'Detroit Future City' Enters a New Stage

The Detroit Future City framework was adopted with great fanfare in 2013 as a strategy for Detroit to achieve economic growth while dealing with the effects of a population that had spent decades in decline.

According to an article by John Gallagher, Detroit Future City now finds itself at a bit of a crossroads. "[T]he framework's bold visions of repurposing Detroit's vacant and abandoned land in new and innovative ways has been widely accepted as a goal, if not yet actually accomplished on the ground," and the time has come again to plan for the future. Specifically, "the Detroit Future City Implementation Office, the entity set up to translate the guiding principles of the DFC framework into practice, has completed its strategic plan, a road map of where the office plans to go."

According to Gallagher, the new strategic plan directs the Detroit Future City Implementation Office toward continued efforts in neighborhood revival, a shift toward a rental market, where once homeownership dominated the landscape, and a new focus on the 900 or so vacant industrial sites in Detroit.

To put a public face on the next phase of Detroit Future City, the Implementation Office is preparing to launch a new website (launching on Monday at detroitfuturecity.com). Gallagher also speaks with Anika Goss-Foster, the executive director of the Detroit Future City Implementation Office, to get more insider's information on the new strategic plan.