News & Opinions
09/02/2010 Jack Lessenberry’s Essays and Interviews, Michigan Public Radio
In the Numbers
We won’t start to get official census figures till December. But Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry reports that a new outfit called Data Driven Detroit is already trying to give us the facts about ourselves, and tell us what they mean.
Fall 2010 Next American City
The Data Dividend
When it comes to making cities better, accurate and abundant data are powerful tools. In New Orleans and Detroit, which share many challenges — including vacant property and high crime and poverty — open data can help citizens improve their communities…
08/30/10 Detroit Free Press
Harness survey data, don’t limit it
There is only one way for the federal government to plan for the future demands on the Social Security system, the National School Lunch Program and the Low Income Energy Assistance Program. There’s only one way for businesses to understand their customer bases…
08/22/10 Detroit Free Press
Divided We Stand
Here’s one plan for dividing up Detroit to produce a better city government when voters begin choosing seven council members from districts under a charter change approved last year…
08/15/10 Detroit Free Press
Population Density to Guide Detroit’s Destiny
This may come as a shock to cynics who say nobody lives in Detroit anymore. Even after a half-century of people leaving, Detroit’s population…
06/20/10 The New York Times
Razing the City to Save the City
For generations, residents of this hollowed-out city hoped that somehow Detroit could be reborn–its population would return and its crumbling core…
06/12/10 MLive.com
Michigan birth rate down 21 percent since 2000
Mary Wieber, of Grand Rapids, holds her newborn daughter, Avery, in the maternity ward at Metro Health Hospital…
06/05/10 The Wall Street Journal
Black Flight Hits Detroit
This shrinking city needs to hold on to people like Johnette Barham: taxpaying, middle-class professionals who invest in local real estate…
06/01/10 Governing
Leading the Census-Participation Pack: Livonia, Mich. had the highest census participation rate not because of what it did – but because of what it is.
Congratulations are in order for humble Livonia, Mich., which at least briefly is the envy of cities nationwide. The bedroom community near Detroit score an 87 percent mail participation rate…
05/01/10 The Chaldean News
So different, so similar: Immigrant experiences lay groundwork
Though Chaldeans far outnumber Jews in Metro Detroit, it’s still somewhat easier to generalize about the Chaldeans. Chaldeans trace their roots….
04/04/10 Detroit Free Press
2020 VISION: What Detroit could be in 10 years
You see thousands of kids attending schools that work for them. You see people using light rail and boarding buses in a transit system that serves them…
04/04/10 Detroit Free Press
Welcome to the City of our Future
In my Detroit, a decade from now, there are no blocks with one burned-out house. Those eyesores have been leveled. Grass and trees have taken their place…
03/02/10 Detroit Free Press
City’s rebirth at risk over lack of births
Half as many children were born in Detroit in 2007 as there were 17 years before, according to a new study that has monumental implications…
02/28/10 Detroit Free Press
Detroit’s Priorities
A week ago, the Detroit Residential Parcel Survey revealed shocking rates of vacancy in vast stretches of Detroit. Today, in the maps below…
02/28/10 Detroit Free Press
Getting to a smaller Detroit
Mayor Dave Bing’s recent announcements that he will address the downsizing of Detroit are a huge step forward…
02/21/10 Detroit Data Collaborative
Detroit Data Collaborative Releases Landmark Residential Survey Data
Detroit, Michigan, February 21, 2010 – The Detroit Data Collaborative reported today that a landmark survey of Detroit’s residential property showed…
02/20/10 Detroit Free Press
THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE VACANT
A landmark survey has found that a third of Detroit’s residential parcels are either vacant lots or abandoned homes, but that more than 90% of the city’s occupied houses…
02/10/10 Detroit Free Press
Teen births up in Detroit after declining for years
After years of declining birthrates, a study released today concludes that more Detroit teens are having babies than a few years ago…
02/01/10 Crain’s Detroit Business
Demographer: Numbers key to shaping city’s future
Kurt Metzger knows how many city workers are Detroit residents, how the makeup of the eastside’s ethnic communities…
10/04/09 Crain’s Detroit Business
Census: Detroit population difficult to estimate
Widespread home foreclosures and vacancies appear to be making it harder for census takers to accurately count residents in Detroit…
10/02/09 Metromode
Blogger: Kurt Metzger
Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, Kurt moved permanently to the Detroit area in 1975 when he began full-time employment with the Census Bureau. Kurt spent 15 years with…
09/29/09 The Detroit News
Perception keeps residents grounded
Why do you live where you do? In other cities, this might be an academic question. In Metro Detroit, the mounting challenges to existence make the question more urgent…
09/22/09 The Examiner
Census report shows recession hammers Michigan; incomes, housing values, health coverage fall
Michigan’s already dire economic plight only worsened as the recession kicked in, with incomes and home values plunging while fewer people had health insurance coverage…
