market to serve public tastes in housing, neighborhoods and commercial development’ (Logan and Molotch, 1987: 85). As such, local governments pursue growth through policies that deregulate land uses, are lax on pollution abatement, and provide tax cuts to name a few. In this way, the influence of land-based elites with pro-growth agendas is systemic to the development priorities of cities. While this model is widely accepted across planning and geography literature, the broad relationships it outlines are not readily adaptable to conditions of decline that are

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present in many cities that have pursued development through less conventional means. Written during a time of extreme systemic disinvestment in many American inner cities, Molotch’s initial conception of the growth machine does not account for nuance across economic standings of cities that have pursued growth in ways that are unique to local circumstances.

Scholars exploring the social and cultural dynamics of growth machine ideology have argued that the investment in programming that enhances civic pride through boosterism is a necessary component of the machine’s reproduction (Jonas and Wilson, 1999). In the context of Detroit’s decline, Montgomery (2015) observed that the lack of public funding has resulted in the practice of creating boosterism for growth through the support of locally respected cultural figures, such as artists, clergy and intellectuals. Similarly, MacLeod (2011) points to the increasingly significant role that philanthropic foundations play in urban governance, calling for a new way of understanding democratic governance under conditions of extreme austerity. In their influence over civic life through such investments, elites are able to ‘tie growth stratagems to common- sense thought and taken for granted practice’ (Jonas and Wilson, 1999: 9). This ‘common sense’ understanding of growth as a chief concern for cities was outlined by Logan and Molotch (1987), who described the ‘value free’ development, which uses discourse to treat the growth imperative as apolitical, when in reality there are always winners and losers to development. The growth coalitions’ control over the values ascribed to development strategies extends to the curation of the image of an investment-friendly city. Characteristics like tax incentives, docile workforces and low costs of production are touted as assets (Short, 1999). Developing the discourse and reputation of a ‘friendly business environment’ is then a vital component of the goal of growth (Short, 1999).

Conceptualized in the mid-1970s, early discourses on growth machine dynamics had not yet explored the ways that it encounters and navigates the obstacle of austerity urbanism. Tightening budgets under neoliberal governance have created conditions of crumbling infrastructure. Logan and Molotch (1987) note that the existence of public infrastructure is a necessity for growth elites to build on their goals of land intensification. Kirkpatrick and Smith (2011) have observed that growth coalitions have adapted to the challenge of the lack of reliable public infrastructure under neoliberalism. They argue that they have done so by providing infrastructural improvements themselves, resulting in the common existence of privatized infrastructure made possible through municipal bond markets. In other words, cities now rely on debt to continue their pursuit of growth.

— Alternatives to growth Some have commented that the normalized pursuit of economic growth is not

sustainable for many cities, particularly those faced with the dilemma of tightening municipal budgets in declining neighborhoods (Downs, 1975; Silverman et al., 2015). Economist Anthony Downs (1975) proposed a neighborhood prioritizing system he termed ‘urban triage’. Under this strategy, neighborhoods that seem to be at a pivotal point where they could either continue to decline or be improved through redevelopment funding were placed at a top priority. At the lowest priority are neighborhoods showing no signs of decline, and those with extreme signs of decline. Today, while the basic idea of triage is often used as justification for funding and service cuts to certain areas, it has broadened to generally be understood as ‘any plan or policy that spatially targets expenditures on the basis of viability, such that the ways in which the flow of public resources to “non-viable” neighborhoods is constricted’ (Kirkpatrick, 2015: 263). Although in recent decades of austerity many municipalities have struggled to pursue growth, Silverman et al. (2015) commented on the persistence of growth as a principle imperative for local governance in declining cities. Silverman et al. (2015) observed a pattern across several declining cities where triage or rightsizing strategies

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were being pursued in a fragmented way, but found that growth was still the dominant development strategy.

Logan and Molotch (1987) argued that a triage strategy does not always pit the interests of struggling communities aiming to improve use value against the exchange value oriented goals of land-based elites. Since community organizations aiming for improved quality of life in declining cities are not usually in a financial position to lift up an entire neighborhood, growth elites may play a role in land-use intensification that makes the neighborhood attractive to further investment. However, these strategies generally do not improve the use values for the lowest income community members, often displacing them. Logan and Molotch explain: ‘Thus, there may be a fruitful basis for coalition. From the standpoint of the community organization, and this is indeed another paradox, it becomes necessary to destroy at least part of the neighborhood in order to save it’ (ibid.: 145).

The applications of urban triage have been met with the critique that it justifies development decisions that place neighborhoods in the most need at a lower priority (Kirkpatrick, 2015; Mallach, 2017). Peter Marcuse et al. (1982) argue that strategies of triage often use language of inevitability when speaking of the state of decline of some neighborhoods, ignoring that problematic policies that systematically deny resources are a chief cause of decline in the first place. However, many interpretations of urban triage have caught on, particularly in extreme cases of dwindling public resources for development. In the context of entire cities that have lost large amounts of population and wealth, such as Detroit and Cleveland, the growth elite along with local governments have pursued ‘right sizing’, or ‘planned shrinkage’, to stabilize economic tailspin.

In these so-called ‘shrinking cities’, plans to retrofit oversized infrastructure and the capacity of the built environment have been pursued as an alternative to growth (Beyer et al., 2006; Schilling and Logan, 2008; Martinez-Fernandez et al., 2012b). Martinez-Fernandez et al. (2012a) acknowledge that many shrinking cities still pursue growth in similar ways to cities experiencing economic and population growth due to the stigma associated with shrinkage; as such, shrinking cities often seek to rebrand or reinvent their economic development strategies. Wiechmann and Pallagst (2012) argue that two trends dominate development in shrinking cities: pursuit of conventional growth models and strategies of planned shrinkage presented as complete alternatives to growth. Plans of Cleveland, Youngstown and Detroit have proposed that city services be downsized in certain areas, and suggested alternative uses for neighborhoods that would be reverted to lower cost functions, such as green spaces (Gallagher, 2010; Detroit Future City, 2015). With this approach, a municipality ‘rejects the fetishization of urban growth and expansion, [and] it is a refreshing change for a city in such desperate need of stabilization (and in such little need of another failed growth scheme)’ (Kirkpatrick, 2015: 272). In recent decades, these plans are often pursued through the increased political leverage of philanthropic foundations that have become important sources of funding for cash strapped, declining cities (Thomson, 2013). Thomson found that the triage strategy of targeting ‘middle neighborhoods’ for concentrated investment may be supported by NGOs hoping to see a return on their investment; regardless, municipalities often pursue growth due to aforementioned political pressures to expand economically.

Though celebrated by many as an innovative planning strategy to address the rapid shrinkage of some cities, others have raised questions about the equity outcomes of such plans (Akers, 2015; Hackworth, 2015; Mallach, 2017). The skepticism about fair outcomes from planned shrinkage are especially salient given that shrinking cities are inherently home to increasingly marginalized populations who have persevered through extremely racially disparate and polarized conditions (Thomas, 1988; Großmann et al., 2013; Audirac, 2018). Audirac (2018) argues that there is potential damage done to communities in shrinking cities through the designation of ‘shrinking’ from the outset.

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She states that the designation of a shrinking city puts marginalized communities in a position where they are viewed through a lens of pathology and territorial stigmatization. She states that:

Shrinking city labeling and smart shrinking policies have been strongly resented by poor African American and immigrant communities, who see them as a neoliberal ploy to cleanse their neighborhoods of their racial and subaltern minority taint by branding them obsolete, vacant, and ready for redevelopment either in the form of megaprojects, green infrastructure, or small districts for urban hipsters, urban pioneers, and highly educated knowledge workers (ibid.: 18).

From this position of territorial stigmatization, these geographies of shrinkage become sitting ducks for the next planning or policy intervention.

