Article Database

Detroit: the Centrifugal City

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Racial Crisis and the Fall of the Detroit City Plan Commission

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The events immediately following the 1967 Detroit race riot set in motion organizational changes within the city government that radically altered the status of planning in the city. In this paper, I document the impact of those changes on the Detroit City Plan Commission. Many of the changes developed because of the new postriot environment. Historical evidence focuses on the archives of the commission, and emphasizes the period from 1967 until Detroit implemented a new city charter in 1974.

Marsha Ritzdorf, eds. 1997

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Targeting Neighborhoods, Stimulating Markets: The Role of Political, Institutional and Technical Factors in Three Cities

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Neighborhood Planning: Uses of Oral History

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Neighborhood planning for community improvement in America’s distressed central cities is particularly difficult because the physical environment may have daunting problems and the social environment may appear unapproachable. Oral history as a technique can help access information from those “at the margins” of society who live in distressed neighborhoods. This article analyzes the potential benefits of oral histories for neighborhood planning. It also analyzes interviews conducted with board members of two Detroit community organizations to glean lessons about the importance of residents’ personal experiences within the neighborhoods. The author suggests that collecting such historical insights could become a productive part of neighborhood planning.

Educating Planners: Unified Diversity for Social Action

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Planning education and practice are experiencing growing but disjointed pluralism of race, ethnicity, gender, and nationality, and lack of clarity about how to handle it all. Dialogue has increased concerning the role of race and gender in planning education, but an image of how these mesh together is thus far lacking A rethinking of some recent literature on diversity suggests how planning educators can respond to this new era, and yet avoid the fragmented pluralism and normless confusion that could result This article offers some exploratory ideas about how to meet the challenge of this new era

Planning and Industrial Decline Lessons from Postwar Detroit

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This article examines one city’s public policy reaction to industrial change during the postwar period. The city of Detroit’s efforts to implement a creditable program to counter industrial exodus faltered both because of problems that faced other rustbelt cities and because of particular local political circumstances. Although the city began to participate more actively in economic development in the early 1970s, much industrial employment had already left the city, making the improved economic development tools less effective. Economic development efforts must adjust to new realities; rustbelt cities like Detroit need broader policies designed to help remedy important social and economic problems.

The Minority-Race Planner in the Quest for a Just City

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This article reviews some basic concepts about planners’ role in obtaining a just city, focusing in particular upon the possible role of racial minorities in the process of reaching such a city. We adopt Fainstein’s two-part definition of what is `valued’ in a just city, and then discuss how planners who are racial minorities might be helpful for one part of that definition. Minority-race professionals may help bring tangible benefits to the workforce, but these benefits become difficult to cultivate if minority-race professionals experience difficulties in their work environment. Interviews with several US black planners provide illustrative examples concerning these points.

Planning History and the Black Urban Experience: Linkages and Contemporary Implications

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This article argues for a more racially conscious perspective of planning history, one that is more sensitive to the history of African- American urbanization. For many years racial segregation and conflict influenced patterns of city residence, public housing, and renewal policies. Racial unrest and the civil rights movements helped generate “social” and advocacy planning. In the last two decades, the status of black urban life has become an increasingly important issue for those who plan central cities and metropolitan areas. It is time to recognize these linkages and address them more forthrightly. This is a particularly important area of concern for planning educators.

Social Diversity and Economic Development in the Metropolis

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Theories of regional economic development are increasingly focused on understanding the reasons for metropolitan economic growth. The “creative capital” perspective argues that such growth is extremely dependent on the presence of four main conditions: technology, talent, tolerance, and good quality of place. This article examines evidence for the importance of tolerance in promoting metropolitan economic development. Through his analysis, Richard Florida studied the association of economic growth with the presence of gays and lesbians, bohemians, immigrants, and racial minorities. Literature confirms that diversity is an important component of economic development, although this does not appear to be fully explained by Florida’s creative-cities model.https://doi.org/10.1177/0885412206292259