SEPTEMBER 5, 2017
Little Caesars Arena opens, and Detroit is once more a four-sports city. The stadium’s owners promised that the stadium, financed partially with public money, would anchor a thriving neighborhood development, but so far, only parking lots have proliferated. A cautionary tale about sports development, and a lesson Detroit should have learned decades earlier. The Detroit City Football Club models a different relationship to the community that surrounds and sustains it.
Start on the spot on the Detroit River where Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac made landfall in 1701. A short stroll takes you past the International Memorial to the Underground Railroad to The Fist, the memorial to Joe Louis, planted in the middle of eight-lane Jefferson Avenue. Walking on up Woodward Avenue, you pass the Coleman A. Young building, named after the city’s first black mayor. The building houses much of the city’s administration, and outside is the peculiar sculpture The Spirit of Detroit, which vies with The Fist for the honor of symbolizing the City of Champions. On your left now is the terminus of the QLine, whose trams first started rolling three miles up Woodward in the summer of 2017, reminiscent of the streetcars of a bygone era. Less than one hundred yards further, you enter Campus Martius, the point where the radial spokes that form the principal avenues of Detroit meet: Michigan, Gratiot, Lafayette, and Woodward itself. Remodeled often, the center of Campus Martius now boasts a restaurant, tables where deceptively relaxed chess players hustle for a few dollars, an urban beach that doubles as a huge sandbox for children, a sound stage, and an outdoor bar. Staying on Woodward, you will pass on your right a Brazilian steakhouse, a Mexican restaurant, and the site where Shinola, the city’s fashionable retailer of bicycles, watches, and leather goods, will soon open a new luxury hotel. As you reach the Whitney Building on your left, the view opens onto Grand Circus Park, where in the summertime, you can watch an amateur production of Othello, or perhaps Romeo and Juliet.
Some of the city’s most important public spaces can be found here. If the southern end of Woodward is six o’clock on the dial of Grand Circus, the Detroit Opera House is at five o’clock, and at four o’clock stands the Detroit Athletic Club, for more than a century one of the finest meeting places in the city for the well connected. At three o’clock, surrounded by twenty-foot plaster models of angry tigers, stands Comerica Park, home of the Detroit Major League Baseball team. Right behind it is Ford Field, the modestly adorned but vast indoor stadium where the Detroit Lions play. The two stadiums are so close that any decent quarterback could throw a Hail Mary pass from one to the other, and any decent batter could hit a fly ball back.
Crossing Grand Circus, still continuing along Woodward, you can stop to admire the magnificent Fox Theatre and the Detroit Hockeytown bar on your left. A bridge will take you across the eight-lane Fisher Freeway, a noisy barrier between downtown and midtown, but one which people are more willing to cross these days. On the other side of the freeway there is a row of townhouses on the right, while on the left looms District Detroit, the brand new development that is opening on this day, September 5, 2017.
District Detroit is the brainchild of Mike Ilitch, whose mark is to be found everywhere in contemporary Detroit. Ilitch was born in Detroit in 1929 to parents who had immigrated from Macedonia. After serving in the marines during the Korean War—he didn’t see combat because they wanted him to play for a military baseball team in Pearl Harbor instead—he played minor league baseball for a few years before using all his savings to start a small company: Little Caesars Pizza.1 As Little Caesars grew, so did Ilitch’s involvement in the life of the city. He invested in real estate, funded city charities, and ultimately became one of the major players in Detroit’s sports teams, owning first the Detroit Red Wings, then the Detroit Tigers. In a city increasingly abandoned by the white population, Ilitch became a hero to many of its citizens because he stayed, and with him, his money. In 2009, when GM was forced to suspend its sponsorship at Comerica Park, he used the space to advertise the three struggling automakers, free of charge.2 District Detroit was his last great project—a shopping mall and business center surrounding an arena built to house the Red Wings. Ilitch passed away in February 2017, before the official opening, but construction must have been far enough along for him to know that he could rest secure in his legacy.
At the time of Mike Ilitch’s death, only one piece was missing before the city would once again be a four-sports town. In the summer of 2017, negotiations to bring the final team home from the suburbs proved a success when an agreement was reached in July: the Pistons were returning to the city, joining the Red Wings at District Detroit. Four major league franchises would now operate within one mile of each other, a feat only Philadelphia had managed so far.