The DFC framework has served as a significant case for scholars to explore the feasibility of planned shrinkage and the persistence of the growth machine. Echoing concerns about the equity of rightsizing plans, Hackworth (2015) states that they are not an innovation, but merely a continuation of the trend of austerity urbanism that has prioritized private investment over socially minded programming. If rightsizing were really about downsizing existing infrastructure with cost saving and environmental impacts in mind, he argues, the DFC would not be so focused on creating new markets for private investment. He says that: ‘Actualized rightsizing is not a postgrowth epiphany; it is an attempt to reset growth by converting the most expensive parts of the territorial social economy into a new investment opportunity’ (ibid.: 780).

A Akers (2015) observed that the designation of areas of different land uses in the DFC (some being converted away from residential through the removal of services, and others seeing land use intensification through their designation as local centers for activity) generally amounts to the assigning of different market potentials. In his view, the land management of different parts of the city amounts to ‘the management of territory as a collection of real estate markets and an aggressive transfer of control over productive territories to philanthropies and investors’ (ibid.: 1843). In this ‘market city’ that is created from such a triage strategy, the role of local planning entities lies in the creation of markets through land uses; the shift in land use allows the power and direction of development to be transferred to private entities taking advantage of newly formed markets (ibid.). Building from these arguments, Montgomery (2016: 786) points to the ways that austerity is race and class biased, stating that:

DFC weds greening with rightsizing, advocating an austerity regimen of cost- saving service cuts and green projects (urban farms, carbon forests, storm water retention ponds) in low-income, high-vacancy areas with a growth regimen of investments in the public infrastructure of areas with market potential such as gentrifying downtown.

She also argues that the programming and branding of privately owned public spaces seeing renewed investment interest in downtown become racialized by simultaneously attracting an affluent user base, and denying the rich history of resistance to racial oppression formerly fought in these surveilled environments.

Contrary to Hackworth’s position that rightsizing is better described as austerity urbanism, Seth Schindler (2016) argues that DFC is a case of ‘degrowth machine politics’. Schindler questions the applicability of a political economy framework [as in Hackworth (2015) and Akers (2015)] that links right-sizing strategies to patterns of neoliberal governance. Again using DFC as a case study, Schindler reasons that the pressures of growth for neoliberal regimes do not apply to the development dynamics in Detroit. With growth out of the question, ‘out of the box’, or widely understood

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tendencies of neoliberal governance cannot be applied to the case of Detroit. With no possibility for growth or the return of the manufacturing sector, he argues that DFC is evidence of a new way forward where local actors instead pursue the stated goals of DFC. These include ‘equitable downscaling of production and consumption that increases human wellbeing and enhances ecological conditions’ (Schindler, 2016: 823). For Schindler, this set of new priorities is evidence of a complete alternative to growth and neoliberalization, a logic that he calls the ‘degrowth machine’. In this article, the debates about whether Detroit can be considered a degrowth machine or an example of austerity urbanism via triage are a key concern.

Turning to the logistical issues of planned shrinkage for the DFC, Kirkpatrick (2015: 270) has expanded on the political and physical impracticality of a planned shrinkage approach. He explains that:

The reality of decline belies the common image of the inner city as marred by a ‘swath’ of devastation––sweeping scythe-like across the urban landscape. In fact, abandonment is noncontiguous and sociospatially indeterminate. Abandoned urban spaces are clumpy and have fuzzy boundaries.

For this reason, the categorizing of different areas by viability becomes not as clean cut or systematic as Downs originally proposes, and instead is rife with political bias (Kirkpatrick, 2015). Kirkpatrick also discussed the infeasibility of planned shrinkage from a logistical stance. He explored the ways that urban governance and the management of public infrastructure are inextricably linked to many public and private entities. The ways that the management of services like water and power are fragmented across entities with often contentious political relationships is an aspect of the DFC framework that Kirkpatrick argued is under researched in the formulation of the plan. Further, the political feasibility of the framework’s mantra of smart shrinkage is dubious in the need for growth coalitions to politically acquiesce with a strategy that is seemingly against their interests (Kirkpatrick, 2015).

This article will build on this scholarship on growth machine discourses and alternatives to growth, uncovering the discursive practices of growth coalitions in the context of a widespread narrative of economic and social crisis. While the literature surveyed has grappled with the implications of planned shrinkage and the unresolved role of the growth machine in Detroit, it has almost entirely done so through the analysis of a single document: the DFC framework. While this document is quite significant, it is also unique in its attempt to privately devise a land-use plan for the entire city (a task normally reserved for public sector planners). This research expands on the existing knowledge of growth discourses in Detroit through an analysis of wider networks of growth coalitions that are known to exist in the city, taking part in various development initiatives––some of which are tightly bound to the goals of the DFC, and others that are complimentary but independent. By drawing on strategies of emerging actors and development documents that have not yet been explored, this research aims to explore the debates in the existing literature through a more comprehensive examination of growth-oriented development in Detroit.

Growth strategies in Midtown–Downtown Detroit In the midst of population decline over the last half century, various mayoral

administrations, industries and developers have taken on growth strategies to improve the local economy and renew investment interest. This article’s discussion of the current operations of the growth machine within a shrinking city does not begin with the most recent wave of development around the time of the city’s bankruptcy, but has persisted for decades. For instance, the 1970s brought the People Mover, a Downtown circulator on elevated tracks funded largely by federal transportation dollars that aimed to spur private

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development and investment. However, it ultimately failed to do so (Thomas, 1988; Neill, 1995). A revitalization plan for the Detroit Riverfront in Downtown under the Coleman Young administration (1974–94) aimed to renew the image of Detroit as an economic power house in an era of decline when the city’s image was still being shaped by the race riots of the 1960s (Neill, 1995). This reconstruction involved the private funding of the now iconic Renaissance Center that is home to the relocated General Motors’ world headquarters. The development of the Renaissance Center in 1973 aimed to resurrect the largely vacant and decaying Downtown through private investment, but instead ‘dropped its unwanted millions of square feet of office space into the mix’, making conditions of low real estate values worse than ever (Galster, 2014: 228). The use of boosterist and depoliticized development to orient the city away from its complexly racialized local politics is a trend that continues in today’s development climate, and will be discussed in later sections.

After a long investment and growth hiatus, Downtown and Midtown Detroit have recently drawn interest from investors and philanthropic foundations who have played a strong role in steering the direction of development in the city. For Downtown and Midtown, this development has generally occurred in three different forms: (1) the attraction of tech companies to Midtown; (2) an entertainment district in Downtown supported by sports stadia and other investments; and (3) the Downtown core serving as a central business district with new renovations and corporate headquarter relocations (and residential units to support them).

‘TechTown’ is an innovation hub and high-tech incubation area that has brought tech start-ups to Midtown and supportive amenities. This business accelerator offers grants, workspace and consultation to tech businesses hoping to locate in Midtown. TechTown Detroit is run by a board of directors that is a coalition of corporations such as Bank of America, Ford and JPMorgan, as well as public–private partnerships and philanthropic foundations (TechTown Detroit, 2018a). Midtown is also home to the medical campus of the Henry Ford Hospital, along with Wayne State University who are both represented in the board of directors and list of funders for TechTown (TechTown Detroit, 2018b). The neighborhood identity is also being shaped as a cultural center, as it houses the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), College for Creative Studies and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD). Along with the support of these institutions, development in Midtown is bolstered by a non-profit organization called Midtown Detroit Inc., which has been responsible for creating development interest and attracting new residents to the area through incentives programs. Midtown Detroit Inc. is led by Sue Mosey, who has become somewhat of a figurehead for Midtown redevelopment. Currently, over 100 development projects are being completed in Midtown (Mahoney et al., 2017: 86).

