During the coronavirus pandemic hospital allocation and resources have been a major question that has led to greater coordination by the State of Michigan to ensure there are enough beds and staff have enough personal protective equipment (PPE).
In the late 1960s, many community hospitals were still in operation. Just in Northwest Detroit there was Mt. Carmel Mercy next to Sinai Hospital with both across the Lodge from Grace Hospital Northwest.
This map of the “Central Detroit” hospital planning region is where present day hospitals on concentrated with DMC and Henry Ford, but in the late 1960s had an even greater density of hospital locations. At this time “Detroit General” run by the Health Department which later became “Detroit Receiving Hospital” was still located Downtown rather than where it is today. The Art Centre hospital building is still in use on WSU’s campus although the building is half condemned.
A friend’s parents’ gave it to me! A lot of times people hear “urban planning” and think to send maps my way, which I actually love.
What made you hang it on your wall? What stood out to you? What details do you enjoy about the map?
I placed the map here because it definitely fits the urbanist aesthetic I wanted on this shelf. My favorite thing about it is the fact that it shows all the connections and lost streets the city has leveled over the years for “urban renewal,” freeways, and other things. It’s nice to have a tangible reminder of how connected and comprehensive the city’s urban fabric once was.
What in your background has drawn you to maps?
When I was a kid I spent hours drawing up fictitious maps for cities, so in a way I’ve always been drawn to them. Recently I’ve become more interested both in the artistic notes found in older maps and all the ways maps can tell very different stories of the same places.
This map is part of the Port Forward initiative. The report notes that funds will be used to conduct land use planning, study potential rail developments, assess the infrastructure in the area, complete environmental assessments. Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority (DWCPA) is looking to work with more property owners that are within the Port District.
We’re starting a new series of posts that feature, YOU! and your “maps at home.” Let us know if you have a cool map of Detroit hanging up (or not hanging) that you’ve collected and really enjoy. Thanks to Francis for kicking us off!
What is your map at home (title, year, etc.)
City of Detroit, Michigan An Outline Map Showing Major Features. Detroit Public Schools, 1964
Where did you find/acquire the map?
This map was gifted to me by someone who had access to a Detroit Public Schools warehouse and knew that they were getting rid of it.
What made you hang it on your wall? What stood out to you? What details do you enjoy about the map?
This map of Detroit was made to hang on a wall! It is one of those old school spring loaded pull down maps. I love that it is still attached to the roller, but we never roll it up. I actually love that it is not very detailed. I think it might have been drawn as a basemap, to just show, as it says in the title, “mayor features.” So not a lot of streets. It’s limited to the mile roads and the more important North-South corridors. I like that it is fairly contemporary, but is old enough to predate certain things. Like it was made before the Jeffries Freeway and shows the Fisher Freeway under construction. Eastpointe is still East Detroit.
What in your background has drawn you to maps?
We have a lot of maps in our house, including a bunch of globes. As an urban planner in a previous life, I have loved maps for decades, and have a number of Detroit maps, including some old ones that show what materials streets were paved in. Unfortunately not enough of my Detroit maps are framed!
Planning a city is a big job, but is it too much to ask for a coordinated effort?
The number of disparate boundaries in Detroit is both fascinating and befuddling: police scout car areas, curbside trash pickup zones, fire hydrant company areas, and on and on.
This post will focus on the various planning boundaries and what they mean for you. The boundaries will be discussed in chronological order, but all of these boundaries are actively used to plan the city’s future.
Master Plan Neighborhoods, 2004: These boundaries are the legacy of the United Community Services/United Way Community Services “subcommunities” first developed in 1951 and drawn along Census Tract boundaries so that Census data could be used to compare areas. These 54 areas have been the official “neighborhoods” since that time and remain so since the City’s Master Plan has not been updated since 2004.
Planning Clusters, 2007: The City Planning Commission decided to break the city up into 10 clusters based on the Master Plan Neighborhoods in order to focus development work. These clusters are still written into the official work of the Planning and Development Department.
City Council Districts, 2012: The City voted to elect representatives by geographic district as part of the City Charter revision. The final boundaries only align with Census Block boundaries making it difficult to match any demographic data to districts.
Design Districts, 2016: Mayor Duggan brought Maurice Cox (now planning director for Chicago) to the city to move his neighborhood work forward. As part of that effort Mr. Cox restructured the Planning and Development Department into 3 large “design districts” based on combining different City Council Districts.
Strategic Neighborhood Fund, 2016: Mayor Duggan creates a public-private fund to initiative “neighborhood” planning work in a few hand-picked areas. The Strategic Neighborhood Fund areas do not align with any other “neighborhood” boundaries. Hundreds of millions have been raised to support development work in this areas.
Neighborhoods, 2016: Mayor Duggan’s new Department of Neighborhoods (DON) adopts an interesting and controversial set of some 200+”neighborhood” boundaries largely based on the work of a local tech company and not based on community feedback.
This map comes from the Toni Swanger Papers in the Reuther Library and Archives. The school board regions are no longer used and the membership is much smaller.
