Resuscitating Detroit: Can Public Transit and Farming Return Detroit to Prosperity?

80% of all U.S. federal transportation dollars go to roads and highways. 90% of all Michigan state transportation dollars go to roads and highways. Detroit has lost more than half its peak population and one-third of the city is vacant. In Spain, one can buy a single ticket that pays for parking, light rail, and subway, and everywhere the Ave high-speed electric train goes, so prosper the cities it connects.

These are some of the key messages from the PBS documentary Blueprint America: Beyond the Motor City, which asks whether Detroit would be rejuvenated by once again installing rail lines for streetcars throughout the city. I previously suggested a way that Detroit and other Rust Belt cities could greatly benefit from a building program for car-free neighbourhoods, and this documentary adds streetcars and public transit to the equation. Sadly, Detroit sold its last streetcars to Mexico City many years ago.

Nobody is suggesting that all it will take to revive the Rust Belt are streetcars, but the fact is that mass transit, particularly on rails, is the most efficient way to travel and cars are damn expensive. Free people from the need to own a car and they have more money to spend in their neighbourhood shops and restaurants, or on their houses. This is especially true for poorer people, most of whose income goes to necessities. Given that Detroit, ironically, contains a large number of people who don’t own cars and can’t really afford one, public transit could be a big help.

Rail-based transit also has the huge advantage of concentrating commercial development at train stations, where car-based development occurs willy-nilly everywhere. It is far more efficient to have all the stores in a downtown and neighbourhood centres than spread out in strip malls all over the city. Efficiency includes not just fuel, but time spent by shoppers.

Reviving Detroit

Detroit’s woes have been oft documented; the city’s population is down to one-half its peak and one-third of the city is vacant. Many areas of Detroit have reverted to a natural state, and Blueprint America discusses one attempt to restore Detroit by turning depopulated areas into farms. This has the potential to create thousands of jobs and a secure food supply for the city.

Portland’s transit system is often held up as a model for the rest of the United States, and deservedly so. However, while Portland’s system is very good for the U.S., the Spanish system profiled in Blueprint America is far superior because it is integrated. As mentioned previously, riders can park at the train station, take the train into the city, and then take a subway to their ultimate destination – all on the same ticket.

And everywhere that Ave goes, so goes prosperity. Tourism and trade naturally follow the trains. Could streetcars and high-speed trains help Detroit? Certainly the jobs could, and so would the mobility that mass transit would bring. Detroit is a huge, sprawling city; Boston, San Francisco, and the island of Manhattan could all fit within Detroit’s boundaries. As the personal automobile rose to ascendancy, the city was redesigned to suit with now disastrous results. Detroit’s problems are only going to get worse as the price of oil increases and fewer people can afford to drive. The city was designed to accommodate cars more than people, and has paid the price.

My own thought is that streetcars connecting walkable, car-free neighbourhoods is the way to go for Detroit. The personal vehicle is not going to make a comeback on a mass scale, and therefore neither is any city dependent upon it. Detroit also needs to let depopulated areas go and replace them with farms. There is no reason farms and urban areas cannot coexist – and every reason they should.