Development in Downtown has been largely credited to the investments of Dan Gilbert, a billionaire and business mogul who has purchased nearly 100 properties in Downtown for redevelopment in the last decade. This development has been paired with his venture capitalist firm, Detroit Venture Partners, which has invested in tech firms and other businesses interested in locating in Downtown. His investments have been advanced by matching city, state and federal funding that have made many amenities, new construction and public spaces possible. These include a light rail line that serves as a Downtown circulator, and the rehabilitation of several historic high rises (Lawrence, 2017; Perkins, 2017). In addition, his companies have been responsible for branding and incentive campaigns that have brought corporate headquarters Downtown, bringing their employees as residents. This was done by joining with a public–private partnership known as the Downtown Detroit Partnership, an entity with a board of directors that consists of actors with ties to corporations and philanthropic foundations (Downtown Detroit Partnership, 2018). As a result, in recent years, several corporations including BlueCross/Blue Shield of Michigan, Quicken Loans, Little Caesars and DTE Energy have relocated their headquarters to Downtown Detroit and have subsequently

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made the area attractive to their employees who have relocated to Greater Downtown (Isidore, 2013).1 The results of this development can be seen in the area’s relatively high residential occupancy rate (98% and 97% respectively), urban design investments and branding strategies (Opportunity Detroit, 2013; Mahoney et al., 2017).

Downtown is also seen as the ‘entertainment center’ of Detroit, with a newly emerging night life, and also houses arenas where the Redwings, Lions and Tigers play (Detroit Future City, 2015; Mahoney et al., 2017: 13). Through state subsidy, this entertainment district is being expanded with the construction of a new hockey arena and adjacent commercial and residential projects that will comprise an arena district (Aguilar, 2013; Martines and Livengood, 2012). This development and many others are projects of Olympia Development, a firm owned by the Ilitch family; this family of entrepreneurs is also known as the founders of Little Caesars pizza, Greektown Casino and the Fox Theatre, all located in Downtown. Since 2010, over 300 residential units have been created Downtown; about half of one-bedroom units are rented for $1,200 or more (compared with the median rent of the city of Detroit of $649) (US Census, 2010). According to the Hudson-Webber Foundation, over 70 commercial development projects are currently underway in Downtown. The following sections outline the ways that growth coalitions have achieved this development, and how they have tailored typical growth machine dynamics to this environment of extreme austerity, creating significant divergences from the original model.

Foundations as developers In the context of extreme fiscal austerity, with few means to pursue

development through substantial public resources, this research found that land- based elites were composed of a small group of individuals whose work was often tied to philanthropic entities as well as the state. These philanthropic foundations, funded by both trusts (independent of their often corporate roots) and as subsets of corporations, include foundations like the Kresge Foundation, Hudson-Webber Foundation, Knight Foundation, Skillman Foundation and Ford Foundation. These entities gained momentum and began influencing development through their funding of projects before a handful of wealthy private developers started accumulating land in Downtown–Midtown.

The emergent role of foundations as developers is a response to the challenges of doing philanthropic work in an environment of decline. The shift in this mission for foundation work is a departure from strictly pursuing missions like the Skillman and Kellogg Foundation’s focus on providing support for youth, or the Kresge Foundation’s aims to ‘create pathways for people with low income to improve their life circumstances and join the economic mainstream’ (The Kresge Foundation, 2019; Skillman Foundation, 2019; W.K. Kellogg Foundation, 2019). This change in mission toward more of a development focus was mentioned by all three foundation staff members interviewed. Foundation involvement in the redevelopment of Greater Downtown coincided with Detroit’s economic downturn, and the reduction in public financing of development and services throughout the city. A foundation staff member described the foundation’s reaction to these conditions:

[We] Recogniz[e] that the city and state are dependent on a strong urban center in Detroit to position us for success. So the unstated mission has been to make the greater downtown core a place where people choose to be, particularly the

1 For this work, the boundaries of Downtown and Midtown are defined by two prominent, privately initiated development documents: the Detroit Future City framework and the 7.2 SQ MI report (described in more depth later in the article). Downtown consists of one square mile bounded by the Detroit River, I-75 North, M-10 and I-75 South. Directly adjacent to the north, Midtown consists of 3.3 square miles bounded by M-10, I-75 South, I-75 North and I-94 (Mahoney et al., 2017) (see Figure 5).

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young and talented, college educated, which has been a trend across the country, of you know, young college graduates moving to urban centers. Detroit was completely not participating in that trend. Over the last six or seven years, but really over the last decade, that’s been the unstated mission (interview, 2016).

The foundation saw their mission of enhancing quality of life as being linked to the ability to compete for young, educated residents, and has positioned their work as such. These concerns are relevant to the key goals of growth coalitions in stoking intercity competition; the particular demographics they aim to attract will be discussed in a later section.

Related to this concern about remaining competitive under these emerging development-oriented missions, another foundation staff member made the connection between what is often a stigmatization of Detroit, and the challenges this image creates for attracting funding for arts and culture programming. This staff member said:

I think it has made a substantial clash with funders who think about this community, for the narrative of Detroit to appear the way it does. Sometimes it’s not the most friendly or thoughtful of characterizations of Detroit … We have been working in Detroit on larger public projects since 1993 and in doing such, I would say these formative public investments have helped people think differently about the place in which we all live (interview, 2016).

In other words, in order to continue funding its principle mission of promoting arts and culture, this particular foundation must take part in boosterist image improvements for the city, which they have done by investing in public space. Boosterist language played a role in shaping the discourse in most (five) of the development documents analyzed, including the opening pages of the Hudson-Webber Foundation’s 7.2 SQ MI Report that says: ‘As you flip through these pages, we invite you to join us in celebrating the progress made in Greater Downtown Detroit and welcome you to consider your role in the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead’ (Mahoney et al., 2017: 4). In another example, Opportunity Detroit’s Placemaking Vision for Downtown Detroit says:

‘Detroit’s downtown is experiencing a renaissance unlike anything it has seen in decades’ (Opportunity Detroit, 2013). While very prominent in widely distributed development documents, conversations with foundation staff and development firms was not strong in this type of boosterist rhetoric; this difference is perhaps a testament to the aspirational quality of the development documents in the image of the city they promote. This tendency towards boosterism falls squarely in line with the role of growth coalitions as outlined by Logan and Molotch. The dynamic also bares resemblance to the conclusions of Kirkpatrick and Smith (2011), who point to the expansion of growth coalitions into infrastructural improvements that are neglected under the austerity urbanism of neoliberal governance. This logic can be adapted to the expansion of philanthropic actors as growth elites, who have expanded into the development sector and civic boosterism; in joining this growth coalition, they are able to carry on their various core missions once the prerequisite of a positive, funder-friendly city image is achieved.

These foundations are distinct entities from what are often community-based non-profits operating in the city in both their structure (the relationships to corporations and trusts) and their mission that often serve a larger, formal development agenda. The work of growth coalitions (consisting of land-based elites and philanthropic foundations) in the most recent surge of Downtown–Midtown development was described in interviews in contrast to a perceived lack of development ability on the part of the city’s departments. All of the participants representing philanthropic foundations and development firms described the role of private developers as the dominant figures responsible for the city’s progress; perhaps unsurprisingly, the several developers and designers that worked directly on documents like the Placemaking Vision for Downtown,

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7.2 SQ MI Report and the DFC framework echoed this sentiment. These perspectives were rooted in the belief that municipal urban planning was largely absent in the city in the recent decades of financial strain, and that the private sector mitigated this deficit. This way of thinking was especially pronounced in conversations with staff from philanthropic foundations and developers. Indeed, at the time of this study, the planning department had just increased their staff to about 18 people, and the master plan was still largely based on a comprehensive plan approved in 1992. In a somewhat self-deprecating conversation with a municipal planner, he reflected on the recent decades of funding deficits and lack of person power that paved the way for department’s reliance on information and analysis by private initiatives, most notably DFC (interview, 2015). Another planner said: ‘The foundations have their own little Sim City. You know, it’s shocking to me because all of the planning is being done outside of the entity that is supposed to be doing the planning’ (interview, 2015). Philanthropists and developers implied that there was a strong need for growth and development, and that since the city was not equipped to carry this out, the private sector must intervene. One developer said:

Detroit was so, I would say, just devoid of any real planning or organization around economic development. It was very ad hoc for a number of years. The business community and the foundation community and the economic development folks from the private sector have really thought the most about planning over the last 20 years (interview, 2016).

