In his magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith writes: “Whenever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many.”

Smith’s prognosis of the ever widening gap between the rich and poor, and the fact that national wealth doesn’t necessarily bring an end to mass economic desolation, aptly describe the current state of Detroit, a major American urban city that is now heralded as a “shining city upon a hill” after its 2014 emergence from the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history.

Much of the economic resurgence that is happening in Detroit is in the business district – the downtown – where investors are swarming around looking for every available opportunity to either set up shop or buy buildings at giveaway prices.

Few miles away from the downtown area is midtown, which is quickly becoming a business enclave and an extension of the business district because it is also getting an almost equal amount of investments. Multimillion-dollar investments are being pumped into downtown and midtown, creating a sort of mecca in the American midwest.



The unquestionable driver behind most of the investments is billionaire investor Dan Gilbert, the founder and chairman of the mortgage giant Quicken Loans who is also majority owner of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers.

Gilbert is also founder of Rock Ventures, the umbrella entity for his real estate investments. The company is responsible for the purchase of over 90 buildings in the business district. No other investor in downtown Detroit has matched what Gilbert has done in the past decade. Thus, the downtown could simply be renamed Gilbertville.

The grand irony, however, is that such economic buoyancy is taking place in a city where 60% of children continue to live in abject poverty and where, according to the 2014 census, 39.3% of residents live below the poverty line. Detroit’s impoverished neighborhoods have only received paltry investments, despite the yawning needs.



That is why many Detroiters readily dismiss what Gilbert and others of his ilk are doing as a renaissance for the rich and powerful – more so when they hear of the huge government incentives behind it. They don’t feel connected to the economic activities happening downtown because their harsh daily experiences remain a copious contradiction to the other Detroit being created around them.

Mayor Mike Duggan, who was first elected in 2013, has pushed this narrative while struggling to walk a fine line between meeting the demands of downtown heavyweights and listening to the incessant and justifiable cries of neighborhood residents.

The mayor has announced some incremental investments in some designated neighborhoods in Detroit but they do little to address the massive imbalance of resources. In fact the mayor, to the surprise of many, recently devoted an entire address before a conference of white business elites to solely retelling the history of housing discrimination in Detroit.



He vowed to make Detroit a place where everybody is welcomed and inclusion is made a cornerstone of the ongoing revival. But the speech coming in a re-election year sounded like that of a man promising to do better next time because he has heard enough of the cries about the city’s deep division and inequities.

Indeed, there is a Detroit that is a priority for the rich and well connected, and then there is a Detroit where vast majority of the people lament a different existence marked by misery. And if the conditions of the majority remain the same, how then has the bankruptcy – which shaved away a chunk of the city’s debts and allowed the municipal government to start on a clean slate – changed their lives for the better?

Inclusion and innovation must therefore be the watchwords of reemerging Detroit.

