VOLUME 10, Detroit – Invitation Out of Exile, 1992
The Suburbanization of Detroit Stephen Vogel Reflections on “The Suburbanization of Detroit” Professor Stephen Vogel, FAIA, 2018 When I wrote this article, I was angry—angry that the city was still not recovering from its decline; angry that the economic forces from outside the city were dictating where Detroit was heading; angry that the City of Detroit was desperately letting real estate developers create projects without regard to an overall plan for the city. And finally, I was angry with myself, for not pushing the city, our primary client, farther. The Victoria Park project exemplified this anger. As the first new single family residential project in the city in 30 years, we tried to push for an “urban” plan that fit well into the Jefferson Chalmers community and the context of Detroit. I vividly remember sitting down with the Vice President of Standard Federal Bank in Troy, a friend of Mayor Coleman Young, who pushed hard to make this project happen. But when I showed him our initial ideas, he immediately said that the bank would only provide mortgages to “suburban style” houses in a neighborhood that had curving streets, was fenced in and had a gate house. The representative of the Community and Economic Development Department immediately agreed, and as much as I argued, neither would relent. Although I thought of dropping out of the project, I knew that the project had an importance to the city because it could prove there was a market for housing in Detroit as well as illustrate that banks were now willing to give mortgages to minority communities. Consequently, we reluctantly remained as the master planners. The Homebuilder’s Association of Southeastern Michigan, twisted the arms of their suburban builders, to take a chance on Victoria Park and eventually several agreed, mostly builders who were originally Detroit based and had left the city to follow white flight. Not surprisingly, their housing models were suburban and traditional in style. Within weeks of announcing the project and constructing five models there was a waiting list of three thousand people who wanted to buy into the neighborhood. This proved once and for all that there was a market for new housing in Detroit—a market that continues to today. About half of these 3000 were Detroiter’s who wanted to move into “new” housing “designed for them” and about half were suburbanites who were willing to move “back” into the city. I interviewed many of the buyers to find out why they would pass up cheaper and better built houses in Indian Village or other historic neighborhoods of Detroit and instead live in these vinyl-sided houses. The answer was always that the houses were “new”, just like on the television shows featuring contented and happy families. To this day I am torn and embarrassed by a crisis of conscience when I drive by Victoria Park, but I am happy that it was the beginnings of a housing “boom” in a city that was desperate. I am also pleased that today there is an attempt to not build suburban style housing and that the city seems to be listening more to urban designers and architects—a situation that I never thought I would witness.