Are you listening, California? John Tommasi is a senior lecturer in economics at Bentley University. Demographics also played a role. The high school education rate is 77 percent compared to a national average of 88 percent.
The four-year college graduation rate is 13 percent compared to more than 30 percent nationwide. Approximately 40 percent of the households are below the poverty level percent nationwide Detroit is breeding poverty.
Close to half the children are being born to single mothers and the child poverty rate is close to 60 percent. Next week: What other U. And when Detroit police officers finally arrived the next day, surveying an area marred by abandoned structures and overgrown vegetation, they asked Ligon a question she often ponders herself: why is she still in Detroit?
Everything in Detroit seems so hard. Unkempt roads make matters even worse. After a water main break last month, nearby streets became too icy for driving, let alone walking. Like much of the city, her area has few grocery stores or restaurants, making food a question of logistics, not just health or taste. There is a new sense of urgency to stabilise these communities after decades of population decline, with planners and academics unveiling innovative proposals to combat blight and reimagine the urban landscape, and governments and outside donors pledging hundreds of millions to help.
But everyone knows that time is running out. In January, the city's newly elected mayor, Mike Duggan, pleaded with residents to hold on for six more months before moving elsewhere.
The year-old Ligon is exactly the type of resident Detroit is fighting — and struggling — to keep. Raised in the city, she holds a masters degree in urban planning from nearby Wayne State University.
Now, she consults on green infrastructure development and holds fellowships focused on engaging Detroiters on climate change. It was a normal place to live then, having established tenuous stability after the struggles of the 60s and 70s amid a strong Midwestern economy and the growing housing bubble.
But unknown to — or perhaps ignored by — many, Detroit's foundations were still fragile. And when both the housing market and domestic manufacturing imploded in the s, that fragility became all too apparent.
She moved to her house, a modest, white-panelled bungalow with a detached garage and small front yard, 11 years ago. Back then, she said, the homes on her street were all full.
Though Ligon likes her remaining neighbours — she has two on her block — people here tend to rent their homes, and often stay for as short as a year at a time.
The change has been traumatic, Ligon told me. Across Camden Street sits the hulking, two-storey carcass of Macomb Elementary School, closed since and unprotected from urban scavengers. The number of Black Detroiters fell by more than 93,, to just more than , In October, Duggan said he couldn't give an estimate of how many people were living in Detroit but said he believed the population showed growth.
The mayor's office issued a statement Thursday saying the latest figures are what he and U. Rashida Tlaib predicted in October when "Detroit neighborhoods were being undercounted" and both said they were upset that the count was shut down a month before originally planned. Duggan noted census figures show Detroit has only , occupied households but DTE Energy reports there are nearly , residential households currently paying electric bills.
We will be pursuing our legal remedies to get Detroit an accurate count. Duggan said in October that concerns about the Detroit census began even before the process started when the U. Census Bureau cut its budget and did not open an office in the city, and instead focused on Detroit out of Chicago. Ron Jarmin, acting director of the U. Search our interactive database : How your Michigan community grew or shrank in the census. We are totally focused on salvaging our housing stock and moving people back in the city.
He said as he began his second term in January that updated figures were expected that spring would show the city gained population in , but that did not happen. Others shared the concerns of Duggan including former Detroit City Council member Sheila Cockrel, who said the numbers needed to be investigated but was comforted by population losses that appear to have shrunk.
He said for the city to record more than 26, fewer people "is a bit of a surprise. Former Mayor Detroit Dave Bing questioned the census count after it put the city below , residents, a benchmark that qualifies for additional state and federal aid programs. If Detroit officials have information exceeding the count and linked to occupied homes, such as utility bills, they can protest to the bureau, he said. The city could present evidence and then the bureau will investigate, potentially leading to a census change.
Detroit needs to reverse its population decline by attracting more young people to grow its economic base and lead Michigan's prosperity, said Kurt Metzger, a demographer who is Pleasant Ridge's mayor.
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