The Joe Louis Greenway and its impact on Detroit’s neighborhoods
Many Detroiters are asking: What can a local public infrastructure project like the Joe Louis Greenway do for longtime residents?
You hear lots about what’s happening in Midtown, downtown or neighborhoods like Corktown, but the majority of Detroit residents don’t live in those areas. Rather, they live in other neighborhoods that have suffered from disinvestment. But there’s one project taking shape that is coming to neighborhoods all over Detroit. The Joe Louis Greenway is a public infrastructure project that is beautifying “27-and-a-half miles of the most blighted and neglected land.”
In a sense it’s bringing opportunities to the residents, but, at the same time, it’s like, ‘why did it take this project for that to happen?'” —Rukiya Colvin, Planet Detroit
Listen: Rukiya Colvin discusses how the greenway could have a positive impact on Detroit.
Guest
Rukiya Colvin is an urban planning graduate student at Wayne State and an environmental journalism fellow at Planet Detroit. Colvin recently wrote a piece about the greenway, and its impact in Midwest Detroit, where the project will transform 7.5 miles of the old Conrail right-of-way, west of Central Avenue, into a section of the greenway, Colvin wrote. “In a sense it’s bringing opportunities to the residents, but, at the same time, it’s like, ‘why did it take this project for that to happen?'”
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