Other developers noted the slow speed and limited effectiveness of the municipal planning department of recent decades. A staff member involved with a philanthropic foundation explained:

I think in addition to the foundation world being pretty big here, it also seems bigger because our local government has just been completely without capacity for a long time, but particularly within the last six years and really during the bankruptcy, we essentially haven’t had a planning department for two years. You know, there are staff there but it’s pretty sparse and their powers are limited and so there’s this investment coming to the city but you don’t have this planning department so I think there’s been a lot of foundations that have tried to build that capacity in other ways (interview, 2016).

Interviews with both foundation staff and staff from the development firms they partner with revealed that despite the immense amount of public subsidies invested into the improvements done by the private sector, land-based elites were often viewed in light of their philanthropic connections, and their role as saviors of Downtown–Midtown. This perspective was present across different groups interviewed, but more pronounced by groups that have a direct payoff towards boostering the work of foundations: the foundations’ representatives themselves, and representatives from the firms that are commissioned to carry out their projects. While the involvement of philanthropic foundations in development is not unique to Detroit, the rhetoric that promotes the value of their work in light of narratives of an absentee planning department has placed significant emphasis on the necessity of their involvement in the city’s comeback. Further, these examples of the aligning views of philanthropic foundations and developers (both diminishing the capacity of the planning department and promoting foundation work as a viable solution to Detroit’s development challenges), are emblematic of their shared goals and connections in a growth coalition.

Despite the philanthropic image of such foundations, board members that make decisions regarding the mission of these entities and the specific projects to be funded

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are often made up of members with corporate business interests and those with a stake in land use intensification. These individuals include investors, corporate stakeholders, architects, and developers. Additionally, many board members sit on the boards of multiple foundations. A representative from one foundation described the expertise on their board and that in their words were indicative of some potential conflicts:

there’s a lot of board overlap, you know, where trustees sit on a lot of boards and [are] trustees of other entities. So, it’s a very interconnected, knowledgeable group … In order to invest well in revitalization, you need people that are very knowledgeable about what’s happening in the city and all the different dynamics that are at play (interview, 2016).

However, the acknowledgement of potential conflicts was made somewhat glibly in this conversation; this overlap within these small groups were, as the quote alludes to, considered an asset to the development projects that these elites are a part of. While the overlap of board and corporate interests within philanthropic foundations may not be unique to Detroit, it is significant in light of the rhetoric that foundations and their close allies … [are] a crucial group of actors for development. In this sense, there is little practical difference between the will of land-based elites when they are acting as part of corporate entities and when they are acting through organizations like

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foundations. These connections are further solidified through overlap of membership in economic development coalitions like the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation and the Detroit Regional Chamber of commerce, among others (see Figure 1 showing networks between foundations and their board members, initiatives and growth coalitions).

In addition to displaying a strong connection to business agendas and potential conflicts of interest, the overlaps in board members across companies and foundations speak to the small number of key individuals making development decisions in the Downtown core. It should be noted that the ‘app[lication] of market strategies to philanthropic giving’ has been discussed in depth elsewhere (Bishop and Green, 2010; McGoey, 2012: 186). However, in the case of Detroit, the arrival of growth coalitions into what has been called the ‘philanthrocapitalist’ sector represents a new manifestation of this trend that merges capitalist enterprise with philanthropic giving (The Economist, 2006). In this context of a lack of fully publicly funded investment and development plans, land-based elites appear to have adapted to a financing strategy that diverges from previous iterations of the growth machine. Here, the projects that are often in large part municipally supported, or as the planner said, carried out by departments that are ‘supposed to be doing the planning ’, are instead realized through another powerful development force: the philanthropic foundation community.

With such a large amount of capital at their disposal (for example, a $3.6 billion endowment in the case of the Kresge Foundation, and $8.2 billion dollars in assets owned by the Kellogg Foundation), the collusion of their missions with private, for-profit interests via agreements and board members affiliated with private entities is significant (The Kresge Foundation, 2017; W.K. Kellogg Foundation, 2019). The influence of these foundations has come under scrutiny, as has their strong presence that seems to attempt to fill the gap created by lack of public financing of development work; this is evidenced by the uncomfortable nature of the roles of the municipal planning department versus those of foundations mentioned previously. A representative from one of the more prolific foundations also explained the difficulty in drawing the boundaries between the role of the public and private sector in Detroit:

‘We do it because there is a tangible need––a change that wouldn’t be realized but for our resources, in whole or in part’. The focus of corporate membership in the boards of philanthropic foundations, as well as the more explicitly stated partnerships between developers and foundations, partially replace the dynamics of the growth machine partnerships with municipal entities described by Molotch (though many if not most projects pursued by land-based elites in this context, from light rail systems to new stadiums, still receive large public subsidies) (Molotch, 1976; Aguilar, 2013; Lawrence, 2017). In this way, the economic decline of Detroit has required new avenues for land- based elites to pursue land-use intensification. By bringing in private resources from foundations that supplement the meager public resources available (though these projects still rely on political support of growth that is given by local political entities, such as the mayor and city council members), the growth machine dynamic of land- based elites using resources and political leverage to pursue growth can persist. The specific initiatives of such partnerships and their implications are discussed in the following sections.

Polarizing Midtown–Downtown from the rest of the city The relationship between the high volume of development taking place in the

Downtown core and the rest of the neighborhoods in the city receiving less attention and investment was a strong theme in the data. In many instances, areas outside of Downtown–Midtown were viewed by developers and foundations as uncharted territory, yet to be seriously considered for private investment funds. A Detroit architect explained this dynamic, saying that in the Downtown core:

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there’s people on the street, housing’s maxed out, apartment occupancy is over 99%, in that 7 square mile area. That’s what’s driving everything right now. It has sustainability to it because once you’ve got people residing here and kind of making a stake and feeling comfortable, that’s going to kind of feed on itself over time. The tough part is that that’s going to take care of the 7.2 square miles. How quickly that will spread out to the remaining 132 square miles is a whole different question (interview, 2016).

Each interview with members of the Downtown–Midtown development community revealed a perception of recent projects as an oasis of traditional urban growth, surrounded by nothingness; some explicitly stated the investment risk outside of Greater Downtown and others omitted the rest of the city from the conversation entirely. A landscape architect explained:

There’s all this Detroit rebirth that’s basically focused Downtown and up the Woodward Avenue Corridor to New Center. If you go a mile, or not even a half- mile off of Woodward, that redevelopment is maybe 6% of our land area in 140 square miles. Everywhere else is still very, very challenging (interview, 2016).

These perspectives are not solely propagated by growth elites; they are a popular understanding of how development is playing out in the city. However, this imagery of a viable downtown surrounded by nothingness is echoed in development documents created by private and philanthropic entities. Such documents play a role in framing which areas of the city are ripe for investment and which will witness the removal of housing and services.

— Growth elites framing the value of Downtown–Midtown through discourse Reflecting the popular notions just mentioned, development documents were

found to frame the value of Downtown–Midtown differently in relation to the rest of the city. Despite the rich histories of community organizing and self-provisioning of services in Detroit’s neighborhoods described by Kinder (2014), narratives propagated by growth coalitions treat Downtown and Midtown as development assets in the midst of nothingness. In an exemplary moment of the tension between the Downtown core and the outlying neighborhoods, the Kresge Foundation, influenced by private, for-profit entities and community development organizations, created the previously mentioned framework called DFC. In the absence of an up-to-date municipally sanctioned master plan for the city, the framework was created to set forth a 50-year land-use vision. The project was initially developed through a partnership with the city government known as the Detroit Works Project under Mayor David Bing ’s administration, but as the project developed into the DFC framework, the explicit role of the city diminished. The plan was created from two phases. First, a community outreach phase was conducted that consisted of workshops, question and answer sessions and interviews with Detroit residents among other methods. Second, this information was translated into a 350- page framework by a team of development experts. This framework provided a set of broad recommendations for redevelopment in the city, including the reassignment of land use, consolidation of residential areas and strategies for rolling back city services for efficiency purposes.

