Creative Detroit?Re-imagining The Motor City

Neal Baj and Taylor Brydges

Why Detroit?

Post-Industrial City

Epitome of Financial Crisis

Post-Recession Recovery?

Where is Detroit?

http://geology.com/satellite/cities/map/detroit-map.gif

Where is Detroit?

http://clickmetrodetroit.info/images/Click_city_M_detroit_map_net.jpg

Boom Time Detroit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUbsw28PCpA

Postwar Expansion

Postwar era saw extensive freeway construction

This opened up the Motor City, connecting Detroit to the growing region

Period of optimism and growth for the city

Detroit in Decay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Qp5io9UqY

Detroit’s Decline

Departure of automotive industry

Mass exodus of people and jobs to suburban municipalities

Growing unrest within the Detroit population

Impact of Recession

Decline in innovation (Chan, 2011)

$20 Billion Dollar Deficit (The Citizens Research Council)

Conflicting discussions on how to move forward

What Remains: Focus on Architecture

Abandoned districts in the city

The need to preserve the existing architecture

How can existing architecture be leveraged in redevelopment?

Creative Approaches to Redevelopment

The work of Richard Florida (Rise of the Creative Class, Who’s Your City?, The Great Reset)

Manchester and the CIDS (O’Connor and Gu, 2010)

Create Berlin to Creative Balitmore (Evans, 2009)

Creative Problems

“Creativity is the new black” (Peck, 2008, p.1)

Neoliberal inequality (Zimmerman, 2008)

“Creative class theory has a dark-side” (Donegan and Lowe, 2008)

Is Creativity The Way Out?

What is Detroit doing to innovate out of crisis? The Detroit Creative Cultural

Corridor Detroit ‘Make It Here’ campaign Creative Cities 2.0 Summit 2008

Imported From Detroit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKL254Y_jtc

Discussion

If you were the Mayor of Detroit, would you pursue creative city strategies?

What place does Detroit’s history have in planning the economy of the future?