After a year of hard work, the public, last week, was able to see the results of one of our most ambitious efforts to address the injuries of past policies and set a new course for the future in Detroit.

The erasure of Black Bottom and Paradise Valley — thriving Black communities rich with culture and entrepreneurship — remains one of Detroit’s deepest historical wounds. When I-75 and I-375 carved through these neighborhoods in the 1950s and 1960s, they didn’t just displace residents without compensation; they shattered the fabric of vital communities, severed generations of connections, and inflicted lasting trauma that still reverberates through Detroit today. The question we face is how to replace the below-grade I-375 (and its connection to the street grid at Gratiot) with an at-grade boulevard between I-75 and Detroit’s downtown and riverfront.

Needed: Robust Engagement

Without a robust engagement of community and the perspective of history, the overdue replacement of I-375 holds the potential of re-setting in concrete the missteps of the past for generations to come.

We couldn’t stand by and watch that happen without an effort to bring more voices to the table.

The Downtown Detroit Partnership’s I-375 Peer Review Report, released last week, was supported by Kresge’s Detroit Program and points to a future different from the past.

Over the last year the peer-review effort allowed the Downtown Detroit Partnership (DDP) to work alongside the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) and the City of Detroit to provide a balanced voice within the community and advocate for a truly reconnective design through the peer review and community feedback process.

DDP Chief Executive Officer Eric Larson expressed it well: “The I-375 Reconnecting Community project is more than a traditional infrastructure project. This is an opportunity to make a serious impact on the greater community. The project can redefine mobility, rooted in a vision that responds to the weight of the past, the push of the present and the pull of the future.”

Design Improvements

Input through the peer review process and community feedback has resulted in significant improvements to the design since late 2023, such as:

• Improvements for pedestrians
• Restoration of the street grid
• Land parcels that are more conducive to redevelopment addressing past harms and sparking economic growth and community gathering.

The full I-375 Peer Review Report, even at nearly 200 pages, is well worth reading. Its key recommendations include:

• Ensuring the interchange’s design is right by decreasing the size of its footprint to create more direct connections to destination and future developments and provide safe, walkable, and bikeable connections between neighborhoods.
• Incorporating Reconnective, Reparative and Restorative (R3) outcomes in design, construction, future land use, development and economic participation.
• Utilizing effective construction mitigation by building out a robust suite of economic mitigation strategies prior to construction.
• Designing the boulevard for people and vibrant street life.

Importance of Process

The how of the report is every bit as important as the what, the process as important as the infrastructure plans. We’re optimistic that the continued participation of community, public, private and philanthropic partners in this complex effort will model a new way of working in the city that is community informed and community centered.

The report was created by DDP with an assembled team of consultants including Urban American City (urbanAC), founded by renowned urban planner Toni Griffin; Toole Design Group, specializing in mobility and transportation, and HR&A Advisors, specializing in real estate and economic development.

Meanwhile, Kresge’s Detroit team has hosted The Reparative Roundtable. This cross section of local leaders works to ensure that the I-375 project honors the area’s rich cultural heritage, acknowledges Black Detroiters disproportionately impacted by the area’s destruction, and ultimately results in an enhanced sense of place for absolutely everyone. Leaders like Marsha Battle Philpot, Janet Webster Jones and Lauren A. Hood, along with organizations such as the Black Bottom Archives, Detroit People’s Platform, Doing Development Differently Detroit, CDAD and Detroit Greenways Coalition, among others, have stepped up to meet this urgent moment.

Throughout, Detroit Future City has contributed its research expertise to the peer review and roundtable; Detroit Future City has also had ongoing engagement with business and resident stakeholders in the project area.

A Guide for Next Steps

The resultant report, explains DDP Urban Evolution Strategist James Fidler, is a tool Detroiters can use as the City of Detroit undertakes its Framework and Land Use planning process to take the I-375 project forward.

Kresge will remain deeply engaged in this work as it continues to evolve and take shape. Not only our Detroit Program, but Kresge President Rip Rapson plus our Arts & Culture, Human Services and Social Investment programs will all stay the course. As point person in this process, Kresge Detroit Program Officer Adena Hill deserves special praise for skillfully leading the shift in the I-375 conversation from one about infrastructure to one about possibilities. This conceptual pivot reflects the way our Detroit team is increasingly striving to work, with a four-R framework:

• Reconnection: building stronger social capital
• Repair: acknowledging past harms and preventing future injustices
• Restoration: activating the possibility of greater opportunity for all residents
• Resilience: recognizing the power of collective action to address climate change

You’ll hear more about our four-R framework and how we intend to put into practice in the months to come. For now, we’ll encourage everyone to see the peer review report as one example of what we mean.

Wendy Lewis Jackson is the managing director of the Detroit Program at The Kresge Foundation.