Michigan Communities Align to Preserve & Revitalize Older
Suburbs
Housing market trends have long been shifting from America’s
cities in waves that seem to spread ever further from the
urban core. When businesses started following suit, many consumers
felt that they might find the best of both worlds by living
and working in one of the new, more affordable, more spacious
developing suburbs. Despite some promising instances of urban
revitalization in recent years, this outward trend has inexorably
progressed, extending suburban boundaries ever further, and
leaving many inner-ring communities to deteriorate in their
wake.
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The Michigan Suburbs Alliance (MSA), a nonprofit corporation
established by a group of local government officials to preserve
Michigan’s older suburbs, calls this trend the “build
and abandon cycle” and views the process as yet another
manifestation of our society’s ‘use and discard’
approach to the material aspects of life. The mayors and city
managers from 14 Detroit suburbs who founded MSA in 2002 realized
that many of the challenges confronting their communities were
beyond local government’s control, and have aligned with
one another to search for solutions. MSA has grown to encompass
representation from 23 Michigan communities with over 90,000
residents. Today, MSA’s efforts support communities in
Michigan and throughout the country. Their goal is to encourage
communities to learn from the past 40 years of development by
building on a their existing strengths, rather than continuously
starting anew.
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Michigan public policy has been MSA’s greatest barrier
in its efforts to curb the state’s rapid suburban growth,
which is blamed for the declining population and downward
economic spiral of many middle- to lower-income suburbs. In
a 2003 report titled Michigan Metropatterns, author Myron
Orfield sites suburban growth at 64% between 1970 and 2000,
while population increased by only 5.3%. These numbers show
that population growth did not justify suburban growth —
certainly not of the magnitude seen here.
Instead, growth can be linked to state tax and spending policies
that have encouraged communities to compete with one another
for tax base. In largely rural areas with relatively inexpensive
land and few issues to complicate development, adding subdivisions
and big-box retail became an easy way to increase the tax
base, which in turn allows town officials to offer improved
services while holding tax rates down. With little or no room
to grow, older cities and suburbs generally lost out in this
competition. To compound matters, state funds were often used
to expand freeways and sewer systems and build new schools,
thus further encouraging outward development. MSA Executive
Director Jim Townsend believes that “These policy drivers
prime the pump for the real estate development market, which
has traditionally been more focused on building in undeveloped
areas. The combined effect is an epidemic of sprawling, low-density
development that is economically and fiscally unsustainable.”
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MSA based its 2002-2003 Fix it First policy agenda on overcoming
these policy barriers. Within the first six months of the
agenda’s introduction, MSA partnered with MOSES, an
interfaith organization that assisted in educating public
opinion leaders about the implications that Michigan’s
public policy was having on older suburbs, and the importance
of reinvesting in existing communities. The Fix it First agenda
was successful in persuading the new Michigan governor, Jennifer
Granholm, to create a Preservation First policy early in her
first year in office. Under this policy, virtually all road
building projects involving new construction are postponed
until the state can guarantee that 90% of existing roads and
bridges in Michigan communities have been brought up to acceptable
standards.
The next step for MSA is to focus on developing new market-based
strategies that support the shift toward redevelopment. According
to MSA Executive Director Townsend, the project, known as
Redevelopment Readiness, will be “the defining benchmark
for redevelopment excellence in communities.” Working
with a team of real estate industry professionals, MSA has
already drafted standards and lobbied the U.S. Congress. And
although Redevelopment Readiness is still in the research
and development stage, MSA’s goal is to prepare final
standards by this summer that communities can follow nationwide.
With support from their members, partners, and a host of
charitable organizations, MSA continues to raise public awareness
on the plight of Michigan’s maturing suburbs. MSA has
recently partnered with Michigan State University, where graduate
students studying urban planning and geography are assigned
to conduct planning studies and create urban designs for MSA
member communities. The program provides these communities
with high caliber urban planning and design services at no
cost, while students gain valuable hands-on experience. MSA
is pleased with the results achieved to date, and plans to
expand the program to five other universities in Southeast
Michigan.
The more successful MSA’s initiatives, the greater
the number of choices consumers will have in where they want
to live and work. Although there has yet to be a formal focus
on inclusionary zoning, MSA encourages mixed use redevelopment
based on the growing connection between successful commercial
development and housing. In future years, MSA hopes to see
robust, thriving housing markets in the older suburbs; a tangible
realization of their efforts to enhance viability in these
areas today.
For more information about Michigan Suburbs Alliance,
visit www.michigansa.org
or contact
Executive Director, Jim Townsend at (248) 546-2380,
e-mail info@michigansa.org
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