About Us
About Us
Over the past couple of years, you may have noticed that your community library is no longer open on Saturdays. Maybe some neighborhood schools were closed, or your city stopped garbage collection and you now have to get rid of it yourself. You might have even seen a FOR SALE sign on City Hall's front lawn. It's not that your city does not want to provide these services anymore - the problem is that it can't afford to. Cities all over the state are financially stressed, but older, established cities are especially hurting. Many are actually on the brink of falling into bankruptcy and losing their administrative control to the state government.
In the spring of 2002, a group of city leaders representing a handful of southeast Michigan's older suburbs gathered together to discuss the challenges their respective communities were facing. Deep concerns were expressed over crumbling infrastructure, declining populations, decreased state and federal funding, disadvantages in attracting developers, and, of course, their struggles to make ends meet with the state's municipal finance policy draining away their property tax revenue.
That day, a light bulb clicked on in metro Detroit. These leaders realized that as diverse as their cities were, they shared some important characteristics. They were older, located in close proximity to a major city, and had little to no undeveloped land. Many of these cities identified as "inner-ring" or "built-out" suburbs. More importantly, these leaders saw they were all struggling with the same challenges. They were losing residents to newer subdivisions in younger suburbs, developers were passing them over because they did not want to deal with the complications of "redeveloping" already existing infrastructure, and a deficient state finance system was disproportionately hurting their aging communities. Working together - to share resources when providing services, to voice their collective concerns and to craft a survival strategy - was the answer to overcoming their challenges.
In June 2002, representatives from 14 metro Detroit suburbs unanimously agreed to form the Michigan Suburbs Alliance. Together, they sought to harness the power of southeast Michigan's 1.9 million inhabitants to demand an end to the systematic disinvestment in older cities. These mayors and city managers founded the Michigan Suburbs Alliance, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit coalition of southeast Michigan's mature suburbs. They understood that finding solutions to their shared problems would require cooperation among similar communities across the region. The Suburbs Alliance has since grown to encompass more than half of the region's mature, inner-ring suburbs, representing nearly 1,000,000 residents.
The Suburbs Alliance Board of Directors is comprised of eleven members from both the public and private sectors with representation from Macomb, Oakland, Wayne and Washtenaw Counties.
Vision
Pursuing a future where communities share economic, environmental and social success, the Michigan Suburbs Alliance envisions metropolitan centers that preserve the unique character of individual communities while striving toward a unified and equitable region where the citizens are empowered as an effective regional force.
Mission
The Michigan Suburbs Alliance unites and strengthens metropolitan Detroit's mature suburbs by elevating regional cooperation, reforming public policies, and innovating redevelopment strategies.
