How Regional Equity Issues Impact Detroit and Similar Cities

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How Regional Equity Issues Impact Detroit and
Similar Cities
john powell Executive Director, The Kirwan
Institute for the Study of Race and
Ethnicity Williams Chair in Civil Rights Civil
Liberties, Moritz College of Law The Ohio State
University January 10, 2006
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Todays Presentation

• Challenges Detroit and similar cities face
• Suburban exurban sprawl, urban decline, racial
  disparity, concentrated poverty, segregation from
  opportunity
• Regionalism
• Defining equity-based regionalism
• Opportunity structures
• Recognizing the interconnected nature of cities
  and suburbs
• The importance of race within regionalism
• Next Steps
• Examples of Regionalism
• Coalition Building

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• Space is how race plays out in American
  society-and the key to solving inequities in
  housing, transportation, education, and health
  careSprawl and fragmentation are the new face of
  Jim Crow.
• john powell

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Population Loss

• Detroit has lost almost half of the population
  living in the City in 1960, depopulating many
  neighborhoods

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Suburban Sprawl

• Like many metropolitan regions, Detroit has
  experienced significant population loss from
  older City neighborhoods (into the periphery of
  Wayne County and the surrounding region)
• Racially these trends have varied for Whites and
  African Americans
• Whites have moved throughout the region, while
  African Americans have remained more concentrated

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Whites have moved throughout the region since
1970, while African Americans have moved
primarily to concentrated areas adjacent to the
City of Detroit.
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Extreme Segregation in the Detroit Region
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Low income households were primarily left behind
in the population movement to the suburbs, this
is most pronounced for African Americans but also
evident for Whites.
White Low Income Areas
African American Low Income Areas
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Sprawl and Children

• Sprawl is harmful to all residents of a region,
  especially those who are abandoned in
  inner-cities and inner-ring suburbs.
• Particularly at risk are children.
• Environmental effects of smog create and
  exacerbate asthma in children
• This affects a childs performance and success in
  school
• These schools are also often underfunded and
  lower performing than their suburban counterparts
  to begin with.
• Sprawl also increases the parents commute time,
  leaving parents less time to spend with their
  children

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From the Federal Millennial Housing Commission
Report

• neighborhood quality plays an important role in
  positive outcomes for families. Stable housing in
  an unstable neighborhood does not necessarily
  allow for positive employment and child education
  outcomes. Federal demonstration programs enabling
  the poor to move from distressed city
  neighborhoods to lower-poverty communities
  underscore the potent impact of neighborhood
  quality on family stability.
• -From Meeting our nations housing challenges.
  Report of the Bipartisan Millennial Housing
  Commission, Appointed by the Congress of the
  United States. Page 11 (2002)

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Benefits for Children Who Move to Low-Poverty
Neighborhoods

• From Gautreaux

Chart source http//www.bos.frb.org/economic/nerr
/rr2001/q4/chances.htm
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Benefits for Children Who Move to Low-Poverty
Neighborhoods

• From Moving to Opportunity (MTO)
• The arrest rate for violent crimes among those
  who moved to a low-poverty neighborhood was one
  third of that for those who stayed in the
  high-poverty neighborhoods
• Nearly half of this difference come from
  robberies, which imposes costs to society around
  8,000 per crime

Source Can Housing Vouchers Help Poor Children?
By Duncan, G.J. and Ludwig, J. July 2000.
Online http//www.brook.edu/comm/child
rensroundtable/issue3.pdf
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What has accompanied these changes?
Suburban Job Centers in Detroit

• Concentrated poverty in the City
• Abandonment, disinvestment and vacancy in the
  City of Detroit
• Extreme segregation
• Greater land consumption with declining
  population
• Shifting of employment activities to the suburbs
• The suburbs have about 85 of the region's retail
  establishments and 87 of the jobs
• Impacts on the economic health of the entire
  Detroit region

Source Detroit Free Press
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Conditions of concentrated poverty are found
throughout many of Detroits neighborhoods.

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Disinvestment and Abandonment

• Population loss has resulted in a surge of vacant
  and abandoned properties
• The City of Detroit contains the largest number
  of tax foreclosed properties and vacant
  properties in the State
• Approximately 40,000 tax reverted parcels, 90,000
  vacant parcels city wide

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Land Consumption

• Although Southeast Michigan has experienced
  limited population growth, sprawling land
  consumption has increased dramatically
• Between 1982 and 1997, the Detroit-Ann Arbor
  region experienced a 5 population growth, but
  experienced a 29 increase in developed land
• Population density in the region declined by 19
  during this 15 year period

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Sprawl Segregation from Opportunity

• Good jobs, stable housing, and educational
  opportunities are pushed into suburbs, and then
  exurbs.
• This locks the central city and inner-ring
  suburbs out of access to meaningful opportunities

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Moving Employment Opportunities

• The Brookings Institute found Detroit to be the
  second-most decentralized metropolitan area.
  78.05 percent of its employment is located more
  than ten-miles from downtown.

