IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ijurrs/v49y2025i3p682-707.html

DETROIT’S FIGHTS FOR COMMUNITY BENEFITS: Exploring the Challenges and Strategies of Securing Community Benefits Agreements in a Legacy City

Author

Listed:
  • Lisa Berglund
  • Jodi Miles

Abstract

Community benefits agreements (CBAs) have emerged from the accountable development movement as a widespread, most often community‐initiated practice for extracting benefits from development projects at the cost of developers. Scholarship chronicling the strategies for negotiating benefits has largely concluded that a strong real estate market is needed for local communities to secure the necessary leverage to win benefits. However, there are cases when legacy cities with weak real estate markets have been successful in negotiating for community benefits. We examine 14 CBAs negotiated in Detroit to uncover lessons about the ways that cities with weaker economies and lower‐profile reputations as investment‐ready places may experience brokering agreements. In light of its status as a legacy city, this article uses Detroit's CBAs to explore the unique challenges in that city and the specialized strategies that emerged from organizing CBAs there. We find that Detroit faces specific challenges to realizing benefits like jobs and affordable housing due to structural issues brought on by decades of decline. We also find that Detroiters have innovated ways to extract benefits to mitigate some of the historic neglect and disinvestment in their neighborhoods through CBAs.

Suggested Citation

  • Lisa Berglund & Jodi Miles, 2025. "DETROIT’S FIGHTS FOR COMMUNITY BENEFITS: Exploring the Challenges and Strategies of Securing Community Benefits Agreements in a Legacy City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(3), pages 682-707, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:49:y:2025:i:3:p:682-707
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.13312
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.13312
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1468-2427.13312?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grengs, Joe, 2010. "Job accessibility and the modal mismatch in Detroit," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 42-54.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cheng, Jianquan & Bertolini, Luca, 2013. "Measuring urban job accessibility with distance decay, competition and diversity," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 100-109.
    2. Fei Li & Christopher Kajetan Wyczalkowski, 2023. "How buses alleviate unemployment and poverty: Lessons from a natural experiment in Clayton County, GA," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(13), pages 2632-2650, October.
    3. Boisjoly, Geneviève & Serra, Bernardo & Oliveira, Gabriel T. & El-Geneidy, Ahmed, 2020. "Accessibility measurements in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba and Recife, Brazil," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    4. Jangik Jin & Kurt Paulsen, 2018. "Does accessibility matter? Understanding the effect of job accessibility on labour market outcomes," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(1), pages 91-115, January.
    5. Lowe, Kate & Mosby, Kim, 2016. "The conceptual mismatch: A qualitative analysis of transportation costs and stressors for low-income adults," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 1-8.
    6. Cui, Boer & Boisjoly, Geneviève & El-Geneidy, Ahmed & Levinson, David, 2019. "Accessibility and the journey to work through the lens of equity," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 269-277.
    7. Kelobonye, Keone & McCarney, Gary & Xia, Jianhong (Cecilia) & Swapan, Mohammad Shahidul Hasan & Mao, Feng & Zhou, Heng, 2019. "Relative accessibility analysis for key land uses: A spatial equity perspective," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 82-93.
    8. Singer, Matan E. & Cohen-Zada, Aviv L. & Martens, Karel, 2022. "Core versus periphery: Examining the spatial patterns of insufficient accessibility in U.S. metropolitan areas," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    9. Yu-Chun Cheng & Jen-Jia Lin, 2014. "Job Accessibility Effects on Apartment Rentals," ERES eres2014_53, European Real Estate Society (ERES).
    10. Elisa Borowski & Alireza Ermagun & David Levinson, 2018. "Disparity of Access: Variations in Transit Service by Race, Ethnicity, Income, and Auto Availability," Working Papers 175, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    11. Karner, Alex & Niemeier, Deb, 2013. "Civil rights guidance and equity analysis methods for regional transportation plans: a critical review of literature and practice," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 126-134.
    12. Srisan, Tat & Bills, Tierra, 2024. "A case for race and space in auto ownership modeling: A Los Angeles County study," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 182-197.
    13. Jingming Liu & Xianhui Hou & Chuyu Xia & Xiang Kang & Yujun Zhou, 2021. "Examining the Spatial Coordination between Metrorail Accessibility and Urban Spatial Form in the Context of Big Data," Land, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-20, May.
    14. Eda Ustaoglu & Brendan Williams & Laura O. Petrov & Harutyun Shahumyan & Hedwig Van Delden, 2017. "Developing and Assessing Alternative Land-Use Scenarios from the MOLAND Model: A Scenario-Based Impact Analysis Approach for the Evaluation of Rapid Rail Provisions and Urban Development in the Greater Dublin Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-34, December.
    15. Michael J. Smart & Nicholas J. Klein, 2020. "Disentangling the role of cars and transit in employment and labor earnings," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 1275-1309, June.
    16. Jacomien van der Merwe & Stephan Krygsman, 2020. "The relationship between transport accessibility and employment duration," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-56, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Chakrabarti, Sandip & Verma, Muskan, 2025. "Analysis of the spatial range advantage of vehicle owners and its implications on vehicle ownership aspirations: Insights from India and takeaways for transportation equity," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C).
    18. Casey Dawkins & Jae Sik Jeon & Rolf Pendall, 2015. "Vehicle Access And Exposure To Neighborhood Poverty: Evidence From The Moving To Opportunity Program," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(5), pages 687-707, November.
    19. Davidson, Joshua H. & Ryerson, Megan S., 2021. "Modeling regional disparity and the reverse commute," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 124-139.
    20. Souche-Le Corvec, Stéphanie & Mercier, Aurélie & Ovtracht, Nicolas & Chevallier, Amandine, 2019. "Urban toll and electric vehicles: The winning ticket for Lyon Metropolitan Area (France)," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 17-33.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ijurrs:v:49:y:2025:i:3:p:682-707. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0309-1317 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.