The plan states:

As we move toward implementation of Detroit Future City, Detroit stakeholders will be able to continue to meet with technical experts so they can dive into the portions of the plan that will best amplify work already being done, while aligning it with a broader vision for the city (Detroit Future City, 2015: 3, emphasis added).

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Two conversations with a municipal planning staff member located work ‘already being done’ within existing areas of investment, including Downtown–Midtown and other adjacent neighborhoods like Corktown and Eastern Market (multiple interviews, 2016). Some have argued that this plan is an example of triage urbanism, encouraging further investment in areas that are already experiencing a resurgence, while simultaneously suggesting the removal of services from areas with little development interest and high rates of vacancy (Safransky, 2014; Clement and Kanai, 2015; Kirkpatrick, 2015). Also referred to as planned shrinkage, this plan converts large areas to ‘green residential’ that respond to ‘neighborhood disinvestment and population loss by creating a new urban identity integrated with the landscape’ that will greatly reduce the cost of maintenance of large swaths of the city (Detroit Future City, 2015: 114). Another typology, ‘innovation ecological’ converts large residential areas to ‘forests, meadows, and other landscapes [that] develop gradually over time and cost very little (or nothing!) to ‘construct’ or and maintain’ (Detroit Future City, 2015: 117) (see Figures 2 and 3). However, the uneven distribution of downsizing areas across socioeconomic groups has caused concern, especially as it concentrates areas of further service removal in parts of the city with

F IGURE 2 Current land-use patterns shown in DFC framework (source: Detroit Future City, 2015: 118)

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the highest concentrations of black Detroiters (Clement and Kanai, 2015). Clement and Kanai have likened the use of exciting new land uses, ripe for investment potential as a form of ‘discursive whitening ’, whereby, ‘“purified” land might once again be leveraged to attract global investments’ (ibid.: 370). Indeed, the location of areas that are identified in the 50-year vision map as being important nodes for development like

‘district centers’ or ‘city centers’ are located in areas like Midtown and Downtown, and near universities: areas with significant populations commuting into the city from whiter suburbs, and relocating through incentives programs (to be discussed in a later section) (Detroit Future City, 2015). Further, the amount of development documents focusing on Midtown and Downtown, and their corroboration with citywide plans (like DFC and the Blight Removal Task Force Plan) in their support for Greater Downtown’s investment potential are a testament to this tendency to polarize the city into investment-friendly and investment-risky areas. Detroit’s context of racialized class and educational disparity, and the sheer number of initiatives focusing on reinvested areas of Greater Downtown (like the 7.2 SQ MI Report and the Placemaking Vision for Downtown Detroit), also highlight the ways the downtown core is racialized through the strategy of triage.

F IGURE 3 Proposed 50-year land-use vision shown in DFC framework based on new land-use types (source: Detroit Future City, 2015: 119)

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Sources: Motor City Mapping, 2014 (uncertified results); Detroit Buildings, Safety Engineering, and ) Environmental Department; 2014 H1stonc Resource Survey; Detroit Parcel Inventory; Wayne County Register of Deeds; Wayne County Treasurer; Fannie Mae; Freddie Mac; Valassis VNEF Plus Database; Data Driven Detroit. © Michigan Nonprofit Association. Created April2014.

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F IGURE 4 Map from the Blight Removal Task Force Plan that indicates the areas with the largest amount of blight; despite the broad definition for blight used in this report, the properties shown are largely located outside of areas with development interest (source: Gilbert et al., 2014)

Released in 2012, questions remain about the explicit implementation of the framework verbatim, However, in several instances, the plan has received quite meaningful endorsements by major players in development in Detroit. Since its release, Mike Duggan’s mayoral administration has embraced the document, displaying willingness to support its proposed interventions (McGraw, 2015). The large private philanthropic foundations that helped create the framework have been clear on their unwillingness to fund projects outside of the goals described by the plan (interviews, 2015, 2016). Although a clear path to implementing the DFC framework has yet to be determined, the release of this document in itself served to promote a vision for the city that proposes to concentrate investment into parts of the city already experiencing revival, namely the Downtown core.

— Pathologizing outer neighborhoods through blight Even without the official adoption by the city, the DFC framework is referenced

and pursued throughout development and investment strategies, and notably in the goals set forth by the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force Plan (2014). In partnership with the federal government and foundations, billionaire developer Dan Gilbert helped to form the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force, which aimed to identify blighted properties and make a plan for their remediation. This Task Force used a systematic approach of canvassing by paid residents to create an inventory of all the blighted properties in the city and published them in a document called the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force

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Plan. The Plan touts that it ‘supports all five planning elements and civic engagement strategies within Detroit Future City’; at the top of this list is ‘the economic growth element’ (Gilbert et al., 2014: 29). Including maps and suggestions for how the city might go about removing blight, this Plan targeted the areas outside of the Downtown core as being the main problem areas for blighted structures (see Figure 4).

‘Blight’ has long been a contested term in urban planning and development discourses. Some argue that it was used to justify the demolition of low-income and mostly black neighborhoods during the urban renewal era (Cahn, 2014; Herscher, 2015). As Cahn (2014) and Audirac (2018) note, the term blight and its spatial stigmatization is inextricably located within narratives that treat black and immigrant communities as racialized others, associating decay of the built environment with moral inferiority and social pathology. The Blight Removal Task Force Plan describes blight as ‘a cancer … Blight is radioactive. It is contagious. Blight serves as a venue that attracts criminals and crime. It is a magnet for arsonists. Blighted properties are dangerous places for firefighters and other emergency workers to perform their duties’ (Gilbert et al., 2014: i). In the Plan, blight takes on a broad definition. For a property to be considered blighted, it:

meets any of the following conditions as determined by the applicable governing body: a public nuisance; an attractive nuisance; a fire hazard or is otherwise dangerous; has had utilities, plumbing, heating or sewerage disconnected, destroyed, removed, or rendered ineffective; a tax-reverted property; owned or is under control of a land bank; has been vacant for five consecutive years, and not maintained to code; has code violations posing a severe and immediate health or safety threat (ibid.: 13).

With such broad terminology, it is interesting that the Task Force was able to discern such striking differences between the amounts of blight in Downtown–Midtown versus other areas of the city. The report recommends that the city partners with private entities fund the necessary demolitions outside of the Downtown core; billionaire Dan Gilbert’s company, Quicken Loans, along with private foundations were prominently listed in the report as private partners and funders of blight removal efforts.

The language of this report could be met with reasonable suspicion, as it defines blight according to a vague and malleable set of criteria and yet manages to quite strictly locate blight as a problem that occurs outside of Downtown–Midtown. Further, in their use of the word ‘triage’ throughout the report, the Task Force subscribes to the strategy set forth by Downs (1975) that proposes few resources be allocated to revitalizing areas in most need; in the report, this is also manifested in a focus on ‘tipping point’ areas (total of eight mentions of the need to manage such neighborhoods; the DFC framework also contains three references to this strategy) (Gilbert et al., 2014: 85). While the racial distribution of demolition and investment resources is not explicitly covered in the report, its alliance with the goals of DFC raises concerns about how areas with

‘investment potential’ are racially coded in terms of blight as well. Clement and Kanai’s (2015) analysis indicating that the roll back of vital public amenities in DFC’s triage strategy is concentrated in areas with the most black Detroiters is significant when considering that the Blight Removal Task Force Plan boasts its complementarity to DFC. Indeed, the mapping of tipping point areas in the Plan highlights areas adjacent to DFC’s areas of investment potential; they are near mirror images of one another, creating the potential for land-use intensification to expand to tipping point areas that are high priority for blight removal. In terms of how the benefits of reinvestment may be racially distributed, on the basis of the development goals that spatialize blight removal and investment potential in a complimentary fashion, there is reason for concern that black Detroiters may be disproportionately left out of benefits described in the blight removal strategy.

