Full transcript of Mayor Mike Duggan’s Exit Interview at the Detroit Economic Club

Detroit Economic Club – Mayor Mike Duggan Exit Interview
December 8, 2024
Good afternoon. I’m Steve Gagorian, president and CEO of the Detroit Economic Club. What a room full of energy. Welcome to today’s special meeting. 91 years of incredible speakers and networking and today that tradition continues. I especially do want to welcome our DEC members. If you’re not a member yet, give me 10 seconds to convince you. Your next job prospect, client, maybe best friend is right here in this room. So if you want to build your network and learn from thought leaders on stage, we invite you to invest in yourself and join today. You can sign up at econclub.org. In fact, if you want to do it today before you leave, we’ll sweeten the pot. We’ll give you a free event ticket you can use all the way through the end of June. So just stop by registration after the program.

As we get started, I would just kindly ask you to silence your cell phones so we do not disturb today’s meeting. And if you’ve been with us before, you know we always get started with a pledge and a prayer. So please stand and join me as we honor our country with the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

And kindly remain standing as our invocation today will be delivered by our good friend, Father John Phelps from Life Directions.

I love the music. As I come here, I come from Southwest Detroit and so I want to bring two Spanish words to our gathering. One is Esperanza, which means hope for the future. The other one is éxito. Now, when I saw the word exit, I thought of éxito. Éxito means success. So let’s have hope for the success. So let us pray.

Creator God, as I call us to prayer, I thank you for Mayor Mike Duggan, for the last 12 years of his leadership. Look at where this city was in 2013. Look at where it is today. The accomplishments speak for themselves. As leadership transitions, I call on God for the city. During a holiday season, it’s easy to think about the children, the vulnerable, and the poor, especially those who live in at-risk environments. May the strength of God pilot the city. May the wisdom of God guide the city. May the eyes of God look over the city. May the ears of God hear the city. May the word of God speak to the city. May the hand of God protect the city. And may the way of God provide for the state. May God’s blessings continue to encourage Mike as he moves toward serving not just the city but the state. And may today be known as your esperanza, your success. Amen.

Thank you, Father. And you may all be seated. Now, a couple of special thank yous. Thanks to WDIV Local 4 and Detroit PBS Rich Hamburg. Thank you for live streaming today’s meeting. Thanks to WJR who’s doing their focus show live just across the hall there and you can stop in and see them after the program. And thanks to Lawrence Tech University for their video services. You know, students are here today and always courtesy of our generous corporate sponsors. Their morning already began with a private meeting with the mayor and I want to tell you who’s with us. I would just ask you to hold your applause. We’ve got two groups from Northwestern High School. Thanks to Comerica Bank and also to EY. Got a group from Birmingham Groves. Thanks to Optek, a group from the Detroit Promise. Thanks to Detroit Regional Chamber and Tony Michaels and the Parade Company. Thanks for bringing Lawrence Technological University students to us. How about a round of applause for the students and their sponsors?

Super quick. Couple things on your table. Corporate sponsor brochure. Make no mistake, we want to say thank you to the corporate sponsors and partners. Make no mistake, we would not be here if it wasn’t for their generosity. So thank you, thank you, thank you. If you want to become a sponsor, would love to talk to you after the program about the benefits. Also is our season lineup. You’ll see we’ll meet again next in January. We host our annual Michigan economic outlook and that’s always a packed house in a great conversation. Of course, more meeting announcements coming your way soon.

On this date in DEC history, 91 years of incredible speakers that tell the history of our country. On this date, December 8th, 23 speakers have been on our stage. That includes many cabinet members, many CEOs, including the likes of Ross Perot back in 1981. And Mr. Mayor, we’re honored to host you for your ninth appearance on the DEC stage in your 12 years. So thank you so much for being here today. And finally, use your smartphone and you can be involved in today’s program. We want you to take lots of photos, share with your social media. You can also submit a question for the mayor using the QR code on your table in front of you. And those questions will make their way to our presiding officer who I’m about to put to work.

Sandy Pierce, of course, is the DEC board chair, and we’re so lucky to have her in that role. She’s always willing to lend anyone a hand and an ear. She’s an amazing supporter of the DEC and me personally. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Sandy Pierce.

Good afternoon. It’s an honor to be here. I have two special guests that I get to introduce. I’m going to start with the moderator, Gary Torgow. He’s going to lead this important conversation with Mayor Duggan and we’re honored to have him here. He’s one of our region’s most accomplished and dedicated civic leaders. Our moderator is a person whose career is defined by building and investing in Michigan both financially and philanthropically.

