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The Shrinking City as a Growth Machine: Detroit's Reinvention of Growth through Triage, Foundation Work and Talent Attraction

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  • Lisa Berglund

Abstract

Despite Detroit's reputation for social and financial crisis, developers and investors have successfully pursued growth and land‐use intensification in recent years. However, in Molotch's initial conception of the growth machine, environments of extreme decline go under analyzed. While scholars have investigated the role of growth in Detroit, they have narrowly focused on a single document: the Detroit Future City framework. This work looks more holistically at the development networks leveraged to pursue growth through a discourse analysis of a broader set of development documents and interviews with development professionals, uncovering ways the growth machine adapts to this unlikely environment for growth. Rather than proposing an alternative to growth for a shrinking city, growth elites (led by philanthropic foundations) propose development scenarios leveraging triage to channel diminished amounts of development resources. In doing this, Greater Downtown, with its investment potential, is polarized from other areas of the city seen as risky investments. In addition to focusing growth in investment‐friendly areas, growth coalitions pursue incentives and branding campaigns to attract talent and affluence. These dynamics are a divergence from the growth machine model that supports the narrative that growth benefits all residents in favor of a narrative of triage.

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  • Lisa Berglund, 2020. "The Shrinking City as a Growth Machine: Detroit's Reinvention of Growth through Triage, Foundation Work and Talent Attraction," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 219-247, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:44:y:2020:i:2:p:219-247
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.12858
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    1. L. Owen Kirkpatrick & Michael Peter Smith, 2011. "The Infrastructural Limits to Growth: Rethinking the Urban Growth Machine in Times of Fiscal Crisis," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 477-503, May.
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    5. Kimberley Kinder, 2014. "Guerrilla-style Defensive Architecture in Detroit: A Self-provisioned Security Strategy in a Neoliberal Space of Disinvestment," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(5), pages 1767-1784, September.
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    1. Julie Mah, 2023. "Broadening equitable planning: Understanding indirect displacement through seniors’ experiences in a resurgent Downtown Detroit," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(4), pages 905-922, June.
    2. Ruiying Liu, 2022. "Long-Term Development Perspectives in the Slow Crisis of Shrinkage: Strategies of Coping and Exiting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-30, August.
    3. Jian Liu & Yixin Zhang & Junsong Mao, 2023. "Social Enterprises and Their Role in Revitalizing Shrinking Cities—A Case Study on Shimizusawa of Japan," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-19, December.
    4. Güldem Özatağan & Ayda Eraydin, 2021. "Emerging policy responses in shrinking cities: Shifting policy agendas to align with growth machine politics," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1096-1114, August.
    5. Changqing Sui & Wei Lu, 2021. "Study on the Urban Fringe Based on the Expansion–Shrinking Dynamic Pattern," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-16, May.
    6. Solène Le Borgne, 2023. "RE‐SCALING TERRITORIAL STIGMATIZATION: The Construction and Negotiation of ‘Declining Medium‐Sized Cities’ as a Stigmatizing Imaginary in France," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(6), pages 975-994, November.

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