The Detroit Region, defined for this presentation and by the United Way for Southeastern Michigan as the tri-county area of Macomb, Oakland and Wayne, can only be successful if the city that anchors it is successful.

During the first half of the 20th Century, the City of Detroit contained the majority of the region's population, housing and businesses. In fact, Detroit's population growth during the 30-year period between 1900 and 1930 dwarfed that of any city before or since. Almost 1.3 million people were added to the city's population during that time - 575,000 of these just during the 1920s. However, the end of World War II brought the beginnings of the downward slide for Detroit and many other older industrial cities of the Midwest and Northeast. Loans offered almost exclusively to Whites to build homes outside city boundaries came through the Veterans Administration (VA) and Federal Housing Administration (FHA). These were followed by Dwight Eisenhower's plan for a federal interstate highway system. These two events stimulated white flight to the suburbs and the ability to commute to city-based jobs. When highways needed to be built through cities, the choice of location was clear - build them through African American neighborhoods and call it "urban renewal." Once the pattern of suburban residential living was established, businesses began to relocate to the suburbs as well. Detroit had reached its height for population (1950), housing and employment (both 1960), and there was nowhere to go but down.

The accompanying presentation tracks these changes from 1900 to the current day. During this journey we examine the components of population change - births, deaths and migration, racial/ethnic settlement patterns, socioeconomic trends, immigration, transportation and economics.

The message is - We are a region and must begin acting as one! Detroit cannot prosper if each of the other 130 communities in the tri-county is competing against it. No one entity succeeds unless we all succeed. The presentation ends with Keys to a Competitive Vision for the Region:

• The growth of an educated, skilled workforce;
• Reinvestment in our urban core;
• More compact development and a slowing of sprawl;
• Less fragmentation among governmental entities.

We came together as a region for the Super Bowl. Let us come together as a region for our Future!