Detroit — Politics consists of dishonesty and distortion cooked up in a cauldron of naïve headlines.
Behold!
Meet America’s Most Effective Mayor: Detroit’s Mike Duggan – Governing Magazine
Downtown Detroit is Back – New York Times
From Bankruptcy to Boomtown: Why Detroit is a Must-Visit – Business Traveler
The establishment has milked everything it could out of our absentee sorority girl, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Now it appears the moneyed-class is attempting—through its media minions—to set the table for eight years of Machine Boss Mike Duggan, the turncoat Democrat now making a run for Michigan governor as an independent.
Incensed Democratic leaders say they promise to beat Duggan’s political career to death using his own record as the bludgeon.
Things have improved since Duggan took office in 2014, when an emergency manager fixed the books and steered the city through its historic bankruptcy. How could things not improve in a city that had completely bottomed out?
But look behind the gossamer headlines and you’ll see the threadbare furniture in the parlor.
Detroit’s population is growing, reversing a 75-year trend!
Yes, Detroit grew by 6,000 people in 2024, but this is mostly due to an influx of illegal immigrants and the fact that the Census Bureau simply changed the way it calculates population. Nearly 90% of American metro areas recorded population gains under this new math, even troubled megalopolises like New York City and Los Angeles. And even with this new methodology, Detroit has lost 43,000 residents since Duggan took office, a stunning 6% drop.
Downtown is back!
You don’t say? The truth is, there are fewer people living in downtown Detroit than in downtown Cleveland. Just read the work of JC Rendl (the last honest reporter in town). Rendel recently wrote in the Detroit Free Press that a number of new apartment developments in the city are in receivership due to a lack of jobs, and thus renters, living downtown.
Detroit records lowest number of homicides in 60 years!
One less life lost is always a good thing, and the number of homicides has indeed been steadily falling in Detroit, as it has across the country. But Detroit, as I have reported here, has been cooking its homicide numbers for years. Through the first 10 years of Duggan’s administration, nearly 300 homicide victims simply disappeared through statistical alchemy and reclassification. Even so, Detroit has the fourth-highest homicide rate in America, worse than Washington, D.C., and remains a top-five most violent city.
Detroit Has the Top Ranked Riverfront in America!
The New York Times invites you to visit the new Centennial Park, “a lush 22-acre haven along Detroit’s revitalized west riverfront.” Problem is, the park is still a muddy construction zone because someone embezzled $40 million right under the city’s nose.
I could go on. And I will as election day grows closer, when the Democrats start airing grainy black and white videos of Duggan’s biggest scandals. The worst public schools in the country. The city’s crumbling finances. The poisoned dirt and the federal grand jury. Sweetheart deals and public dollars to his political contributors and current wife. Rich Republicans are donating to the Wizard of Woodward because the Wiz has made them wealthier.
Little of this has made it to the newspages. Not yet. The magic act is a thing to behold.
Charlie LeDuff is a reporter educated in public schools. Follow him on X @Charlieleduff.
