Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who took office in January, promised immediate improvements after the city hit a low point last year, becoming America’s largest to file for bankruptcy, the New York Times reported today. The city has targeted Detroit’s North End as among the first neighborhoods for renewal. Situated just above the city’s vibrant Midtown and Downtown corridor, the North End is ripe for commercial and residential development. The city is offering financial incentives for employees of Wayne State University and two nearby hospitals to rent or purchase homes in parts of the North End. It already has some stable housing stock and deeply rooted families in which mothers and brothers, cousins and uncles all live around the block from one another, occupying homes that have been in their families for three or four generations. New people and also organizations are moving in, like the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative, started by two University of Michigan graduates in their 20s. The city has already started tearing down blighted homes all over, including in the North End, where nearly 70 houses have been demolished so far this year and about 240 more are under contract to be razed.
