Detroit Is Back, Baby!

About this episode

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan discusses the city's turnaround since his election, highlighting community engagement and political changes.

When Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan took office in 2013, his city had just filed for the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. Today, business is booming, crime has fallen to a 60-year low and it's no understatement to say that Detroit is back. Mayor Duggan, now running for governor of his state as an Independent, joins former Mayors Michael Nutter and Kasim Reed, along with Citizen Co-founder Larry Platt on this episode of How To Really Run A City to roll up their sleeves and lift the hood of Detroit's success. "The last time a [Detroit] City Council member was elected mayor was 1947," Mayor Duggan told our hosts. "For the last 75 years, the city was going so badly that nobody wanted to vote for anyone who had been associated with it. My successor, who won the primary in a landslide, is president of City Council. It shows how much politics has changed. People are proud of their city government now." "You decided to run as a White man for mayor of Detroit," Reed said. "What were the mechanics of that decision?" "Sometimes I was the only White person in the room for six blocks around," Duggan responded. "But I listened to very powerful stories. And it's a funny thing, when you…

People in this episode

Host: Larry Platt

Guests: Mike Duggan, Michael Nutter, Kasim Reed

Topics covered

• Detroit's recovery
• municipal governance
• crime reduction
• political change
• community engagement

Keywords

• Detroit
• Mike Duggan
• municipal bankruptcy
• crime reduction
• community engagement
• politics
• governance

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Detroit City Council

Places: Detroit, U.S., Detroit

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