The Construction of Emptiness and the Re- Colonisation of Detroit
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The Construction of Emptiness and the Re- Colonisation of Detroit Liev Cherry Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1 Statement of Originality I, Liev Cherry, confirm that the research included within this thesis is my own work or that where it has been carried out in collaboration with, or supported by others, that this is duly acknowledged below and my contribution indicated. Previously published material is also acknowledged below. I attest that I have exercised reasonable care to ensure that the work is original, and does not to the best of my knowledge break any UK law, infringe any third party’s copyright or other Intellectual Property Right, or contain any confidential material. I accept that the College has the right to use plagiarism detection software to check the electronic version of the thesis. I confirm that this thesis has not been previously submitted for the award of a degree by this or any other university. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author. Signature: Date: 2 Abstract Once a city of two million people, and the centre of US car manufacture, Detroit’s fortunes have been in steady decline since the mid twentieth century, when the industry that built it began to downsize and relocate production away from the United States. Decades of disinvestment and racial division left a city with central neighbourhoods sparsely populated and crumbling, while resources and services were concentrated in wealthier suburbs. In recent years, the city’s landscape has come to be emblematic of post-industrial decline, urban blight and civic abandonment. My research adopts a mixed-methods ethnographic approach to argue that this framing of the city is in fact a deeply ideological one, with constructions of Detroit as empty and chaotic serving to lay the groundwork for a large-scale project of re- colonisation, which draws simultaneously on discourses of greening and redemption. Narratives of abandonment and the re-emergence of urban ‘nature’ work together to reclaim the city in the interests of a mobile elite whose ‘white flight’, widely cited as the source of Detroit’s problems, never flew much further than the suburbs. Drawing on news media, documentary film, television, photography, semi-structured interviews and extended periods of participant observation in Detroit between 2012 and 2014, I show how constructions of emptiness, a wilful fictionalisation of Detroit’s recent history, narratives of greening and a pervasive investment in structures of white supremacy serve to create a Detroit in which wholesale gentrification may be put forward as a social good. 3 Acknowledgements Thanks are due to the Economic and Social Research Council, without whose financial support this work would not have been possible. To my supervisor Jon May for somehow magically balancing the ability to both challenge me and show infinite support and belief in my work, and for coaching me through the final, desperate stages of writing up. To Tim Brown, Steven Cummins and Catherine Alexander for secondary supervision during the early stages of my research. To the many people who went out of their way to help me in Detroit, particularly Christine MacDonald of the Detroit News; Hanifa Adjuman, Dan Aldridge, Josh Akers, and Katherine and Chet Clover. To EJ Gonzalez for suggesting a PhD was even something I could do, and then for calling me on the bus to demand I apply for the funding, as if this were some kind of normal occurrence. To Eva Monxy, Rudy Russell, and Tamsin Bookey for proof reading and consistent cheerleading, and to Oli, for putting up with the chaos, and for everything. 4 Table of Contents Title Page Page 1 Statement of Originality Page 2 Abstract Page 3 Acknowledgements Page 4 Table of Contents Pages 5-8 Chapter 1 Introduction Pages 9-15 Chapter 2 Literature Review Pages 16-45 Gentrification Pages 16-22 Urban crisis Pages 23-25 Ruin Pages 25-33 Nature, colonialism, and the American landscape Pages 33-42 Gardens Pages 42-45 Chapter 3: Methodology Pages 49-62 Interviewing Pages 52-56 Participant observation Pages 56-58 Focus groups Pages 58-59 Mapping Pages 59-60 Visual media Page 60 News media analysis Pages 60-61 Planning and promotional documents Page 61 Coding Page 62 5 Chapter 4: History Pages 63-92 The tour Pages 63-64 The story Pages 67-92 Early history Pages 67-71 Migrations Pages 71-76 Property, land, segregation Pages 76-82 Riots Pages 82-86 Black rule Pages 86-91 Emergency management Pages 91-92 Chapter 5: The Badlands Pages 93-123 Emptiness Pages 96-110 Fictions Pages 110-123 Chapter 6: The Prairie Pages 124-174 From lack to growth Pages 126-141 Pioneers Pages 141-157 Missionaries Pages 157-174 Chapter 7: Detroit 3.0 Pages 175-228 Resources and networks Pages 177-189 The entrepreneur vs the corporation Pages 