ob`i^fjfkd= abqolfq == COMMUNITY-LED REGENERATION AFTER THE MOTOR CITY = = = = N : Driving Modernity Transformed the way we lived as an industrial society

O Detroit’s Decline

P Rightsizing

Q Blight How maps can empower communities

R= Reclaiming Motor City’s Industrial Buildings We Kahn do it!

S Detroit: Driving the Future Transforming the way we live as a post-industrial society

Miriam Kelly is a British conservation architect, based in New York, specialising in the adaptive reuse of historic buildings. This presentation emerged from a recent travelling fellowship sponsored by the Winston

Churchill Memorial Trust. Miriam is grateful to TICCIH members for their help and support during the fellowship, with special thanks to Patrick Martin, Norbert Tempel and Sir Neil Cossons.

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Detroit has become the poster child for post-industrial decay. From the images of dereliction emerging from the city, you would be forgiven for thinking that nobody lives here anymore. Detroit has lost 60% of its population since its peak of 1.85m in 1950. In the decade since 2000, the city lost one quarter of its residents. Detroit is the poorest city in the US, but it is still home to 700,000 people, making it the 18 th largest city in the country. As the city emerges from the biggest municipal bankruptcy in US history, things are beginning to change. Long-time residents who have weathered industrial decline, unemployment, racial division and large-scale population loss are working towards a better future for their city. Newcomers to Detroit are welcomed and supported. As attitudes shift from ruination to regeneration, the city’s problems are so profound as to present an opportunity to envision radical change. Just as Detroit transformed the way we lived as an industrial society, so it has the capacity to transform how we live as a post-industrial society. So today, rather than talk about what Detroit isn’t anymore, let’s talk about what Detroit is , and what it can become.

Detroit’s pioneering role in the American industrial age is unparalleled and set the standard for early middle-class urban life. In the thirty years after 1900, Detroit’s car industry became the biggest in the world. Detroit quite literally drove modernity. Famous as the Motor City, cars designed and built in Detroit dramatically improved living standards and fundamentally altered how we live. The modern middle-class is largely a Detroit creation. Workers in the auto industry enjoyed wages that enabled them to own a family home and a car, which in turn brought about suburban living. The utopian Linear City theorized by Le Corbusier and Milyutin was realised in Detroit, with the massive manufacturing plants of Mound Road and Groesbeck Highway unmatched in their ability to support efficient industrial production.

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The success of the Motor City would not have been achieved without the contribution of the architect, (1869- 1942). Between 1905 and 1920, he pioneered the use of reinforced concrete, refining and popularising the multi-story daylight factory. He then developed innovative steel-framed factory designs in the 1920s and 30s, sometimes cladding entire structures in glass. His buildings were admired by European Avant-Garde architects including Walter Gropius, Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe, directly influencing the development of the Modernist Movement. Kahn achieved most of his design breakthroughs while working for Henry Ford and other automobile manufacturers. His innovation in industrial design maximised the efficiency of factories and was essential to the success of the auto industry in Detroit.

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Detroit’s decline in a nutshell…

1. City grew very fast, very quickly (1900-1930) Detroit is 139 square miles, four times the size of the City of Paris with just one third of the population.

2. Urban development was driven by the car The city is very spread out. Wealth became focused around the city edges. Road construction was prioritized over public transport.

3. Economy based on single industry that decentralized (1950s) and then substantially collapsed (1970s)

4. Dramatic population loss (late 1960s onwards) So called ‘white flight’ to the wealthier suburbs. Civil unrest amongst an impoverished population left behind.

5. Wide scale unemployment and erosion of the city’s tax base

6. City infrastructure too big for its population 700,000 people in a city designed for 2 million. Scale of the city’s infrastructure unaffordable to maintain.

7. Recession – property foreclosures and second wave of population loss (2000-2010) One third or 140,000 Detroit properties foreclosed since 2005. $744.8M in lost city property taxes between 2009 and 2013 alone. In 2013 the city filed for bankruptcy.

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The swathes of vacant land across the city of Detroit are the visible result of declining industry and large-scale population loss. The collapse of the motor industry, history of racial division, abandonment of the city’s historic core, rapid suburbanisation and erosion of the tax base have burdened Detroit with a metropolitan landscape poorly adapted to the innovation it desperately needs. With an estimated forty square miles of vacant land and one third of buildings abandoned, space is both Detroit’s greatest liability and its greatest asset.

In the absence of strong leadership from the city government, private enterprise, charitable foundations and local communities are driving change in Detroit. In 2013, Detroit Future City published a visionary urban planning strategy for Detroit. Funded by charitable foundations over a three-year period, the report was authored by local and international experts, supported by public agencies and informed by a major program of community engagement. The outcome is a multi-dimensional strategic planning strategy underwritten by extensive public review.

