SPDC hosted Toni Griffin as Scholar in Residence, discussed Detroit Future City Plan

October 31, 2013

Toni Griffin, faculty member in The Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York, spoke to students, faculty and the public at Michigan State University on Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2013, as part of the School of Planning, Design, and Construction’s Scholar in Residence program. She was instrumental in developing the Detroit Future City plan that was published in January 2013, and presented on the plan as part of her lecture.

Toni Griffin believes that there’s a large gap in American cities, as they are missing five basic principles that ultimately leaves them incomplete—equity, inclusion, opportunity, justice and access.

“I have found in my career that these issues are still unresolved in a number of American cities which leaves us with unfinished cities,” she said. “. . . These issues are still unresolved and it’s still where we have a lot of work to do.”

Griffin believes the goal is to utilize design to create a “Just City” and is currently directing the J. Max Bond Center on Design for the Just City at City College in New York.

She also worked on the technical framework and design elements of the Detroit Future City plan that was released in January 2013. After the plan was released, The Kresge Foundation pledged $150 million to implement the plan and the City Council is gradually working to adopt parts of the document as the official plan for Detroit.

Griffin categorized Detroit as a “Legacy City” meaning that it currently has a population of more than 50,000, while having lost 20% of the peak population. Youngstown, OH, and St. Louis, MO, are the other two cities that fit this category.

“You can fit San Francisco, Boston and Manhattan in the footprint of Detroit,” Griffin said.

Griffin emphasized that segregation based on race and income is a huge factor in Detroit and calls for urban justice in the planning and design process.

“When do we really think of altering framework to speak to our spatial justice,” Griffin said. “The fact that this region is so segregated, so segregated by income; people can go their entire life without interacting with another group. It has a racial implication.”

There are currently 80,000 abandoned homes and more than 100,000 vacant parcels currently in Detroit. Even with large scale decay, Detroit is still the 18^th largest city in the country with a population of 713,700. The loss of population is correlated with urban sprawl and lack of employment opportunities in the City. Of the jobs in Detroit, only 70,000 of the workers live in the City; 163,000 live somewhere else and commute to the City, while 111,000 reside in the City but work elsewhere.

“The City losing jobs is having a direct impact on what the City looks like,” Griffin said.

Griffin cites downtown and midtown Detroit as examples of revitalized areas in the City that are home to educational, medical and cultural institutions, but emphasized that there are still only 27 jobs for every 100 residents in the City, which is a failing ratio. Philadelphia, PA; Atlanta, GA; Portland, OR; and Denver, CO, are all similar in size to Detroit but they all have more jobs than people available to fill them.

Putting the residents of Detroit to work in the City could be a key factor in determining the future of the City.

“Detroit is not going to die. We just need to think about Detroit in a different way,” Griffin said. “. . . We only have to remember Rome, which is our most famous city. Rome lost 70% of its population during its crisis and I don’t think we consider Rome a shrinking city.”

The video of Griffin’s presentation on “Detroit Future City: A New Model for Urban Planning and the Transformation of Legacy Cities” is available in three parts for viewing online through the SPDC YouTube channel under Urban & Regional Planning Program.