189-192 Work Pages 192-203 6 Subsidy Pages 203-207 Doing well by doing good Pages 207-210 Corruption Pages 210-216 Diversity Pages 216-219 Transience, speculation, eviction Pages 219-222 Gentrification Pages 222-228 Chapter 8: Conclusions Pages 229-232 References Pages 233-277 List of Maps Neighbourhood map of Detroit Page 11 North Cass District map Page 57 Detroit metro area overlaid with earlier trails Page 66 1939 Home Owners' Loan Corporation map of the city Page 78 List of Figures Figure 1. Biology Classroom, Marchand and Meffre 2008 Page 30 Figure 2: Dan Gilbert poses for promotional shot Page 64 Figure 3: Emptiness Page 96 Figure 4: Detroit Ruins Page 97 Figure 5: Cass Technical High School Page 99 Figure 6: Andrew Moore’s Detroit images Page 100 Figure 7: William Livingstone House Page 102 Figure 8: Still from Requiem for Detroit Page 104 Figure 9: Some of Maclean’s aerial shots of Detroit Page 105 Figure 10: Empty homes Page 107 7 Figure 11: The Marie Celeste (Still from Requiem for Detroit) Page 110 Figure 12: Offices of Highland Park police station Page 112 Figure 13: Stills from the final scene, Requiem for Detroit Page 116 Figure 14: Keeler Street, Brightmoor; and a community wildflower garden Page 132 Figure 15: The Lorax House Page 138 Figure 16: A google street view image showing leafy and well-tended Page 138 Commonwealth Street Figure 17: McClure’s Pickles Page 195 Figure 18: Logo for The Great Lakes Coffee Roasting Company Page 196 Figure 19: Logo for Slow’s Barbecue Page 197 Figure 20: Father’s Day Collection (UK), Shinola 31st May 2016 Page 201 Figure 21: Runwell Turntable, Shinola 17th November 2016 Page 201 Figure 22: Black Blizzard,Shinola 4th November 2014 Page 202 Figure 23: Shinola email newsletter, January 14th 2017, titled ‘Thank You Page 203 from 600+ Shinola Employees’ 8 Chapter 1 Introduction I began this research in 2013, looking to understand practices of urban agriculture and struggles over space and power in a rust-belt city. It was a place both abandoned by industry, and the focus of increasing attention from a national and global press fascinated by images of crumbling twentieth century ruins and nature reclaiming the city streets. In 2018 the press are still fascinated, but the story has changed; Detroit is now ground zero for millennial gentrification, and a land of opportunity for those looking to make a difference somewhere ‘big enough to matter to the world, and small enough that you can matter in it’. This thesis seeks to demonstrate that these narratives, far from oppositional, are part of a far longer ideological project, deeply colonial in nature, and with material consequences for the city and its residents. Once a city of 2 million people, and the centre of US car manufacture, Detroit’s fortunes have been in steady decline since the mid twentieth century, when the industry that built it began to downsize and relocate production away from the United States. Decades of disinvestment and racial division left a city with central neighbourhoods sparsely populated and crumbling, while resources and services were concentrated in wealthier suburbs. The city’s landscape came to be emblematic of post-industrial decline, urban blight and civic abandonment; for many a stark visual reminder of the material and social fallout of late capitalism. While commentators compete to lay the blame for its demise upon the decline of the auto industry, racial conflicts, welfarism, or market forces respectively, Detroit’s status cannot be comprehended without an understanding of the ways in which these various forces have worked together throughout the city’s history. Of particular importance to my research are the relationships between race, class, and property ownership. In Detroit (as elsewhere in the United States) mid twentieth century redlining allowed homeowner neglect to be presented as a social pathology of uneducated poor southern blacks, rather than the result of racism and property speculation; as overworked African- Americans struggled to pay off grossly inflated mortgages (Satter 2009), leaving little time for property upkeep. Contemporary patterns of property ownership in many ways mirror these inequalities, as inconsistent access to credit and to city services allow wealthy speculators to make potentially huge profits, buying up vacant land and buildings at rock bottom prices. Many of these properties are subsequently, and strategically, left to decay by absentee owners and, eventually foreclosed upon, enter the cycle once more. Similarly, what appears to be a wholesale abandonment of the city might more accurately be framed as 9 a spatial polarisation; the concentration of wealth and whiteness in the suburban ring, removing material and social capital from the city through both the loss of tax base, and the symbolic violence of its association as a predominantly black inner city with darkness, social breakdown and neglect.