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CHAPTER 2: The Model City
- Michigan State University Press
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CHAPTER 2 The Model City I "Detroit in Decline" was the caption for a Time magazine story of October 26, 1961. The article noted the federal government's classification of Detroit as a place of "substantial and persistent unemployment," the exodus of the white middle class to the suburbs, and the blight that was "creeping like a fungus through many of Detroit's proud old neighborhoods ." According to another periodical, Detroit as of 1961 was known for three things: "automobiles, bad race relations and civic sloth."l This was the city of which Jerome P. Cavanagh became mayor on January 2, 1962. The Detroit city government was of the strong mayor, city council, nonpartisan type, its nine councilmen being elected at large. The city's economy was dominated by a single industry, and the union in that industry was the most important in Detroit. The Big Three automobile companies, their economies geared to a national market, traditionally played a small role in city government affairs. The United Automobile Workers (UAW), a major force on the liberal side in state politics, was a lesser influence in city politics because of Detroit's nonpartisan character and the conservatism on such issues as taxation of lower-middle-class homeowners, who predominated in the city.2 Facing a deficit of $19 million and a projected deficit of $28 million by the end of the fiscal year, Cavanagh announced in his inaugural address that Detroit's economic recovery would be his "first and greatest concern." He promised to use his "moral influence ... not only as it relates to the problems of Negroes, but to all citizens of Detroit." In the months that followed, Detroit began a remarkable resurgence that attracted admiring attention to the mayor and drastically altered the city's unfavorable national image.3 Cavanagh met Detroit's fiscal problems by securing approval of an income tax of 1 percent on city residents and 0.5 percent on nonresidents who worked in the city. By the end of June 1963 Detroit's financial books were in balance. Seeing the need for federal aid as the city's tax base 17 18 Violence in the Model City shrank, the Cavanagh administration turned to Washington for assistance . It enjoyed remarkable success in tapping federal coffers for Detroit's share of the funding for national programs and, indeed, was sometimes at least a coauthor of these programs. "We had a very receptive Administration in Washington, one that was looking for programs that would make them look good," Cavanagh remarked toward the end of his mayoralty. "Well, what we used to do is come up with an idea, take it to Washington, sell it to the Administration, and at the same time have a stack of applications ready on their desk for the moment the legislation was passed. The idea was to get there fastest with the mostest." Between July 1,1962, and August 1,1967, Detroit received $230,422,000 from the federal government for one program or another. Cavanagh, according to a Detroit Free Press reporter, was an admirer of "arithmetic," which, for him, was "essentially the process of perpetual subtraction from the federal government."4 Detroit's improving economic fortunes were attested to not only by the state of the city's budget but also by the new jobs provided by the auto industry, which enjoyed good years from 1962 into 1966. The Cavanagh administration also sought to create new employment opportunities by taking advantage of the federal government's Area Redevelopment Act of 1961 and the Accelerated Public Works Act of 1962. Detroit itself had "geared up" the latter statute and had helped to draft the regulations for its implementation. The city government provided $15.5 million and private industry $1.9 million to supplement the $14.5 million supplied by the federal government, using the money to improve public facilities and to build an addition to the Eastern Market. Loans under the Area Redevelopment Act were processed by the Detroit Metropolitan Industrial Development Corporation, a nonprofit organization that Cavanagh created to stimulate employment and that included business and labor leaders. The Cavanagh administration continued the redevelopment of the city's central business district initiated while Louis Miriani was mayor; it aided in the development of the city's cultural center in the Wayne State University area; and it pointed with pride to the first major construction downtown since the 1920s. The mayor brought labor peace to Cobo Hall, the city's convention center...