The Consequences of Progress: Corktown

I'm really interested in how urban planning decisions that are intended to improve neighborhoods can have terrible long-term consequences. Urban renewal was a concept based on the idea that city governments could take an active role in redeveloping land and revitalizing cities. It became popular in America in the middle of the twentieth century. Corktown, an originally Irish neighborhood located immediately southwest of downtown, was threatened by several development projects over the course of its life, but it has emerged in relatively good shape.

A few of these projects involved transportation. Ironically, the automobile both built Detroit and contributed to its demise as the freeway system cut the city into sections, many of which withered away as neighbors were separated from each other and from commercial districts. In the 1950s, the construction of the John C. Lodge freeway, which ran north from Jefferson, separated Corktown from downtown. Some of the eastern edge of the neighborhood was demolished for the construction.

In this c. 1950s photograph, the Lodge freeway (seen from left to right near the middle of the frame) can be seen running under Michigan Avenue towards the Detroit River. Beyond the concrete river is Corktown and the rest of Southwest Detroit. (Image from the Wayne State University Virtual Motor City Collection)

In the 1960s, the Fisher Freeway was built right through the middle of Corktown, just north of Michigan Avenue. The freeway intersected with the Lodge at the edge of the neighborhood and basically split it into two sections, north and south. North Corktown, as it is now called, did not fare as well as its southern neighbor, probably because it was cut off from Michigan Avenue, the main commercial anchor of the neighborhood. North Corktown is now an almost rural landscape, with many abandoned lots and some scattered homes. Driving north on Rosa Parks Blvd over the Fisher Freeway, the contrast between the southern portion of the neighborhood and the bizarre peacefulness of North Corktown is striking. The comparison to the rural country may be somewhat accurate, as some farms have emerged in between the grassy lots. A few Corktown establishments, like Nancy Whiskey, have been able to hold on over the years in the area north of the freeway.

Harrison Street in North Corktown. (Image from Google Maps)

The two freeway projects were not the first transportation-related plans to affect Corktown. In the early twentieth century, Michigan Avenue was widened to make room for increased automobile traffic. This required the demolition of the southern portion of the street to accommodate the extra lanes. Today, with the population of the neighborhood and city far below what they were at the time, Michigan Avenue seems desolate and incredibly spacious. I should note that the surplus of lanes would make plenty of room for a light rail line extending from the southern end of the Woodward line and traveling through Corktown and Mexicantown, but I won't count on it. Still, this could make positive use of a situation that originally caused the destruction of much of the neighborhood's major street.

Probably the most significant threat to Corktown came in the form of an urban renewal project. The city sought to demolish much of the neighborhood in order to re-zone the land for industry. Fortunately, resistance from the neighborhood was strong enough to prevent much of the potential damage from being done. The core strength of the neighborhood may also be one of the primary reasons that Corktown has been experiencing a small renaissance in the past few years. Armando Delicato and Julie Demery write that "today many of the buildings that were to save Corktown are abandoned while the remnant of the old neighborhood is resurging" (Detroit's Corktown, 40). Hopefully, the neighborhood can see a steady, organic renewal that forms it into something new and exciting but still connected to its beginnings.