The Metropolitan Revolution: How Cities and Metros Are Fixing Our Broken Politics and Fragile Economy (Brookings Focus Book) by Bruce Katz & Jennifer Bradley

Author:Bruce Katz & Jennifer Bradley [Katz, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Published: 2013-06-16T14:00:00+00:00

MIDTOWN AND DOWNTOWN DETROIT

DOWNTOWN DETROIT

WHAT DETROIT TEACHES US

Detroit is drawing a new geography of innovation, tearing down the traditional, artificial borders that have long divided downtowns and midtowns in the United States. Virtually every major city in this country has a strong central business district (mostly for the congregation of government, corporate headquarters, entertainment venues, and some cultural functions), a strong midtown area (where eds and meds and historic museums tend to concentrate), and a state-of-the-art transit corridor, mostly built within the past twenty years, connecting the two. Each of these discrete building blocks brings particular assets that, in turn, provide a platform for a key element of innovation district growth.

Because of their economic, government, and cultural function, the downtown central business districts continue to have large employment bases. They also, as Julie Wagner points out, “have the physical ‘bones’—walkable street blocks, the sidewalks, the historic buildings, access to waterfronts and other established infrastructure—that can accommodate a range of residential, commercial, entrepreneurial, retail, and cultural functions.”99 The midtown areas, for the most part, have different strengths—large student populations and the substantial employment, research, and procurement bases of the universities and medical institutions. Transit corridors are the physical tissue that knits disparate parts of a city together. They have the potential, with smart land use and catalytic policies, to be multidimensional in purpose, expanding transportation choices and mobility, to be sure, but also galvanizing new destinations along their routes, including new residential areas, retail clusters, and economic districts.

Across the United States, fledgling innovation districts are beginning to take hold in this new urban geography of innovation. In Houston, a new light-rail system connects the strong central business district (with its phalanx of energy company headquarters) with the Museum District, the Houston Medical Campus, and the University of Houston. In Cleveland, the new Euclid Corridor Bus Rapid Transit system connects the traditional downtown with University Circle (with Case Western, Cleveland Clinic, and key cultural institutions). In Buffalo, the rapid expansion of the Larkin District and the Buffalo-Niagara Medical Campus in the midtown area is also connected by transit with the central business district and the burgeoning waterfront. Similar stories can be told about Atlanta, Denver, Indianapolis, Minneapolis–St. Paul, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Syracuse, and even Las Vegas. The physical and economic platform for an innovation district revolution is in place.

Second, the launch of M1 Rail exemplifies the collaborative spirit and integrated nature of economy shaping and place making at the heart of the metropolitan revolution. Detroit's revival is being inspired, accelerated, and supported by an intricate web of philanthropic and business leaders and a remarkable set of nonprofit and quasi-public intermediaries that are painstakingly connecting the dots between hundreds of separate actions and transactions. The New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan—a $100 million consortium of ten local and national foundations—is a major investor in Detroit's midtown and downtown. Since its inception in 2007, the initiative has supported or created several investment funds for start-ups and provided capital for significant place-making infrastructure, particularly in

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