Editor’s note: This original OpEd was published by Crain’s Detroit Business on February 23, 2026. The piece was included in a special Crain’s Forum section focused on economic mobility in Metro Detroit. The section also featured an article highlighting the need for coordinated approaches to improve economic mobility centered on affordable housing, in which Kresge President & CEO Rip Rapson is quoted. You can read that article for free here. 

Detroit is a city on the rise, and the momentum is real. Over the past decade, Detroiters have worked tirelessly to author a new narrative as millions of dollars in investment have flowed into the city’s core. A record number of new business openings, landmark developments and national chains have zeroed in on the feasibility of a presence in Detroit.

But so much more is required to ensure the momentum gained in the past decade continues and is shared by all. Far too many Detroiters are still waiting to feel that rise under their feet. Yes, our skyline is changing and national headlines finally mirror the pride we feel for the city we know and love. But beneath this momentum lies a harder truth: the people who power Detroit have not benefited equally from the city’s comeback.

Child poverty has climbed above 50% and nearly one in three Detroiters lives below the poverty line. Only 26% of households qualify as middle class, compared to nearly 40% across the region. These numbers tell us something unmistakable and urgent: growth alone is not enough.

If Detroit is to thrive, the next decade must be defined not by how high the city rises, but by how many Detroiters rise with it — and stay securely in the middle class. That is where our focus must begin. It’s a business imperative that makes dollars and sense.

Workforce reliability, talent retention and consumer spending all increase when more residents earn enough to own homes and participate in the local economy. Since 2014, the net value of owner-occupied homes in Detroit has grown 94%, with Black homeowners alone seeing an increase of $2.8 billion in housing wealth. Nearly 9,000 small businesses have been supported through the New Economy Initiative, 75% led by people of color. Strategic Neighborhood Fund investments have generated $195 million in increased property value beyond the projects themselves.

Growing Detroit’s middle class is the strongest economic development strategy for the entirety of Southeast Michigan. But such economic dynamism can’t happen in a vacuum. We must lean into the complexity of the city and use a stability-first strategy — one that connects jobs, housing wealth, tax credits and school-based supports into a system that people actually use. Stability is the prerequisite.

We’ve seen the benefits of a multi-strategy effort be successful. In the Livernois-McNichols district in Northwest Detroit, a decade of layered investment tells a compelling story. The population there is stabilizing, especially among children, which has seen a 10% increase over the rest of the city. Trends in housing are also promising, with homeownership sitting at 62% versus 50% citywide. One Brookings Institution study confirmed that these gains came from existing residents increasing their incomes and education, not from an influx of wealthier newcomers. This is mobility, without displacement.

At the center of this neighborhood sits the historied Marygrove campus. Once a private liberal arts college headed for closure, it is now an educational hub servicing more than 1,000 students and staff. More than half of the families served come from the surrounding neighborhood. At The School at Marygrove, a Detroit Public School Community District school, third-grade literacy rates now outpace Ferndale and Royal Oak and match Ann Arbor, and 100 percent of students graduate.

Meanwhile, the CDO Fund enables community development organizations to serve as the delivery mechanism for housing assistance, tax credit outreach, home repairs and more. In a single year, CDO-led outreach helped Detroiters access $6.5 million in Child Tax Credits that would have otherwise gone unclaimed. HOPE property tax exemption applications surged 70% year over year. More than 9,000 families accessed basic needs including food, legal aid and health services through school-based Health Hubs.

These results were intentional, not accidental. They happened because investments were connected at the neighborhood level through trusted community organizations.

Detroit has already shown that we can attract investment. The defining question of the next decade is whether that investment will reach the 74% of households still fighting for middle class stability.

We know what works. We see it in every neighborhood where trusted community partners help residents build wealth, access opportunities and chart upward mobility without displacement. We see that when systems connect, people climb. When they disconnect, families fall.

This is the real infrastructure of a functional city economy — and the business community has a critical role to play. By strengthening workforce pathways, expanding local procurement, investing in neighborhood corridors and supporting the community organizations that make mobility stick, we can turn isolated successes into a citywide reality.

Detroit’s comeback will be measured by how many families build stability, build wealth, and build a future right where they live. The strategies are working. The proof is in our neighborhoods.

Now is the moment to scale what works — and ensure that Detroit’s next chapter is written for all Detroiters.

Wendy Lewis Jackson is managing director for the Detroit Program at the Kresge Foundation. She leads its efforts to revitalize Detroit and to strengthen its social and economic fabric.