Detroit Future City is an attempt to reclaim one of America’s signature cities 1. It is the first plan for Detroit to acknowledge its future as a smaller city. This does not mean smaller in relevance or global impact, but rather smaller in its population and tax capture. The strategic framework embraces this reality and proposes a set of policy and implementation strategies designed to rebuild a sustainable and more affordable city of between 600,000 and 800,000 residents. This process, known as rightsizing, is planned shrinkage that seeks to leverage the city’s existing assets for a sustainable future.

Detroit Future City offers three implementation horizons of ten, twenty and fifty year time-frames. These horizons set out proposals to stabilise and consolidate neighbourhoods, establish employment districts, improve transport systems, initiate workforce development and introduce productive urban landscapes. Some of the most innovative ideas in Detroit Future City are around consolidating vacant land into a “ canvas of green ”. The formalisation of a new connective landscape is an affordable response to rationalising the city’s infrastructure, redefining neighbourhoods, remediating industrial contamination and producing food. Although very different in character to Detroit’s industrial city systems, it could provide a new productive network for sustainable transformation.

1 Epilogue: Detroit Future City Plan, Toni L. Griffin and June Manning Thomas

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What is missing from the Detroit Future City report is an approach towards the extraordinary industrial buildings of the Motor City. The historic importance and regeneration potential of Detroit’s many redundant industrial sites means that, through innovative reuse, they can be as central to the city’s future as they were to its past. Putting the Motor City’s industrial buildings back to work can make best use of existing assets, foster authentic communities and reinforce the city’s proud identity.

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The release of Detroit Future City increased attention on the issue of ‘blight’. An estimated one third of homes and 40 square miles of lots in Detroit are abandoned. Vacant buildings fall into decay, are often vandalised and can hasten the decline of neighbourhoods struggling to survive.

In September 2013, the Obama Administration announced federal funding for blight removal and created the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force . Its mission was to remove every ‘blighted’ structure and clear every vacant lot in the city of Detroit as quickly as possible. Funding was focused on six target neighborhoods on the premise that strategic demolition can help raise property values and stabilise neighbourhoods.

The Blight Removal Task Force quickly realised there was no comprehensive database that accurately defined the current scope of vacancy in Detroit. In November 2013, the Task Force conducted a physical survey that gathered property condition data for all 380,000 land parcels in the city. The goal of the Motor City Mapping survey was to activate the community towards the creation of a comprehensive database of the condition of every property in Detroit. The process was designed to be scalable and updateable to ensure the availability of current data for policy makers now and in the future.

Over a period of ten weeks, a team of more than 150 residents were assigned to quarter-mile squares (nicknamed “microhoods”) to document property conditions within each defined area. The information was collected via a mobile application in a process nicknamed “Blexting,” (a combination of blight and texting) that built on a 2009 Detroit Residential Parcel Survey. The Motor City Mapping survey expanded on the 2009 survey to include the 135,000 non-residential parcels. The surveyors photographed the front of each property and answered a series of specific questions about its condition. The surveyors’ feedback included observations such as occupancy, vacancy, fire damage, presence of dumping, and the nature and use of the property. The information was instantaneously uploaded via a live-stream feed to survey mission control, where it was checked and uploaded into the database.

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The Motor City Mapping initiative comprehensively digitized Detroit’s property assets and their condition

for the first time. It is a publically created, constantly updated and accessible resource. Because the

survey was carried out by local people, the project was instrumental in galvanising the residents in

decision-making about their own neighbourhoods. Not only does Motor City Mapping give strategists at

government level tools to make decisions, it also enables residents to better understand and shape the

future of their own communities.

The Motor City Mapping project was implemented to assist the Blight Removal Task Force in the demolition and clearance of abandoned structures. The activities were exempted from a provision of the National Historic Preservation Act requiring federal agencies to take into account the effect of their actions on historic buildings. Detroit was at risk of demolishing its way out of decline without considering the importance of its buildings as cultural assets.

Michigan Historic Preservation Network in conjunction with Preservation Detroit responded to the blight clearance initiative by introducing the Detroit Historic Resource Survey . The aim was to highlight the importance of the city’s historic buildings and their regeneration potential, offering rehabilitation as an effective blight elimination alternative to demolition. Over

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two weeks, fifty volunteers for the Detroit Historic Resource Survey surveyed 18,000 properties. Like the Motor City Mapping survey, they used smartphone technology to assess a building’s architectural integrity, determine whether it was in keeping with neighborhood character, evaluate the intactness of the block, and note whether the building warranted further research. The data were weighted to create a composite “Historic Preservation Score.” Completed survey data was analyzed, and “HP Scores” of Very Important, Important, or Less Important were assigned to all 18,000 parcels. This system was designed to distill these preservation concepts of integrity and character into a clear rating that could be used as shorthand for each structure’s historic value.

