Land Use

Photo by: Marvin Shaouni

Land is detroit’s greatest LiabiLity and its greatest asset.The preoccupation with what to do with all that land has driven the discussion about land use and led to oversimplified strategies. In fact, Detroit’s population density is still similar to that of cities like Portland, Atlanta and Denver. To be sure, a traditional “build it and they will come” approach is not going to work for Detroit.

Detroit’s image and identity have evolved through three major eras, each tied to a particular aspect of the city’s economy. First, the early period of riverfront trade and commerce set the tone for downtown’s majestic Beaux Arts buildings and formal street pattern. Then as the city grew during the Auto Age, an extensive industrial ring grew up around the city core. New modes of industrial production decentralized the city still more, with a combination of rail and highways serving the sprawling outer reaches of Detroit. During the third phase of Detroit’s identity, large neighborhoods of single-family detached homes spread out across the city. Once a sign of the American Dream, these neighborhoods were never as efficient to serve as more mixed-use, compact neighborhoods would have been. Both the neighborhoods, and the over-scaled systems that served them, fell on hard times as the city lost population and revenue.

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