What our Oakland County Executive says about Detroit, transit or the region is beyond my control\u2014anyone\u2019s control. However, his aggressive stance might give the impression that all Oakland County or suburban Detroit communities feel the same way, and local and regional leaders should do our part to refute that assumption.<\/p>\n
For example, recent commentary ranges from \u201cDetroit must not survive in order for the county to prosper\u201d or \u201cHe represents his constituents\u201d.<\/p>\n
As a city councilwoman representing Ferndale, I can definitively say that our leaders know that Detroit\u2019s success is our own–we stand with Detroit. In my day job, I work diligently to revitalize downtown Detroit. \u00a0As a local and regional voice representing urban areas, I see myself as a new cadre of leaders who can bridge what has divided us.<\/p>\n
Detroit needs to thrive so Ferndale prospers, along with Hazel Park, Oak Park, Royal Oak Township, Southfield and Farmington, communities that share a southern oakland county border with Detroit.<\/p>\n In fact, most south Oakland County communities are suffering the same fate as Detroit, albeit on a smaller scale. While Oakland County has a stellar bond rating, a result of financial prowess and managerial foresight, that story has a flip side, which seems to be the elephant in the room when it comes to the relationships between Detroit and Oakland County: the county\u2019s older, southern communities share many of the core city\u2019s challenges.<\/p>\n Yes, development everywhere at any cost\u2014what we call sprawl\u2014helped all the counties grow, to the detriment of Detroit. These same policies have also been hurting inner-ring communities.<\/p>\n Job and population loss do not do not magically end at the 8 Mile border. Oakland County has a great bond rating, but Royal Oak Township now enters emergency management. Hazel Park teeters on the fiscal edge. Ferndale city council tries to keep four firefighters so we don\u2019t fall to lowest manpower. Pleasant Ridge is going through the hard conversations with their citizens to raise their millage rate. All these communities continue to lose population.<\/p>\n Conversely, communities that share Detroit\u2019s borders reap the benefits of strong neighborhoods, revitalized corridors, new economic development and new businesses, regardless on which side of the border they exist.\u00a0 Ferndale benefits from a strong Detroit Green Acres and Palmer Woods neighborhoods, along with growing retail efforts at Livernois \u201cAvenue of Fashion\u201d.\u00a0 For me, I only see opportunity for Detroit to build on its successes with its neighbors\u2014that go beyond the border.<\/p>\n If you think Oakland County\u2019s progress with mass transit had something to do with county leadership, then you are mistaken. \u00a0Many community leaders have ignored the county executive\u2019s weak support for transit investment, by taking action on what they can control.<\/p>\n In 2010, elected officials from Ferndale to Birmingham, with support from nonprofits, formed a task force to create a stronger voice for economic development, coordinated land use and transportation improvements along the Woodward Corridor. We knew the communities had to step up to vocally demonstrate their support for M1 Rail and developing transit projects in downtown Detroit.\u00a0\u00a0 That initiative is now called \u201cTransform Woodward<\/a>\u201d, created by the cities.<\/p>\n A small handful of community representatives wrote the 2011 grant application that resulted in a $2.5 million federal grant for the Woodward Alternative Analysis for the corridor.\u00a0 Without any county involvement.<\/p>\n Imagine the additional progress we could make if our county executive was a Detroit champion instead of a protagonist cloaked in regional collaboration rhetoric. While the Detroit Zoo, DIA regional millage and Cobo Authority are shiny examples where counties came together to save assets we all care about, we have not come together to save or build on the assets that make our urban cities strong, including Detroit\u2014as well as many cities in Oakland County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Growing up, my grandpa said lots of things that made family members cringe. Like the bad uncle or crazy talking grandpa at a holiday dinner, you tolerate the conversation for a little bit, but then you quietly find your exit. You know grandpa won\u2019t change his ways at this point in his life. \u00a0His beliefs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meltropolis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meltropolis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meltropolis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meltropolis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meltropolis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.meltropolis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":412,"href":"http:\/\/www.meltropolis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions\/412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meltropolis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meltropolis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meltropolis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meltropolis.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"photo](\"http:\/\/www.meltropolis.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/8m-and-livernois-300x225.jpg\")
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