Urban Affairs

What is this thing called gentrification – displacement or improvement?

It is impossible to accept that the lives of Detroiters and newcomers are equal when the majority of the city’s African-American population are experiencing a quality of life so low that the United Nations is speaking up.

Yes, the infusion of new money, new faces and new business to downtown Detroit is good for the city.

The DFD’s current system is 128 years old and resisted change for decades, but bankruptcy was able to overturn what the city’s mayors couldn’t.

High taxes, low wages, yet the City of Detroit still drowns in debt. Here’s why the city faces long odds even after shedding bankruptcy debt.

Bankruptcy could offer an opportunity to trim taxes for the city’s beleaguered residents, who pay some of the highest income, utility and property taxes in the state.

Detroit is in the middle of the pack among the 51 international cities studied for how much of a tax burden they place on businesses.

Who gave Mayor Duggan $1 million? A Detroit Journalism Cooperative donation database answers this question and others.

Mayor Kilpatrick’s civic fund helped put him in prison. Gov. Snyder’s NERD fund brought only regret. But Mayor Duggan says his fund will be different.

The state-created board may be larger than necessary, but it has the funding to run its own numbers, rather than relying on the city to turn over information.