This commentary by Kresge Detroit Program Managing Director Wendy Lewis Jackson was originally published in Crain’s Detroit Business following the annual Detroit Homecoming event where Jackson participated in the “Building a Thriving, Complete Neighborhood: Live6 and Detroit’s Next Chapter” panel discussion. Detroit Homecoming is a three-day event created for Detroit expats — those who grew up, went to school, or built early careers in metro Detroit and now live elsewhere. 

I spend a great deal of time in Detroit engaging business leaders, organizers and entrepreneurs. But some of my favorite conversations are with residents. Being in the city’s neighborhoods gives me an energy and sense of possibility that I rarely find elsewhere.

Yet when people talk about Detroit, they too often begin with a list of what its residents lack. That deficit narrative has never captured the full picture. It overlooks the brilliance, beauty and dogged determination of Detroiters who continued to imagine, organize and build even when investment was scarce, and systemic racism stacked the cards against them.

Before the national headlines and before Detroit’s so-called renaissance, residents were here. Longtime Detroiters maintained their homes, organized block clubs, volunteered in schools, sustained churches, cared for vacant lots and watched over commercial corridors where too many storefronts had gone dark.

Their persistence is often described as grit. There is truth in that, but we should never romanticize the burdens Detroiters were forced to carry. Residents should not have had to compensate for decades of systemic disinvestment. Still, their work created the foundation upon which Detroit’s progress now rests. The stability we see today was built, in no small part, by the people who stayed.

Detroit does not suffer from a shortage of resident ambition. It suffers from too many barriers between that ambition and opportunity.

Detroiters love their neighborhoods. They want to eat, shop, receive services and enjoy themselves close to home. The Avenue of Fashion demonstrates the powerful relationship between resident demand, Black entrepreneurship and dollars circulating locally. Similar potential exists along commercial corridors throughout the city.

Imagine how much stronger those corridors could become if investors worked alongside local and legacy businesses, providing the capital, technical support and connections they need to grow.

As interest and investment pour into Detroit, we must listen to residents before deciding what their neighborhoods need. We must invest in the priorities they have identified and the businesses they have already demonstrated they want. We must remove barriers to financing and ownership and connect residents to the jobs, contracts and opportunities created by new development.

We must also protect housing stability so longtime residents have the option to remain and benefit from their neighborhoods’ upward trajectory. Success should be measured not only by how much money is invested or how many projects are completed, but by who participates, who owns, who earns and who can afford to stay.

My challenge to returning Detroiters, investors and civic leaders is simple: Do not arrive believing you already know what Detroit’s future should be. Listen humbly, respond thoughtfully and respect the local knowledge that has always been here.

Your role is to recognize the opportunities Detroiters say they want, help bring resources to those opportunities and partner with residents so that what they have already built can go further.

Detroiters have proven their commitment to this city. The question now is whether institutions and investors are prepared to match that commitment for the long haul.