Excluded by design: informality versus tactical urbanism in the redevelopment of Detroit neighborhoods

ABSTRACT

Over the last half century, Detroit has been defined by economic collapse and worsening social stratification. Street vending, murals, and urban agriculture have served as means for disenfranchised communities to resist exclusion from and discrimination by the formal systems that provide services and amenities to their wealthier counterparts. In recent years, “tactical urbanism” has been promoted by urban designers appropriating informal practices as spurs to redevelopment. This paper analyzes media coverage of the simultaneous use of street vending, murals, and urban agriculture by private investors in Detroit's redeveloping neighborhoods, and their informal adoption by marginalized Detroiters, and reveals how the appropriation of informal practices by developers and new arrivals to the city has become commonplace in reinvested areas, but is treated fundamentally differently than informal practices of long-standing residents. My analysis points to inconsistencies in the ways that informal activities, often condemned as illegal when practiced by long-standing residents, are accepted as entrepreneurial by the media and presented as necessary to attract an arriving class of young professionals. I consider how new, more affluent arrivals to the city participate in the “renaissance” of Detroit by manipulating legal frameworks that define the realms of informality and criminality.

KEYWORDS:

• Tactical urbanism
• informality
• Detroit
• street art
• street vending
• murals

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr. Lisa Berglund is a lecturer in the UCLA department of Urban Planning whose research focuses on neighborhood change. Her research is largely cited in contexts undergoing redevelopment after disasters, a time where historic race and class disparities are often reproduced through influx of investment and increased vulnerability of marginalized populations.

Notes

1 This new population influx has doubled the proportion of downtown and midtown residents that are white to 20% over the last decade (U.S. Census 2016). I will refer to this group of newcomers to the downtown core as young professionals for the remainder of the paper, unless their role is more specifically entrepreneurial or related to creative activities. The initiatives that have funded projects related to the redevelopment of the city are often the result of partnerships between the private sector and the highly active philanthropic foundation community of Detroit.

2 This ordinance was passed by voters in 2016 and requires development projects above certain values to be mediated by a community benefits process where affordable housing, jobs, and other benefits may be secured (Planning and Development Department 2018).

3 Campus Martius is a park in downtown Detroit that was redeveloped in 2004, and has since become a popular place for concerts and pop-up activities.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the UCLA Bunche Center for African American Studies, UCLA Institute of American Cultures and the UCLA Graduate Division.