• Source Job Sprawl Employment Location in U.S.
  Metropolitan Areas (2001), Brookings Institution.

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African Americans are Segregated from Jobs and
Job Growth
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Spatial mismatch in Detroit, White and African
American households without vehicles in Detroit.
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City-Suburb Disparity

• As of 2000, of the 326 largest metropolitan
  areas, Detroit is ranked 306 in having the
  greatest disparity between the central city and
  its suburbs.
• Even if suburbs are thriving, city-suburb
  disparity will over time damage the region as a
  whole.
• Fragmentation decentralization hurts the entire
  region, including whites.
• The greater disparity, the less competitive that
  region is, and the greater the impact on the
  regions economic health

Source Mumford State of the Cities, available
online at http//mumford.albany.edu/census/CityPr
ofiles/Profiles/2160msaProfile.htm
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How does this fragmentation and regional inequity
impact economic health?

• Segregation drives education disparities,
  depressing the educational ability of a large
  portion of the region
• Segregation keeps much of the African American
  labor force isolated from economic opportunity,
  creating workforce shortages for employers
• Fragmentation creates redundancy in government
  services and creates inter-regional economic
  competition, when the region should be competing
  globally

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• If structured correctly, regionalism that is
  equity-based can produce profound benefits in
  reducing inequity and promoting social justice.
• john powell

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Focusing on the Region

• Why is the region important?
• The spatial orientation of todays economy,
  housing market, infrastructure, and labor market
  are no longer locally focused.
• Local initiatives are not enough
• Local conditions are under the influence of
  regional forces outside of local control.
• Regional structures and market conditions impact
  neighborhoods and require new approaches.
• Resources are allocated on a jurisdictional
  (local) level.
• Opportunities are allocated on a regional level.
• Traditional decision-making is on the local
  level.
• Rational (local) Decisions Unreasonable
  (regional, jurisdictional) Structures
  Unreasonable Results/Racial Hierarchies

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What is Regionalism?

• Regionalism is a structural approach that
  emphasizes the region as the primary geographic
  unit determining the distribution of opportunity
  and resources.
• The region is the best geographic entity to base
  some level of decision-making.
• Many regions are adopting a regional approach to
  problems but with varying focus.
• May be focused on economic efficiency, government
  efficiency, infrastructure management,
  environment management
• What about equity?

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Regionalism Must be Focused on Equity

• Regionalism must be equity-based.
• Regionalism itself is neutral. It can produce
  equitable or inequitable outcomes depending on
  the focus.
• Regionalism without equity could successfully
  meet goals such as financial efficiency and
  growth management without addressing disparities.
  One example of this is the effort to take over
  the water that Detroit controls, but not other
  areas.
• Infrastructure-focused regionalism could further
  disenfranchise people of color by benefiting
  suburban communities without modifying the
  residential/educational segregation in the
  region, harming the central city.

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Equity-Based Regionalism Policies

• Equity-based regionalism is also opportunity
  focused
• Equity based regionalism looks at the spatial
  arrangement of resources and opportunity.
• Equity based regionalism is focused on key
  opportunity structures.
• Opportunity structures are the resources and
  services that contribute to stability,
  advancement and quality of life.

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Opportunity Structures
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Opportunity Structures

• Fair access to these opportunity structures is
  limited by spatial arrangements and regional
  dynamics including
• segregation, concentration of poverty,
  fragmentation, and sprawl

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Opportunity Structures
Where you live is as important as what you live
in.

• The segregation of African Americans in
  metropolitan areas is not just segregation from
  Whites, but also from opportunities critical to
  quality of life, stability and social
  advancement.
• This includes economic and educational
  opportunities
• Residential location also plays a determinative
  role in life outcomes including social, physical
  and mental health

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Regionalism in a Detroit Context An
equity-based regional agenda in a
undercapitalized city

• Detroit (like other rust belt cities) is an
  undercapitalized city with significant urban
  decline and limited new investment.
• Other large undercapitalized cities include
  Cleveland, St. Louis, Pittsburg, Philadelphia,
  Baltimore, Newark.
• Undercapitalized cities are categorized
  as being highly fragmented and having
  great racial and social disparities

The Core Rust Belt Region
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Undercapitalized Cities
Hot Market Cities
Midrange
Austin
Cleveland
San Fran.
Detroit
Portland
Seattle
Indianapolis
Columbus
Raleigh
Chicago
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Regionalism in a Detroit Context An
equity-based regional agenda in a
undercapitalized city