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TablE 1 Mention of blight by theme

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Creation Sign of

Instability Development Opportunity

Reputation for Blight

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Live Midtown Initiative 17 pages

– – – – – – – – –

Placemaking Vision for Downtown 50 pages

– – –` – – – – – –

15x15 Initiative

– – – – – – – – –

7.2 SQ MI Report 99 pages

– – – – – – – – –

Greater Downtown TOD Strategy 9 pages

– – – – – – – – –

Detroit Future City 364 pages

3 1 9 – 1 7 2 1 –

Detroit Blight Removal Task Force Plan 177 pages

19 16 4 12 7 0 5 5 4

TOTAL 22 17 13 12 8 7 7 6 4

However, the goals of the Plan are different from Downs’ (1975) and Logan and Molotch’s (1987) conceptions of triage in that they describe the private partnerships that may be used to demolish homes in non-tipping point areas. In other words, they speak of the ability to create markets that emerge both from the lucrative acts of demolishing, as well as the investment potential that can be created by razing these areas. Specifically, they state that they aim to:

retain and attract residents, revive community businesses, and address Detroit’s neighborhoods block by block and house by house … It is imperative that all blight be removed to create the right environment and market conditions for successful rehabilitation of other homes and even new construction (Gilbert et al., 2014: 8).

The DFC framework warns of the economic dangers of blight, placing the urgency of its removal behind the claim that it may ‘deter investment indefinitely’ (Detroit Future City, 2015: 45). The only two documents that discuss blight, the DFC framework and the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force Plan, place a heavy emphasis on the implications of blight for economic development. A narrative around the urgency for the removal of

‘cancerous’ blight is pervasive, and threats to economic growth and investment dominate concerns for quality of life of Detroiters in the framing of the blight problem (see Table 1).

The application of a discourse of pathology to some neighborhoods afflicted with blight is a necessary step towards their demolition, and ultimately the creation of new real estate and development markets. It is also illustrative to consider the ways that blight is discussed when documents for city-wide planning initiatives are compared with documents that focus only on the redevelopment of Downtown and Midtown. As noted, documents that address the city as a whole like the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force Plan

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and the DFC framework support the image of neighborhoods outside of greater Downtown being blighted. Likewise, none of the other five initiatives analyzed that focus only on the Greater Downtown area (including the 7.2 SQ MI Report, Live Midtown initiative and Placemaking Vision for Downtown Detroit) mention blight at all (see Table 1).

Potentially even more problematic, the prescribed solution of public–private partnerships seems to play to the economic advantage of the private interests that helped frame and define the problem of blight to begin with. Further, the use of the Blight Removal Task Force report and DFC to frame blight as a cancer and a threat to the economic prosperity of the city places a sense of urgency behind the problem. The creation of these documents contributes to a narrative of polarity between the Downtown core and the rest of Detroit. A strategy is proposed for focusing investment in already valuable areas, while the act of demolition creates markets in many declining areas outside of Greater Downtown.

These documents and the polarization they promote become oddly racialized with an elephant in the room that goes almost entirely unmentioned: the topic of race itself. The DFC has been widely critiqued for its more than 300 pages that mention issue of racial inequality and segregation fewer than 10 times in its lofty development proposals (Hammer, 2015). The framework emphasizes the importance of inclusion according to ‘race, gender, lifestyle or household need’ in three instances, but fails to outline how the current development climate can or should make way for this (Detroit Future City, 2015: 217). Other than DFC and the 7.2 SQ MI Report, the development documents in this study were entirely lacking in conversations on race (see Table 2). For a city that is so strongly associated with racial segregation and concentrated, racialized poverty, the omission of a meaningful discussion of race does work in depoliticizing these development decisions, and reducing a complex social climate to common sense growth and triage narratives.

TablE 2 Mention of race by theme

Document/Initiative Descriptive

Statistics Whiteness as

Diversity Emphasizing

Inclusion

Live Midtown Initiative 17 pages – – –

Placemaking Vision for Downtown 50 pages – – –

15x15 Initiative – – –

Detroit Future City 364 pages 1 - 3

7.2 SQ MI Report 99 pages 1 1 –

Detroit Blight Removal Task Force Plan 177 pages – – –

Greater Downtown TOD Strategy 9 pages – – –

Total 2 1 3

However, the disregard for racial stratification in documents and strategies of growth coalitions in Detroit is not limited to the omission of race; these coalitions also make clear who are the intended consumers of these land-use intensifications. The faces of the Detroiters using the public spaces in the downtown development branding campaign, Opportunity Detroit ’s Placemaking Vision, are dramatically more white than the population of the city. In fact, this has been a trend in branding materials. In 2017, a large storefront downtown was covered in an ad by Bedrock, the property management company of Dan Gilbert. The advertisement, that was subject to much scrutiny, featured a crowd of entirely white people; it read: ‘See Detroit Like We Do’ (Winowiecki, 2017). Promotional materials by Opportunity Detroit and other development campaigns downtown implicitly offer the whitening of the key areas of growth in the city as an added value; this provides additional and perhaps more explicit

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evidence of the racialization of privatized public spaces described by Montgomery (2016). This problematic tendency to associate areas of higher investment potential with white Detroiters extends to the Blight Removal Task Force Plan. In the over 300 pages of the graphically striking document filled with pictures, rarely is a white person depicted. It would certainly make sense that the majority of Detroiters in any development document would show residents that reflect that racial makeup of the city in this way. However, there is a disparity between who is represented in documents with narratives of renewal, reinvestment and hope (white Detroiters) and who is associated with Detroit’s image of crisis, abandonment and ‘cancerous’ parts of the city (black Detroiters).

The discursive strategy of polarizing the development agendas of Downtown and Midtown from the outlying neighborhoods of the city is divergent from the initial growth machine model. Discourses on the growth machine initially described the boosterism around growth to be based on the idea that growth benefits the city as a whole (a perspective that disregards the inherent presence of winners and losers in development). The discourse of pathology applied neighborhoods outside of Greater Downtown (both in popular discourse and in development documents) is complimentary to both the boosterism of growth in the city’s core, and to Hackworth’s argument that rightsizing amounts to spatial austerity by valuing the most marketable areas of the city. Instead of merely boostering growth in Greater Downtown, this discourse also promotes that development implicitly through the pathologizing of outer neighborhoods; it is a different lens on the same strategy. However, this is done by reasoning that demolishing areas outside of downtown is necessary for such neighborhoods to ultimately be marketable (i.e. successful). In the case of Detroit, development strategies that promote various iterations of triage pursue growth by doing the opposite: growth coalitions have created a discourse around channeling their resources into ‘tipping point’ areas out of necessity. In this way, they have abandoned the key notion of growth discourses that their land use intensification might benefit all residents. The conversation instead relies on narratives that pathologize areas of extreme decline as being unfriendly to the market and their development vision, justifying the funneling of development (as opposed to demolition) resources into areas that are already seeing momentum in their intensification.

Talent and investment attraction as development visions Narratives that polarize development strategies between the encouragement of

additional investment in some areas and demolition of others take place alongside the more traditional growth strategies seen in Downtown–Midtown. Similar to many of the more typical cities facing the challenges of growth with tightening budgets, this research found that developers in Downtown–Midtown have largely focused on achieving two main goals in their development projects: the appreciation of their investments in the Downtown core and the attraction of entrepreneurial ‘talent’ to support them. This aspiration was evident in all of the development documents with the exception of the Blight Removal Task Force Plan. In this section I argue that the documents promoting planned shrinkage paired with narratives that treat the Downtown core as uniquely viable for development serve as a foundation that conventional growth strategies build upon. In establishing triage as a necessary form of development and a viable way to promote localized growth, growth coalitions are then able to intensify land uses by attracting ‘talent’ and further investment.

