Detroit's Negligence is Showing, Again

Chevrolet has made an offer to the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation to fix up the site of old Tiger Stadium for youth baseball. This is an offer which has come on top of many other offers to revitalize the historic site as a community center, possibly with retail and/or housing, while maintaining the integrity of the field itself. It comes after private groups such as the Old Tiger Stadium Conservancy and groups of citizens have (on their own time with their own cash) worked regularly to keep the local field of dreams in decent shape. It comes after Michigan Senator Carl Levin had earmarked $3.8 million in federal funds to keep part of the old ballpark standing as a museum and community center. It comes while no developer has stepped up to turn the land into something else despite the City of Detroit's insistence that it is valuable commercial property.

Why does the City of Detroit continue to balk at what are clearly the wishes of the community and allow the site to reserved for what it had been for over one hundred years: a place to play baseball. Especially when you consider that so many of the offers which have come up do not rely on City money. Detroit has done squat for the site, yet private citizens routinely fix it up.

Of course, they're trespassers, as we pointed out several months ago. The City is worried about liability issues, since a public building used to stand on the property. Well, then, arrest them. Arrest those community members who dare act where their local government won't. Get them out of the way so that you can get one of the phantom property developers to take on the site and do something with it.

The fact is that Detroit doesn't want negative publicity. Indeed, Detroit doesn't seem to know what it wants at all. The City won't even take the lead from the people and let it become what they want of it. In that light, it's no wonder that outsiders scoff at Detroit's claims that it wants to better itself. It can't even come to terms with itself on such an obvious answer to the community will. The people want it, the people are keeping it up: let the people have it. What is actually happening here is along the lines of benign neglect, pure and simple.

Sometimes leadership means just getting out of the way. Stand aside, city hall, and let the people do what you will not: preserve a piece of history.