DETROIT – Mayor Mike Duggan and his team are busy tackling a variety of community issues. New parks, affordable housing, cleaner neighborhoods and cracking down on crime are among some of the important projects the mayor and city staff are juggling right now.
Even with a lot of community programs and progress in some areas, there are still some residents across the City of Detroit asking, “What about my neighborhood?”
Mayor Duggan granted WDIV-TV Anchor/Reporter Demond Fernandez a rare one-on-one interview this week. The topic was community initiatives.
The mayor said he grew up in the City of Detroit and still sees it through the eyes if a kid. It’s that sense of optimism about what Detroit could be, or get to, that Mayor Duggan said keeps him focusing on the people. Some may call that his sense of grit.
“Detroiters watched as everything was taken away. The auto plants moved out. Movie theaters moved out. The restaurants moved out,” Duggan explained.
Despite those challenges, a lot of people stayed in the city. So, during his time in the Mayor’s office, Duggan said he’s been working for and welcoming opportunities to help Detroiters bring their neighborhoods back.
“The neighborhoods that are coming back fastest are the neighborhoods with strong block clubs and neighborhood associations,” Duggan explained.
The mayor and his team point to the city upgrading more than 200 local parks, building new commercial corridors, and adding streetscapes as signs of progress. There’s new energy and momentum, he said, in areas including East Warren, West Warren, Kercheval & Van Dyke, Livernois, West McNichols, Rosa Parks, and other neighborhoods.
Duggan said he recognizes vacant homes are an issue across the city. He and other leaders have been focusing on getting those dangerous properties removed, rehabbed, or reoccupied.
“When I started there were 45,000 abandoned houses owned by the Land Bank. Today it’s 5,000,” Duggan said.
Millions of dollars in funding are going to help community groups through neighborhood improvement grants. Entrepreneurs are opening doors to new businesses through programs like Motor City Match.
Duggan said there’s still more work to do.
“We’ve got to get the violence down. The city is too violent,” the Mayor explained.
While Mayor Duggan praised the Detroit Police Department, he added he’s optimistic a new Community Violence Intervention partnership with six local groups could help deal with the root causes of crime.
“We have to get the violence down. That is priority number one,” Duggan said.