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Morningside in Detroit

DETROIT

Turning Neighborhoods Around

Reviving Detroit’s Oldest Neighborhood: Corktown

Corktown, Detroit ’s oldest neighborhood, was showing its age, full of dilapidated houses and vacant lots. In the 1960s, urban renewal projects razed houses and cleared land there. But when the Detroit Tigers left Tiger Stadium in 1999, parking lot owners had to sell, and the Corktown CDC in partnership with private and public sources seized the opportunity to revitalize the neighborhood. Those lots will hold 33 single-family houses, built to fit in architecturally with surrounding 19 th-century cottages. Pedestrian green space, a strengthened elementary school, and a retail district are also in the works.

Bringing Back Green Space: Morningside Commons

Detroit ’s east side has been hungry for redevelopment. The Morningside neighborhood faced urban decay, and any green spaces were only overgrown lots. The U-SNAP-BAC CDC (the acronym stands for United Streets Networking And Planning Building A Community) is now launching the third phase of its Morningside Commons project. Fifty homes are planned, and 30 single-family homes were ready for occupancy in 1999. Ten more under construction have already been sold. First-time homebuyer programs use low closing costs, tax breaks, and education programs to help families establish themselves as homeowners. The project also includes a park and a children’s playground, designed by residents for a site to be surrounded by flowers and trees.

Current Challenges

Although Detroit has begun to recover, the U.S. Census showed that it lost a fifth of its population between 1980 and 2000.   With the highest percentage of single parents among the largest cities in 2000, its families face difficult challenges. The median household income for all races falls far below the national average, and 40 percent of children live at or below the poverty line. Detroit has the 3 rd highest unemployment rate of all major cities at 11.5 percent, almost twice the national average. Pushing that number down is increasingly difficult because only 11 percent of residents hold a college degree.

A high rate of homeownership belies a weak housing market. While 55 percent of all households in Detroit own their own homes, the economic benefits are not what they are in other cities, given that many houses have been abandoned to decay. Renters also shoulder a difficult burden: 60,000 residents must devote more than 30 percent of their income to rent.

Recognizing that restoring job, housing, and education opportunities requires economic growth downtown, the City's “Grow Detroit” program seeks to attract more businesses to downtown, as well as build new homes and strengthen the public schools. The Mayor's Office of Commercial Revitalization has pledged $4 million for small business growth in neighborhood retail.   The “From the Ground Up” project, a three-year campaign of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the City, and a variety of other partners, is also investing $26 million for economic development and neighborhood revitalization.