Wednesday, September 14, 2016 // The Statement 4B Wednesday, September 14, 2016 // The Statement 5B When Shelby Oberstaedt was a kid, her sub- urban family was hesitant to travel downtown to attend Detroit Tigers games, fearing a reputa- tion that painted the city as crime-ridden. And while living downtown as her now-husband played football at Wayne State University, she said, those same feelings of insecurity remained. “Living here was a bit scary,” she recalled. “Fifteen years ago I don’t even think my family would’ve come down here.” However, Oberstaedt has chosen to stick around in Detroit, as a general manager for the Jolly Pumpkin Pizzeria and Brewery — one of many individuals part of the rapid process of gentrification Detroit has undergone over the last two decades. Gentrification, a term popular- ized in the ‘70s, describes the process by which low-income communities are renovated and rebuilt, attracting young professionals but also usually driving up real estate prices and relocat- ing pre-existing residents and businesses. Cities such as Brooklyn, San Francisco and Portland that have undergone this process are hailed today as havens for young urban profes- sionals seeking a culturally vibrant urban expe- rience that comes with a hefty price tag — a far cry from the affordable and even struggling rep- utations once attached to these communities. In Detroit, the area known as Cass Corridor was rebranded as Midtown in the early 2000s, in an effort to redirect a history of poverty and blight. Following the city’s declaration of bank- ruptcy in 2013, multiple large-scale efforts to spur economic growth were launched, includ- ing a $650 million development plan involving the purchase of neglected buildings to be turned into high-end retailers and luxury apartments. Though many of these properties had been vacant for years, wealthy enterprise and spikes in rent are now characterizing the transform- ing reality of Midtown, Detroit, in large part because of those efforts. The city’s crime rate also seems to be on a steady decline, with the Free Press report- ing a 23-percent drop in stolen automobiles, an 18-percent fall in robberies and a 15-percent drop in burglaries since 2014, though Detroit still maintains the number-one spot on Forbes’ annual Most Dangerous Cities ranking. The city has also recently drawn national attention for the widespread failure of its pub- lic school system, magnified by a mass “sickout” that made headlines last May, in which 1,500 teachers called in sick on May 2 after learning their pay was not guaranteed past June. The demonstration temporarily closed 94 of the city’s 97 schools. As Detroit continues to undergo changes and face challenges, some residents and busi- ness owners argue the gentrification of Mid- town is largely positive, providing jobs for locals and incentives for corporations to invest in the economy. However, others raise concerns that gentrification often overlooks the complexity of poverty, paving over socioeconomic and racial tensions with rapid real estate growth that drives out marginalized communities. In addi- tion to spikes in property values, such develop- ments exacerbate the wealth disparity between those in and outside of the area of gentrification. In Detroit, inhabitants of the areas directly sur- BY LARA MOEHLMAN AND MARIA ROBINS-SOMERVILLE THE COST OF LIVINGIN DETROIT Photo by CAROLYN GEARIG/ Daily rounding Midtown earn on average 25 percent less per year than their central counterparts, according to The Guardian. *** The Jolly Pumpkin Pizzeria & Brewery, where Oberstaedt works, is an upscale pub located in Detroit’s Cass Corridor. President Barack Obama reportedly ordered a burger, salad and truffle fries there before attending the North American International Auto Show last January. But Jolly Pumpkin, which opened its Detroit location in April 2015, is just one of many high- end businesses to open in Midtown within the past few years. Shinola, a luxury watch, bicy- cle and leather-good brand opened its flagship store just down the street from Jolly Pump- kin in 2013. The company boasts the return of manufacturing jobs to the city, operating out of an old auto lab owned by the College of Creative Studies but also assembling watches made of parts reportedly created overseas. John Varvatos, a Detroit-born men’s fashion designer, opened the doors to a new store loca- tion on Woodward Avenue in April 2015 with a star-studded black carpet complete with an Alice Cooper concert. “It’s kind of crazy, to be honest,” Oberstaedt said of the neighborhood’s turnaround. “Now I feel comfortable walking to my car and park- ing nearby, and you see people from the sub- urbs coming here, and coming here to go out to eat or to go shopping and it’s not cheap shops — they’re expensive shops.” Oberstaedt estimated about 95 percent of her employees live in downtown Detroit, most within walking distance of the restaurant. Some are Wayne State University students originally from the suburbs while others are native Detroiters. Some live in expensive