Professionals Priced Out of Hot Detroit Neighborhoods

"Rental rates in downtown Detroit-area buildings have risen so high, some young professionals who breathed new life into the city core just a few years ago are now being priced out of the market and forced to move — a type of middle-class gentrification that has some developers eager to build new residential projects," observe JC Reindl and John Gallagher. 

"The phenomenon cannot be captured by the traditional definition of 'gentrification,' when low-income households are displaced by the yuppie class," they add. "Rather, renters already in the middle class and enjoying professional careers now are being displaced by those even farther up the income scale who can afford the higher rents."

With plenty of single young professionals and childless couples eager to live in Midtown and Corktown, waiting lists have developed for nearly every market-rate apartment building (an unheard of phenomenon). Developers are eager to meet the demand, but lenders are still skittish to bankroll projects in the city.