Corktown: Detroit’s Oldest Neighborhood (past, present, and future)

CM credit hours for mobile workshops are awarded based on the planned dedicated instructional time. Adjustments to CM hours will not be made after the live event.

Corktown is Detroit's oldest neighborhood and home to perhaps the city's' most significant ruin-porn landmark: Michigan Central Station. When Ford Motor Company announced plans to rehabilitate the long-shuttered building, fears of resident displacement, gentrification, and inequitable neighborhood growth emerged. Through a Community Benefits and neighborhood planning process, planners leveraged Ford's investment to create and implement a framework for intentional inclusive growth. Backed by private, federal, state, and city support, Corktown is experiencing the most catalytic investment in Michigan.

This tour highlights how the community can leverage private investments and planners can strategically "stack" investments to yield monumental change. Witness streetscapes under construction, visit two city parks and a recently transformed greenway, tour the redevelopment of a Section 8 Choice Neighborhoods project, and conclude by visiting the Michigan Central Station. Guides explain how public-private partnerships are critical to large-scale neighborhood change and community members share how their participation yielded progress. The tour demonstrates planners' and practitioners' thinking about the benefits of collaboration, innovative government action, and thoughtful implementation.Corktown has a unique racial and income makeup, making it one of Detroit's more diverse neighborhoods. Challenges vary by group, and identifying solutions while generating consensus is difficult.