Reimagining Detroit: Opportunities for Redefining an American City

by John Gallagher

Suggests ways for Detroit to become a smaller but better city in the twenty first century and proposes productive uses for the city’s vacant spaces.

Genres: Nonfiction, Urban Planning, Cities, Urban Studies, Urban

176 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2010

About the author

Born in London, John Gallagher grew up in Ireland, and is currently resident in Japan as a writer and translator. He holds a BA in History and English Literature from the National University of Ireland, and an MA in Translation Studies from Dublin City University.

Reviews

[Juan Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was written during a point where the city was at its lowest. A few of the ideas mentioned have come into fruition since the publishing of the book such as the land bank, urban gardens, bike paths, and the M1 project.

Gallagher bravely stated the fact that Detroit needs to stop thinking that it still holds the status it had during the automotive boom and that repopulating it back to its peak of roughly 2 million is unrealistic. His best ideas were about road diets. Reducing the lanes of the unnecessarily large artery roads like Grand River and Jefferson and replacing lights with landscaped roundabouts were great ideas.

The biggest problem I had was Gallagher restating how great of a "smaller city" Detroit can be. In his arguments, he constantly compared the potential of reimagined Detroit to Youngstown, Flint, and Turin. However, even with the population loss, Detroit still has a greater population and a far greater land size than all of the smaller cities he was comparing. Also, while the ideas about road diets were interesting, the question of funding was one to be answered for a few of the thoughts proposed. Last complaint is the extensive amount of depth covering urban gardening, not many other creative ideas were mentioned in how to handle the excessive vacant lot problem.

Overall, I thought the book was inspirational at the least and presented some positive, feasible ideas that could help to reshape the city into one worth living in.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the way he framed this: I'm not going to write about the past. I'm not going to write about the present. I'm going to write about the future.

Gallagher does a pretty good job outlining the options, but I can't help but feel all of these approaches are "white people" approaches for a city that is overwhelmingly black. I also found the writing a little irritating/cutesy at times (I don't care at all what your favorite ice cream is, John).

Worth the read. Of the options presented, I'm thinking urban forest is the best option for the vacant land in Detroit.

One more thing: He talks about how sunflowers are great at sucking out hazardous matter in the soil. Something I hadn't thought about was the sunflowers then become toxic and need to be hauled to a hazardous waste treatment plant. (And the cost associated with this hauling and treatment is way higher than I had imagined.)

[Mollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I moved to Detroit at its lowest point during the recession of the early 2000’s. It was a devastated city, but in spite of that there was hope and pride by so many in their community. I have grown to love Detroit. I ask friend to come so I can show them what a great city it is. But in spite of the architecture and culture inherited from its heyday, the city has and continues to work hard at redefining itself and facing incredible challenges. Many of the innovations defined in Gallagher’s book I see as I drive though the city. The book helped me to connect the dots and see the fruits of the collaborations and partnerships describe in Reimagining Detroit.
Detroit has been the first in so many advances in city development and industry, now hopefully, and I believe it will, be able to show how a city devastated can be redefined and revitalized. Thank you John Gallagher.

[Amanda J · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's short, but it's worth it to get the gears turning.

Gallagher provides a much needed reality check on the "comeback" of Detroit. This book was written before the massive strides in the downtown renaissance and renewed positive media coverage of the infamous 7.2 square miles of the greater downtown Detroit. Reconsidering how to utilize land and acknowledging that Detroit will likely never return to the nearly 2 million people glory days is important.

Anyone living and working in Detroit or Detroit Metro should read this. It won't take long, but it will help think things through, even if your solutions are different than Gallagher's.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I purchased this book over 10 years ago and didn't get around to reading it. And as time went by, I anticipated the information would become increasingly out of date, which made me increasingly less motivated to pick it up. But I was wrong. The major themes would seem to apply to all shrinking cities.
There are many previous treatments of "what went wrong" in places like Detroit, but in my mind the important thing is to move forward by creating the best quality of life reasonably possible for the residents of any town, whether it is growing or shrinking. This book explores big picture ideas and would likely be interesting to anyone with an interest in urban planning.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written five years ago, some of Gallagher's observations have become commonplace. Nonetheless, the book is one of those core texts about pushing back on the narrative of hopelessness that often comes with the topic of Detroit.

After deftly setting up the political problems of the Motor City (this before bankruptcy), Gallagher turns to what might be done. Here, he is something of an urbanist. The now familiar themes of urban agriculture, better transit, land banks, the nurture of the arts and small scale entrepreneurialism -- these themes have grown since first writing. And since writing, we have also come to see something of the limitations of them. If anything, these are too small for the actual problem of the city, of how a region of declining population, a region that is poor, minority, and too often unskilled can do something more. What will be the engines that drive this?

This is the challenge. Small wonder that those outside throw up their hands (as our State legislature is prone to do): the enormity of the problems see to mock any steps forward.

Gallagher's vision is not one of economic development, of recovering a place. The modest book reaches out to seeing the city as a place of possibility, a place quite different than the one shaped by the Auto Age. Here, we can think of landscape as something of a sign of hope. The natural as a doorway to the possible.

