- Detroit was hit incredibly hard after the 2008 financial crisis.
- A decade later, the city's financial situation has improved and major players like Quicken Loans founder, Dan Gilbert, are investing in huge development plans.
- This has caused some native Detroiters to worry about their living situation as they are being priced out of their homes.
- Last year, Business Insider's Emmanuel Ocbazghi went to Detroit to get a sense of what the city has given up for its economic recovery.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Following is a transcript of the video.
Narrator: Charles Boles is 86 years old. He'd been living in his Detroit apartment for 12 years until the building was bought by new owners and he was told his rent would go up by $300. Major players like Quicken Loans founder Dan Gilbert are investing in Detroit with huge development plans. Business is booming now, but rents are rising because of it and it's forcing native Detroiters out of their homes. The city's getting better, but for who?
Charles Boles has called Detroit home for his entire life. He learned how to play piano at just five years old, and from there, a decades-long career in music took off. He traveled the world and played with a ton of musicians. Boles: I worked with people like Dinah Washington, Little Esther, Etta James, Etta Jones, B.B. King, but I was very blessed, musically. Narrator: Despite all the traveling, Charles has always called Detroit home.
Boles: I was here during the bad times, and I was here during the so-called good times. I won't call them good times because Detroit was a very racist place back in the '40s. Despite all that, I still loved being here and I still love Detroit even now.
Narrator: For the past 12 years, Charles lived in the Jeffersonian apartments, but the building has new owners who plan on upgrading the units and installing a restaurant on the ground floor, and with those renovations comes higher rent.
Boles: The new owners immediately started, you know, talking about all this revamping and remodeling and updating and I could see it coming. I could see the bad news coming.
Narrator: That bad news is something native Detroiters have been concerned about for a while. It's all part of a raging conversation on gentrification.
Boles: It's a relocation of all the older citizens. I don't want to make it a race thing, but it is. I don't want to make it a race thing, but it is.
Narrator: Detroit is one of the most segregated cities in the country. The situation could get worse as low-income housing becomes less available. The Cass Corridor neighborhood in Detroit is a strong example of gentrification. The area is seeing new development that will surely increase business, but long-term residents often feel left behind. In fact, officials have already started calling the neighborhood Midtown instead of Cass Corridor, and Midtown is is what you'll see in Google Maps. Bretton Hall is a low-income apartment building in Cass Corridor. A development company had plans to bulldoze it and replace it with commercial property.
Joe Anderson has been living here for four years. If you're wondering why developers chose his apartment in Cass Corridor, take a look at how close it is to the brand new Little Caesars stadium. Earlier this year, Detroit City Council members voted to designate Cass Corridor a historic district, saving Bretton Hall from demolition. Raquel Castañeda-López is one of the Council members who voted to keep the building intact.
Castañeda-López: So the designation's just one piece of it, and so even in the whole debate around giving that neighborhood a designation, historic designation, people knew and we tried to be very clear, like, this doesn't mean that the rent is going to stay affordable, and so it's not like a solution that's gonna save that neighborhood but it does help the buildings from being demolished.
Narrator: The Mayor of Detroit announced a $250 million fund dedicated to preserving and building affordable housing units.
Mike Duggan: Anybody who gets tax support from the city for new apartment buildings, 20% of those units have to be set aside permanently for people with lower income. And that's worked out very well for us. It's happening in all sections of the city, we are not going to have one area of the city that's for wealthy people and another area of the city for those less wealthy. We believe people of all incomes should be able to live in all neighborhoods.
Narrator: Margaret Brown who just finished her tenure at the Fair Housing Center applauds the fund, but has concerns.
Brown: There have been people who have been in this town for decades. They weathered the storm through the '60 riots, they weathered the storm that was in the '70s when all the auto plants were laying off left and right, they weathered that. The '80s, things started going south again, so they weathered all of that. They've been around. And now to build affordable housing and not have a preference for Detroiters... I think that's just wrong. Where do they go? Where's the loyalty?
Narrator: Detroit continues to draw outside investment, leading to the rebirth of many of its neighborhoods. But some of its native citizens can't help but wonder if they'll have to move. Boles: People like me that's been here for all these years, it's not important that we are here. In fact, if we just disappeared it would probably be a great favor for them.
EDITOR'S NOTE: This video originally aired on BI Today on October 3, 2018.