Vision Circle

What would be on the shortlist of substantive issues in Detroit Lester?

Posted by: cnulan at January 11, 2005 08:57 AM

One substantive issue in the Mayoral race in Detroit in 1952 Detroit had 1.9 million people today the population is approx.900 thousand but with the same land area how do you manage that successfully.
tootsie

Posted by: tootsie at January 12, 2005 11:46 AM

Detroit has an educational system that uses 19th century methods to deal with 21st Century kids and a 21st Century city. There are other problems, but we can start there.

Posted by: Lester Spence at January 16, 2005 03:59 PM

If they genuinely use 19th century methods, then those kids are very fortunate indeed. Including, of course, the "hands-on" methods of maintaining order in the classroom that proved so effective in my own primary school experiences which culminated in the late 70's.

What methods are the parents of the children using to ensure that their children are properly educated? 19th century methods of parental involvement in the educative process haven't been topped either, by my estimation. That would an essential and substantive issue guaranteed to get either candidate in hot water.

The issue that Tootsie raised seems fairly fundamental, insofar as the city's infrastructure may, like Kansas City's, be a significant barrier to full economic participation by occupants of the urban core.

Posted by: cnulan at January 17, 2005 12:17 PM

With the onset of the industrial revolution and the increased immigration rates that came with it, we see the creation of public education. it focuses on rote memorization, strict adherence to time, revering authority, and rote repetition. works well for an automotive industry in the fifties. not so well when what we need is a critical citizenry that can help rebuild a city that is half empty.

Posted by: Lester Spence at January 17, 2005 02:37 PM

Aight,

I'm with you 100% on the need for dramatic Gatto-ization or reform of public education.

I guess I got lost in possible translations by juxtiposing the notion of resource poor but care and attention rich old school standards in pre-integration public school systems.

Separate and unequal produced strikingly better results. Frankly, having less than zero confidence in the parasites who run contemporary urban public school systems - I'd be disinclined to invest a single additional penny in that fustercluck until and unless the rules of the game are changed in some seriously fundamental ways.

One of the fundamental changes that can be implemented immediately and nearly free of charge is empowering teachers to maintain discipline in the classrooms the way discipline was maintained when I received my elementary education.

Competency in reading, writing, arithmetic and an environment in which love of learning is paramount would go a VERY long way imho toward producing a generation or three of non oxygen thieves capable of running the infrastructure and growing something therein. Since Cuba is a paragon of educational excellence in this hemisphere, perhaps there are lessons to be learned from the Cuban example? Not resource rich, but culturally, developmentally, spiritually rich and handlin they bidnis on a fundamental level, including such novelties as sustainable urban agriculture. Cause you know diet and access to food is a root concern undergirding some of those disproportionate health impacts being felt across our communities.

Posted by: cnulan at January 17, 2005 07:32 PM

brother on P6 called PTCruiser dropping serious knowledge...., relevant to this topic.

NACA cont.

The generic and historical approach toward addressing these issues in poor black urban communities has been to aim toward creating a critical building and infrastructure mass that would, provided the constituent elements were appropriately aligned, produce housing, job and commercial activities. Clearing a block or several blocks of land in the hope of luring one or two or more major retailers in the hope that these stores would attract shoppers into the area and that this in turn would persuade smaller retailers to open shops etc. The unemployed or underemployed resident of the community are expected to go to work in these new retail outlets.

These activities often begin with a great deal of fanfare and excitement. Politicians come out and cut ribbons, ministers offer the accustomed benedictions and leaders of uplift organizations are quick to tell the press that all of this hubbub represents a new day for the community. By and large, however very little of what is promised comes to pass. Developers promise more than can be delivered; major retailers grow leery either because of the economy or the project no longer quite fits into the company's strategic plans; lenders grow nervous. Within the community the agreed upon project is generally seen as an opportunity for every hustler, grifter and bourgeois nationalist to make a buck and woe to anyone who looks as though they intend to stand in their way. In short, to update an old line, even Stevie Wonder can see that this approach has not worked very well at all.

I believe there is a far simpler and more manageable approach to this process that can deliver affordable housing, provide real jobs and training to the residents and will result in the development of commercial activity in the community. This plan will not work in every city because it requires a unique set of circumstances that is not common to every city.

