Intentionality Matters
4 insights from catalytic public space work in Detroit
In July, the Civic Commons Learning Network hosted a three day learning experience in Detroit. Learning Journey are immersive visits to better understand different strategies and approaches being taken in different cities to inform and inspire practitioners who participate in our cross-city Learning Network. In partnership with City Institute and the Detroit Civic Commons team, we explored public spaces and civic infrastructure work underway across the city.
What we experienced across all the work was a desire to use public space to drive inclusive recovery and resilience. Practitioners there are asking themselves and their colleagues: how public space can serve as a catalyst. In conversations with more than two dozen community leaders from downtown Detroit to the neighborhoods of Livernois-McNichols, the Near Eastside and the North End, one common theme emerged again and again: Intentionality matters.
An intention to build Black wealth. An intention to retain existing residents. An intention for community resilience. An intention to truly welcome everyone.
Here are lessons from the trip on how intentional approaches to public space are catalyzing positive change in Detroit:
Leading with public space can be catalytic
“We deserve nice things.” — Stephanie Harbin, Fitzgerald neighborhood resident and San Juan Block Club leader
The Civic Commons work in Detroit is concentrated in a ¼ square mile neighborhood in Northwest Detroit called Fitzgerald. In 2016, when Detroit’s civic commons work began, 40 percent of the residential parcels in Fitzgerald were vacant and owned by the Detroit Land Bank. But rather than seeing vacancy as a deficit, the Detroit Civic Commons team asked: how do we build on the strengths and assets in the community and use public space as a catalyst for revitalization?
The team leaned heavily into investing in high quality public space as a core strategy for equitable neighborhood and economic development. After decades of car-oriented development and lack of investment in the neighborhood, the team focused on delivering a dignified public realm, creating places of pride for neighborhood residents. The first project they embarked on was Ella Fitzgerald Park, transforming 26 vacant lots in the middle of Fitzgerald neighborhood into a public park with a custom play space, full court basketball, grills and an open sports field.
Next came HomeBase, just a block away from Ella Fitzgerald Park, a previously vacant storefront was turned into a neighborhood hub that serves as the offices of Live6 Alliance (the local community development organization) and also provides space for members of the cross-silo collaboration to work from the neighborhood.
Then came Fitzgerald Greenway, which redeveloped vacant lots into a meandering 1/2-mile bike and pedestrian path through the neighborhood that runs from University of Detroit Mercy to the former Marygrove College, which is now home to a P-20 educational campus. Due to an incomplete street grid, prior to the Greenway residents on many of Fitzgerald’s streets would have to walk a half of a mile just to visit with their neighbors just one street over. Now they can easily stroll or roll to the next street over.
At the same time, a series of vacant lots throughout the neighborhood received a meadow installation with defined edges as “cues to care” for a lower maintenance approach to vacant land. These meadows have been installed and maintained through a workforce development program that provides initial landscape jobs and professional development wraparound services for returning citizens. Along with delivering wildflowers that beautify previously vacant lots, the program has a 76% placement rate into permanent employment for individuals going through its 75-day program.
A $7 million streetscape transformation of the nearby commercial corridor, W. McNichols Ave (also known as 6 Mile) came next. The team recognized that with intention, the street itself could serve as a public space and community gathering space. An insight they gained from a previous project on Livernois Avenue which has become a lively street through a streetscape redesign that delivered 24-foot-wide sidewalks for café seating, protected bike lanes embedded on the sidewalks, double-crosswalk streetlights, new landscaping and underground infrastructure. These investments attracted people back to the street and spurred outside dining, events and programming. In fact, 18 new Black-led small businesses have moved in on Livernois since the project’s completion in summer 2020. Now the widened sidewalks on McNichols along with protected bike lanes, improved bus stops, additional crosswalks, new street trees, plantings and street furniture have made 6 Mile a welcoming place for commerce and community.
From the very beginning of the work, there was an intentional focus not only on delivering high quality public spaces, but on ensuring these capital projects delivered real value to residents. In addition to holding traditional public meetings for feedback, the team held a variety of fun events and pilots to engage more than the usual players in the work. From popup outdoor parties in vacant lots (complete with bounce houses and hotdogs), to movie nights and bike repair days to a temporary street redesign and even the workforce development program, these active engagement opportunities drew more and more people into the planning, design and programming of their future public spaces.
The entire suite of investments was developed through a process that prioritized co-creation with residents. For instance, residents came up with the name Ella Fitzgerald Park, mini grants of $250-$1,000 were provided to residents to develop and test out programming and to inform the amenities included in the final design, and residents literally built the mural on the park’s wall that provides for built-in seating.
All of this investment in Fitzgerald’s public space has been catalytic. As resident Darnetta Banks noted during our visit, “this is our renaissance, right now.” The stage is set for a neighborhood comeback.
Layered, coordinated investment takes extra effort, but yields transformational impact
“We didn’t have to worry about the streetscape or lighting, just what we could deliver and what neighbors want. The coordinated effort makes it easy.” — Akunna Olumba, co-owner, Detroit Pizza Bar
Concentrating on the limited geography of Fitzgerald has allowed the Detroit team to focus resources and align the work of multiple organizations and city departments for greater impact. Along with the public space efforts described above, the team is also investing in housing rehabilitation and supporting commercial, mixed-use and multifamily development along the McNichols commercial corridor, all with an eye toward elevating Black wealth. Six years into the effort, the team is now seeing this work blossom and this Detroit civic commons approach has informed the citywide Strategic Neighborhood Fund.