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 2010, this book precedes a lot of the positive changes in Detroit over recent years. Still it is much more hopeful, considered and objective than, say, Detroit: An American Autopsy. Wide in scope, the book considers Detroit's long history and the arc taken by post-industrial cities from the American Rustbelt to Turin, Italy. Turin provides a surprising template for what Detroit can do, as do successful programs in Philadelphia, Youngstown and the Genesee County Land Bank. The author explains well the issues with urban farming - getting land and operations into the 50-500 acre scale as well as the intriguing fact that this was already successfully done with Pingree's Potato Patches during a time of financial duress in the late 19th Century. This read has a lot of ideas and background for its slim volume and is worth reading by anyone interested in the possibility Detroit now represents - what to do about all those square miles! - or urban revitalization in general.

Also, I learned a new word: phytoremediation for using plants, especially spinach, to leach heavy metal from soil and make it safe for edible harvests.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh man, i loved this book! Part of it was because I'm a big planning nerd and I love reading about road diets, infrastructure, and urban agriculture. Even if you don't have a planning background, though, this book might still be of interest. It is relatively short and the concepts are explained well enough for all to understand. it was a refreshing perspective about what's happening in detroit. I do echo others' critiques that crime is an issue that should have been addressed when talking about the future of detroit. It is one of the big deterrents to living in that city still. One of my friends chose to live outside the city because the costs of commuting and higher rent were still cheaper than paying for expensive auto insurance inside Detroit. Hopefully some of the ideas Gallagher discusses can take place and contribute lowering in crime rates and make urban living an advantageous choice for Wayne County residents.

[Renee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just finished this book, and the next morning heard the author on the radio speaking about the most recent population loss of 25% in the last 10 years, which brings Detroit to 800,000. (Now Detroit is in danger of loosing Federal funding because of the population loss) I enjoyed getting an inside look at what has been proposed over time to help re-envision Detroit as a smaller city, and about the people who are leading positive change in the city. (It is not the city council, or the mayors office.) Very simply, Gallagher explains the complications, and describes solutions that have show results in other shrinking cities.

The first step is to stop thinking that Detroit will suddenly return to its 1950s glory. I still worry about Detroit, and Michigan, with our economy, with so much poverty, but Gallagher's book left me hopeful.

[Adrian Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this book up for Spencer at the library. He and I both read it. It has the usual stuff in it - promote agriculture, restore green space, improve mass transit, etc. I think he identifies the two things that are really holding Detroit back, but only with glancing references: a corrupt and stagnant city government, and a fifty percent illiteracy rate combined with a fifty percent unemployment rate. Until those are fixed, I think any other ideas for change will only limp along and not make a significant difference.

The author sums it up nicely when he says, 'No boomtown ever boomed so long or so hugely as Detroit, and the city never got over it.' The sense of entitlement has led to the corruption in government, and the antagonism bred in the culture here from labor management relations is still manifest.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting discussion, but the suggestion that decline is somehow a cultural attribute is a dangerous and irresponsible path upon which to embark, which Gallagher does most strongly around pp. 37-8. Ultimately, this book is ideologically conservative, positivist, and as such can only serve as an introduction into the issue of place-based decline. As all establishment critiques, Gallagher's narrative gives off a scent of blaming the victim even as he - to his credit - tries desperately not to.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was great description of ways in which Detroit could transform itself. I was disappointed, however, that it doesn't address one of the main issues Detroit faces: security. I've known countless people who've tried to live in Detroit... but surrendered when they could no longer put up with the crime. Until we address that (or prove that these suggestions will indirectly address security in some way), these grand ideas are moot.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reimagining Detroit is an interesting presentation of ideas. It's not an academic analysis, nor a how-to. Gallagher discusses issues Detroit is facing and critiques possible solutions. Those issues include population loss, urban farming, transportation, landscape restoration, vacant land, creating a climate of entrepreneurship, and land banks. It's a worthwhile book for those interested in Detroit, or revitalizing beleaguered cities, though probably of limited staying power.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A solid read about some potential ways for Detroit to embrace its position as a smaller city and reinvent itself along more sustainability and community-driven lines. Kudos to the author for laying out a positive vision for the city.

Unfortunately, he never really got too far below the surface on any of his points. I feel like this same argument could have been more effectively expressed in a 2-page special in the Detroit Free Press.

[Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

The author has some great ideas and he really points out a lot of progress in Detroit and how it can be made even better. However, I found that he completely ignored the elephant in the city--he barely touches on race and racism. I don't think there can be a truly meaningful discussion about the future of Detroit without exploring how we can move past decades of racism and unofficial segregation.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

An inspiring book of what could be done with the city. He gives examples of other cities and what they have done. He gives us hope in the future of a thriving city,not the way it was before, but a smaller and productive one.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who was born in Detroit and has always held great affection for this embattled city I was saddened and shocked to read just how low it has fallen and how greed and politics have contributed to the down slide of a once great American manufacturing city.

[Art · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the outside, Detroit seems like a desperate situation. Cars made this a boomtown a hundred years, which lasted for many years. But that era is gone and will never come back.

This short book, by a Detroit urban-affairs journalist, offers many ideas for rethinking his city.

[Robert D. Cornwall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent primer on the realities and possibilities of revitalizing the city of Detroit. You don't have to be from Detroit to reflect on the realities of the urban envinment.

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you live in southeastern Michigan and have any interest in the city's possible/varying futures it's a bit of a necessary read.

[Joachim · Rating 1 out of 5]

Facile, poorly sourced, and useless.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great primer on current and future Detroit issues.