Essay: Regional Cooperation - 11/16/06

Hard to remember now, but people throughout the Detroit area were shocked beyond belief by the four days of riots that devastated  the inner city back in the summer of 1967. Within months, a number of groups were founded to try to make sure nothing like that ever happened again. They included, among others, New Detroit and Detroit Renaissance, two of the six groups   in the new regional coalition with the unwieldy name, “One D; Transforming Regional Detroit.”

Their aims back then were in many ways the same aims One D has now, especially when it comes to economic improvement, regional cooperation, and bringing the races together.

I have been alive, around and paying attention most of that time. And I can tell you that while these groups have had many small successes, the bigger picture is one of failure.

The Detroit area is the most segregated in the nation. Detroit city suffers from vast poverty, job and population loss, a dysfunctional public school system, and an overwhelming lack of resources. 

The suburbs too often don’t think it is their problem. Their residents voted overwhelmingly against affirmative action. L. Brooks Patterson, Oakland County’s longtime powerful chief executive, is against any kind of mass transit other than buses.

He is against paying suburban dollars for a badly needed renovation and expansion of Cobo Hall, Detroit’s main convention center. When in doubt, he believes in cutting the central city out. Naturally, plenty of Detroit politicians have responded in kind.

So now comes a number of groups calling themselves “One D. This is not really an organization at all, but a loose coalition of organizations. They intend to study some problems, most of which have been studied at great length before, and present their results at the Mackinac Conference next spring.

The fashion is to be hopeful. It is not seen as polite or politic to be cynical. So I won’t be. But put it this way. If the One D coalition accomplishes anything major, I will be greatly surprised.

You see, I’ve seen this movie before. There is, however, one encouraging thing about this. That is the fact that there is a growing need for regional cooperation if we are to have any future.

Want to know what I would do if the One D folks asked me for advice? I would issue every member of every group a copy of David Rusk’s marvelous little book, Cities Without Suburbs.

Then I would have them start agitating to get the Michigan Legislature to pass the one thing that would make a difference.

And that would be metropolitan government. Combine Wayne County and Detroit into one governmental unit, as they have in Miami and Nashville and Indianapolis. 

Provide for cooperative transportation and revenue and resources sharing links with Oakland and Macomb Counties.

Do that, work hard at what follows, and we could be and should be a healthy region again sooner than you might think.

Or, of course, they could write another report instead.

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Comments

[Andy McFarlane]

I'm wondering how One D can hope to truly accomplish anything without involving the schools and the city government in the process.

As usual, thanks for going deeper into a major Michigan story. I really feel that a more successful and vibrant Detroit would herald a more successful and vibrant Michigan.

You can click on my name for our article on One D (with links to all the organizations).

[Kerry C. Duggan]

Hi Jack,

Thanks for highlighting the efforts of this new coalition. You and I sit on opposite sides of the glass. Mine is full -- but I am also generationally-challenged (read: not tained by the memories of 1967).

Though it reads as if you don't love reports, here's one we've just finished that was sponsored by the Downtown Detroit Partnership and Detroit Economic Growth Corporartion.

If it does anything, perhaps it will awaken those in the 'burbs (of which I'm a product) to come down and have a looksee. There is a heck of a lot of action downtown, PSB (post Super Bowl).

Follow this link to the .PDF report, courtesy of the Brookings Institution: http://www.brookings.edu/metro/umi/pubs/20061025_downtowndetroitinfocus.htm

It's not all gloom and doom. Believe me you, I know gloom and doom, I'm an environmentalist!

Yours,
Kerry

***************
Kerry C. Duggan
MS Candidate, Resource Policy and Behavior
School of Natural Resources and Environment
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/kerry_duggan
(734) 846-0093 mobile/text

[Adam Doby]

Hi Jack,
I too am skeptical of the effect that OneD will have on the region. I think that it will need support from most of the suburbs to have any long-lasting or significant effect on anything. But I completely agree with you on the need for a regional government. I just wonder whether that will be any more effective than OneD will at creating cohesiveness in Wayne county and between the new government and Oakland and Monroe counties. Perhaps in 20 years, when the leaders of the region are no longer people who were even alive in 1967, we will be closer to cohesiveness. But I even wonder still, if it's just a matter of rearing, and whether the youth of Metro Detroit are going to be just as racist as their parents. Regardless of the potential problems, I still feel a regional government would be a huge boost, if nothing else, to the image of Detroit and Wayne county.