News & Events
May 2006
Speak Up About Race
Late last month I was honored to present at the Michigan Association of Realtors annual Land Use Academy. The event was held at Camp Michigania near Boyne City among rolling hills and the spring scents of pine and blooming flowers. My discussion of urban redevelopment couldn't have been further disconnected from the locale, but inside the lodge were 50 business leaders from across the state who understood the importance and relevance of the topic with surprising clarity. One of the key points in any discussion about the southeast Michigan region is the rate and extent of racial and economic segregation. It was this issue that dominated the discussion afterward - with encouragingly positive overtones.
Despite the increasing diversity of our nation overall, racial segregation throughout our region is intensifying. According to the Lewis Mumford Center at SUNY-Albany, our region is the most segregated in the nation. Among cities with populations greater than 100,000, Livonia is Whitest and Detroit is the second Blackest. Across the region, 87 percent of Whites live in predominantly White neighborhoods; 79 percent of Blacks live in predominantly Black neighborhoods. The Mumford Center reports on the residential patterns of Whites, Blacks, Asians and Hispanics, missing many important subpopulations in our area, including Arabs. Nonetheless, the reported numbers show a disconcerting pattern of isolation across all groups.
At the MAR event, a White man and a Black woman had a vibrant discussion about the consequences of this segregation - especially how good-hearted people can develop prejudices, simply from lack of exposure to those who are different from them. From that builds an economic and policy system that reinforces our differences and impedes our ability achieve economic, environmental and social progress.
Breaking down these barriers and recognizing that our differences should be a cause for celebration rather than competition must be a top level priority in enhancing regional collaboration. Step one is enhancing the dialogue about race in our region. Enter the New Detroit and the NAACP. New Detroit, which will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year, was born out of the civil unrest in Detroit in the late 1960's. In October, they will host a landmark conference, A "No Fault" Look at Race, exploring the dynamic of race in 21st Century America. The NAACP is the nation's largest civil rights organization, and the Detroit Branch is its flagship chapter. In 2004, in partnership with the Michigan Land Use Institute, they worked with regional leaders to identify core issues impacted by race in the region, including mass transit and housing.
These two issues in particular must be a part of the Michigan Suburbs Alliance agenda. As Heaster Wheeler from the NAACP told a riveted audience at our Creating Collaborative Communities conference in November, White leadership - suburban leadership in many cases - needs to be a driving force on issues like these that have become polarized by our regional inability to address race effectively.
The process of open dialogue and positive action on tangible issues is exactly what the people of our region want to see. Like those conversations up north with the Realtors, every day in southeast Michigan I hear a desire to overcome the legacy of stress, poverty and racism. We have an essential role to play as the coalition of this region's suburban leadership. Forty years of dissonance is starting to dissolve. With added emphasis from our communities and a renewed openness to solving regional challenges, the Suburbs Alliance can be on the leading edge of solving a fundamental challenge to our metropolis.
