Todd Spangler, and Kathleen Gray

Detroit Free Press

PHILADELPHIA – Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan went before the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday evening to tout a nascent turnaround in the city and argue for Hillary Clinton’s election as the only candidate who “sees the opportunity to create an economy in which everyone benefits.”

Noting that the population of Detroit has declined in each of his 58 years, Duggan, a Democrat, said that the city’s fortunes are changing due to a “recovery … fueled by a renewed spirit of unity and a commitment to creating a comeback that includes all Detroiters.”

"I ran for mayor of Detroit with a central message that said, we’re going to end our historic divisions," Duggan said. "I finished every speech the entire campaign by saying, 'We need to build a Detroit where it doesn't matter if you are black, brown, white, where it doesn't matter whether you're Christian, Jewish, Muslim, where it no longer matters whether you're gay or straight, born in the city of Detroit or are an immigrant — everyone will be equally valued and everyone will have real opportunity.'"

"And that's the city that is starting to emerge," he said

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Duggan also didn’t fail to mention Detroit’s trip through bankruptcy -- the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, resulting in billions of dollars of liability being restructured -- linking it to Republican nominee Donald Trump’s own business restructurings under the bankruptcy code.

“Detroit is 18 months out of bankruptcy, something Donald Trump knows a little bit about. But unlike Donald Trump, Detroit is only going to do bankruptcy once,” he said, also crediting City Council and its president, Brenda Jones, who was in the audience as a delegate for Clinton, for being his partners in helping to turn around the city.

Duggan didn’t mention, however, that Detroit’s bankruptcy was ordered by the state after Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, declared a financial emergency and appointed an emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, to handle day-to-day operations of the city and leading the negotiations to restructure the city’s debts.

Detroit’s bankruptcy is widely seen as a success in terms of rewriting the city’s obligations and allowing it to begin meeting municipal responsibilities, but there are still hard feelings about how some of those debts, such as pensions, were restructured. There also are questions remaining about how Detroit will meet a $490 million hole in the city’s pension obligations it still must address.

"Michigan Republican’s led the charge to create the grand bargain to help Detroit reach a bankruptcy settlement. These actions helped right our fiscal path and put the city on the road to a better future," the state Republican Party said in a statement after the speech.

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Duggan credited “a great partnership with President (Barack) Obama and his administration's extraordinary economic record” with helping Detroit. Without question, Michigan’s economic fortunes have turned around in the years after the 2009 rescue of General Motors and Chrysler orchestrated by the Obama auto team. The Snyder administration, too, has taken credit for improving economic conditions in the state, and developers including Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert have had a huge impact in Detroit.

"Jobs are returning to Detroit — new auto plants and businesses are opening, and Detroit's unemployment rate has been cut in half," Duggan said. "People are moving back to our city in huge numbers."

Earlier this year, Duggan said he was "very confident" that Detroit had reached a "tipping point" and was growing in population after years of decline but Census data has yet to come out bearing that trend out.

Duggan said Republicans like Trump appear more interested in “insults and fearmongering” than in plans to protect working families, though Trump has argued passionately that he would reinvigorate manufacturing across the Midwest by tearing up what he calls unfair trade deals. Clinton has made some of the same promises to review trade deals to better protect and create jobs in Michigan and across the Rust Belt.

The mayor said Clinton’s plans are more complete, however, including those to invest in infrastructure, provide tax credits to companies for job training and make college debt-free.

Wayne County Commissioner Jewel Ware, D-Detroit, who was at the convention said the nation "needs to hear that Detroit has survived and will continue to make a great turnaround."

"The mayor let the world know that Detroit is strong and moving in a very positive direction," said Jonathan Kinloch, a delegate from Detroit."Too often we receive negative press because of the challenges we’ve faced. Detroit is really, really on a rebound."

Contact Todd Spangler at 703-854-8947 or at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @tsspangler.