Detroit Has Capacity for 1.2 Million More People
Al Taubman Believed the Population Density Solved Most Urban Problems
Sunday, September 11th, 2022 at 11:05 AM
Einstein's Bagels
Grosse Pointe, Michigan
First, I have to address an inconsistency. I'm writing about Detroit, Detroit proper, from a bagel shop in Grosse Pointe, a Detroit suburb. As a reader, you can demand that I explain myself. I had to buy a necessity this morning. I wanted to be sure that I could find it. Hence, I looked for a shopping district that gave me a high probability of not leaving empty handed. I
It's too far to go to the Meijer stories in the city, one on Eight Mile and one on Grand River. So I tapped out and caught the SMART bus, route 610. I found the needed item at the first store I shopped. And then I strolled Trader Joe's and stopped in for bagels and a schmear. The loitering over coffee has felt almost like a spa treatment.
Show me a city where I might safely loiter and I'll show you a city with prospects for the future. Wednesday night, I was loitering on the limestone garden wall of the Monteith Branch of the Detroit Public Library. I had just documented an old painted sign on a former dry cleaning shop, advertising Carhartt overalls for sale. I wanted to sit outside and upload the video.
A pedestrian buttonholed me. "I need three dollars so I can get a hamburger." The pedestrian had a mile walk to the closest pair of fast food restaurants, Wendy's and McDonald's. A tinge of fear went off in my chest. "This pedestrian is not looking for a meal," I thought. I politely excused myself, and I made briskly for the safety of home. Not even dark and I was in for the night. I get buttonholed and panhandled often while walking near my home. And each accosting sets off my crack alarm. This is where I chose to live. As a writer, my body is method. I live the experience; the experience tells me the sentences.
One pedestrian always asks me for two dollars each time she sees me. "Can't you help me out?" Giving alms to her has a problematic edge. It could be misconstrued as offer and acceptance. My donation could grant me a ticket to the slammer. I have no idea where she lives, but she always looks fresh, wearing clean clothing. She walks with the energy of a professional athlete, animated by a force that overwhelms her nervous system. I've seen her talking to one person, who might be her boss. I've lived on the stretch long enough to see her popping out of rather nice, new sedans.
This is all going on today a five minute drive west across Alter Road. Alter Road has a strange force field that is easy enough to walk through, and yet the invisible barrier filters effectively.
As much as I hate to evoke the word "Crack", that highly weaponized form of cocaine animates many of the walkers of that stretch of Kercheval Street. One can't loiter on a street where the effect of brain chemistry spoils the moment.
Before I move along, let's talk about Walter Benjamin. Benjamin wrote about public spaces at the beginning of the rise of modern cities. I like to call him Walter. Walter came up with the idea of porosity. Porosity means that public space permits pretty much anybody to use it and, hopefully, enjoy it.
Grosse Pointe has plenty of people enjoying public space, including the man sitting next to me wearing a pink button down. His brain stimulant of choice consists of the New York Times, Sunday edition and a cup of coffee. He rolls up his sleeves, and I see no track marks. Now I'm not saying that the public space around me is free of my fellow humans suffering from chemical dependence. I'm just saying that there's enough people around here that every encounter doesn't set off my crack alarm. Porosity is a watery concept. Here the hard fact of chemical need is diluted.
Let's go back to the Cass Corridor, that beautiful section of Detroit where hundreds thronged last evening, Saturday, September 10th, 2022. People were dressed in kilts, strolling down to the death metal concert at the Masonic Temple. The band had a really Germanic name. Heilung? A guy pedaled on a bicycle, balancing two newly found milk crates. An entrepreneur enjoyed a smokey treat, taking a break from selling vintage clothing at a pop-up by the Old Miami. Sure, some folks on that corridor were fundraising for a pipeful. But it wasn't every single person that I encountered. A few were addicted to the vegan ice cream from a shop near the Shinola clock, but I'm pretty sure those tourists could stop anytime.
If you've read this far, thank you for paying attention as I struggle with a vital question. What is it that happens when one crosses Eight Mile or Alter or Telegraph heading into Detroit? There's a context shift, but what is the context? I'm racking my brains here.
Let's talk about Alfred Taubman, the architect who gave us not only the modern gas service station with a convenience store but also the indoor shopping mall. I heard Taubman speak to an audience at the Center for Creative Studies, promoting his book Threshold Resistance. Sadly, the man passed away soon after the appearance.
Taubman understood the idea of porosity and public space. He collected ancient documents on the ancient marketplaces of Asia. He talked about these places where markets worked because enough people showed up to justify the markets, make them work. To paraphrase Taubman, he said, "The population of the world is exploding. We need only a million of those people to make Detroit work again. Population density solves most urban issues."
Is there a vacuum in Detroit caused by the effect of depopulation? Is blight and hard streets the result of losing a million people in less than four decades?
If that's so, the real heroes are those people resettling immigrants in Detroit. While teaching in Hamtramck in 1988, I worked with a number of the professionals from the Tolstoy Foundation of Ferndale, Michigan. The Tolstoy Foundation brought hundreds of immigrants from Russia, finding them homes in Detroit and Hamtramck.
I met a steady flow of new and different people who flowed into this country when the Berlin Wall fell. One asked me to help him translate Das Kapital into English. A pair from Romania asked me to give a position paper to my handlers at the CIA. One student from Detroit sewed the glorious vestments of the Archbishop of Detroit. The student offered the loan of a Polish Eagle, embroidered in metallic thread. This is just a sample of the fascinating people who flowed through my classroom door.
Flowed. Again, we are talking about the watery concept of porosity? Let's open up the floodgates of immigration in Detroit and see what happens.
Ritualistic Tower of Detroit’s Masonic Temple