COLEMAN A. YOUNG (1918 - 1997)
The year in review 1991
by Chuck Wilbur
originally published 12/23/91 in the Metro Times1991 was the year Detroit entered the post-Coleman Young era. Now before you loyalists put on your shields and helmets and prepare for what might seem like another round of barbs from the media, and you critics of Young begin conjuring up visions of some new age of sweetness and light that will supposedly follow his departure from the Manoogian, just wait a minute. One of the best things about the PC (post-Coleman) era is that we're no longer going to get caught up in that all-too-familiar cycle of recrimination and defensiveness that makes most political debate in the city sound like a cat fight. The mayor will no longer provide the focal point that helps us tell right from wrong, or even right from left. Hell, we might even wind up with a Republican mayor. But, let's not jump the gun; '93 will get here soon enough.
As for 1991, there seems to be ample evidence that history spent the last 12 months nudging if not shoving the mayor toward the sidelines.
Early in the year, voter rejection of a plan to tear down Ford Auditorium was far more significant that the mayor's failures on the casino gambling issue. Absent the moral dimensions of that question, it indicated the public preferred no game at all to the only game in town, i.e., the Young administration's downtown development strategy.
Kay Everett's election to city council was another defeat. Just as Erma Henderson's 1972 triumph in a one-on-one council race signaled the beginning of the era of black political power in Detroit, Everett's solid defeat of the ostensibly better-qualified Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick demonstrated that Detroiters are at least willing to say the Emperor has no coattails.
The budget crisis isn't just one of those crises of the week you see on the TV news. It's more like a downward spiral that could force dramatic changes in the size and shape of city government, leaving Mayor Young with no resources to maintain his poor and working-class base or to leverage new private investment.
The city government is also facing the crisis of regional government--problems that can only be solved in coordinated action with the suburbs. The mayor was masterful when it came to winning critical support from the Milliken and Carter administrations, but now that federal and state support for the city has dwindled, it's clear that if anyone is going to ride to the city's rescue it will have to be the folks who share this corner of Michigan. The same qualities that have made Young the dominant figure during the "liberation" phase of Detroit's history, now make him too hot to handle for most suburban politicians when the question is sharing problems and resources.
Tiger Stadium is likely to become another bane for Detroit. Sure, the mayor will get a seat on the Stadium Authority, if it comes to be, and a great parking space to boot, but Wayne County Executive Ed McNamara is clearly in charge of the biggest development deal in the city.
Finally, there is Dennis Archer and his recently announced plan for the city. The former State Supreme Court justice can't announce for mayor until he's been off the bench for at least a year, but his undeclared candidacy seems to have given many Detroiters just what they want--a way to move beyond Young without directly repudiating the legendary figure who's defined black political power here for a generation.
And since we're talking about Dennis Archer, the folks who are already addressing the invitations to his inaugural are missing the point about what's happened this year. Politics, that maddeningly unpredictable mixture of rhetoric, ideas and emotion, is beginning to bubble back to the surface in Detroit as people start to imagine what will follow the one-party state which Young has created through the sheer force of his personality. People are beginning to ask questions and not just about who ought to be mayor. Is there a way to end the cold war with the suburbs and find real, regional solutions to the city's problems? What would it be like to have turnover on the Detroit City Council, a body that at times combines the worst features of the House of Lords and the Chinese Politburo? Will Mayor Young's critics produce alternative development strategies that produce the jobs a new generation of Detroiters desperately needs?
Right now there are far more questions than answers, but that's fine. Detroit clearly needs the energy and enthusiasm that wide-ranging debate about its future will unleash. But as the process goes forward, Detroiters may begin to see that the problems of the post-Coleman Young era will be remarkably similar to the ones the mayor has grappled with for almost 20 years. The next mayor won't be able to wish away the twin forces of disinvestment and segregation that have savaged Detroit like no other American city. Nor will she or he be able to repeal the business cycle. The choices Detroit will face for the rest of this decade will range from hard to harder still, and the sarifices involved in turning the city around will be severe. At the very least the possibilities that lie ahead of us in these years PC will be interesting. But the Chinese have a curse: "May you live in interesting times."
Chuck Wilbur was a broadcast journalist working in Detroit.