Who is design of I-375 in downtown Detroit really for?

Two years ago, the City of Detroit was awarded a $104.6 million federal grant to dismantle the I-375 freeway. Tearing down that thoroughfare is part of a major project to re-design and rebuild that traffic corridor as (supposedly) a more pedestrian-friendly development that would also miraculously help to erase the sin of its origins: responsibility for the displacement of hundreds of Black families and the destruction of an entire community.  

That original sin was committed without any consultation with — or consideration for — the affected residents. All of whom were Black. The design of I-375 was to make things better for the majority population of Detroit, who at the time were not Black. We need to remember that this occurred three-quarters of a century ago, when racial segregation and discrimination were a legalized way of life, not just in Detroit, but across the country. 

Today, the proposed redesign of the I-375 corridor is struggling to push the narrative that the new design will help heal the racial wounds of the past with intentional inclusivity that will provide all sorts of benefits to Black people. This time, the narrative goes, the new and improved I-375 is being designed with "us" in mind. 

Please. Are you serious? Show me the evidence, and I mean specifics. Show me the clear and itemized benefits that this project will provide to the Black community, and exactly how it will repair and compensate for the unprecedented damage that was done all those years ago. Don’t paint a pretty picture, just give me the facts. 

Although there has at least been input solicited from neighborhood residents about the project, the level of continued pushback against this supposed "progress and improvement" suggests to me that it has yet to be embraced as a positive step forward by those who will be most affected.

Fear and distrust

That level of continued distrust and fear of displacement by current residents should be raising a field of cautionary red flags warning of history being on the verge of repeating itself. Just last November, state Sen. Stephanie Chang organized a town hall meeting at Chrysler Elementary in response to continued opposition to the project, giving more than a hundred residents who showed up a chance to voice their concerns.

At that meeting, Detroit Councilmember Angela Whitfield-Calloway went on record opposing the project. Since that time, a group of 500 Detroit residents — including residents of the directly affected Lafayette Park neighborhood — has formed to oppose the I-375 redesign project. In May of this year, the group sent a letter to both Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Mayor Mike Duggan formally opposing the project, and asking that it be halted. 

And yet U.S. Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg insists that the project will move forward, despite the pushback, while also trying to assure everyone that the concerns of those pushing back are being heard and addressed. 

If that’s the case, then why are they still pushing back so hard? That’s not how people act when they feel they are being listened to. 

Who is this for?

So the question I have is this: Who is this I-375 redesign really for? Because despite all the feel-good assurances that this new project will be all-inclusive, racially and culturally sensitive, will provide good-paying construction jobs for Black contractors and will be focused on making amends for that original sin by building a bigger, better, more beautiful thoroughfare, there is no indication I am aware of that the folks who actually live in the affected area ever requested such an improvement. As a matter of fact, Jamon Jordan, Detroit’s own widely respected official historian, has said about the I-375 redesign: “Now you’re repaving it to a street. … But you’re not doing this out of the wishes of African American residents, because they haven’t clamored for it to be done.” 

Rather, as Jordan points out, this is for the comparatively small number of people who want to live downtown, as well as business owners who stand to profit handsomely when all is said and done. 

“If you repave it today and the only people who benefit are the business owners again, you’re just still doing the same thing,” said Jordan, and I completely agree. 

Project must have transparency

Two years ago, when the federal dollars were first awarded to make the I-375 redesign a reality, I wrote in the Detroit Free Press that although I wasn’t necessarily opposed to the project, I wasn’t buying the narrative that the new and improved thoroughfare would go a long way toward paving over the negative history attached to the area. I reminded readers, who may not have been aware, of the painful history with which I am intimately familiar, as an African American and a Detroit native who was very much alive as a young boy when all of this happened. 

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I said at the time, “100,000 Black residents were displaced to make way for that freeway. And among that 100,000 were successful Black business owners, including 10 restaurants, eight grocers, 17 physicians, and six drugstores. Paradise Valley was nationally renowned for its music scene and ran shows around the clock, hosting some of the most famous names in the entertainment industry. That entertainment district provided not only some of the best live shows but provided steady work to a number of Detroit’s Black population. But Paradise Valley only managed to survive a few more years once Black Bottom had been paved over.” 

The updated thoroughfare promises a slower-speed boulevard that will consequently be safer, by removing a steep curve and adding LED lighting while removing 15 old bridges and two stormwater runoff pump stations, and building out wider sidewalks, protected bike lanes and pedestrian crossings. 

That’s nice. But again, who asked for it? Why the sudden massive concern for diversity and inclusion on this one specific project, when I can’t recall any other large project in recent memory that has lit such a fire about the need for expelling the ghosts of Detroit’s racially tumultuous past?  

I’m not saying that this project should be shut down. But I am saying that the first step toward making it more palatable to those neighborhood residents most affected is to be honest about what the project is capable of accomplishing. Only then can it move forward in a truly inclusive way in a way that won’t leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. 

Warren C. Evans is the Wayne County executive. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters and we may publish it online or in print.