The United Community Services of Metropolitan Detroit used to be the major data and mapping group in the Detroit area. The organization later became the United Way.
This map gives an interesting view on naming and division of the city into subcommunities. In 1952, Detroit was near peak population and it’s likely that some subcommunities had as large of a population as some of the nearby cities.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about higher education in Detroit. The pattern that can be seen here with more individuals with degrees on the West side is mirrored in other categories such as income. There are approximately 32,805 individuals with a Bachelors degree and 22,185 individuals who have a Graduate level degree. That’s a total of 54,990 people with higher education degrees or about 12% of Detroit’s population compared to 101,749 people with less than a High School education. Michigan’s population has an average 25.5% Bachelor’s degree attainment. Compared to other cities often grouped with Detroit we see: Philadelphia, PA 23%, Oakland, CA 37.9%, Cleveland, OH 14%, Chicago, IL 33.6%, and Baltimore, MD 22.6%.
Detroit has 11 different institutions for higher education (see map) and at one point in its history as Michigan’s largest city, it once held the most highly educated population in the state. Currently, Michigan’s highest educated city is East Grand Rapids with 77.5% of its population holding a Bachelors degree.
There are too many reasons why Detroit’s population has become less educated to write here, but a good place to start would be to look back to the “Inferior Quality Education in 1960,” which demonstrated the racial divide in allocating school resources.
These maps come from the Detroit Geographic Expedition and Institute’s Field Notes No. 4 as they helped analyze and organize around the loss of the Matthaei Playfield to WSU and the generate inequitable access to recreation space. One of the accompanying maps was comparing open space in Mack Ave. and Bloomfield Hills.
“[…] the removal of recreation space from the community effects the quality of life for the people who live there quite severely.
Moreover, central city communities such as Cass-Trumbull have special needs because of the larger densities of children, fewer gardens, smaller playfield areas attached to schools, and poorer quality playspace compared to higher income areas in the city.”
This map accompanied “A study of Detroit Dental Aid’s private patient referral service” for the Dental Coordinating Committee of the Planning Committee for Health Services.
Still today access to health care is difficult due to limited service providers. Much of Detroit is designated by the MDCH as a “medically underserved area” and the picture for dental care looks very similar. The MDCH and Detroit Health recently was accepting proposals to improve dental care access for the Detroit area. A number of community dental clinics exist including University of Detroit Mercy (UDM) Dental School’s clinic.
What: #Maptime
A monthly event that will share mapping skills at a different community group each meeting. Read more about #maptime DETROIT
Why: Goal
To democratize map making: to help everyone learn how to make maps and become literate map readers.
We believe that maps are best understood through hands-on experience in making and deconstructing them.
Where: TechTown, 440 Burroughs
The Community Development Advocates of Detroit (CDAD) will be hosting our inaugural event.
When: November 3rd @ 5:30pm
We’ll get the evening started at 5:30pm with an overview of #Maptime and then others will give lightning talks on how they are currently doing community mapping in Detroit.
RSVP: HERE
There is a strong focus on bicycle related events and businesses in Detroit. Ford started with the quadricycle and Dodge began with manufacturing bicycle frames.
These events and businesses often bring in a lot of suburban and non-Detroit residents, but using a bicycle to get around transit-choked Detroit is very common all over the city beyond Midtown. Check out some ACS Census data on where bicycle commuters live.
When sifting through countless sets of data, you will most absolutely come into contact with more “ID” numbers than you hope to see. After I was working with some very large parcel-level datasets I couldn’t help but envision The Matrix.
Maybe we’re all just a mashup of numbers and data . . . social security numbers, drivers licenses, voter IDs, selective service registration, vehicle identification numbers, membership accounts, etc.
Participants of the “Data, Mapping, & Research Justice” workshop through Co.Open and Allied Media Projects (AMP) spent some time creating analog maps of Detroit using only their hands and their creativity to tell their stories. They agreed to share their maps here for all to see. I was particularly impressed by their use of emotions and social issues related to their spatial/ geographic awareness of Detroit.
