Detroit Battles Decay, Joblessness In Ultimate US Test of Renewal

ON a driving tour of Detroit, city-planner Kevin Turner stops in an East Side neighborhood near his boyhood home. Outside, there's a torched building tagged with graffiti, a stripped Buick, and a weed-choked lot.

``This is all in the empowerment zone,'' Mr. Turner tells a group of reporters, smiling. ``You might want to take a picture.''

After years of trying to spit-shine their city's image, Detroiters have grown remarkably candid about their civic woes. Once an industrial jewel, Detroit has lost 50 percent of its population and 40 percent of its job base in four decades. It has become a national emblem of urban decay.

But many of its 1 million residents refuse to admit defeat. Spurred by an energetic new mayor, a sympathetic president, and a booming car industry, Detroit is set to begin a 10-year, $2 billion redevelopment effort - the largest in US history.

Hopes are high, but so are the stakes. If Detroit succeeds, it will serve as a model of urban renewal. If it fails, it will become a metaphor for the difficulty of rescuing America's urban cores.

``If you look at trend lines in inner cities over the last 10 years, they're shockingly bad,'' says Bob Keller, president of Detroit Renaissance, a consortium of business leaders. ``If this doesn't work, it will be another decade until somebody else is ready to do something, and things will be worse.''

The renewal efforts revolve around an area of Detroit that earned one of the Clinton administration's six ``empowerment zone'' designations. These awards - also earned by Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia/Camden - include $100 million in tax credits and unusually wide latitude over its use.

The zone, an 18-square-mile area on Detroit's east and southwest sides, typifies urban blight. Unemployment among the zone's 101,000 residents is 29 percent, infant-mortality rates are twice the national average, 63 percent of its children live in poverty, and only half of its adults have high school diplomas. While the zone contains only 10 percent of the city's population, it accounts for 20 percent of all homicides.

``The city, the state, and the federal government have turned their backs on this community,'' says Tony Martinez, owner of a metalworking shop in the zone. ``It could be a showplace for the city, but instead it's just a dump.''

Detroit's empowerment-zone application, which President Clinton lauded as the nation's best, contains 80 programs: everything from classes on parenthood to an environmental high school. In the first year, the city plans to build 300 houses, demolish 1,000 abandoned buildings, enroll 400 people in job training, and open midnight-basketball programs in 12 schools.

The $100-million federal package will fund these projects, as well as provide loans and loan guarantees for small businesses and tax abatements for companies that hire residents in the zone or purchase new equipment.

But the real engine of Detroit's effort is private investment. Unprecedented cooperation between banks, schools, and auto companies is expected to pump $1.9 billion into the community over 10 years and create at least 3,275 jobs.

The Big Three automakers pledged $20 million in general funding, and Chrysler plans to hire 500 zone residents to help build Jeeps at its Jefferson Avenue assembly plant. Utility companies, TV stations, newspapers, law firms, and colleges have offered discounts for zone businesses or special support sevices.

Page: 1 | 2