The Detroit Historic Resource Survey data set was added as a ‘preservation overlay’ on top of the Motor City Mapping data. It has helped to integrate preservation issues including architectural character and cultural value with-in decision-making around blighted neighbourhoods. The survey has given preservationists and local communities a proactive way to participate in the blight conversation and to advocate for repair and restoration as alternatives to demolition.

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R= oÉÅä~áãáåÖ=jçíçê=`áíóÛë=fåÇìëíêá~ä=_ìáäÇáåÖë== = Following the 2013 publication of Detroit Future City , concepts of Landscape Urbanism and Blight Reduction have gained traction in Detroit. Both measures potentially put Detroit’s internationally significant industrial heritage at further risk. In response, a small number of community groups, preservation professionals and private investors are tackling the issue head-on through advocacy and direct action. Within the last year, two of Detroit’s most important industrial sites have been purchased and are now being put back to work. = = m~Åâ~êÇ=^ìíçãçíáîÉ=mä~åí==

In 2013, Detroit became the focus of an unlikely land rush as investors from around the world scrambled to buy vacant properties in a bottomed-out market. The purchase in a tax foreclosure auction of the Automotive Plant by Spanish ‘urban entrepreneur’, Fernando Palazuelo and his company Arte Express, caught the city’s attention.

The 3.5 million square-foot Packard Plant, designed by Albert Kahn between 1903 and 1916 has gained notoriety as the largest abandoned industrial complex in the world. The first of the modern steel, glass and concrete factories to be built in America, the Packard Plant pioneered the use of reinforced concrete in industrial construction and is of international heritage significance. Covering a campus of 40 acres, incorporating 47 buildings and stretching for over a kilometer along Concord Street, the site has been extensively vandalised. Frequent fires and the repeated theft of metal for scrap have

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caused sections of the structure to collapse. The distress of the community immediately adjacent is acute. Once neat plots of workers’ houses have overgrown and merged into a meadow. The school is in ruins and roads are barely passable with pot holes and refuse. Some houses are still occupied, most are derelict and many missing altogether.

Detroit has witnessed a few miracles of redevelopment in recent years. The Westin Book , Double Tree Fort Shelby and the Broderick Tower all found new life after decades of abandonment. However, unlike Packard, these projects are in Detroit’s busy downtown, meeting a market demand for hotel or residential use. The Packard site off East Grand Boulevard near Mount Elliott remains isolated. The Detroit Future City plan envisions that while the northern edge of the plant near highway I-94 might find new industrial use, the majority of the factory site and adjacent neighbourhood would be replaced by green belt, either for farming or reforestation. This is at odds with the new owner’s aim to restore the historic plant, piece-by-piece for light industrial use, a school, apartments and retail space with artist studios over a 15 year period at an estimated cost of $500 million.

The sheer scale of the Packard Plant, the extent of decay and the distress of the neighbourhood make it hard to imagine meaningful regeneration. Many buildings are in a critical state of disrepair, with parts of the complex unused since the 1950s. The site is choked with refuse, the ground contaminated and infrastructure crippled or obsolete. Having purchased the plant for $405,000 in December 2013, Palazuelo paid off the outstanding taxes, secured the site and is undertaking a clean-up operation on a grand scale. By employing those who would otherwise continue to strip the buildings for scrap, he hopes to provide employment while protecting his property.

The site does not have statutory protection (the City of Detroit has recently pushed for demolition) and the difficult balance of heritage value and commercial pressure rests with the owner. Fortunately, Palazuelo’s emphasis is on the importance of history, the nobility of the factory and its significance to the city’s cultural identity. Having converted over a hundred abandoned buildings in Spain and Peru, his regeneration model is to work through the site section by section, starting with

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the creation of an office for his Arte Express team inside the former Packard Administration building. A structural analysis of all 47 buildings within the plant’s footprint is ongoing, and it is hoped that 85 percent of the structures can be saved. A priority project is the large bridge that runs across Grand Boulevard. The bridge was originally used to transfer the shells of new cars over the highway for connection with the engines on the other side, and has long been the iconic symbol of Packard.

The scale of the site is so large as to potentially impact the whole east side of Detroit, focusing jobs, education, living and production into a post-industrial ‘campus’. This approach chimes with the pattern of community consolidation observed in thriving downtown Detroit. Here, successful communities have eschewed the suburb and are coalescing around a tighter urban framework of close-knit apartments, and incubator space for small-manufacturing and creative entrepreneurs. The romance of industrial ruins together with the opportunity for concentrated density is proving key to attracting dynamic, creative pioneer tenants and fostering sustainable communities. The regeneration of the Packard Plant is ambitious, but, if successful, could transform a site long emblematic of Detroit’s decline into a symbol of its revival.

