Something we have covered a lot in some of the film’s we’ve been working lately on is Detroit’s long term plan for residents and communities– something that has become a hot topic of discussion via the Mayor’s Long Term Planning initiative as part of the Detroit Works Project. To broaden the perspective on what Detroiters are voicing as primary concern vis-a-vis Americans in general, we can look at a recent article in the Atlantic discussing urban planning and what Americans think makes communities work. Some of the studies findings:

According to a new poll from the American Planning Association, two-thirds of the 1,300 Americans surveyed said that their community needs both planning and market forces to improve its economic situation.

And more specifically:

Respondents were also asked to rank the top five factors that make up an “ideal community.” The results:

1. Locally owned businesses nearby
2. Being able to stay in the same neighborhood while aging
3. Availability of sidewalks
4. Energy-efficient homes
5. Availability of transit

A nifty graphic to aid in looking at more of the findings:

The whole point: Detroiters have voiced many of the same concerns locally throughout the Detroit Works Project Community Engagement sessions. So, a few things come to mind:

1. How can Detroit lead the charge for establishing aggressive appraoches to meeting these needs for Detroiters and establishing models that do it for other cities across the country?
2. How can we assure that these topics remain at the top of the priority list as the Detroit Works Project moves forward with its long term planning initiatives?

Through the graphic above, taken from a Freep article by John Gallagher, we get a look at what could potentially be (again, hypothetical!) a neighborhood-level plan for development in communities across Detroit as part of Long Term Planning within the Detroit Works Project.

DWP, all in, is Mayor Bing’s attempt at right-sizing the city, through a variety of civic engagement efforts, design and long term planning measures. If we get this process right as a city, the possibility of our transition to solutions-exporter for other struggling cities gets astronomically higher, which of course plays in to a lot of the work we are doing creatively.

There’s some signs of life coming from the mayor’s office with the Detroit Works Project, now being dubbed “Long Term Planning,” probably due in large part to the fact that a lot of community residents have a bad taste in their mouth when the words “Detroit Works” are mentioned. Probably the biggest of the concerns from the public at large was the idea of being forced to relocate to areas in the city where resources were being concentrated. Then there was the lack of “plan” that the mayor’s office had, which they claimed was intentional, but mistrust from the public had them thinking they knew what they wanted to do before they even started and just weren’t talking about it. The mayor’s office then held community meetings throughout the city that turned in to shouting matches. The urban planner Toni Griffin largely leading the project, was rumored to have been fired after she wanted to bring in some outside consultants (as opposed to hiring all Detroiters) to aid in the strategy development. To top it off, the funders of the whole project– the Ford and Kresge Foundation– announced via the Wall Street Journal that they were strongly considering pulling out of the project in large part because of its ineffectiveness. When most thought maybe the project was dead– or at least the squandering of precious resources (about $9 million from Kresge) for a grand opportunity to build anew– three days ago a headline in the Free Press declared “Bing reboots Detroit Works.”

OK. A good sign.

So, Toni Griffin seems to be back and in the saddle. She joins Dan Pitera (professor of architecture at University of Detroit Mercy), as key leaders in the “re-boot.” Both individuals will be the driving forces behind the project. In my eyes, that simple announcement is a very good start– being perfectly clear about the leadership that will champion this project and what they are accountable for. Simple stuff, but it’s been largely ignored in the past.

The clear statement of leadership does not stop there. They have named a 13-member steering committee (to establish well represented long terms strategies) as well as a 15-member process leaders team (taking a strong hand in directing the community engagement process). To top it off, there will be a walk-in office, with a location to be determined, where anyone can come in, ask questions, take surveys, get information, and probably a lot of other things. There are even discussions about developing a mobile app that would pull in residential input for the community engagement process.

These seem to be HUGE steps. Sure, they are all preliminary, and sure there is a lot of follow-through that needs to occur in order to realize a lot of these claims, but even just seeing a more clearly communicated plan and leadership strategy is a sure sign that things are being done differently from when this project started.