Let's use a city, for example, like Detroit, Michigan. Detroit has an enormous number of abandoned residential properties. The current mayor would like to see these properties seized by the city and turned over to developers to build market rate housing. The president of the city council, on the other hand, shares the mayor's enthusiam for seizing these properties but would prefer to see more housing built for poorer residents. This disagreement between two major political players (and, by implication, their supporters and others) virtually, if not absolutely, ensures that the city will spend more time debating about this and other related questions than in building housing or creating jobs in these neighborhoods.

Here is what Detroit should do:

1. Take 15 to 30 of the properties it has seized to date and build modular housing on these sites. Modular housing manufacturers have developed their products to such an advanced state that in many instances you cannot tell the difference between modular and stick built housing. Modular is less expensive than stick built and will last just as long. Buying 15 to 30 houses at one time from a manufacturer will significantly reduce the costs of these homes. (The costs of these homes can be reduced even more by using low income housing tax credits that can be sold to investors through various syndicates. The tax credit investors provide equity in the project while getting a tax write-off for the life of the credits, which is usually ten years. There are some additional requirements if this process is used but it is still doable.)

2. Recruit and train neigborhood residents to do the necessary construction and fitting work required to build these houses. Secure the involvement of the local building trades unions by brokering a deal with them in which the city (or a developer that the city hires) agrees to hire a certain number of journeymen if the union agrees to take these neighborhood residents into their unions as apprentices. The traditonal practice of having 6 to 8 journeymen for each apprentice is impractical here and will not work. One of the underlying principles here is to provide these apprentices with the type of training that wil give them both vertical skills - moving up the ladder to higher paying positions - and horizontal skills - the ability to take their skills and union cards and certificates and move to another region or state if circumstances require it. Members of the Laborers' Union, for example, can receive training and certificates in abestos and hazardous materials removal.

3. Create a non-profit organization or find an existing non-profit housing organization or a "for-real church" that will assume responsibility for identifying and training a pool of prospective homebuyers. These homebuyers could also include some of the apprentices. Pre-qualify these potential buyers by using Michigan's housing finance agency. The idea here is to purchase all 15 to 30 homes at one time from the developer. This will result in even more additional savings to the homebuyers because any developer who understands the game would be more than happy to sell 15 to 30 homes at a time rather than one at a time. The discount to the buyers would probably be somewhere between 10 to 15 percent if not a little more. Don't forget that this discount is also additional equity that accrues to the benefit of the homebuyer. This additional equity can be pooled by the homebuyers and used to fund a community center, childcare facility or an improvement district that can be utilized to assist in attracting small retailers, e.g., drycleaners, coffee shop, drug store etc. into the community

There are a lot of other details that I haven't listed here but I think what I have presented represents a practical and eminently doable departure from the past. The important thing is that it is not capital intensive and does not require an investment of millions of dollars from the city. In fact, if the city found a developer with a large enough balance sheet and a modicum of vision then the developer would assume the risks provided the developer is allowed to call the shots. In the end, the city would, among other things, have succeeded in putting properties back onto the tax rolls, reduced blight, created real jobs, revitalized a neighborhood and laid the groundwork for creating a middle class resurgence within the city. Detroit could replicate this process throughout its most run down, crime ridden communities.

Posted by: cnulan at January 19, 2005 07:24 PM

Kwame's a Black Nationalist! You have got to be kidding Les! Give me a break...

Now of of course you didn't say that exactly, but you implied it...and misleadingly so.

The "class oriented distinctions" are at best PHENOTYPICAL. And that's where it ends. Both these guys are from the class of ELITE DETROIT BLACK FOLKS.

Like your Daddy, my Daddy plays just as much golf with Freeman. BUT, my Daddy has had Kwame over the house too!

I think you're carrying the strawman too far with illusions of not so grand brown-paperbag-testing you're hintin' at...

I weigh-in on the politics and particulars in the coming days/weeks...

Posted by: MKD at January 21, 2005 01:40 PM

Mike D., if I didn't put it in there, it isn't in there. There is no way in hell I would categorize Kwame as a nationalist.

But class doesn't quite mean the same thing in black communities as it does in white ones. So let's break down the markers around which this election will pivot:

Light-skinned vs. dark-skinned
Archer vs. Young
Nationalist vs. Integrationist
East Side vs. West Side
Jack and Jill vs. Non

In as much as every political campaign in the modern era of Detroit politics pits someone with money and education against someone else with money and education we are talking about intra-elite competition. But elites have different wellsprings of support (otherwise there wouldn't be competition). And in this case what I'm saying is that the roots of that support HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH POLICY OUTPUTS and EVERYTHING to do with perceptions of class.

Posted by: Lester Spence at January 21, 2005 04:37 PM