new lofts on Woodward Avenue while others live closer to the restaurant, paying less than $500 dollars a month in rent. Speaking to concerns of gentrification and rising rents in Midtown, Oberstaedt sees Jolly Pumpkin’s impact on the city as a largely positive one, claiming it mainly promotes fair workplace practices while renewing pride and interest in the city of Detroit. “I think there’s just, like, that appeal to be something hip and cool and someplace that people want to visit,” Oberstaedt said, not- ing a boost in local morale following Obama’s visit to the restaurant and after other excit- ing events, such as an album release at Third Man Records, Jack White’s record label, which opened its Detroit branch in November 2015. Oberstaedt added that Jolly Pumpkin also provides its staff members with desirable and much-needed employment opportunities. “There’s a lot of people that were being paid minimum wage — and barely that — and work- ing in underprivileged work environments, and they come to us and they’re like ‘Wow this is a good company to work for,’ ” Oberstaedt said. “You’re bringing jobs to their community, where they don’t have to have transportation to get to them, and they’re not the lowest paid jobs either. It’s giving them the opportunity to, first off, make a little bit more money but also be treated a little bit better.” Paul Green, assistant shop manager at Moosejaw — a major outdoor recreation out- fitter that opened a Detroit location in 2012 — echoed Oberstaedt’s opinion of the impact of a booming Midtown on Detroit’s spirit and self- confidence. He noted that, in previous years, international tourists visiting the city were most likely there for the annual Auto Show or business-related trips. Recently, however, tourists visiting his shop from places includ- ing China, Denmark, the United Kingdom and South Africa said they were visiting Detroit because they “just wanted to see it.” Though he’s aware Moosejaw’s pricey out- door gear may be out of reach for most Detroi- ters, Green said he remains hopeful that the economic successes of a booming Midtown will eventually reach the city’s struggling outer neighborhoods. “The hope, at least from my end, is that even though we can’t directly provide goods to people who really don’t have the money to buy most of our products, we are contributing in the redevelopment of the city, which will eventually benefit everybody,” Green said. “Or it should. It darn well better.” Green described the process of gentrifi- cation — and more specifically rent hikes in downtown Detroit — as frustrating. He main- tained hope, however, that city officials would prioritize the needs of the majority of Detroit’s population when faced with issues of zoning and urban planning in the city. “When I think about it, I try and hope that the right things happen — that people make the right decisions in government,” Green added. “They’re the ones who can decide whether or not a vacant property becomes affordable housing or it becomes a retail unit or an expen- sive loft.” *** For some residents, however, the perspec- tive on the impact of new businesses is a bit different. LSA senior Elizabeth Gonzalez, who grew up in southwest Detroit, said she finds the gen- trification of Midtown problematic because her community has not yet received the ben- efits of the city’s economic growth. “That’s the problem I have when I see arti- cles that say things like ‘oh, Detroit is bounc- ing back,’ because my side of Detroit looks the exact same,” Gonzalez said. “My Detroit has not changed one bit … Detroit is bouncing back for people from the suburbs, the hipsters mov- ing in, but the rest of Detroit is still the same.” Art & Design senior Jessica Gray, who grew up in Detroit’s Seven Mile area on the western side of the city, specifically noted the racial implications of gentrification in Detroit. She said while the restoration of Midtown sends messages of hope and progress to the pub- lic, decades of neglect are felt by those who inhabit the city — those who have been calling attention to the city’s need for economic revi- talization long before high-end retailers made Detroit fashionable. “It becomes a problem because, are we, the Black people that are there, the hispanic peo- ple that are there — are we not enough to have good things?” she said. “That’s basically how it makes us feel, as the people who have been pushing Detroit this whole time. We’re not enough to have a rail built before now? We’re not enough to have all of these profitable busi- nesses?” Gray also pointed to racial divides poten- tially created by rising rent prices downtown. “Gentrification is a problem because they’re not helping the people they’re pushing out,” she said. Richard Smith, a western Detroit native, expressed concern over the disappearance of Black-owned businesses in Midtown. “The migration here and everybody mov- ing back downtown is moving the Black people out,” he said. “There’s this great New Detroit but where are all the Black businesses? They moved all the Black businesses