An active member of the Detroit women’s rights movement, journalist Toni Swanger worked with the Detroit Women’s Radio Workshop on programming for the Detroit public radio station WDET, and served in various roles for Detroit newspaper, Metro Times, including production manager and managing editor.
The “desert” metaphor is really overdone (and hardly accurate), but Detroit does have a significant gap in childcare opportunities. The Center for American Progress (CAP) and University of Minnesota developed a series of maps to drilldown on the issue with features for Milwaukee, San Jose, and Detroit.
The current pandemic and school reopenings reminded me of an earlier map metric called “disconnected youth.” The WSU Center for Urban Studies mapped the metric in 2002 by “subcommunities” based on the 2000 Census. I expect the numbers will only get worse following 2020 and beyond.
Map: Electric Vehicle Charging Stations in Detroit 2020
There aren’t many places to charge your electric vehicle outside of the 7.2 square miles of “Greater Downtown.” I’ve seen a few electric cars here and there charging at home garages across the city, but if you’re looking for infrastructure – good luck. DTE notes that data comes from Alternative Fuel Data Center, although many of the charging stations are the DTE corporate sites in Detroit.
These images stood out to me as stark contrasts from where a community vision wants to see development go compared to what the powers that be are capable of imagining.
The State Fairgrounds Development Coalition (SFDC) has a vibrant plan of mixed commerical/residential, a burgeoning alternative energy and tech center that connects to a high school and middle school, an extensive green park, all of which surround a new space to hold conventions and gatherings.
The currently proposed plan with City government, besides its immediate drab color choices and appearance, doesn’t show much beyond a warehouse and parking lot with a few pockets of undefined development. The primary draw is a new transit center that is quite limited and imagines no future multi-modal connections with nearby rail.
The City of Detroit DPW with Giffels-Webster has embarked on assessing truck routes, specifically within Southwest Detroit where truck traffic is heaviest due to transportation hubs and the current international bridge.
UPDATE 09/25/20: Using CARES Act funds, Wayne County and the City of Detroit added 30 additional ballot drop boxes in Detroit. There are now 32 total ballot drop boxes.
VOTE! Find your Ballot Drop Box location. Voters must use the ballot box in their specific jurisdiction. Detroit had only two until the City and State worked to add sites.
This map from the Reuther Library and Archives shows a contracted program by the Public Works Department with the goal of mitigating basement flooding by updating sewer systems in 1947.
I hope the effort worked in 1947 because the city hasn’t seen such a large investment in infrastructure since as evidenced by the recent and regular flooding.
In honor of yesterday’s primary day, take a look back at Michigan Senate District boundaries in Detroit and Wayne County from 1903. The county consisted of 5 total Districts with two contained within Detroit’s smaller city boundary at the time.
Overall immunization rates at schools help reduce the spread of diseases that can be deadly, including measles, polio, measles, mumps, chicken pox, whooping cough, diptheria, and HPV. Everyone needs vaccines in order to protect family and community health. Vaccines don’t just protect children, but also those who are elderly and immune-compromised, newborns, and teenagers.
Check out rates across Detroit and at specific schools. Interactive version here.
The University of Michigan at Dearborn used to have a Center for Urban Studies that completed some of the largest and most comprehensive Transportation and Land Use Study (TALUS). As part of that study their research team tracked population change and modeled population growth to the year 2000.
The New York Times mapped Dynata poll results to create these detailed maps. Dynata asked a question about mask use to 250,000 survey responses between July 2 and July 14.
In 2017, the City of Detroit and partners were funded by the Knight Foundation to test out the “Open Streets” campaign in Detroit. The effort resulted in a well-branded annual event that took over a 4 mile stretch along Michigan Avenue from Campus Martius and taking Vernor Hwy to Livernois on Saturday mornings (I don’t count the event in Rouge Park).
Cities across the world are now rethinking roadways, how to manage increased bicycle traffic, and ways to making walking and dining safer by permitting more space for those activities than for cars. Great ideas! However, Detroit is still a bit slow on the adoption of more people-centered street configurations. Sure most of the city could be argued as “open streets” due to low population densities and minimal car traffic, but that doesn’t show any commitment by local government to serve the needs of people.
Through its “Detroit Means Business” COVID-19 strategy the City solicited application for expanded dining patios and potential areas for “open streets” (in some cases alleys). They should have just used Aaron Mondry’s crowd-sourced list from Curbed Detroit – some match perfectly. Various festivals in Detroit regularly close certain streets as well that could exist as continuous pedestrian routes as well, somewhat like Pallister Street in New Center. My two pitches are for Cass Avenue to be bus and bike only and for Second Avenue to exist as a car-free greenway from Downtown to New Center.
“Open Streets” to date have been strategically timed and contained. The map shows that these tend to be in a very small area of the city associated with the 7.2 square mile “Greater Downtown,” but there are numerous examples where this kind of planning could benefit neighborhoods outside of Downtown. An “open street” for every neighborhood!
Shout out to Transit Guide: Detroit (Dave Gifford), Detroit Traffic Management and Control, and Erika Linenfelser for sharing information not found on any city website.
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