“Right-Sizing” Detroit Should Start With Its Sprawling Suburbs

The problem with Detroit is almost always framed as one of Rust Belt deindustrialization, namely the decline of the American auto industry. But Detroit has another big problem, one that deserves an equally large share of the blame: sprawl.

The thing is, while the city of Detroit has been hemorrhaging population, the region itself hasn't lost a whole heck of a lot of people. Kaid Benfield at the Natural Resources Defense Council's Switchboard blog points out that since 1970, the Detroit region overall lost about 45,000 people, or a mere 4 percent of its population.

That doesn't change the fact that Detroit proper is in sad shape. While the suburbs grew at an average rate of 27 percent, Detroit has declined from a height of 1.7 million people to about 700,000 today.

But the way we frame the problem is important, especially as more attention than ever is being devoted to helping revitalize the Motor City. For those who promote Detroit's revitalization, the favored tactic is known as "right-sizing." This mainly entails demolishing vacant properties in the central city and developing strategies for reusing vacant land, such as urban agriculture.

That strategy, says Benfield in his latest post, does nothing to address the major cause of continuing population loss in Detroit: migration to the suburbs. He wonders, are Detroiters missing the point?

Elsewhere on the Network today: Reconnecting America reports that Buy American provisions of the stimulus bill are adding a hurdle to streetcar development projects around the country. Decatur Metro shares why some of the suburban lines in Atlanta's transit expansion plan may have to be eliminated. And Portland Transport explains the frustration of trying to express opposition to the Columbia River Crossing project as a member of the public.