The opening ceremony, as described in the Detroit Free Press, kicks off with a performance by the Cass Tech High School Band. More than a thousand people are there, and dozens of construction workers watch, still wearing their hard hats. News cameras line the risers. Christopher Ilitch, CEO of Ilitch Holdings, declares that his family has “put our heart and soul into something truly spectacular for the people of this city, state and region.” The grand opening, he says, “launches a new era in Detroit professional sports where four teams, including the Tigers and Lions, play within four blocks of each other in downtown, a claim no other city in the U.S. can make.” His father, the late Mike Ilitch, “would be doing his signature double fist pump showing his excitement if he was still here.”3 Michigan governor Rick Snyder, Detroit mayor Mike Duggan, City Council president Brenda Jones, and Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores join Ilitch on the stage. “As far as Detroit goes, this is a huge win,” Gores tells the crowd. “I think this could complete our comeback.”4
Allan Lengel of the property magazine Urban Land breathlessly reports on the scope of the project in April 2018, calling Ilitch’s announcement of the project a “public bombshell” and noting that the “urban sports/entertainment district in Detroit is not the first in the country. But the District Detroit … is being billed as one of the largest of its type in the nation, with eight world-class theaters, five mixed-use neighborhoods, a 250- to 300-room hotel, restaurants, bars, and three professional sports venues to host the aforementioned baseball, hockey, and football teams, plus the National Basketball Association’s Detroit Pistons…. The company’s website boasts that the project will link ‘downtown and Midtown into one contiguous, walkable area, where families, sports fans, entrepreneurs, job seekers, entertainment lovers, and others who crave a vibrant urban setting can connect with each other and the city they love.’” The reporter continues:
Data from the University of Michigan project that the District Detroit will account for an economic impact of more than $2 billion by 2020, plus create more than 20,000 construction and construction-related jobs and 3,000 permanent jobs. It has already generated more than $700 million in contracts for Michigan companies and created 836 apprentice jobs.
Among the developments under construction are the Mike Ilitch School of Business, for which Mike Ilitch and his wife Marian contributed $40 million toward the $50 million total cost.
In addition, Google will take up nearly 30,000 square feet (2,800 sq m) on the second and third floors of a new mixed-use structure being built next to the Little Caesars Arena, and a new nine-story, 234,000-square-foot (22,000 sq m) headquarters building for Little Caesars Pizza is being built at a cost of $150 million. Little Caesars will be moving to the new building from Fox Office Center, which is connected to the Fox Theatre, a grand entertainment venue. That building will continue to be used for employees of Ilitch Holdings and Olympia Development [the property development arm of Ilitch Holdings], and others.5
Thus, the District Detroit joined a slew of stories about the renaissance of the city, emblematic of a narrative of renewal that people have told about the city ever since it exited Chapter 9 bankruptcy in November 2014—and as so often happens in the history of Detroit, this grand plan comes stamped with the name of a billionaire. Just one year after the opening, however, the headlines change. A particularly brutal one appears in The Guardian on October 8, 2018: “Big Promises for a Thriving Urban Core in Detroit Vanish in a Swath of Parking Lots.” Here is a further taste from that article:
In recent years, Ilitch companies in and around The District leveled at least 30 buildings and currently maintain nearly 40 blighted or vacant structures. On blocks where historic buildings once stood, they have laid dozens of surface parking lots. Those are controversial because the Ilitches charge up to $50 per spot, and a vast stretch of once-dense downtown real estate is now a sea of Ilitch-owned parking spaces.
