A new council analyzing the city of Detroit's decisions will ask whether local entrepreneurs get a fair shot at succeeding.

Mayor Mike Duggan announced the Detroit Equity Council on Tuesday night during a State of the City address in which he sought to leave a vision for ensuring fairness amid the city's growth. He focused on benefiting longtime Detroiters and Detroiter-owned businesses.

"I was not elected by the people who left. I was elected by the people who stayed," the second-term Democrat said.

Duggan gave his seventh annual address at Flex-N-Gate's $160 million auto parts plant, which was built in Detroit after billionaire owner Shahid Khan went to Duggan to put together a deal for the property. Nearly 60 percent of its workers are Detroit residents.

The new council is driving Duggan's strategy on equity, he said, adding that it's "something the city has never done."

To this end, the city needs to answer a series of questions (according to the PowerPoint presentation he gave), including: "Do Detroit entrepreneurs get a real chance at business success?" and "As companies return to Detroit, who gets the jobs?"

For the council chaired by Charity Dean, director of civil rights, inclusion and opportunity, the city convened a group of nine cabinet members. Duggan said they will analyze "every decision made in the city to make sure Detroiters benefit."

Among others on the council are Arthur Jemison, the city's group executive for planning, housing and development; Kevin Johnson, president and CEO of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp.; and Donald Rencher, director of housing and revitalization.

Discussions started last year, Dean told Crain's, but their weekly meetings began early this year. They are focusing on jobs, access to land, housing, contract procurement and entrepreneurship, with the lens that Detroit is more than 80 percent black and has "historically, had issues advancing in these areas," she said.

Dean declined to disclose examples of actions the council has taken so far.

Among calls for equity that have emerged from community groups, there's the Detroit Coalition for Economic Inclusion, which says its 2019 survey found 80 percent of black business owners feel excluded from Detroit's wave of economic growth. And although employment is growing, publicly funded construction projects are far from being able to meet the requirement that 51 percent of their hours be worked by Detroiters.

City Council member Janeé Ayers said she has been working with the equity council on how Detroit-based and Detroit-headquartered businesses benefit when it comes to receiving city contracts, and how to work with the city's civil rights office. She said City Council needs to be able to hold the members accountable and ask about how they'll report or measure their actions or findings.

"I think that's a great idea ... I think forming a council is a step in the right direction," City Council President Pro Tempore Mary Sheffield said after the mayor's speech. "And I say that because it seems like he's taking it a little bit more serious, as far as inclusion and equity in development in Detroit and really just access and opportunity in Detroit. So I don't see anything new, as of now, beside the actual ... council being formed, and I'm hoping good things will come out of that."

Sheffield said much of what she heard from the mayor Tuesday night wasn't new.

Duggan, who has not yet said whether he'll run for re-election in 2021, ran down a list of past endeavors and ongoing programs. He highlighted jobs brought by the likes of Flex-N-Gate and FCA US LLC's $2.5 billion expansion of its east side auto plants.

But, the mayor said, "with all those jobs comes change. ... When you have growth, it brings a whole different set of problems."

In touting big corporate investments, Duggan made sure to say that while some people disagree with using public dollars as incentives for big businesses, he still sees tax breaks as necessary.