• In contrast the only Midwestern regions with
  relatively low levels of disparity are
  Indianapolis and Columbus
• Both regions have more regionalized government
  structures (Indianapolis through consolidation,
  Columbus through proactive annexation)
• Research by David Rusk, David Miller and others
  supports this theme, finding that less fragmented
  regions as have more racial equity than their
  fragmented peers
• Researchers feel that fragmentation (and
  corresponding exclusionary policies) produce
  greater levels of segregation and greater
  exclusion from opportunity for people of color,
  ultimately leading to greater inequity

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Regionalism and Children

• An equity-based regional approach to connect
  individuals to opportunity could have profound
  impacts on children
• Recently proposed legislation has specifically
  acknowledged that housing location is critical
  to support excellent outcomes for families
  especially children, with emphasis on excellent,
  high performing neighborhood schools and
  excellent quality of life amenities, such as
  first class retail space and green space.

Draft reauthorization bill for the Hope 6
program. Prepared by Senator Barbara Mikulski of
Maryland. Introduced on July 27, 2005.
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Regionalism for Economic Health

• Equity-based regionalism can also positively
  impact a regions economic health
• Research suggests that regions who utilize
  regional policies are economically (and socially)
  healthier
• Conversely, regions that are the most fragmented
  are more economically depressed. Why?
• No unified strategy for economic development
  (infighting over jobs and new businesses)
• A less qualified and educated work force due to
  educational disparities in the region
• A entry level and low skill work force that is
  spatially isolated from suburban job
  opportunities
• More likely to exhibit sprawling growth that
  wastes public resources on new roads, sewers,
  schools in undeveloped areas, while existing
  resources are left to deteriorate

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Regional Economic Health

• The Detroit region must compete with socially
  healthier (more equitable) regions for investment
  in todays economy
• The region can not depend on the old industries
  of the past to sustain economic health
• Regionalism is a strategy to make the region more
  competitive in the new global market place

• Between 2000 and 2004 the Detroit region lost
  150,000 jobs
• Since 2000, the Detroit region was the 14th
  slowest growing metropolitan region in the
  nation, with a regional population growth of 0.8
• This trend will grow worse if economic trends
  continue

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Regionalism's Importance for the City and Suburbs

• The suburbs are changing.
• Traditionally urban issues are now impacting our
  older suburbs and these communities have fewer
  resources to deal with them.
• Need for a unified approach to address these
  issues
• Smaller suburbs do not have the resources to
  address these regional trends

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Race Regionalism

• The challenge for regional equity is to connect
  low income populations and people of color to
  these opportunity structures
• This requires cooperation between the central
  city, suburbs and exurbs, and a equity-based
  regionalism approach
• Opportunity does not lie solely in the suburbs,
  it is a moving target. Thus separate, isolated
  efforts to move individuals to opportunity are
  not enough.

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African American Suburbanization

• Example African Americans are the fastest
  growing racial group in Detroits suburbs, slowly
  reversing trends from previous decades
• However, opportunities (good jobs, good schools,
  anchor institutions) do not necessarily follow
  the African American families to the suburbs
• A growing body of evidence suggests that African
  Americans are predominately moving to distressed
  suburban communities
• Over 80 of suburban African Americans and
  Latinos live in at-risk suburbs compared to only
  50 of suburban Whites (in 15 regions studied by
  IRP)

Source Institute of Race and Poverty
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Not All Suburbs are Equal
Suburb Does Not Necessarily Equate to High
Opportunity

• African Americans and Latinos who reside in the
  suburbs are much more likely than suburban whites
  to live in fiscally stressed jurisdictions with
  below average public resources and greater than
  average public service needs
• As of 2002, essentially half of the poor
  residents of U.S. metro regions lived in the
  suburbs
• Source Myron Orfield and Thomas Luce,
  Minority Suburbanization and Racial Change
  Stable Integration, Neighborhood Transition, and
  the Need for Regional Approaches. Report of
  Institution on Race and Poverty (presentation at
  the Race and Regionalism Conference in
  Minneapolis, May 6-7, 2005.)

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In the 1990s, African Americans were the fastest
growing racial group in Detroits suburbs, while
Whites are moving into the regions exurbs.
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The Changing Face of White Flight While African
Americans are Moving to Closer Suburban
Communities Whites are Moving into New
Developments in the Surrounding Exurbs.
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Suburban Decline

• A number of suburbs are beginning to show signs
  of decline from issues that are traditionally
  associated with urban areas

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Race and Regionalism

• In order for regionalism to succeed, we must
  raise awareness and address the racial tensions
  which created regional inequity
• Racial tensions produced white flight and racial
  isolation, and are the primary factor driving
  fragmentation
• If regionalism is to counteract this historical
  exclusion, these racial tensions must be flushed
  out

