Every Little Bit Helps
Money. That's what Detroit wants as a post-Super Bowl legacy
The Steelers and Seahawks have rolled out of the Motor City. The four-day Winter Blast street festival with Model-T rides and snowshoeing is over. And the 100,000 tourists who descended on Detroit are heading home. They left behind an estimated $262 million. But is that enough to help one of America's poorest cities emerge from its economic doldrums?
Once thriving Detroit has been the poster child for urban American decline since the 1960s. Motown's population has slipped to 900,000, the lowest point since before the Great Depression, as thousands of residents each year flee the urban core for suburban tranquillity or beyond. Detroit even fell off the list of the nation's 10 biggest cities a year ago, surpassed by upstart San Jose. And as economic competition has stiffened, Detroit, like most rust belt cities, has lost much of its economic base. The regional unemployment rate of 6.8 percent is far above the national average of 4.7 percent.
Brrr. So naturally, Motown wasn't the most popular of choices for the Super Bowl. Ever since the selection committee announced in 2000 that Detroit would be the '06 host, critics have carped: The city is too downtrodden, too crime-ridden, and too darned cold, they said. (Perhaps that's because the last time the game was played in the area, in 1982, temperatures dipped to minus 27 with wind chill.)
Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and city leaders are working to spruce up Detroit. "We used the Super Bowl for focus and a sense of urgency," said George Jackson, president of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp. He notes the 64 businesses, 23 restaurants, and 70 building facades that have opened or been renovated in the past three years downtown, and the baby boomers and young professionals who are moving there.
The Super Bowl cash influx is far less than in San Diego two years ago, when the game pumped $367 million into the local economy. Part of the reason is that visitors weren't inclined to plan a long Detroit getaway. In sunny Miami and Houston, by contrast, Super Bowl tourists came early and stayed late for a round of lavish events, not to mention a few rounds of golf.
Detroit's optimism about a post-Super Bowl bounce is tempered by economic reality. Ford Field, completed just four years ago for $500 million, played host to the game, but the Big Three automakers recently announced they'd cut 66,000 jobs, including 30,000 at Ford, by 2012. And last October, Delphi, an auto parts maker based just outside Detroit, became the largest U.S. manufacturer to declare bankruptcy, threatening an additional 24,000 jobs. With the city itself laying off hundreds of police and firefighters among other cost-cutting measures in the face of a budget gap estimated at up to $100 million, Detroit will need every penny of the $262 million.
This story appears in the February 13, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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