As black flight from Detroit mirrors
the inverse trend begun a half-century prior,
a small influx of white, sometimes Jewish, young people
are swimming against the current and returning for an urban experience.
By Zak Rosen
o-Anne Katz was just 5 years
old when her parents moved the
family from Northwest Detroit
to Southfield. The year was
1959, nearly a decade before
the city became a tinderbox of
racial unrest but nearly a decade
after its population had reached
its zenith, at close to 2 million
residents.
Of course, the Katzes weren't the only
ones who moved their family out of the
city to the then-frontier of newly devel-
oped suburbs like Oak Park and, later,
Southfield — and then West Bloomfield;
and the westward migration continues on.
Jewish Detroit, like nearly all of white
Detroit, migrated out of the city in droves.
At first, the appeal of larger lawns and
less congestion were the allures. But, as
crime increased and the city exploded into
an orgy of black-white strife, the exodus
became acute.
Within the span of two generations,
America's fourth largest metropolis had
lost more than half its citizens — and, with
them, a significant portion of its tax base.
In his autobiography, Hard Stuff, the
divisive, revered and animated former
Detroit mayor, Coleman Young, put it like
this:
"It's mind-boggling to think that
at mid-century Detroit was a city
of close to 2 million and nearly ev-
erything beyond was covered with
corn and cow patties. Forty years
late7; damn near every last white
person in the city had moved to the
old fields and pastures —1.4frigging
million of them. Think about that.
There were 1,600,000 whites in De-
troit after the war, and 1,400,000 of
them left. By 1990, the city was just
over a million, nearly 80 percent of
it was black, and the suburbs had
surpassed Detroit not only in popu-
lation but in wealth, in commerce —
even in basketball, for God's sake."
The population decline that Young,
who was Detroit's first black chief execu-
tive, inherited when taking office in 1974
continues — unabated. In fact, as the
2010 census numbers await finalizing,
it appears the population of this belea-
guered city has fallen to less than 715,000
residents — a number not seen since 1910;
Detroit could end up falling from the 11th
to the 18th largest city.
Current Mayor Dave Bing, respond-
ing to reports of the staggering loss, has
vowed to appeal that figure, saying he
believes a revised count will show the
number closer to 750,000 residents; fed-
eral and state aid would be less curtailed
should Bing's assessment hold true.
For perspective, whether the current
numbers stand or are revised upward, the
city of Detroit lost more people in the last
decade than were permanently displaced
from New Orleans after Hurricane Ka-
trina; New Orleans lost 140,000 citizens
to Detroit's 200,000-plus.
Yet, a new demographic trend could
be emergent. One where young people,
usually college-educated, often white, and
in many cases Jewish, have begun moving
18 April 2011
I RED TIM
into the city.
In December 2010, the Detroit Free
Press reported that "[In Detroit], the
proportion of white residents rose over the
last decade from 12 percent to nearly 17
percent of the population. From 2000 to
2009, whites in Detroit increased 30 per-
cent to 151,984, and young people moving
into the downtown area accounted for
much of the growth."
One of those people is Jo-Ann Katz
Nosan's daughter, Blair Nosan. "For my
parents, I was the first person they knew
who chose to move downtown," said the
25-year-old, who started her own pickling
production, education and event planning
business in September 2010.
"I still feel like I get the shock from
people — particularly people in the Jewish
world. 'Wait, so, you live ... downtown?"'
Nosan says. "Emphasis on the pause and
wonderment seems to come out of people's
mouths fairly regularly."
With a profoundly cheap housing stock,
and a growing reputation as a city with
ample entrepreneurial and artistic oppor-
tunity, people are moving to Detroit from
Royal Oak, Ferndale and West Bloomfield,
but also from metropolises like Boston,
Seattle and San Francisco.
The national media — including Time,
Forbes, Juxtapoze, the Atlantic, Harper's
and others — has added to the city's new-
found mystique. In just the last several
months, the New York Times has reported
on how artists are finding opportunities in
the city's decay, or how Detroit is fast be-
coming a model city for urban agriculture
or how a barbecue restaurant is thriving
despite the bleak economy.
Twenty-five-year-old Jon Koller moved
to Detroit in 2009. He sees himself as a
kind of "immigrant" trying to assimilate
into a community of "indigenous" people.
He came to Detroit not with the "illusion
that Detroit needs to be saved" but with
the knowledge that this is a critical mo-
ment in the city's story and he wanted to
be a part of it.
"We're fighting a battle," Koller says.
"There's a lot of people out there who are
interested in this place because they can
make money off it, and it does enormous
disservice to people who live here."
Raised in Okemos, outside of Lansing,
Koller and his wife, Hannah Lewis, live in
a one-square-mile neighborhood north of
Corktown aptly called North Corktown.