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Woodward Avenue is Detroit's Main Street, connecting major sites of the along its 27-mile length. The Woodward Avenue Action Association is a community organization that celebrates Woodward’s spirit of innovation and preserves its rich history. Woodward Avenue Action Association were successful in having the road listed by the US Department of Transportation as the Automotive Heritage Trail and an All-American Road in the National Scenic Byways Program. Woodward Avenue passes through several historic districts in Detroit and provides access to many businesses in the area. The name Woodward Avenue has become synonymous with Detroit, its car cruising culture and the automotive industry. Woodward Avenue put the world on wheels, and America's automobile heritage is represented along it.

The 130 acre Ford Highland Park Plant is a key feature of Woodward Avenue. Henry Ford launched the first continually moving assembly line here in 1913, making it the birthplace of industrial mass production. The use of the assembly line reduced the time it took to build the Model T from 12.5 hours to 93 minutes. By 1920 the plant turned out a car every minute, and one out of every two automobiles in the world was a Model T. In 1914, Ford increased workers’ wages from $2.34 a day to $5, effectively launching the American Middle Class.

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The factory was revolutionary in its design. From 1908, Albert Kahn created a series of brick, concrete, and steel buildings that included features that came to define factory design. Consisting of over two dozen buildings and three million square feet of production space, the buildings had open floors for the efficient arrangement of machinery, large windows and the potential for expansion. Even so, within twenty years, Ford had out grown Highland Park and the company moved its production east to the enormous River Rouge plant in the late 1920s.

The Ford Highland Park Plant was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1978 and is in private ownership. It is disused, in poor repair, and has never been open to the public. Because the plant is a focal point both of automotive history for both Detroit and Woodward Avenue, the Woodward Avenue Action Association bought two of the historic buildings in 2014. Their vision is to create a catalyst for tourism and economic development through the reuse of Ford’s Administration Building and Executive Garage fronting Woodward Avenue as an Automotive Heritage Welcome Center.

The $7.5m project is funded through an innovative mixture of private donors, federal and state funding, tax credits and crowdsurfing. The Woodward Avenue Action Association has utilized Woodward Avenue’s designation as a National Scenic Byway and All American Road to leverage public and private funding opportunities, including securing $5 million dollars of Federal Highway Administration funding. Crowdsourcing raised some 8% of the $550,000 required to purchase the buildings with the rest coming from partner organizations including the Department of Transportation, the Highland Park Tax Increment Finance Authority and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

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The next step is to secure the existing structures to prevent further vandalism and decay, then begin the lengthy process of site clean-up. The visitor center will be funded by leasing the building’s other three floors as office space, and potentially to a trade school. This will link the building back to the Henry Ford Trade School that trained hundreds of auto workers at Highland Park in the 1920s. The buildings have been the subject of a study by Michigan’s Historic Preservation Office, a necessary step on the road to designating them a “Historic District”. Such a designation would guarantee preservation, something that a listing National Register of Historic Places unfortunately does not. If successful, this grass roots community project will pave the way to safeguarding one of the most important sites of industrial innovation in the world.

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A century ago, Detroit drove modernity and transformed how we live in the twentieth century. Today, it has the opportunity to drive the vision of a post-industrial city and transform how we live in the twenty-first century.

Detroit’s vision is being shaped by local people through community action and strategic planning supported by charitable foundations. Detroit is generating an extraordinary patchwork of authentic regeneration projects in response to specific local conditions. In areas of the city, this grass-roots recovery is galvanizing towards sustainable growth at a larger scale. At the same time, a fiscally weak city government and bottomed-out property market empowers a small number of private investors in securing assets of strategic importance to Detroit’s recovery. On the one hand, opportunities for democratic decision-making in relation to key sites are reduced and many sites are left fallow as investors await more favourable market conditions. On the other hand, committed investors are pioneering regeneration projects in some of Detroit’s most problematic locations which, if successful, could transform failing neighbourhoods.

The regeneration potential of the industrial sites that made the Motor City famous has yet to be recognised. The significance of the city’s world-class industrial heritage is largely overlooked, perhaps because the challenge seems overwhelming. However, if apparently intractable problems such as Highland Park and the Packard Plant can attract investment precisely because of their industrial authenticity, they may inspire creative regeneration across the city. These projects are in their infancy and need support from a wide variety of stakeholders. However, the adaptability of industrial buildings, particularly those constructed in Kahn’s early phases of factory design, offer spaces well-suited to the incubation of dynamic and sustainable new communities.

Detroit was constructed as a vast, interconnected industrial network and its output was a radical new social model. Scenarios for its future are equally revolutionary, adopting the industrial rationale to envision right-sizing as ‘greening’ the city’s systems into a network of productive landscapes. Within this network, the structures that facilitated America’s most successful industry can again be used to enrich the city. Urban strategies that build on the Motor City’s extraordinary industrial legacy should enable Detroit not just to redevelop itself, but to reimagine what a post-industrial city ought to be.

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