A retrospective of the 2026 National Planning Conference in Detroit, Michigan and lessons Kansas City can learn from Detroit’s urbanism.
I’ve been writing Center For Neighborhoods’ blog for nearly a year now. Doing so has given me a deeper perspective of local government, public engagement, and effective advocacy. It has been rewarding to cover often underreported cases in our City’s government. Even those cases that are seemingly mundane tell a fascinating story about the patterns of development that we choose to accept as a community, and those that are more controversial.
For part of this week and last week, I attended the National Planning Conference with several other UMKC Urban Planning + Design students. This was an exciting opportunity, and I want to share with you some of what I learned there.
This will be my final edition of This Week at City Hall. Now, I look forward to the next chapter in my career in Planning. I also look forward to seeing the work of CFN’s next intern. Finally, I want to thank you all for your continued readership and support. No one knows a city like its neighbors.
-Ben Robinson, This Week at City Hall Intern, UMKC-Center for Neighborhoods
Exploring Detroit
Chintown
Besides attending conference sessions, our student group spent a good portion of the trip exploring downtown and midtown Detroit. On the morning of the first day, some of us went on a walking tour of Detroit’s Chinatown. Very little is left of the original area. Years of disinvestment and deterioration have led to demolition, much as they have for once-thriving areas of Kansas City.
The officially recognized home of Detroit’s Chinatown is at the intersection of Cass and Peterboro. At that intersection sits the former Chung’s Restaurant. Curtis Chin, whose family owned the restaurant, grew up in that area during the 1970s and 80s. His family’s restaurant served workers, neighbors, and even school children from the now-closed Burton International School. After a 60-year run, Chung’s closed in 2000. The building it was housed in is still standing, but demolitions around it made business untenable.
The last of the buildings on the same block as Chung’s were demolished as early as 2023. They still appear on Detroit’s Parcel Viewer application. Most of the lots on the 3100 block of Cass Ave are owned by Olympia Development of Michigan (ODM) – who also own the Comerica Park and Little Caesars Arena event and sports venues. Advocates for preservation of the area, its history and culture claim that ODM was negligent in its stewardship of the historic buildings along Cass Ave. Similar cases in Kansas City include the Jeserich Building at 31st and Main Streets and the Valentine neighborhood, broadly, which has seen blocks of homes and businesses demolished by Kansas City Life Insurance Company.
Now, though, that area is planned for revitalization – seeking to attract new businesses through streetscape redesign.
Read more about the history of Detroit’s Chinatown here.
Detroit’s Streetscapes
Detroit’s streets are some of the most iconic among American cities. In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was tasked with widening Detroit’s major thoroughfares to make room for the cars that had rapidly taken over Motown after Henry Ford’s mass production of the automobile. This widening caused the destruction of several buildings (or at least their facades) in the city. Many of the facades that replaced the older building fronts were done in the art deco architectural style – a major factor for why that dominates downtown and midtown today.
These wide streets also have a negative effect on the pedestrian experience. They enable dangerous driving like street racing, and make crossing the street a treacherous feat. However, certain streets like Washington Blvd, downtown, have made use of this extended right-of-way to provide pedestrian and green space. Washington is divided into two one-way streets. A large median sits between them with trees and landscaped paths. This is sometimes known as a Rambla, and it is a common feature on Spanish streets. One very famous example, simply named La Rambla, is a popular tourist attraction in Barcelona.
Map of downtown Detroit showing radial street design.
Detroit is also famous for its radial street design downtown. This street layout was partially the result of Augustus Woodward’s Plan of Detroit (1805-1807), but also originated as part of a military highway system implemented by Michigan Governors William Hull and Lewis Cass in the succeeding decades.
This design pattern creates beautiful angles and views of buildings that aren’t common in a grid system. It also enables the construction of what are known as flatiron buildings. These are triangular buildings built on a corner with two intersecting streets at an acute angle. Their name comes from their shape, as they were said to look like an iron for pressing clothes. Detroit is full of them, and many are still standing.
The intersection of Grand River and Griswold – one of Detroit’s many beautiful viewsheds.
Detroit’s Comeback
Though the poster-child for disinvestment and demolition in recent history, Detroit has made noticeable strides in rebuilding its local economy and making itself a desirable place to live again.
One major strategy employed by the City has been the Strategic Neighborhood Fund, which partners the City of Detroit with the nonprofit, InvestDetroit, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). This program has deployed over $181 million from 24 funders to 10 neighborhoods in the city.
These and other programs have leveraged philanthropy with great benefit to the City. They have been particularly effective because philanthropic donations have deadlines tied to them. They are useful for donors, who may use them to write off some of their taxes. However, they are also highly competitive, meaning that InvestDetroit has had to put great effort into marketing their nonprofit to potential benefactors.
Conference Session: Connecting Capital to Communities: From Plan to Project
Panelists:
- Yige “Eagle” Tang, PE, AICP – Senior Associate, The Goodman Corporation
- Robert McHaney, AICP, CTP – Chief of Integrated Planning, The Goodman Corporation
- David Fields, FAICP – Deputy Director, Planning Development & Infrastructure, Office of Commissioner Rodney Ellis
This session discussed effective public engagement methods for capital improvement projects in Houston, TX. One of the projects they spoke about was the 11th Street Safety Project. This was borne out of community calls to action for a safer streetscape and slower speeds for cars.