The appreciation of Downtown–Midtown investment can be seen in the addition of privately funded amenities by prominent investors such as the public spaces, a light rail line and streetscape improvements that have visually transformed the area. As mentioned previously, these interventions are often associated with philanthropic organizations. As Kirkpatrick and Smith (2011) have predicted, growth coalitions here take on the role of providing public infrastructure when it is a necessary building

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block towards land use intensification. The installation of these amenities has aimed to increase the attractiveness of newly renovated buildings and other developments in Downtown and Midtown (Opportunity Detroit, 2013). Analysis of development documents revealed the goal of attracting young, educated professionals to work in newly relocated businesses and corporate headquarters in Downtown–Midtown (Mahoney et al., 2017). Bruce Katz, Vice President of the Brookings Institution, quoted in the Transit Oriented Development Plan of Downtown–Midtown said:

I think the broader question for Michigan is, when you’re competing for talent, not just domestically, but globally, the younger generation in the world is looking for quality places. A lot of those quality places would be traditional cities with their downtowns and their waterfronts and their cultural institutions, and that sort of magic mix of street life. If you don’t have cities that have that, it’s hard to imagine how you can compete for the talent of the world.

Philanthropic and corporate investment in developing places attractive to capital and appealing to more affluent clientele has been made possible by branding initiatives taking the form of development plans and frameworks. For example, Opportunity Detroit’s mission is to bring businesses Downtown and fund streetscape improvements and public amenities (Opportunity Detroit, 2013). Another instance is Midtown Detroit Inc.’s (a Midtown non-profit aiming to entice redevelopment in the neighborhood) incentive program called ‘Live Midtown’ that offers subsidies and grants to households moving to Midtown to work for large employers like The Henry Ford Hospital and Wayne State University (Hughes, 2016). The actors responsible for both of these initiatives are a mixture of corporate stakeholders, local institutions and foundations.

Following Richard Florida’s (2003) strategy of attracting the ‘creative class’ in order to develop businesses that require such talent, the work of private foundations (most notably the Hudson-Webber Foundation and Kresge Foundation) support the influx of educated, young professionals to economically revive the Greater Downtown area. This has taken place in parallel with the previously mentioned relocation of businesses to Downtown–Midtown, like Quicken Loans, Little Caesars and Blue Cross/ Blue Shield. In 2008, the Hudson-Webber Foundation launched an ultimately successful initiative called ‘15x15’ that aimed to bring 15,000 ‘young and talented’ individuals to the Downtown core by 2015. This group, identified partly by their age and educational attainment (under 35 with at least a four-year degree), was touted by the foundation to be desirable residents as they are ‘mobile, urban inclined and entrepreneurial’ (15x15 Initiative, 2015). In a city where only 7.7% of residents over 25 hold a bachelor’s degree, the unlikelihood of attracting ‘talent’ locally supports concerns about redevelopment benefits bypassing local residents (US Census, 2010).

The Hudson-Webber Foundation also created the 7.2 SQ MI Report that served to portray the investment potential of the 7.2 square miles making up Greater Downtown. In a similar strategy to the 15x15 Initiative’s goals to achieve revitalization of the Downtown core, the 7.2 SQ MI report boasts that Downtown development ‘has attracted thousands of new employees and hundreds of new residents, demonstrating a healthy demand for the mix of renovation and new projects that are in the development pipeline’ (Mahoney et al., 2017: 13) (see Figure 5). Further, the term ‘7.2 SQ MI’, referring to the Greater Downtown area deemed viable for investment, has been adopted as a commonplace term in development discourse locally; several development professionals used the term to describe the geography, outside of discussions of the plan specifically. The 7.2 SQ MI report shares the goals of other frameworks like the previously mentioned Live Midtown initiative and Opportunity Detroit’s Placemaking Vision that have been responsible for using economic and urban design strategies to attract a similar population to the Greater Downtown area (Hughes, 2016).

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In a rare moment that race was explicitly mentioned in these data, in the 7.2 SQ MI Report, the shift in racial demographics in the Downtown core to a whiter population is described as a positive outcome of their efforts. The decrease in black residents is described in the document as evidence that ‘Greater Downtown has become increasingly racially diverse’ (Mahoney et al., 2017: 34). Prominently displayed on the same page of this document that touts the diversity of the 7.2 SQ MI area is the metric that the black population has dropped by 5%. This thought was echoed in interviews with foundation staff. A Hudson-Webber Foundation staff member voiced that this particular narrative around diversity was perhaps outdated, and certainly an unfortunate way of portraying the changes to Greater Downtown. Speaking to his own perspective, and not as a voice for the Foundation, he explained that early in their work, ‘diversification of Greater Downtown meant younger people, educated people, non-Black people’, but also recognized that in today’s development climate, continuing that trend risks losing diversity altogether. He acknowledged that there may come a point when it is necessary to provide ‘some intervention to preserve whatever type of diversity we’re losing, because diversity is an important characteristic of a strong central city’ (interview, 2016). Although there is likely more nuance in the perspectives on diversity within foundation staff, this widely distributed document presents diversity

F IGURE 5 The 7.2 square miles of viable areas for investment in Midtown and Downtown (source: 7.2 SQ MI Report, 2017: 10)

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as a one-dimensional issue where economic development means diluting blackness in the Downtown core.

In this context, the danger of this language about diversity is echoed in the concerns about evictions in the Downtown core. In a 2013 highly publicized case, due to the lax tenants’ rights laws of the city, over 100 mostly black seniors were forcibly evicted from the Griswold, a Downtown building with affordable housing (Gregory, 2015). This building has been redeveloped into luxury apartments, in this case, a complex called The Albert. These evictions from affordable senior housing for predominantly black and low-income Detroiters causes concerns about additional displacement, as it makes way for land-use intensification in high-demand areas (Gross, 2018). The senior housing advocacy group, Senior Housing Preservation Detroit (SHP-D), reports that due to the likelihood of the expiration of HUD (Department of Housing and Urban Development) contracts that support affordable housing throughout the city, up to 2,000 units of affordable senior housing is at risk of becoming market rate. While no numbers exist to describe the exact number of seniors displaced from affordable housing in Downtown and Midtown, SHP-D focuses on housing issues for seniors in this area due to the substantially higher concentration of risk factors for displacement due to the development climate (Perry et al., 2015).

It is important to acknowledge the differences in tone taken by the documents and actors in this study at different times, while pursuing similar ends. When foundations, local politicians and developers are taking part in making plans that are typically taken on by the public sector (like DFC, a privately sanctioned master plan, or the city-wide Detroit Blight Removal Task Force Plan), rhetoric of inclusivity and environmental sustainability are at the forefront of the message. The Blight Removal Task Force Plan declares that ‘Every neighborhood has a future––and it doesn’t include blight’. The report also promotes the idea of a ‘shared strategy’ for visioning the city, where there is a ‘focus on what matters to Detroit and Detroiters’ (Gilbert et al., 2014: 7). Similarly, the DFC framework, as Schindler (2016) has observed, promotes a discourse around inclusivity and green development, in its claim that:

We believe that within this document lies a path forward toward realizing the aspirations of an entire city. Within it lies a guide for decision making that is not exclusively for one entity or one mayor or one generation, but for each of us––and those who come after us––in our roles as citizens, philanthropists, developers, business people, neighborhood champions, parents, and beyond (ibid.: 3).

However, there is a significant amount of overlap in the names and organizations across these documents and reports; some of them take on a different language when the intended audience are investors or prospective residents of this ‘young, educated and talented’ group mentioned in the 7.2 SQ MI Report and the Transit Oriented Development Plan. The executive summary of the Placemaking Vision for Downtown Detroit focuses on ‘how the public spaces, and particularly the three major downtown parks can be transformed, both in the long and short term … so that they support this exciting commercial and residential rebirth in the downtown’ (Opportunity Detroit, 2013: 1).