At the end of our first class we held an excellent discussion on research justice and how to balance narrative information with hard data; numbers and statistics. We tapped into the long running debate on the merits of qualitative data versus quantitative data. Our conclusion was that both are important to use and often times quantitative numbers data can open the door for policy makers to begin listening to the qualitative stories and experiences of the people behind the numbers.
I can’t wait to see what kinds of digital maps that everyone will come up with by the end of the course!
This map comes from the Detroit Geographic Expedition and Institute’s Field Notes 4 publication where you could also find the map image comparing neighborhood assets of the suburbs vs. the city.
During the “urban renewal” push that created the notable districts of Midtown (Medical Center, Art Center, Museum District, etc.) Wayne State University (WSU) was also a focus area called University City 2 (UC2). The Trumbull area was considered to have a transient population that was undesirable for WSU and the City of Detroit. Residents were offered relocation funding and many 31% of renters moved locally in a northwestern direction, however displaced homeowners tended to move further away and often outside of Detroit. Between 1960 and 1970 the Trumbull community population went from 14,500 people down to 8,000.
Field Notes 4 focused on the takeover of the Matthaei Playfield by WSU for its sport facilities, but also examined housing, police, and health services in the Trumbull community (now better known as Woodbridge).
This number comes from efforts of the last 3 years from my Detroit Food Map project. I started completing nutritional assessments of grocery stores in May 2012 working off of the DEGC list of full-line grocery stores. In the summer of 2013 I put together a team of 15 volunteer surveyors from local universities and community groups to survey all of Detroit’s grocery stores. We found that 77 of them met the criteria for a full-line grocery store and all of the stores surveyed carried at least 15 varieties of fruits and vegetables. The major difference with many of Detroit’s grocery stores and big chain supermarkets is often the size of the produce section, which limits the selection.
Over the last 3 years I’ve seen a handful of grocery stores close, a few new ones open, and some even converted into Family Dollar locations.
Find out more about the project: Detroit Food Map
Photo credit: Wally Nowinski (Detroit’s Grocery Stores)
Corktown is many things, but one thing that it definitely is not is definitive. Much like Detroit does not end at the city limits, neighborhoods and communities in Detroit are rarely definitively bounded areas unless there is a strong economic interest involved (i.e. Midtown and Skillman “Good” Neighborhoods). This idea of evolving boundaries and neighborhoods can easily be seen in the birth, decline, and redevelopment of Corktown.
This animation charts the changing area known officially as Corktown as well as the expanding idea of Corktown.
Much of the information in this post is based from Paul’s well researched post on “Corktown’s Blurry Boundaries.”
What is missing?
I’ve been trying to chart the changing borders of a few of Detroit’s well known neighborhoods. I had gotten in pretty deep into researching Corktown when I came across the Corktown History blog where the above map was posted.
More from author Paul Sewick:
As Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood becomes increasingly popular, questions frequently arise regarding its exact boundaries. But Corktown was not a planned community with fixed borders. It grew, developed, and changed organically. This map is an attempt to trace its changing definition. The original parish borders of Most Holy Trinity Church are generally agreed to coincide with the old neighborhood. But as urban renewal hacked its way through the city, some segments of Corktown were isolated and took on a new character, while others were wiped out completely. These parts comprise the area denoted as “Former Corktown.” “Old Corktown” is the area that remains relatively intact. The development projects that divided Corktown also joined its core with other residential areas that would not have been considered “Corktown” in the 19th century–the “Corktown Addition”. Of course, this is just another attempt to define a neighborhood that doesn’t want to be defined.
For a history of the attempts other have made, read more on Corktown’s Blurry Borders
Paul notes how the development of the M-10 Lodge expressway cut Corktown in half and the Briggs neighborhood came about near the former Briggs Stadium site. Later the West Side Industrial redevelopment project took off a portion of Corktown.
Recently, members of the Briggs neighborhood voted to be renamed as ‘North Corktown” and there is a new group centered in the West Side Industrial area who are starting to call the area “West Corktown.” A mention must also be thrown in about the supposed joke of “Corktown Shores.” Perhaps Corktown will again expand (organically or planned) to it’s former boundaries?