The article notes that a website has sprung up, called “Terrible Ilitches,” which tracks demolished and neglected lots, barren parking lots, and lots the family bought from the city for $1 apiece.6 The chair of a neighborhood council that advises the Ilitches’ Olympia Development on community benefits believes that the project has led to a “net deficit” and is “not even at zero” yet. The reporter also quotes sports economist Victor Matheson, who dryly notes that it’s pretty common for new stadium-centered developments to be slow to deliver and not live up to the hype, but adds, “It is extremely rare to see a stadium cause a neighborhood to go backwards—that is very rare.”7
In November 2018, the Detroit News follows suit with an article titled “Cass Corridor Neighbors See Unfilled Promises in Little Caesars Arena District.” The paper reports that neighbors “were promised five new walkable neighborhoods filled with shops, restaurants and housing. What they’ve gotten so far, they say, has been traffic gridlock, twenty-seven parking facilities—some taking up entire blocks—and fewer places to live.”8 In March 2019, Crain’s Detroit Business hammers the point home, in a piece titled “Is District Detroit Delivering?”—by now, that reads like a rhetorical question. Quoting Cristopher Ilitch again (“the District Detroit will be one of the most unique and exciting places in the country to live”!) the article points out that there were “no shovels in the ground” with regard to the promised 687 new apartments, and that “the lack of progress on housing is among the things that feed into a growing narrative that Olympia makes big development plans but are only truly committed to delivering on the pieces tied directly to their existing businesses, such as Little Caesars Arena, the new Little Caesars pizza headquarters, along with parking garages and lots.” In the meantime, the Ilitches and Olympia insist that the projects are in the pipeline, that all will be well.
The story encapsulates many of the themes that will surface throughout this book—the outsized role of major league team owners, the complicated and often troubled relationship between sports and city development, the repeated failure of municipal incentive schemes, the many ways in which glitzy prestige projects have left behind those who were meant to benefit from them the most—in Detroit, this has predominantly meant African Americans, but also immigrants and the poor of all races and ethnicities. The disappointment that is the District Detroit is all the more notable since the areas surrounding the development have been thriving, complete with all the losses and sacrifices gentrification entails. While the Ilitches built parking lots around what’s now known as “the Pizzarena,” neighboring Brush Park, midtown’s Cass Corridor, and the downtown have evolved into bustling and highly desirable neighborhoods. The entire area of greater downtown Detroit now goes by “the 7.2 Square Miles,” a sobering reminder that the city’s revival is largely limited to just a fraction of its 138-square-mile territory—as always, gentrification has attracted mostly white, affluent, and well-educated newcomers who can afford real estate that has already priced out most of the city’s population. It is 2017, the fiftieth anniversary of the Uprising, the Rebellion, the Riot.
Those who present ballparks and stadiums as a silver bullet for all that ails struggling cities—a crowd that mostly consists of developers and owners and politicians who depends on their largesse—are clearly and demonstrably wrong.9 Those who dismiss the meaning and power of sports out of hand, we believe, are wrong as well—“to ignore sport is to ignore a significant aspect of any society and its culture,” as Tim Delaney and Tim Madigan write.10 The history of American sports mirrors the history of the country, and sports have always been political—particularly with regard to America’s ongoing legacy of slavery, segregation, and discrimination, an entanglement we will trace again and again in subsequent chapters. Their economic benefit to the cities that host them may frequently be marginal, but at their best, major league sports have an almost unparalleled capacity to create community and pride. Ideally, the teams belong to their city; their triumphs are the city’s triumphs, their defeats create rituals of collective mourning. They are their hometown’s ambassadors, they spread the city’s name, and in troubling times—of which Detroit has seen many—they can be one of the few remaining sources of good news and good cheer.
It is probably too early to tell how the District Detroit will play out. While early signs have been discouraging, to put it gently, it is still possible that there will be a suitable payoff from the city’s considerable investment of public funds—$324 million in taxpayer money (not counting the value of sweetheart land deals), with few strings attached, despite misleading early rhetoric that the cost to the city would be $0. Surprisingly, the deal was finalized as the city was finally going broke. Detroit has been the largest American city by far to ever declare itself insolvent, and in some accounts, the city’s bankruptcy is the nadir of its history. But actually, significant if localized improvements had already emerged when the financial crisis ended and Congress bailed out the motor industry. In The Metropolitan Revolution, Bruce Katz and Jennifer Bradley highlighted changes in Detroit over recent years to illustrate how seemingly broken cities are making a comeback.11 Published in 2013, just before the city entered Chapter 9, the book declared the city center an “innovation district,” thanks largely to the investment of Quicken Loans billionaire Dan Gilbert, who now owns the majority of skyscrapers in the downtown. His commitment to the revival of his hometown, which included moving almost all his employees there, helped to spark an investment boom, as other businesses have followed Gilbert’s lead. Bradley and Katz point out that these developments have created powerful synergy with the huge Detroit medical system and with Wayne State University, connected now by a new streetcar system that unites downtown and midtown—though far from everybody in Detroit is a Gilbert fan, as we shall see in the next chapter.
