DETROIT (AP) — When Mayor Mike Duggan announced his plan to run for governor of Michigan, he did so from a tower at the iconic but aging Renaissance Center overlooking Detroit.
It’s not the same city Duggan inherited in January 2014.
No longer defined by blocks of vacant houses, empty downtown storefronts, rampant crime and scores of broken streetlights, many believe Detroit is finally experiencing its renaissance.
“I wish he would stay,” 40-year-old plumber Thomas Millender said of Duggan, who will step down in January after serving three terms as mayor.
“Duggan did a good job from what the town was to how it was renovated,” Millender said from his father’s front porch in a neighborhood where many homes are dilapidated. Private renovation crews buzzed in and out of the once-vacant homes, preparing them for sale.
“There’s not a neighborhood in this city that hasn’t been diminished, that doesn’t have street lights on, that doesn’t have parks renovated,” Duggan told The Associated Press.
“We have it going in the right direction, but the next mayor is going to have to build on what I’m doing, and the next mayor is going to have to build on that mayor,” Duggan said. “It will take decades to bring the city back.”
A city once destroyed
Duggan, a former prosecutor and health center chief, ran for mayor in 2013 when Detroit was broke and billions of dollars in long-term debt.
It was hard to keep basic services running. City employees were forced to work fewer hours and take pay cuts. More than a third of Detroit residents lived in poverty.
“We’ve hit rock bottom,” Mayor Dave Bing said flatly.
Bing, a successful business owner and basketball Hall of Famer, was elected in 2009 after a scandal involving once-popular Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick rocked City Hall and forced Detroit’s financial woes into the spotlight.
By early 2013, the state had taken over the city’s finances and installed an emergency manager who filed for bankruptcy that summer. Because of the depth of the city’s debt, there was no way “to get any relief without bankruptcy,” Bing said.
He did not seek re-election, and the city, looking for new leadership, found it in Duggan.
Rebuilding Detroit after bankruptcy
Detroit emerged from bankruptcy in December 2014 after wiping out $7 billion in long-term debt. A few years after that, a state review team monitored the city’s finances and made sure its bills were being paid.
Detroit has since logged more than a decade of consecutive balanced budgets.
Violent crime, including murder, is down.
In Detroit, when Duggan took office, there were more than 40,000 vacant homes and other vacant buildings. Using mostly federal funds, his administration led to the demolition of more than 24,000. Thousands more who were tottering and unlivable were saved.
“Some neighborhoods are in better shape than others,” said Jeff Horner, a professor of urban studies and planning at Wayne State University. “There are still blocks of poverty and dire poverty.”
But the biggest hurdle overcome during Duggan’s tenure is the city’s massive loss of population. Detroit’s population peaked at 1.8 million people in the 1950s. By 2010, it had dropped below 700,000.
“The city has lost a million people since 1957,” Duggan said. “That’s a lot of years of decline. It’s going to take decades of growth to catch up.”
A census estimate put Detroit’s population at 645,705 in 2024, showing an increase of about 12,000 people from 2021, according to the city.
“When he ran in 2012-13, he said, ‘Judge me on one thing and one thing only: whether Detroit can gain population,'” Horner said of Duggan. “He kept his promise.”
Focusing on the entire city
Jay Williams, 36, admits there is less mess, but would like to see alternatives to tearing down houses and leaving land vacant.
“There’s a lot of open space,” he said. “You can do new development. Most of the money is concentrated downtown.”
Detroit megachurch pastor Rev. Solomon Kinloch, argued during his unsuccessful mayoral campaign this year that every neighborhood should participate in Detroit’s renaissance.
“You can’t do all the investment downtown,” Kinloch said. “It has to go all over town.”
City Council Speaker Mary Sheffield, who was elected this month to succeed Duggan and will take office in January, says she will build on his success and make sure “Detroit’s progress reaches every block and every family.”
The first responsibility of any mayor is to deal with “the whole civic fabric,” said Rip Rapson, chief executive of the private Kresge Foundation, which provides grants and invests in cities across the country.
“It’s not like you can just fix roads or improve police response times or build 25 units of affordable housing,” Rapson said. “As mayor, you have to address the need for complete neighborhood vibrancy … making sure neighborhoods have adequate housing, safe housing stock, small business cultures, educational opportunities that anchor a neighborhood.”
“People will argue with pieces, but he’s done all these things,” Rapson said of Duggan. “He leaves a pretty strong and positive legacy.”