Have a listen to Dan Pitera and Toni Griffin on the Craig Fahle show from yesterday’s broadcast here

See more communication from the DWP website here

This week I attended a Detroit Works Town Hall style meeting on the East Side–

Let’s back up. The Detroit Works Project is Mayor Bing’s plan for the future of Detroit. “Business as usual” is not acceptable in his eyes, and DWP is his administration’s attempt to put everything on a level playing field and move the city forward. As of late, the most outspoken concern is that the plan will involve forced resident relocation as the mayor focuses development and concentration of city services in key neighborhoods in an effort to “right-size” the city. This has been voraciously denied by the administration.

The overall master plan will be drafted in four Phases that involve engaging the community at each step. Phase 1 took place between July and December 2010 and had the Mayor’s office listening and learning, meeting with 5,000 local Detroiters in town hall style meetings all across the city where residents voiced concerns and ideas. From those discussions, the three areas of need the community voiced were the necessity of improving city services immediately, a desire for improved transportation and proper use/development of vacant land.

Phase 2 is currently underway with another 30+ community forums, one of which I attended at the Brenda Scott Academy of Theatre Arts on the East Side this past week. Based on the chaos that came from some of the Phase 1 meetings I had witnessed, I was a little unsure of what to expect. That said, what greeted me was overly pleasant including a door greeting, some literature (beautiful literature by the way, all of it very nicely designed) and bins full of chocolate chip cookies. Really, really, really, soft and delightfully chewy chocolate chip ones (I ate a whopping four of them before even reading said literature).

I took a seat, handled my space-age remote control clicker participation device (at varying times throughout the conversation there are polls to which you respond and the results are shown in real time which is kind of cool, btw) and soaked it all in. The crowd seemed light but was almost a perfect half-and-half mix of male and female (this I know because of real-time surveying results), while attendees were most frequently in the 40 and 50 year old age bracket. People were calm, mostly kept to themselves and focused their attention on the front of the room. What ensued with the presentation is available online for viewing and I would highly encourage you to have a look for yourself. Aside from being visually pleasant, it provides succinct data on where the city is right now, what people have to say about that, and what issues will be targeted in future strategic planning. Really, just look at the damn thing yourself. It will take five minutes and it’s worth it.

Phase 3 (May to August) involves a draft framework plan and six more community forums. Phase 4 (September to December) involves five additional forums and the release of a final strategic plan.

OK. Cut to the chase. Bottom line: Detroit Works Project is important. It is the system by which our Mayor is choosing to re-envision the city and therefore the more perspective we can funnel in to the system the better. With greater community insight, the more reflective and genuinely response-driven the result will be. So this ain’t no fire and brimstone cry, but get out to one of these meetings if only to eat the cookies. The process, flow and interesting data (read: good source of intelligent sounding dinner party figures) I think will probably pleasantly surprise you, and really, the whole space-age remote control real-time survey results are kind of fun. And if you hate all that, then, don’t eat dinner that night and just eat cookies. But really, I think you might be pleased, and just think, when it’s all said and done and Detroit is leading Rust Belt revival you can say you were a part of it. So give it a shot. The city needs you.

Go ahead curious one, check out the Detroit Works Project official website.

Generally speaking, the State of the City is being summarized as an uplifting fair. Things are slowly moving in the right direction. If you missed the speech last night, you can watch it in full here.

The basics:

No question one of the strongest points is Bing’s reduction of the deficit by almost 50% from $330M to $150M. Not surprisingly, so is the reported decrease in homicides. He discussed the Detroit Works Project and the fact that bicycles and better public transport will be a key component of an initial report to be made public in April. There was a lot of talk about avoiding “old battles” and approaching things with new innovative methods– specifically with the the way that the Water and Sewage Department moves forward with ownership and oversight. In a pleasant coincidence, Bing seems to be responding directly to Edward Glaeser’s NYTimes piece by pointing out that Detroit has plans to have a one-stop online portal for business startups up and running by the summer.

The rest of the story:

Check out Crain’s take on the State of the City
MLive’s Jonathan Oosting shares his highlights
Get the “Good, bad and the meh” with Jeff Watrick
The morning after with Channel 4 and a followup Bing interview