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.