This map by Yellow Pages, Michigan Bell Company was a part of the “Complete Illustrated Guide to Dynamic Detroit with Detailed Maps” in 1959 ($0.60). Hastings Street had not yet been bulldozed for I-75 construction. This map also demonstrates how Detroit’s spoke streets used to be numbered as part of the expressways system. For this reason, many of the spoke streets are much wider than they need to be based on low traffic usage.
The long and short of this post title is that artists are among the first line of gentrifiers. It is true artists often have very lower incomes, transient housing, and suffer from a lack of understanding from a majority of the public – however, most, if not all, artists come into various cities and urban settings with a great amount of privilege. Choosing to attend art school is privilege number one when others often lack the ability to pursue art at mostly expensive, private schools. The map shows that over the years the Detroit Design Festival (DDF) has become more concentrated in specific areas as well as increased the number of hosted “happenings” or events in those concentrated areas.
In Detroit you can see this blessing and curse all bound up in the idea of “doing something good” in the city’s “blank canvas” of opportunity. While artists attempt to be very self aware and well meaning, they face many of the same pitfalls of a nonprofit attempting to do the most good in areas where they have limited experience. The missing ingredient in the case of both artists and nonprofits is the lack of understanding for historical context and root causes. If you hope to do anything in Detroit, it must start with a critical perspective on the city’s history of racism, regional separation, and the need for equity. Detroit is layered with historical and cultural nuance. It is impossible to forget the history and try to start something fresh.
The Detroit Creative Corridor Center (DC3) which puts on the Detroit Design Festival highlights its “network” of mentors which includes only 5 minorities out of 47 members (Less than 10%). Similarly, only 30% of their Creative Ventures incubator program participants are minorities. There is a real problem in the Detroit creative community in that there is a racial disparity in regards to who gets funding. This seems especially egregious when 83% of Detroit’s population is Black or African American. There are countless creative programs across the city being run by Black residents and minorities, but the question remains in who gets the funding and support to carry out their artistic work.
A while back I wrote a piece, Detroit is Not Your Blank Canvas, looking at the impact of art on neighborhoods and what I felt was a need for artists to be critical in understanding their own privilege and engaging people who are already here. This was a final question from my critique on the “blank canvas” myth:
“Art can no longer be ignored as an economic impactor, but if art can build vibrancy and revive communities it begs the question: for whom does art revive communities?”
Mayor Duggan has made demolition of blighted homes a top priority with 1,927 home demolitions up until September 10, 2014. Luckily for Duggan, he isn’t the only one with this goal. A number of private and federal interests also want to move forward with tearing down Detroit’s blight.
| Contractor | Number | Percent |
| Able | 102 | 5.30% |
| Adamo | 744 | 38.63% |
| Blue Star | 110 | 5.71% |
| DMC | 59 | 3.06% |
| Homrich | 690 | 35.83% |
| MCM | 221 | 11.47% |
The top two contractors tearing down Detroit’s blight are Adamo (38%), based in Detroit, and Homrich (35%), also contracted to shutoff residential water accounts. Both companies have been in the demolition business since 1964 and I can only wonder how many Detroit homes have met the business end of their machinery.
The BuildingDetroit.org site has the demolitions listed in PDF form and we took just a few hours to turn them into a usable dataset. Open data requires no more PDFs!
The Urban Institute has completed an excellent analysis with Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data. I had been wanting to work with the HDMA data after Michigan Legal Services and the ACLU won a lawsuit against Morgan Stanley for employing racial discrimination in subprime home mortgages offered to Black Detroit homeowners during the economic recession. The New Century Financial Group (now bankrupt) was tasked with seeking out Black homeowners to offer subprime mortgages. From Reuters:
“The ACLU asked the court to certify the case as a class action. It said as many as 6,000 black homeowners in the Detroit area may have suffered similar discrimination as a result of being offered loans that many could not afford.”
