All together, the mayor’s three-year-old Detroit Works Project, which was designed to attract thousands of residents into revitalized neighborhoods over the next decade, has summoned only about a dozen new residents to areas that are far from revitalized.
A lone thief triggered a power outage in Detroit that darkened dozens of traffic lights, lofts and office buildings and parts of Wayne State University this weekend, the Motor City Muckraker has found. The theft occurred at a power station at the beleaguered Detroit Lighting Department, police said, provoking the third major city power outage in […]
The City of Detroit is at it again. One step forward, two steps back. Everyone knows the City of Detroit needs every penny it can get. What some do not know is that there are divisions within Detroit’s departments that are charged with generating revenue. One would think that those departments and divisions would be […]
Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh has said repeatedly he is not running for reelection. But that didn’t stop him from holding at least two fundraisers last year with builders and developers who do business with the city, according to campaign finance reports, some of which only became available recently because of tardy filings. At […]
To many, the sprawling Packard Plant is nothing more than a dangerous eyesore and an unsettling reminder of Detroit’s tragic decline. To others, it’s an urban playscape. A mammoth canvas. The Great Ruins of Detroit. But to the embattled city, the 40-acre plant is a stark reminder of how broke and powerless the cash-starved government has […]
With a 7-2 vote, Detroit City Council rejected putting on the ballot a tax hike to raise about $56 million a year.
It’s not easy being a taxpayer in Detroit. Property taxes are disproportionately high, yet city services are abysmal. The income tax rate is the highest in the state, but an obscenely high portion of the money is spent paying back debts from years past. And today, as the city and its suburban communities decide at the ballot […]
Part one of a continuing series on abandoned buildings. More than 60,000 vacant buildings are scattered across Detroit and Highland Park, driving down property values and attracting crime, rodents and fires. This is the story of one of those buildings. Neighbors tried their best. They circled the historic, sprawling school in Highland Park to keep out […]
Detroit City Council declined to vote on whether residents should have the opportunity to vote on raising taxes to put more cops on the streets, saying the police department needs to provide a more thorough plan. Council members said they want to ensure the roughly $56 millon that would be raised from a tax hike […]