Super Bowl Host Is U.S.'s Poorest Big City
By SARAH KARUSH
Associated Press Writer
DETROIT (AP) -- Before the Super Bowl kickoff this weekend, private planes
will land here, limousines will clog the streets, and lavish parties will be
thrown for those with famous names or lots of money. The kitchens of Ford
Field will be stocked with two tons of lobster.
Much of the rest of Detroit, though, is a landscape dotted with burned-out
buildings, where liquor stores abound but supermarkets are hard to come by,
and where drugs, violence and unemployment are everyday realities.
Officials in the nation's poorest big city see hosting the game as a huge
boost. They say it will be a catalyst for further development and provide a
chance to improve Detroit's gritty reputation. They hope visitors will take
note of new restaurants, clubs and lofts downtown. To make sure the city makes
a good impression, dilapidated buildings have been torn down, roads repaved
and landmarks renovated.
Yet with the exception of a few square miles in the center of town, many
residents say they have not seen any improvement. And they don't expect the
Super Bowl to have an effect on their lives.
"They spend all that money on the Super Bowl ... but they ain't doing
nothing for here," said Arthur Lauderdale, 59, who lives about four miles from
the heart of downtown on Detroit's east side.
The scenery along Van Dyke Street near Lauderdale's home would be familiar
to anyone who has seen "8 Mile," Eminem's movie about life in Detroit. The
street's once-bustling commercial section is dominated by boarded-up stores,
charred buildings and vacant lots. The only signs of activity are at
storefront churches and the occasional liquor store and hot-dog joint.
That is not to say there are no thriving areas outside of downtown. Detroit
has several historic neighborhoods of stately mansions, and new housing
developments for the middle class have sprung up here and there. But those are
exceptions in a city that people have been fleeing for half a century.
Lauderdale's neighbor, 56-year-old Lenerle Workman, said she recently moved
back to Van Dyke Street, where she grew up, only because of special tax breaks
for homeowners in the neighborhood. She recalled a time when the street was
lined with trees and a florist occupied what is now an empty lot across from
her home.
"There's blocks where there's only one house (left) on the block," she
said. "Where did all those people go?"
Nearly 2 million people lived in Detroit in the 1950s; today it has
fewer than 900,000. According to the Census Bureau, more than a third of those
people lived at or below the federal poverty line in 2004, the largest
percentage of any U.S. city with a population of 250,000 or more.
Detroit's 2005 unemployment rate was 14.1 percent, more than 2 1/2 times
the national level.
The city has announced deep cuts in services over the past year to cope
with an enormous deficit. Hundreds of municipal employees have been laid off,
bus service has been scaled back, nine recreation centers have been shuttered,
and bulk trash pickup has been canceled.
"We're forgotten people," Workman said.
Walking home from a bus stop, 54-year-old Raymond Parker said recent
development in the city would not help him.
"They're building up for the middle class," said Parker, who works at a
soup kitchen and does not have a car or a telephone. "I don't knock it, but
until I get to that pay scale, it wouldn't affect me."
Detroit, which logged 374 homicides last year, consistently ranks
at or near the top of an annual list of the most dangerous cities compiled by
Morgan Quitno Press.
City officials say Super Bowl visitors should not be intimidated by the
statistics, saying downtown is relatively safe.
But that is small comfort in outlying neighborhoods.
Workman points to a bus stop at the corner where a young man was recently
shot to death. She is disturbed by the comings and goings at a reputed drug
house next door and by the hostile-looking youths who hang around outside the
liquor store across the street.
She and her neighbors say they cannot count on police to help in this part
of the city.
"You learn how to adapt and keep you a gun," Lauderdale said.
Organizers of the Super Bowl festivities have sought to ensure the larger
community is not ignored amid all the VIP parties. Besides a free, four-day
winter festival being held downtown ahead of the game, dozens of fundraisers
will collect money for mostly local charities. The NFL and the city's Super
Bowl host committee are each contributing $1 million toward construction of a
$6 million youth center.
Host committee chairman Roger Penske said he is optimistic that the
development that has started downtown will gradually spread to the rest of the
city.
Parker, the soup kitchen employee, said he does not begrudge Super Bowl
revelers their fun, but he won't be joining in.
"We, as people who don't have that kind of money, shouldn't even be
downtown," he said.