Recently, JP Morgan Chase (Chase Bank) announced that it would be investing $100 million in Detroit over the next 5 years. This could only be seen as a corporate move to appease their racial discrimination. Detroit has been named as the 5th hardest hit city during the housing crisis. At the Detroit Homecoming Mayor Duggan told the audience that the city had sold 162 homes, but people are saying, “we can’t get mortgages.” It seems that Mayor Duggan should be keeping a very watchful eye on Chase Bank, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, etc. if he truly hopes to stem the tide of migration out of Detroit.
Text from the Urban Institute‘s page:
A delayed recovery still hurts minorities most: Detroit
Detroit is the poster child for cities that have lacked a strong recovery like San Francisco’s. The sharp drop in the number of mortgages reflects this ailing Rust Belt city’s sweeping economic decline. According to the US Census Bureau, Detroit’s population fell from 951,270 to 713,777 between 2000 and 2010 as the auto industry stumbled, jobs disappeared, and the city entered the largest municipal bankruptcy on record. Though the recession took a toll on the entire region, the housing bust still disproportionately hurt minority borrowers.
Detroit’s downtown, which held a large share of mortgages made to African American borrowers during the boom, has remained virtually devoid of new mortgages since the bust. From 2006 to 2012, the number of mortgages in the metropolitan area fell 79 percent for African American borrowers as lending within city limits fell off the map. In comparison, the number of mortgages made to white borrowers dropped only 11 percent. Recent investments from the private sector suggest a comeback could be under way, but the mortgage market in the inner city shows no sign of recovery yet.
One of Mayor Duggan’s biggest initiatives came with a large amount of federal and private funding. Duggan essentially kicked out the Pulte Family’s “Detroit Blight Authority” efforts, so they have started spending their money focusing their efforts on tearing down blight in Pontiac. The Motor City Mapping project and the subsequent “Blight Report” from the Blight Removal Task Force chaired by Dan Gilbert further emphasized the removal of blighted structures. There are a number of financial interests in bringing down blight, from the city government image department, to funders of the Detroit Future City Plan (Kresge, Skillman, etc.). Each week the Mayor highlights how many houses were demolished as part of blight elimination.
In the last 2 weeks I’ve heard various reports from friends who are residents of dozens of homes getting torn down in the matter of hours: in the Osborn area someone talked about starting at 7am, eight houses in a row were torn down and in the North End nearly 12 were taken down between 9am and noon.
The data used in the above map is unfortunately only available in PDF format.
UPDATE 09/22/14: I spent a few hours today scrapping the data. Enjoy!
Detroit Region Census track population density change 1970-2010 by redditor Butter-Tub :
The population data came from the US Census, downloaded from NHGIS, and joined in ArcGIS. The 3D visualizations were created in ArcScene, exported for each year, and then loaded into GIMP as layer files. From there it was a simple export to GIF.
A little horn tooting: I will be presenting a workshop on data and making maps in October with Allied Media Projects Co.Open. We’ll be doing some active data collection and retrospective analysis of the Cass Corridor. Sounds exciting right!? This is all to keep working towards to goal of getting more people making maps!
Everyone wants to use amazing maps and visual graphics for their causes, but there are a number of behind the scenes steps to ensure data is collected in a way that promotes justice. Maps and data can be used to better understand where inequality exists, to look at possible correlations between environmental risk factors, or even to visualize community responses. Working within the frame of research justice, we will be using open source tools to work with GIS data. Our goal will be to successfully understand data collection, data management, and basic map visualization. Do you want to use maps and data to further your social justice cause? Then this is the course for you!
Here is a link to apply for reduced rate scholarships
These fun pictograms come from “Detroit: a manual for Citizens” published by the Detroit Public Schools in 1958.
In the text it asks:
“Perhaps it will interest you to locate the year of your birth and notice how Detroit has grown in your lifetime.”
I’m not sure how many Detroiters are alive today that can still do that.
Jessica Hartwig submitted this map that she created for Hostel Detroit. She was inspired by Axis Maps’ typographic maps of other larger cities and hopes to finish a full version of Detroit. We will be first in line to buy it when she does!
DETROITography 