Urban Affairs

Gentrification, evicting artists, and white mortgages in a majority black city. As 2019 winds down, take a look back at Bridge's most impactful Detroit stories of the year.

She’s scheduled office visits with her professor. She’s asked the teaching assistants for help. She’s dropped into the math learning centers. But still, despite excelling in her other classes, Marqell McClendon has struggled.

New technology is revolutionizing transit options. Will they complement mass transit or threaten it? That’s a question that could undergird an upcoming vote on a mass transportation tax.

After a lobbying effort, Dan Gilbert, billionaire founder of Quicken Loans, won special tax status for wealthy areas of downtown Detroit where he owns billions worth of property.

Mayor Mike Duggan wants to make seven neighborhoods more walkable. But the first project, along the Avenue of Fashion, is months behind schedule and businesses are closing.

The University of Michigan has mapped 5,200 footpaths through Detroit. The author of the study says it’s a valuable planning tool. But one critic calls it ‘poverty porn.’

Michigan’s largest county is perpetually short of officers to guard jail inmates that critics contend shouldn’t be incarcerated in the first place. ‘It’s a screwed up system,’ a sheriff’s official admits.

After months of controversy, a police oversight board approves the use of facial recognition technology in Detroit, as some other cities nationwide prohibit it over accuracy and privacy concerns.

The black doctor stood up to a white mob upset that he moved into their neighborhood, igniting one of the most important – and incendiary – housing discrimination cases in history. A fundraising effort is underway to make his former home a museum.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan invited scooter companies to set up shop last year. Now, the city and others in Michigan are grappling with the consequences.

New research says e-scooters, whose riders frequently don’t wear helmets, are causing a head injury ‘epidemic’ nationwide. One Detroit emergency room alone treats 10-20 injured riders per month.

Detroit’s public district returns a back-to-school essential most take for granted: running water. Last year, schools shut the tap after the discovery of lead and copper.

Records show 62 percent of Detroit residential shutoffs were without service as of Aug. 1. The vast majority had gone a week or more, contradicting claims that the city restores nearly all water within 48 hours.

Every year, thousands of Detroit customers are disconnected for nonpayment. Many resources exist for help. Here is what is available.

For the first time, researchers are pinpointing where pollen levels are the highest to help residents with allergies and asthma protect themselves.

Two studies suggest homicides and aggravated assaults in Detroit dropped more in areas with moderate demolitions. The research, while inconclusive, comes as the mayor prepares to ask voters for more money for the demo blitz.

Detroit Police Commission could vote in two weeks on controversial surveillance policy.

An emotional battle over facial recognition software has come to Detroit, one of the nation’s most violent cities, amid questions over the technology’s racial bias.

U-M’s endowment’s investment in a firm that buys and renovates tax-foreclosed homes in Detroit is prompting evictions and big equity questions in a rapidly changing city.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s plans for free preschool for all 4-year-olds depends on attracting more qualified teachers. That may be difficult since many make less than workers at McDonald’s.