Lewis, an Oak Park native and licensed
massage therapist, also recently opened
her own business in the area, called De-
troit Massage and Wellness.
The duo also organizes Soup at Spauld-
ing, "a biweekly dinner (soup, salad and
bread) that raises seed money for cool
projects happening throughout Corktown
and Detroit," as is stated on the organiza-
tion's Facebook page.
Koller, who has a degree in structural
engineering, heads up a nonprofit corpo-
ration, Friends of Spaulding Court.
Last February, the Friends purchased a
blighted and mostly abandoned 20-unit
apartment complex, Spaulding Court,
located in North Corktown. The plan is to
renovate and re-inhabit the century-old
complex, which until recently had been
neglected by an absentee landlord.
Living in Detroit, says Koller, he has
come to understand the profound impor-
tance of built space and how it has the
potential to tie communities together — or
wrench them apart — and why he and his
10-person board (six of whom live within
150 yards of the building) are trying to
put in place frameworks, both legal and
physical, that make it difficult to displace
or price people out of their homes.
The idea, he says, isn't to simply provide
low-income housing but rather to create
an economically, socially and racially
diverse community by empowering resi-
dents to share control of where they live.
He offers as example their plan to
implement a community land trust in
North Corktown. According to the Na-
tional Community Land Trust Network,
CLTs are meant to "provide access to land
and housing to people who are otherwise
denied access, to increase long-term com-
munity control of neighborhood resources,
to empower residents through involve-
ment and participation in the organiza-
tion and to preserve the affordability of
housing permanently?'
BLAZED A TRAIL,
NOW TAKING STOCK
Not long ago, "longtime" Detroit resi-
dent Jackie Victor heard about Shabbat
services at the Isaac Agree Downtown
Synagogue. She had been living in Detroit
since the early '90s but hadn't spent any
time in or around the synagogue.
Since then, she noted, she's seen a
growing and "remarkable" group of young
Jewish Detroiters whose commitment to
rebuilding the city is "mirrored by their
determination to create a vibrant Jewish
community in Detroit:'
"After living without a Jewish commu-
nity in the city that I so love, it is really like
a dream come true," she says.
If you don't know Victor, you might
be familiar with her blueberry muffins,
cherry walnut scones or sea salt chocolate-
chip cookies. As the co-founder of Avalon
International Breads in Midtown (or the
Cass Corridor, depending on whom you
ask), Victor, who was raised in Bloomfield
Hills, and business partner Ann Perault
have become rock stars of sorts for the
seemingly simple act of opening a bakery
in a city that had few — if any — left.
"We knew that there were not a lot of
places that seemed or felt like a hearth
to pull things together, and pull people
together," Victor says. "And, we knew that
there was a dearth of fresh, healthy food.
And so that was this opening."
Today, if you ask Detroiters what they
love about their city, Avalon usually comes
up in their litany.
"Detroit is a place where the mom-
and-pop (or mom-and-mom) business
can be reinvented," Victor added in an
e-mail. "Because we don't have national
chains or 'big box stores' breathing the
marketing oxygen out of our economy,
entrepreneurs can learn on our feet, with
relatively low barriers to entry and little
competition?'
But it wasn't as easy as renting a space,
kneading some dough and turning on the
oven. In fact, from the time she gradu-
ated from the University of Michigan in
1988 and moved into Detroit, Victor took
almost five years to, in her own words,
"... discover the city and learn about the
people and learn about the movements
here and really feel confident to say, 'I
know that I would do really well here.'
And then have the resources and the con-
nections to do it."
She stresses that she came to Detroit
not to do something for the city but rather
to be part of a community.
HERE TO STAY?
On a good day, Detroit is positioned as
an incredible city if you're adventurous,
energetic and open-minded. But, because
of its chronically failing public schools,
notoriously high crime rate and a poor
emergency response system — as well as
that X-factor called "perception" — there
aren't as many young couples or families
willing to settle here.
Unfortunately, the realities don't devi-
ate far from perception. Thus, given the
opportunity, more people are choosing to
leave. And when people leave, they take
their tax dollars, and civic pride, with
them.
Exiting Detroiters take their children,
too; and with each child leaving Detroit
Public Schools, their $7,000-plus per-
pupil allocation from the state goes with
them, often to suburban schools that
promise a better education — with lower
crime rates and higher graduation rates.
But Jackie Victor did it. She's raising
two children downtown, both of whom
attend the private Waldorf School in
Indian Village. And Jon Koller did it,
too. And there are others like Victor and
Koller scattered in pockets throughout
the sprawling city blocks — determined
to make the urban experience their expe-
rience.
"It seems that moving to the city can't
be an experiment, but rather a long-term
commitment:" Victor says. "Detroit has
become a dreamer's paradise, a place with
enough space for people to come from all
over the world and project their vision
onto the city."
For Detroit's sake, let's hope she's
right.
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