“The real Detroit is not a blank canvas for apocalyptic visions of decline,” writes Matthew Heimer in Fortune.
“It takes a village to rebuild a city, and the list of people and businesses collaborating on Detroit’s recovery is long. But the planning underway in Livernois/McNichols, and in a growing roster of other neighborhoods, reflects the expertise and financial clout of one corporation in particular: JPMorgan Chase. CEO Jamie Dimon’s financial powerhouse is the largest bank in Detroit, with a titanic 65% market share in consumer banking. Since 2014, the company has been doubling down on that relationship, in a daring experiment to help revitalize Detroit’s middle-class core.
“The bank’s effort, called Invested in Detroit, is a neighborhood-by-neighborhood campaign to revive local real estate, launch small businesses, and train residents for in-demand jobs—all at the same time, as quickly as possible. ‘If you don’t have jobs, you don’t have housing,’ Dimon tells Fortune in an interview at JPMorgan Chase’s New York headquarters. ‘If you don’t have housing, people can’t get to their jobs. If people don’t have skills, people can’t buy homes. You’ve got to make progress on all these fronts.'”
