In the 300th Anniversary Year of the City of Detroit, here is a listing of the eleven of Detroit’s best and worst events or qualities. We hope that this listing helps to spark some introspection about what is great about the City and what needs to be improved while providing some causation as to how Detroit evolved.

Detroit’s Eleven Best:

1. Auto Industry - made Detroit what it is today. We put the world on wheels. Placed Detroit on the worldwide map, provided a high standard of living for many generations, and our identifier the world over.
2. Detroit River - wonderful amenity and method of transportation from Native Americans to settlers to present day, and a source of clean water for both residents and industry.
3. Ethnic Immigration - Detroit has been a great example of America’s melting pot for over 150 years with German and Irish immigrants beginning the trend up to today’s Bangladeshi and Albanians.
4. Economic Opportunity - high paying skilled jobs of the late 19th century lead to the high paying 20th century auto industry jobs and created a pragmatic and non-hierarchical social environment. Detroit was a town of upward mobility where hard work paid off.
5. Long Historic Roots - stretching from early French roots with the historic ribbon farms, a unique street grid up and three centuries of history under three national flags.
6. Philanthropy - strong legacy of giving built great institutions including DIA, DSO, CCS, MOT, Detroit Public Library system, world renown medical center, etc.
7. Arsenal of Democracy - Detroit twice has swung into action to arm the Allies to defeat fascism.
8. Location - at the narrows of the Detroit River between two of North America’s Great Lakes. Central location in the United States and directly across from Canada with easy access to many of the raw materials necessary for manufacturing.
9. Belief in a Renaissance - several times Detroit has raised itself from the ashes and continues to believe as such.
10. Loyalty and Pride- Detroiters always come home and they will always defend Detroit to outsiders.
11. Coleman A. Young - integrated much of the City government, ended the STRESS police program, and helped to begin to heal many of the black community’s wounds built up from decades of segregation and racism.

Detroit’s Eleven Worst

1. Coleman A. Young - dismantling of functioning bureaucratic government and lack of effort to stop the white flight and disinvestment that gained momentum after the 1967 riots.
2. Inner City Disinvestment - over 400,000 lost manufacturing jobs and 200,000 white collar jobs that have left the City since the late 1950s, leaving an under-educated inner city populace without access to jobs or quality services. Erosion of the City’s tax base has severely impacted the ability of the City to provide decent city services to region’s most needy.
3. Bigotry and Racism - the predominately white residents who fled the city often because of racism have been supplanted by a cut-off society filled with bigotry and animosity.
4. Sprawl - fueled by the feelings of racism and bigotry, the Detroit region has become one of the America’s most sprawling and segregated urban areas with square miles of uninteresting subdivisions and shopping districts surrounding a City who has lost much of its physical soul.
5. Anti-preservation Movement and the Model Change-over Mentality - with Detroit’s roots in the annual model change over of its number one product - the car, appreciation for our built heritage and our history is lacking. What has already been lost is astounding in a City that had such wealth where most of the last structures were less than last 90 years old.
6. Urban Renewal - the first city in the country to begin urban renewal with Lafayette Park and the last city to use it on a large scale with Graimark and I-94 Industrial Park projects. Much of the upheaval of the city can be traced to poor policies stemming from this practice.
7. Lack of Mass Transit and the Cult of the Car - Detroiters are commuting farther in their cars with many inner city residents having no easy access to the low skilled jobs available in the suburbs. This car dependency also destroys downtown Detroit with the continued demolition of buildings for surface parking lots.
8. Underutilized Waterfront - one of Detroit’s greatest assets has not been embraced like other cities including Chicago, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. The latest travesty is the proposal to bring casinos to Rivertown.
9. Personal and Physical Infrastructure Breakdown - Detroit in the relatively good 1990s climate was unable to significantly improve public services like police and education. Great Society programs encouraged the development young single head-of-household families that have been unable to deal with the societal upheaval caused by the "War on Drugs."
10. National Media and Image - has ignored efforts of our revitalization and the national media continues with 20 year-old stereotypes because these sell to the listener or viewer.
11. Auto Industry - the industry that built modern Detroit is partially responsible for its current condition. Detroit was a multi-industry town at the turn of the 20th Century while it became tied to the cyclical nature of the auto industry that has been on a 30 year decline. The auto industry also undermined efforts to bring mass transit to Detroit.