I taught at Wayne State University for years, and would sometimes encounter parents worried about crime. I told them the truth, which was that it was a far safer campus at night, especially for women, than most, especially Michigan State.
If you put an iPad down and turned your back, it might well be gone. But I added that the university police knew how vital safety was. On the other hand, you didn’t want to go wandering off campus unless you knew what you were doing.
The truth about Detroit and crime is this: Detroit is a city with a vast underclass, with more than a hundred thousand desperately poor adults who do not have jobs or, in many cases, the skills to get one. There are far more guns in the city than jobs, and those with little to lose know how to recognize a target of opportunity.
Murders have drastically declined since 1974, Mayor Coleman Young’s first year in office. There were 714 homicides in Detroit that year. This year, there should be fewer than 300.
Granted, the city only has about half as many citizens now, but that’s still progress. I think Detroit police should, when they release homicide statistics, indicate how many are either drug-related or domestic killings. Narcotics-related violence usually accounts for about two-thirds of the total, and I would guess that the second largest number represents victims of domestic violence. If you don’t go into the city to buy drugs and exercise a normal amount of caution, you likely have nothing to worry about.
Yet, you never know. Suburbanites who once swore they’d never again enter Detroit are now back all the time, to sample the latest hot new restaurant, go to a major league game, or enjoy the lovely new Riverwalk. They enjoy the few square miles of downtown and midtown that have been revitalized, and almost never go deep into the neighborhoods.
But crime makes living there a different story. For years, a librarian I knew and her husband lived in a lovely mansion in the Boston-Edison area. Sometimes they heard vandals trying to steal the downspouts in the middle of the day, presumably to sell as scrap metal.
One day, after my friend had chased a robber carrying one of her gutters down the street, it got to be too much, and they gave up and moved to the suburbs.
“Detroit wears you out,” Desiree Cooper, the attorney and author, told me when she finally left. As for me, I like to walk my Australian Shepherd late at night, and sadly, I don’t think I could do that in Detroit. One big problem is that there are far too many guns.
Nationwide, about two-thirds of all homicides are committed with a gun; in Detroit, more than four-fifths of them are. The elephant in the room is this: Detroit has a vast population who are outside the normal economy and society and below the poverty line.
Unless and until someone is willing to first talk openly and do something about this, crime will continue to be a major problem. Sheila Cockrel, the respected former Detroit city councilwoman, told me once that one car with a couple of guys with assault rifles would be all it would take to end the much celebrated midtown revival.
Fix the schools and get control of crime, and Detroit may have a future as a city again. Otherwise, the best we may be able to do is to create a boutique city for hipsters, most of whose drivers’ licenses indicate they still officially live in the suburbs.