The panelists emphasized the importance of consistent inclusion of the public in decision-making. The 11th Street project, they stated, was only a success because planners were committed to involving stakeholders from step 1 until the end. The basic process for local government planning is highly focused on projects themselves, and not the people who will be impacted by them. The panelists made a concerted effort to bring neighbors and other stakeholders into the process as much as possible.
The Local Government Planning Process (revised to include community involvement).
This paid dividends, not only because it brought a better final product to the community, but it also made the planners’ jobs easier too. When the planning process was nearing its end, other residents from outside the neighborhood made an effort to stop the project. These were mainly people who drove through the neighborhood without stopping, and were afraid their commute may be negatively affected by a road diet.
However, neighbors restated their support for the safety and streetscape improvements. For their part, the planners restated the aims of the project: to improve safety along this corridor for pedestrians and cyclists. Even those who were upset about the project could not deny that it would meet those goals the community had set for it.
Conference Session: Whose People Are These? A Housing Justice Framework
Panelists:
- Jessica Rossi, AICP – Senior Project Manager, Kimley-Horn
- Dr. Opal Frye-Clark – Public Health Researcher, Unity Housing
- Whitney Hodges, AICP – Planning Manager, City of Johnson City, TN
- Aaron Scott – Homeless Policy Consultant
This session spoke about the housing crisis in the context of a small town in northeastern Tennessee called Johnson City. The city has been growing for some time, largely because of the influx of “eds and meds” (educational and medical institutions) that bring in jobs and therefore new residents.
While exciting for the City, this has created an anticipated shortfall of housing units in the coming years. Among rental units, those most anticipated to be in short supply are among the most affordable ($1,000 – $1,500 or <$1,000/month). This, the panelists claimed, is highly tied to another crisis in housing: homelessness.
Anticipated Housing Unit Shortfalls 2024-2029, Johnson City, TN.
Homelessness has been on the rise between 2021 and 2025 in many of Johnson City’s regional counties. In response to this crisis, the panelists developed a strategic plan to make homelessness “brief, rare, and non-recurring” in Johnson City.
The panelists partnered with a litany of different organizations like the Appalachian Regional Coalition on Homelessness, Habitat for Humanity, and United Way of East Tennessee Highlands. The strategic plan they wrote resulted in several different investments and lessons learned.
Critically, it helped the City bring on a team of dedicated homeless outreach coordinators and a consultant. This allowed the City to shift the responsibilities of police officers to other areas. Instead of dealing with unhoused individuals suffering from mental health crises or substance abuse, they could now focus their resources on addressing serious crime.
The most tangible outcome from these efforts was an inclement weather overflow system to increase emergency shelter beds. While not a long-term solution to homelessness, it guaranteed a place for unhoused people to take shelter during dangerous weather like storms and intense heat and cold.
Panelists also emphasized the importance of treating the homeless crisis as a housing issue. Fewer housing units (especially affordable units) will necessarily create more homelessness in time. To address this, the City had implemented several strategies, including:
- Making the development process more transparent
- Greater use of PILOT and TIF (tax increment financing) funding sources for projects
- Sale of City-owned properties to developers for new housing
- Pre-permitted housing types
- Simplifying the City’s zoning code
In addition, the City is partnering with the Eastern Tennessee State University (ETSU) to employ their Street Medicine program. This program focuses on providing healthcare to unhoused populations in eastern Tennessee. Through consistent trust-building and outreach, participants have been able to connect the community’s unhoused neighbors with care.
Conference Session: Small Developers, Big Impact: Growing Community From Within
Panelists:
- Abigail Newsham, AICP – Senior Planner, Olsson
- Allison Thurmond Quinlan – Director, Incremental Development Alliance
This session was led, in part, by a local Kansas City planner and graduate of the UMKC Urban Planning + Design program, Abigail Newsham. Ms. Newsham is the founder of Small Developers of Kansas City. SmallDevKC is part of the larger Incremental Development Alliance; a network of local organizations that share knowledge with and support citizen developers make connections with others in the local development scene.
Behind the motivation for these sorts of organizations is the desire to marry what neighborhoods are asking for and the reality of development. Large developers are highly profit-driven and risk-averse. Local small developers are still concerned about financial feasibility, but often also have a vested interest in improving their community. In some cases, they will willingly take financial risks to accomplish a project because they truly care about what it can bring to a neighborhood.
To that end, SmallDevKC, and other organizations like it, work to make projects financially sound by connecting developers to financing opportunities. These include local lenders, equity partners, and tax credit programs.
The panelists explained how current development processes inhibit local small-scale development. Many residents may have a desire to build in their communities, but lack the resources, skills, and connections to accomplish this goal.
SmallDevKC acts as a central hub for those necessary components. They build a connected ecosystem of developers and supporting organizations, recruit and train a local cohort through real projects, and they work with local governments to make the development process smoother as building progresses.
In Kansas City, SmallDevKC has already helped numerous projects become a success. In neighborhoods such as Columbus Park, SmallDev has played a role in completing several units of residential infill housing.
Ben Robinson has been the author of This Week at City Hall, and an Urban Planning and Design Student at UMKC. He is a Kansas City native, having lived on both sides of the state line. From a young age, Ben has been interested in neighborhoods, communities, and the built environment, but only discovered the field of Urban Planning in college. He is now committed to a career in the profession, and is excited about using his education to support and grow the city he grew up in.
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