Detroit is “venturing into a new frontier”. It’s baaack – the plan to completely abandon big areas of the city and relocate people into smaller islands where the city can provide services.
One of the reasons driving this is that “back in the day”, the legislature in Michigan passed a series of special laws that only “Cities with a population of 1 million or more” could do – and Detroit was the only city over 1 million (it peaked at around 1.9 million in the 1950s. The population was estimated last year at about 820,000 – and it has a large percentage of its population on the public dole.
It wasn’t the only reason for this, but following the 1967 riots, when Coleman Young was elected, his vision was to create a “nation within a nation” – a homeland for black Americans who wanted to live in a place that would create black empowerment, by making it clear if you weren’t black you were not welcome in the city (unless you dumped money into Coleman’s campaign chest). Self-segregation was not the point of Martin Luther King’s message. A fitting way to end Black History Month.
Ironic. Back to what they so vehemently fought against…