There are also different attitudes that these documents take towards promoting economic growth, versus planned shrinkage (despite the documents being produced by the same actors in many cases). The DFC promotes an agenda of planned shrinkage through its land-use vision, stating that: ‘We must focus on sizing networks for a smaller population, making them more efficient, more affordable, and better performing’ (Detroit Future City, 2015: 8). However, the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force uses language about the need to remove blight that is a ‘cancer’ on neighborhoods in order

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to eventually restore areas to a marketable status for development. The same market- oriented approach, as described above, is taken by the Hudson-Webber Foundation’s 7.2 SQ MI Report, and Opportunity Detroit’s Placemaking Vision for Downtown, among others. While the DFC framework is a very influential document both in the literature and practice, when other development strategies by these same actors are considered, the rhetoric of ‘planned shrinkage’ would appear to be exceptional.

This is a counterpoint to Schindler’s (2016) assertion that in the absence of a clear path to growth, local actors pursued an agenda of environmental stewardship and quality of life for the people of Detroit (solely referencing the DFC framework). When other development documents are taken into account, it is clear that these very same actors take on a narrative of entrepreneurialism and intercity competition when it appears politically advantageous to the goals of triage and concentrated investments. In other words, a conclusion that the city is pursuing a ‘degrowth machine’ is incompletely theorized in light of the evidence that foundations and developers are very actively pursuing growth in Greater Downtown through other projects (e.g. in the 7.2 SQ MI Report and Placemaking Vision for Downtown). The analysis of documents and plans beyond the DFC supports the assertions of both Hackworth (2015) and Akers (2015) that in contrast to the broader rhetoric of planned shrinkage, a strategy has emerged that allows markets to be created through the reconstruction of the city via land-use patterns. However, the argument that private actors aim to create markets through their development does not rely on such a sophisticated analysis as these authors have provided; other documents by the same actors state this growth imperative boldly and unapologetically. While Kirkpatrick and Smith (2011) have outlined the ways that growth coalitions develop strategies for infrastructure provision in the context of neoliberalization, this work suggests an additional strategy: the rollback of infrastructure spatialized in a market-driven fashion to promote triage as a development strategy. Furthermore, much of the shrinking cities literature describes development patterns in shrinking cities as simply pursuing traditional growth- oriented development models, or ‘seeing the light’ and shifting to pursue strategies of planned shrinkage (Wiechmann and Pallagst 2012; Martinez-Fernandez et al., 2012b). The conditions in Detroit indicate that both can simultaneously be true, and that both strategies can be pursued with the goal of land use intensification.

The aim of attracting a ‘creative class’, and the potential for displacing black and low-income residents, while not remotely specific to Detroit, are unique in the ways that they are justified and enabled through the broader narrative of triage. Once development discourses have provided rationale for the further development of a handful of neighborhoods at the tipping point for economic viability, this potential is leveraged to attract young ‘talent’. Again, growth in this context of decline is pursued without the use of discourses around lifting the entire city up through such development; this aspiration is abandoned as private (philanthropic and strictly corporate) entities fund concentrated investment and land-use intensification. In terms of attracting residents to live in the Downtown core and patrons to frequent the businesses there, residents in other parts of the city are notably bypassed and excluded from these conversations about who benefits from such development.

Conclusion Throughout recent decades, Detroit has become iconic in its level of decline,

both in terms of population loss and financial collapse. Amidst these dire conditions of dwindling public resources, growth coalitions still pursue land-use intensification in some ways that are similar to those outlined in Molotch’s initial conception of the growth machine. However, the original description, while applicable in many cities, is not applicable to declining cities in its entirety. Some scholars have begun a debate about whether the current development practices in the city that nominally pursue planned shrinking can be considered a continuation of austerity urbanism and market-centric

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development (Akers, 2015; Hackworth, 2015), or if they are a manifestation of a visionary shift to degrowth machine politics (Schindler, 2016). Using a more comprehensive set of documents and interviews than the literature’s current focus on the DFC framework, this work aimed to uncover the ways that growth is pursued in Detroit, despite a broader narrative (and economic reality) of shrinkage, finding several divergences from the original growth machine model.

In the context of limited city resources, land-based elites and the corporate interests that they build coalitions with, became deeply enmeshed in the workings of philanthropic foundations who in the past two decades have come to hold the purse strings of a significant amount of development projects in Downtown–Midtown. With corporate interests on boards and as funders, the agendas of philanthropic foundations and the private sector become one and the same. In this case, the role of the state is not primarily to subsidize projects (which it does at many levels), but to provide the political support for development. In other words, when the growth machine operates in this condition of decline, there is evidence that it makes use of philanthropic foundations that land-based elites have infiltrated to promote growth.

An additional divergence from the growth machine model is the incorporation of triage as a discourse. While the initial growth machine model relies on value-neutral development discourses that assume that growth will benefit all residents, documents like the Detroit Future City Framework and the 7.2 SQ MI Report (and others that focus on Greater Downtown) conspicuously focus on ‘tipping point’ areas of the city where they promote future investment and intensification. Through their use of development strategies and their associated documents, growth coalitions of Detroit have hinted towards disinvestment and demolition of residential areas in further decline to funnel meager resources; instead, these documents promote pooling development interest into areas that have already seen momentum in terms of land-use intensification. However, this pathologizing of areas outside of downtown has also been leveraged towards blight removal campaigns that are pursued with the intention of ultimately creating a landscape that is marketable to new investors. Building on this strategy of planned shrinkage as a necessary rationale for intensifying certain areas due to their unique viability, growth coalitions have promoted the attraction of ‘talent’ to Downtown and Midtown as a strategy. In doing this, they mimic creative cities campaigns of other cities experiencing more prototypical versions of the growth machine. A key divergence from the growth machine here is its abandonment of the mantra that growth benefits the city as a whole in favor of a shift to the importance of revitalizing viable tipping point areas. Building on the work of Clement and Kanai (2015), this finding also illuminated the ways that racialized discourse (both implicit and explicit) is leveraged to ascribe value to key investment areas of the city, while using imagery of white clientele.

By analyzing a broader set of plans and documents promoted by significant actors in development (beyond the DFC framework), this work painted a more comprehensive picture about the discourse of growth, and how growth coalitions spur growth from multiple strategies. Much is gained by expanding the analysis beyond the DFC; this work has shown how documents with overlapping actors implement discourse of planned shrinkage, market orientation and/or growth when politically advantageous. However, as Akers (2015) and Hackworth (2015) have suggested, there is little evidence to argue that so-called ‘planned shrinkage’ promoted in the DFC is truly the result of the strategies outlined in the document; the very same actors advocating for land-use shifts also promote explicitly market-based approaches in other plans. This study expanded on these authors’ assertions about the DFC’s tendency towards austerity urbanism, showing the ways that it enables growth to be pursued in a more typical fashion (through incentives for young, educated professionals) in Greater Downtown. In other words, Schindler’s (2016) assertion that the DFC represents a new form of development that utilizes planned shrinkage to promote sustainability and human

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wellbeing is perhaps oversimplified, and undertheorized in light of the diversity of development pursued by key actors (who simultaneously pursue growth).

Cities in extreme decline, while overlooked in the original conception of the growth machine model, are enmeshed in the political economy of growth. However, this work shows that the manifestation of this growth is one that is hybridized with strategies of triage. A significant aspect of this is the implication of the abandonment of value- neutral narratives around the benefits of growth argued to be beneficial to all citizens. In the development tactics discussed here, there is no illusion that all Detroiters are winners when investments are made to key areas of growth. The documents analyzed in this article showed that disinvestment and demolition in declining neighborhoods of the city are rationalized through this retooling of the growth machine for decline. Resolving the justice concerns of growth discourses that favor exchange over use value requires an accurate understanding of the ways that growth coalitions are operating in declining cities. In the context of increasingly concentrated racialized poverty that is pervasive in shrinking cities, calling attention to the specific ways that resources are funneled away from the most marginalized residents is a necessary addition to knowledge on the political economy of growth.

Lisa Berglund, 5218 Smith Street, Halifax, NS, B3H 1M2, Canada, [email protected]

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