from down there.” Smith’s concerns are reflected by research from Brian Doucet, assistant professor of urban geography at Erasmus University Col- lege in the Netherlands, who wrote in an article published by The Guardian in 2015 that — while many benefit from the desirable trans- formations produced by gentrification — those transformations often depend on the displace- ment of minority populations. “Those able to afford to live there enjoy great restaurants and bars, well-paid employ- ment, safe and attractive neighbourhoods and reliable public transit,” Doucet writes. “The problem is most Detroiters cannot afford to live here. And like everything else in Southeast Michigan, race is one of the dominant factors. In a city that is 85% African American, Greater Downtown is becoming increasingly white.” *** Ren Farley, a University of Michigan pub- lic policy professor, specializes in the history and future of Detroit’s social and industrial landscape. He identified the flux of the city’s history as complex, with the current state of gentrification as neither purely positive nor negative. “It’s complicated. First of all, Detroit is close to hitting bottom, so new investments com- ing into Detroit, it seems to me, are generally desirable,” Farley said, noting that the incom- ing high-end retail, real estate and restaurants will increase the tax-base of the city along with employment. “Shinola has made a point of hiring local people to assemble their expensive products,” Farley added. “Nike is one of a number of shops that tries to emphasize that they are involved in a community. When Whole Foods moved in, they made a point of hiring local workers and including some local products in what they sell, so these are what seems to me, quite favor- able signs.” However, Farley noted that these benefits come with drawbacks, as the jobs such com- panies create are split between high-tech jobs and entry-level labor. “Certainly, many of those are high-tech jobs and financial services jobs that require creden- tials beyond those typically found for Detroit residents,” he continued. “But still, the pres- ence of those jobs generates a lot of other jobs, providing the services those buildings need and the services that people working there need.” Though Farley identified developments in Detroit as something of an economic renais- sance, he questioned the impact of revitaliza- tion — and more specifically who it’s for. Farley said these developments are so geographically concentrated in Midtown that one cannot be certain employment opportunities will open up for Detroit’s outer neighborhoods, which face high levels of poverty and unemployment. “The major question is whether that revi- talization will help the people who live in the neighborhoods around Detroit or will the ben- efits of revitalization primarily be for people from outside who come into Detroit to work at the new jobs that are becoming available and make some profits in the investments in new hotels, restaurants and apartment buildings that are opening,” he said. Gonzalez described Midtown as anoth- er world compared to her own struggling neighborhood, calling Midtown a “tourist attraction” and suggesting the downtown developments were an improper use of funds. “That money is needed elsewhere,” she said. “Our school systems are falling apart. I don’t think it’s fair, because all that money is going to places where it shouldn’t be, and it’s attract- ing people from the outside. It’s not doing any- thing for people from the inside.” Kalaan Nix, who has lived on Detroit’s west side his entire life, said he could see both posi- tives and negatives — while he’s grateful for the increased job opportunities presented by the increase of businesses moving to Midtown, he’s also hesitant to call the migration of peo- ple into the city a success for native Detroiters. “There’s always two sides to a coin, so if there’s a positive there’s a negative,” Nix said. “So, to some extent, people moving back into the city isn’t helping solve the problem for people who live in the city — it’s just making it seem like ‘OK, well, we have people com- ing back because the city looks nice, but what about the people who are already here that haven’t left or couldn’t leave?’ ” Even amid her critique of the city’s rapid gentrification, Gonzalez acknowledged that encouraging people to move to Detroit was not the problem, echoing some of Nix’s sentiments. Rather, she said, an abundance of visitors who fail to engage or take part in improving the community from within instead represent the problem. “I think we really need to start with our school systems because that is one of the main reasons people who work downtown don’t live in the city,” Gonzalez said. “I think start- ing with that would be a good way to attract people to move into the city and not just com- mute in.” For her, she said, Detroit is a city whose call is waiting to be answered — in a way that is more equitable and sustainable, extending its promise beyond the boundaries of a luxurious metropolitan epicenter.