Week Four: How to Kill a City

Hi everyone! Reading P. E. Moskowitz’s How to Kill a City has given me a lot to think about these past few weeks.

First, How to Kill a City caused me to consider wealth and racial inequality in a different light in order to understand the root causes of gentrification. Rather than gentrification being the undesirable but unintended product of individual choices, Moskowitz explains how decades of racist housing and lending policy in the United States set the stage for gentrification through the creation of segregated cities. I was also struck by the idea that gentrification–with a disproportionate amount of wealthier white people moving into urban areas–is following the same pattern as the racist housing policies of the past, just in reverse. As Moskowitz says, “… Gentrification is simply a new form of the same process that created the suburbs… The seesaw has just tipped in the other direction.” As bleak as much of the content in this book was, it also made me hopeful to understand that gentrification is not a mysterious phenomenon brought about by millions of small decisions by everyday people. Instead, the displacement of poor communities into underserved locations is the product of deliberate, intentional policy. That means this process can perhaps be undone through deliberate, intentional policy in the other direction. Of course, undoing decades of inequality is incredibly difficult and requires a tremendous effort and cultural shift, but at least there are tangible policies and decisions to target.

The ideas presented in How to Kill a City have been apparent during my own experiences in Detroit. Moskowitz discusses how downtown Detroit has been revitalized with new businesses and developers while the rest of Detroit has been left behind, a contrast which is incredibly obvious when traveling between my apartment and my work site in Brightmoor. Downtown, flowers line the streets, and nearly every building is occupied by a business or residents. In Brightmoor, trash lines the streets, and vacant, blighted properties are common. It’s obvious that the city has invested heavily in one location, while ignoring the needs of residents in the other. Additionally, Moskowitz mentions the lack of good public transportation in all places except Downtown and Midtown. Brightmoor is 20 minutes away from Midtown by car, making it difficult for residents to travel between the two locations. This further perpetuates wealth inequality, hindering people in the outer city from accessing the jobs and resources in the revitalized inner city. Because the city government is not helping the area, residents in Brightmoor are seeking growth and improvement on their own, particularly through urban farming. Near my work site, several community groups, including a men’s shelter, a children’s learning center, and a food pantry, seek to better the community. It’s clear to me that there are countless facets of gentrification and inequality to consider, and my experiences have only begun to scratch the surface of these social complexities.