Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s final State of the City
With billions of dollars invested, Detroit’s story continues to be a tale of two cities.
Tuesday evening, March 25, 2025, Mayor Duggan will offer his last State of the City address. It is vital to recognize that Duggan’s address will be delivered in Dan Gilbert’s monolithic Hudson’s Detroit building. It is a building that many majority Black Detroiters will never experience even though roughly $660 million dollars in public subsidy has contributed to its existence. We anticipate those who benefit most from the Hudson’s building and similar large scale private economic development projects will be on hand to applaud the outgoing Administration – Detroit's band of billionaires, millionaires, global corporations, and those who embrace the status quo.
The mayor and his supporters will claim wins that nevertheless have resulted in collateral damage across the city beginning with the imposition of Emergency Management. The failure to center racial equity in these wins has resulted in increased Black – White inequality, neighborhood decline and displacement, a social safety net that fails homeless women and children and a population decline of more than 100,000 Black Detroiters during the past decade.
Yet, even in the face of organized and powerful opposition, majority Black Detroit have organized relentlessly during this administration and demanded accountability. We have made some headway in protecting, defending, and advancing public policy WINS for those Detroiters left behind. Detroiters organized, fought for, and won:
- An Affordable Housing Trust Fund, the only avenue for funding truly affordable housing in the city.
- A city-wide Community Benefits Ordinance (CBO). Through the CBO, Detroiters have increased community engagement around large publicly subsidized development projects.
- In the face of mass water shutoffs advanced the fight for true water affordability.
- Improved transit for essential transit riders through aggressive advocacy around low-income fares, routes and closures, public funding, and para-transit access.
- Right to full legal representation for eligible low-income households who face eviction.
Sadly, the takeaway from the mayor’s final State of the City is that over a decade later with billions of dollars invested, Detroit’s story continues to be a tale of two cities.
