Deserted by the Great Lakes

Mike Duggan was elected mayor over Detroit under heavily questionable circumstances. He moved from the suburb of Livonia to Detroit in 2012 but not in time to be able to have himself on the mayoral ballet. He continued to run as a write in candidate and received 52% of the vote in the primary and 55% in the mayoral run off. The controversy comes from there being such a narrow margin in his victory as mayor while there were reports of fraudulent votes and potential ballet tampering. Issues arose with the report of higher number of registered voters in the city than there are actual adults within the city. There was also a discrepancy in how many write in votes was actually counted in the election.

The reason why any of this is important is because since the combination of Orr and Duggan in office, the city has seen drastic changes — changes that were a long time coming but that appeared in a quick fashion. Certain pockets of the city remain ignored while others flourish. The mass transit system of the city has long been outdated but now, it is finally including a project that will bring a light rail system to the city. The catch on this project is that it travels down Woodward Avenue, a street that is the central dividing point between the Eastside and Westside of town and the majority of residential neighborhoods stretch out far from it. The light rail will be on Woodward going from downtown off into the suburbs and very little has been said about whether it will have branches that will support transit in the city neighborhoods. This comes as no surprise considering that the city is being made more fashionable for suburbanites and out of towners to move in. In order to do that, the residents that have already lived here are being systematically kicked out. This was already being done on a financial and business front but now it is being forced more directly.

Five years before the current crisis, Former Emergency Financial Manager for Detroit Public Schools Robert Bobb attempted to improve the financial situation of the school system by closing twenty-nine schools and scheduled many others to be outsourced to charter school interests. Charter school systems are known to be a system that statistically performs either on par or just as poorly as many public schools. During this time, Former Police Chief Ralph Godbee reengineered the police precincts and for a period of time had the police stations working for only certain hours, mostly during the daytime.

Education and protection are human rights that a given government is supposed to provide for its citizens. This brings us back to the most villainous violation — the current water crisis. Although much of it is undrinkable our planet is over 70% water. It’s meant to be something that everyone can have. The current regime in power is aiming to privatize the water industry and capitalize off of the fresh water of the Great Lakes to supposedly improve Detroit’s financial situation but really more than likely make a profit off of it. When the cost of living in the area is growing anyway, it’s criminal to try to privatize the cost of water, something that falls from the sky for free. Even the statement that they are privatizing it is merely a shade, as many of the locations that owe the largest bills are presumably able to pay it aren’t being shut off, whereas the households of struggling citizens are. This is just one of many moves to get the original citizens of the city out.

All of this has come to show what may be the next American conflict in this century, a conflict of neo national imperialism. Detroit isn’t the only city in America currently going through a gentrification process but the aggressive means by which it is being forced into the city exemplifies where the issue lies. Population and demographic change is a part of any city but strategically forcing out certain citizens to make room for others is a new form of invading land and claiming it as your own.

My only hope is that citizens that have supported, lived in and stood by their cities for generations aren’t left behind as an afterthought in the process. Detroit is a city of very resilient residents but it has been that way for so long and the current challenge is a takeover that hasn’t been confronted in a place like this since colonial times. No matter what happens to the population here, I hope the citizens of other cities are paying attention. It only takes one instance of an idea working for it to become a trend. If Detroit is successfully forced into the hands of capitalist interests, pushing gentrification for profit, then it is only a matter of time before other cities see the same absurd attempts at privatizing and profiting off of what every human being has the right to have. If all goes through it is only a matter of time before people have to pay for sunlight in Phoenix, air in Oakland, or rain in Seattle. Detroit didn’t ask to be the sneak preview of the future, but what happens here could set the tone for how America is run for the next few generations on the municipal level. The very things our hometowns hold pride in may now start becoming too expensive for the residents to even have the opportunity to enjoy.