There are many dimensions to this still-fragile Detroit revival. Out on the East Side is the fabulously eccentric Heidelberg Project, which has turned two streets of decaying housing into an enchanting art installation. In springtime, the Movement Electronic Music Festival draws fans from all over the world—techno, after all, was born in metro Detroit. Craft breweries are springing up everywhere, while the riverfront walk for the first time exploits the leisure potential of the city’s waterfront, where you can also keep an eye on the Canadians. New cycle paths such as the Dequindre Cut link the river-front to the Eastern Market’s thriving flower and food stalls—Detroit now has a vibrant cycling community with over seventy miles of pathways. Artists and young people in search of a city that is both hip and affordable have been steadily colonizing corners of the city where houses can still, in some cases, be bought for as little as $100, though one-bedroom apartments in “the 7.2” go for hundreds of thousands of dollars now. The Detroit Institute of Arts, which houses an impressive collection of European art alongside the iconic Diego Rivera murals of industrial Detroit, remains one of the finest museums in the country, but there are smaller ones as well, such as the Motown Museum including Hitsville U.S.A., which celebrates the history of Motown records. The Fox Theatre still attracts national and international acts, the three major casinos offer nightlife along with an opportunity to lose your life’s savings, there is an expanding club scene, and any number of fantastic restaurants have opened up, and appear to be thriving.
In the end, though, Americans love no leisure activity more than they love sports, and Detroit’s pro teams are called upon to represent the city to the nation. With around 170 regular season home games across the four sports, chances are there is a major league game on tonight, and if not, there is one tomorrow or there was one just yesterday. Of course, as with all things Detroit, the teams have a ways to go. It has been more than a decade since anyone won a championship, and there is no sign that this is about to change anytime soon. To be sure, the Tigers did mount a credible effort to win the World Series, with standout pitching from Justin Verlander and a batting lineup led by Miguel “Miggy” Cabrera. In fact, much of this effort could be read as a last homage to Mike Ilitch, as the family realized that his time was running out—a World Series victory would have been an astonishing capstone to a lifetime of business success and undying devotion to Detroit’s sports. But it was not to be—we will tell that story in the next chapter, along with the story of the city’s bankruptcy and its causes. Suffice it to say that in August 2017, less than six months after Mike Ilitch died, Verlander was traded; the road to Major League Baseball success began to look like a very long one indeed; and the District Detroit began to falter.
Certainly, the Lions could be said to have raised their game—they are now back to a level where we may comfortably call them mediocre. At least, in this decade, they’ve had as many regular seasons over .500 as under, and they twice made it to a wild-card playoff game. While there are cities where such records would be cause for despair, here, they count as better than nothing, though the contrast with the college football teams in Ann Arbor and Lansing has been a source of bitterness. As for the Pistons or the Red Wings? Those two used to be a source of wild pride in the D, but they have been treading water, and sometimes underwater, for a decade. The stage is set, but the actors capable of filling that stage have yet to step up.
It is fair, then, to ask whether the major league teams are really the city’s best hope. The city is host to an abundance of sporting activities that do not require billionaire owners or large public subsidies. Just around the corner from the District Detroit on Temple Street, you’ll find the Masonic Temple, where the Detroit Roller Derby league holds its games, fielding teams like the Pistoffs, the Devil’s Night Dames, and the Grand Prix Madonnas.12 Similarly, Detroit City Football Club—DCFC, or simply “City,” as it is known—is prospering on the basis of an entirely different model. Unlike major league teams, whose fortunes are dictated almost entirely by the whims of their super-rich owners, DCFC is a true community endeavor, and the club has made it its mission to have an impact in the community, organizing youth programs, fielding a women’s team that started competing in 2020, and partnering with local charities. DCFC was the first American team to sport a uniform featuring rainbow colors in support of the LGBTQ community. While its new stadium in Hamtramck has a modest capacity of 7,933, City has earned fierce loyalty not so much for its soccer performance—which is a work in progress—as for its multifaceted commitment to the people who live, work, and cheer in their neighborhood.