Hasta La Ideas

This week Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and his team were in Turin, Italy, the city often called “the Detroit of Europe,” for a five-day visit, and here is what he had to say during his visit (as reported by the Italian La Stampa newspaper – the translation is mine):

“The key word is density. You live of density, you die in urban rarefaction. When you live in a European city, you probably never thought of it, but Mayor Dave Bing has this idea every day in his mind, from when he became Detroit’s first citizen last year. A former basketball player (for the Detroit Pistons) he has been a seven-time All-Star. When he retired from basketball, in the seventies, the team had his #21 also retired. He won everything, but the game he is playing now is terribly difficult, because what was one of the great automobile cities is now tied down in a frightening crisis. Bing and his team are in Turin [“Torino”] these days to study the city’s post-industrial reconversion, as part of the twinning of the two cities and the support of the San Paolo Foundation.

Last night Bing and Turin Mayor Chiamparino reflected on the visit at Teatro Vittoria, in a discussion which was moderated by Mario Calabresi, editor-in-chief of La Stampa newspaper. What struck Bing most were not the Olympic structures, the urban transformation, or the public consulting approaches the city has implemented. It was the people, he said. And the fact that they were united, and above all that there were many. “Our residents are confronting tragic conditions,” he said, “often without any hope.” Unemployment is around 30%, and there is fear, rage and dugs: two or three generations have not received adequate education, and it will be hard if not impossible to provide these people with a job, because they wouldn’t be able to do them well.” All this has a name: it is the result of an economic crisis that was caused by the decline of the big industries, but the situation is a lot worse due to Detroit’s lack of urban density. Although Detroit has a much larger surface area than Torino, it has only 800,000 residents (there were more than twice that in the 1950’s).

The mortgage crisis hit hard. With all the homes that have been abandoned by those who transferred to the suburbs or other cities, or that simply have been foreclosed on, Detroit is now facing the rather dire situation that some neighborhoods have only one or two families left. Around them are the vast empty expanses of boarded-up and run-down buildings – what is left of the single family homes that Detroit middle class once built. “When you lose half of your population, the number of abandoned houses becomes hard to keep track of.” To revive Detroit there is only solution, says the Mayor: demolition to create density, i.e. “moving the people, which will not be easy – but it is the only solution.”

Dave Bing has called in the bulldozers. His program calls for an impressive series of demolitions, that will start, he announced, in April with a batch of 3,000 houses that are considered dangerous, given their precarious conditions. But that’s not all. Detroit is seeking to convince its residents to strick together to beat the crisis and attract possible new residents to the downtown area, along the river. The terrain vacated by the demolitions will not be built on again, explains the Mayor. They will instead bring agriculture into the city – another key point in Bing’s action plan. “Although not decisive in quantitative terms”, he admits, agriculture is functional in our research on how to best address the lost density. “We can plant gardens, vegetables and food that you can eat immediately. They always said that Detroit was a desert in that sense.” Attracting residents in order not to die [as a city] looks simple on paper, but implementing it is a whole other story. But Bing sees the glass as half full: “Our land prices are the lowest in all the Midwest,” he explains, and he doesn’t seem ironic or sarcastic.

“We are putting everything in line to make the change happen, e.g. by incentives to our residents or to our business, particular the commercial ones.” That’s not the only challenge. There are the lost generations that need to be educated, there are the “workers of tomorrow.” At least the city has discovered the cancer that is destroying it, and now it has taken out the scalpel. It may be a rather atypical situation but its raw uniqueness also highlights a way of looking at things that is not very common when comparing big urban centers. Large crowds may create headaches, but the situation is really serious when there is no one on the streets or in the houses. “Come visit us next year to see what we have done: you will find a city in full transformation,” concludes Mayor Bing. And what about Christmas? From the audience, a lecturer at the London School of Economics asks Bing what Christmas gift he would like to get from Obama. Apart from laughs at a sigh of relief of Mayor Chiamparino for not having been asked the same question on Berlusconi, Bing’s answer was diplomatic. “We would be really pleased if he would return to visit the city that has supported him so much.”

Bing himself has also been filing daily accounts of his Turin visit in the Detroit Free Press:
– Detroit mayor sees potential in rebuilding Italian auto town (Nov. 15)
– Turin’s density helping turnaround (Nov. 16)
– Foundations in Turin, Detroit fuel progress (Nov. 17)
– Turin mayors offer Bing advice on turnaround (Nov. 18)

More reflection by Detroit Free Press journalists on what Turin could teach Detroit and on some of the topics discussed during the above mentioned public meeting at Teatro Vittoria.

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