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Race and Regionalism

• Other racial tensions must be addressed
• Regionalism is not an attempt to take
  opportunity from Whites but a way to better
  connect people of color to the opportunities they
  have been denied in the past.
• The ultimate goal of regionalism is to lift of an
  entire region and ALL of its residents.
• Also, concerns by African Americans of power
  dilution are real and potentially an issue, but
  these can be mitigated with proper policies that
  focus on regional structures to connect people to
  opportunity

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Concerns About Regionalism

• Often regions rush to regional governmental/struct
  ural solutions (such as consolidation) without
  exploring other cooperative intergovernmental
  strategies
• There may be significant resistance of
  communities of color to adopting this approach.
  Why?
• Communities of color and low-income communities
  can be further marginalized through power
  dilution from government consolidation and
  mergers
• Regionalism may not explicitly target the issues
  impacting racial equity (such as housing,
  education and tax base)

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Power Dilution from Regionalism

• Minority representation dilution
• In most regions, consolidation reforms have
  resulted in a reduction in the concentration of
  African American voters (and in some cases
  elected political representation)
• Indianapolis Unigov
• Schools originally not addressed in
  consolidation, fragmented tax districts also
  maintained and created political
  disenfranchisement of African American community
• Louisville Consolidation
• Recent research has found suburban political
  interests (and development) dominate the
  political agenda at the expense of African
  American central city neighborhoods

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Can Regionalism Exist Without Regional Government
or Consolidation?

• Yes!
• Intergovernmental arrangements can address
  fragmentation and inequity without resulting in
  power dilution for communities of color
• Example Pre-consolidation Louisville
• Prior to the consolidation in Louisville, the
  city and county developed an agreement to share
  occupational tax revenues and jointly manage land
  use planning and development
• During the this time period, investment increased
  significantly in Louisville and indicators of
  disparity were improved
• Example Minneapolis-St. Paul
• The twin cities region remains highly fragmented
  (the 2nd most fragmented region per capita
  nationally) but equity has been improved through
  regionalized tax base sharing
• Additional initiatives to equalize school funding
  have also improved equity

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Potential Regional Policies

• Examples of potential equity based regional
  policies
• Regional school strategies to address segregation
  and concentrated school poverty
• Regional affordable housing strategies
• Regional transportation/mobility strategies
• DETROIT IS THE LARGEST REGION WITHOUT A REGIONAL
  PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM
• Strategies to curb sprawl and reinvest in
  existing neighborhoods (with infrastructure and
  other resources)
• Strategies to make decisions regionally and to
  share resources (taxes)

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Example of Regional Affordable Housing Strategy

• Chicago Metropolis 2020
• In the Chicago region a collaborative
  organization with strong representation of the
  business community have worked together to
  promote regional affordable housing
• Economic leaders in the Chicago region see
  affordable housing as a critical impediment to
  regional economic health
• Over 100 the regions largest employers have
  signed a pledge to factor affordable housing
  supply and regional transit into new investments
  and business expansion in the region
• The group works also works to lobby for statewide
  initiatives to promote affordable housing in job
  rich communities

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Opportunities and Successes in Pursuit of
Regional Equity

• Transportation
• MOSES (Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling
  Strength) filed a lawsuit arguing that policies
  and fiscal arrangements support individuals with
  cars (often white and wealthy suburbanites) while
  discriminating against the poor, minority and
  disabled people who rely on the regions
  inadequate public transit systems

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Opportunities and Successes in Pursuit of
Regional Equity

• Detroit Land Bank
• Grassroots activism efforts in advocating for a
  Land Bank Authority in Detroit
• Collaboration and advocacy between multiple
  groups
• Detroit Local Initiatives Support Corporation
  (LISC)
• Community Development Advocates of Detroit (CDAD)
• Community Legal Resources (CLR)
• MOSES

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Coalition Building

• To pursue regional solutions, it is critical that
  these racially diverse, regional coalitions are
  formed
• Regional solutions have been most successful
  stable when coalitions comprised of multiple
  entities are formed
• Oregon (Coalition for a Livable Future-60
  organizations)
• Chicago (MAC, Metropolis 2020)
• For coalition building consider groups such as
  community based organizations, social justice
  groups, local governments, the business
  community, CDCs, philanthropic institutions and
  large urban institutions (e.g. Universities)

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Developing Good Neighborhoods

• Identify possible Turning Points or critical
  interventions in undercapitalized areas.
• Instead of focusing on the tipping point, we need
  to better define what neighborhoods require to
  reach the turning point
• What convergence of positive actions will
  accelerate the neighborhoods revitalization?
• Pushing development beyond the turning point
  threshold requires an intervention strategy to
  positively transform the neighborhoods physical,
  social, economic, and political environment
• Keep eyes on the prize

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