The team worked in partnership with Rehabbed and Ready and Bridging Neighborhoods, two housing programs focused on renovating existing vacant houses owned by the Detroit Land Bank with energy efficient systems for owner-occupancy as a strategy for local wealth creation. As a result of all of this collaborative work, home values are appreciating in Fitzgerald. In 2017, median home values were $36,700. Based on current Zillow data, of the 32 homes sold so far this year, 84% sold for more than the baseline median, with 28% selling for more than $100,000. This approach is building wealth through asset appreciation for homeowners in this Black-majority neighborhood. The commercial corridor is also gaining steam with a number of newly opened, Black-owned storefront businesses, including the Detroit Pizza Bar, 90% of whose workforce lives within 5 miles of the restaurant (and hosted us for a delicious lunch). Construction has started on a $10.8M mixed-use development, led by a local Black developer team, that will include 38 affordable housing units right on McNichols.
But this type of collaborative work isn’t easy. During the initial four years of the work, the core cross-silo civic commons team consisted of members of the City’s Planning and Development Department and staff at Invest Detroit and Live6 Alliance. This team met every two weeks, with a coordinator who literally split time among each of the core organizations, spending 1–2 days each week in each organization’s offices. At the same time there was deep coordination happening within departments at the City of Detroit. The work was quarterbacked by Alexa Bush, who sat in the Planning and Development Department, while Kim Tandy, the district’s representative within the City’s Department of Neighborhoods was a constant presence in the neighborhood interacting with residents regularly on all aspects of neighborhood life.
This consistency and collaborative approach across organizations allowed for risk to be shared. The team prioritized piloting, failing fast and iterating in order to figure out the right model, whether that be the right program for the park or the right developer selection process for local storefronts. At the same time, Detroit’s decision to dedicate City staff members to the Fitzgerald neighborhood built accountability to residents into the system and generated trust between residents and local government. The collaborative approach to the neighborhood across sectors created a rhythm to new investment that helped make change more comfortable for residents, and encouraged gradual revitalization rather than everything happening at the same time.
Connecting environmental sustainability to community
“Wellness is structural.” — Donna Givens Davidson, CEO, Eastside Community Network
While in Detroit, we also visited other neighborhoods leveraging the public realm for community good. The Eastside Community Network (ECN), led by Donna Givens Davidson, is working to demystify green infrastructure and broaden the notion of resilience as part of its climate equity work.
As a low-lying neighborhood directly adjacent to the Detroit River with aging infrastructure, the Near Eastside is prone to flooding. In 2019, ECN opened the Hamilton Rainscape Learning Lab, an inviting outdoor space for learning about stormwater issues and the connection to climate resiliency. Building on that public space work, ECN is currently converting its headquarters into a resilience and wellness hub.
Recognizing that environmental justice and community wellbeing are innately connected, ECN seeks to ensure their headquarters will deliver both. Called The Stoudamire, this site will include solar panels and battery storage to provide energy resilience against power outages and extreme weather events, improve localized stormwater management, all while serving as a community recreation and wellness center offering regular art, dance and fitness classes. By creating an everyday place for the community that will also serve as a safe space during climate emergencies, The Stoudamire responds to the environmental and social aspects of resilience. ECN hopes to create a series of resilience hubs close to where people live, continuing to connect community needs to environmental justice.
Downtown for Detroiters
“In Detroit, by Detroit, for Detroit” — JJ Vélez, Gilbert Family Foundation
In visiting with downtown public space leaders in Detroit, there was a clear intentionality to leverage public space to elevate and build-up Detroiters while serving as a connector across diversity.
Downtown’s Monroe Street Midway transformed a parking lot into a public space for gathering and recreation, all while supporting local economic development. This seasonal activation by Bedrock and Gilbert Family Foundation aims to welcome Detroiters downtown and does so with a commitment to sourcing local talent and championing local Black-owned businesses onsite. The Midway is anchored by an outdoor roller skating rink, run by one of the oldest Black-owned operators in the country. Free and open to the public, the space also features basketball courts, a stage for local musicians, a mini golf course, a pop-up shop that hosts a rotation of local vendors, murals by Sheefy McFly and other local artists, as well as food trucks and concessions. When JJ Vélez of Gilbert Family Foundation gave us a tour in July, it was hard to believe that just a few months before the space was a surface parking lot.
Just a few blocks from the Midway, the Detroit Riverfront is the most diverse gathering place in the state, not just during events, but every single day. Mark Wallace, the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy’s CEO, encourages those managing the Riverfront’s public spaces to ask “who feels welcome here?” When we visited on a Saturday in July, it was filled with people from all walks of life using the variety of spaces for all different purposes — walking, cycling, scootering, playing, doing yoga, working on a laptop, having a drink, hosting a birthday party and even holding a Learning Journey workshop session.
On the Riverfront, winter is bustling, too. The team developed a winter festival at Valade Park which brought 45,000 people to the park last winter over a 12-week period with different themed food, music and activities across 5 weekends alongside oversized outdoor fires, hot drinks, s’mores, and a Sled Shed with free sleds to borrow when it snows. In addition, the team is constantly asking how it can help people not feel lonely or left out. For instance, in response to the social isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, they launched a range of programming focused on mental health and mindfulness: from “Mindful Moments” stickers that feature a prompt designed to encourage you to pause, reflect, and be present and a four-part series of events in May for Mental Health Awareness Month.
There is much to be learned from Detroit for other communities seeking an inclusive recovery that leads to long term economic, social and environmental resilience. In three days, we only scratched the surface of the inspirational work in Detroit, but one insight that shone bright was that intentionality is central for public space to serve as a catalyst for a more equitable city.
A special thank you to City Institute and the Detroit Civic Commons team for co-hosting this learning journey and sharing your city with the Civic Commons Learning Network.
Reimagining the Civic Commons is a collaboration of The JPB Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, William Penn Foundation, and local partners.