Gary Torgow is the chairman of the board of directors of Huntington National Bank. His banking leadership is nationally recognized, following his successful tenures as chairman of TCF Financial as well as Talmer Bank where he oversaw major mergers that kept a strong financial presence rooted right here in the city of Detroit. Beyond finance, Gary is a profound advocate for the city’s future. He is the chairman of Business Leaders for Michigan. That’s a roundtable of our state’s top CEOs focused on making Michigan a top state for business and for its residents.

His commitment to inclusive growth is evident across his extensive civic service. He served as the chairman of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission. He was instrumental in leading the fundraising for the city of Detroit’s Strategic Neighborhood Fund, directly investing in the revitalization outside of our downtown core. He is the recipient of prestigious honors including but certainly not limited to the NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award and the Urban League’s Distinguished Warrior Award reflecting his unwavering dedication to equity and opportunity.

As a lifelong Detroit area resident and the founder of the successful real estate and development firm now run by his three great sons who are with us today, the Sterling Group, Gary brings an intimate and informed perspective to the conversation about our city’s trajectory. We’re going to bring him up in a minute, so but please give Gary a round of applause.

This moment is kind of tinged with history as we welcome a leader for his final address to the Detroit Economic Club as the mayor of the city of Detroit. For over a decade, the relationship between this city and its leader has been defined by one thing: a commitment to come back. When Mayor Mike Duggan took office in 2014, the challenges were not just monumental. They were existential. Detroit was emerging from the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history. The mandate was clear. Stabilize the finances, restore basic city services, and prove that a great American city could actually rise again.
He delivered. He didn’t just rebuild the city’s balance sheet. He rebuilt the sense of possibility across all 139 square miles. Financial and civic stability. Under his leadership, the city of Detroit has gone from bankruptcy to fiscal health, ending years with a budget surplus, leading to critical investments back into pensions and infrastructure.

His neighborhood focus. He famously said, “You can’t have a great city if you don’t have great neighborhoods.” The demolition of over 20,000 blighted houses, the 20-minute city initiative to improve our services and targeted neighborhood revitalization are a testament to his philosophy.

Restoring services. You all know this. From the installation of new street lights across the city, an accomplishment that literally brought light back to darkened streets to vastly improved police and EMS response times, he restored the fundamental services that every single citizen deserves and economic opportunity.

The mayor has championed policies that ensure growth is inclusive, driving down the unemployment rate to historic lows and fostering job creation that benefits Detroiters first. Mayor Duggan’s tenure is a case study in effective, determined governance. He didn’t just manage the city, he managed a historic transformation. He has successfully put Detroit back on the map as a place of investment, innovation, and pride. He has left the city fundamentally stronger, more stable, and more hopeful than he found it. We honor his more than decade of service today and the undeniable legacy he leaves for the city that he loves. Please join me in offering a warm, truly warm welcome to our true civic champion, Mayor Mike Duggan and his moderator, Gary Torgow.

Want you to know I wore this tie in honor of you. Thank you. I knew you would have a tie on today. That’s what bankers still do. So first Sandy, thank you. Steve, thank you. Thank the DEC. Amazing forum for us to be able to do these kinds of events and we’re very grateful to you both.

Okay, Mayor Duggan. So after 12 years, you have 23 days left. What are you going to miss the most?
There’s no question the people of this city have been extraordinarily supportive of me 12 years ago in electing me, but then really just day in and day out. We had a lot of stuff to overcome and took a while, longer to do some things than others. But the kindness the people of Detroit have showed me for all 12 years and the last—it’s gotten real emotional the last few weeks. Folks coming up and a lady yesterday told me about her son who got a job when we brought the Jeep plant to the east side, just got promoted to a line supervisor and what a great life his family has because of that plant. Day before, a senior came to me and told me about the new roof that we put on as we did with the senior citizen homes and now winter time and her roof isn’t leaking. And another guy who told me about the abandoned house next to his house has now been renovated and he has a neighbor instead of worrying the house is going to catch fire and spread to his house. And so it is the people of this city just have such huge hearts and whether things were going well or they weren’t going well, it just seemed like they always stood behind me.

So many historic things happened under your watch. The first was when you were forced to be a write-in candidate for the mayorship, right? So tell us why did you have to be a write-in? What happened? And really, why did you decide to become mayor when you were living a very comfortable life?

Well, of course, I was born here. I grew up here. Like a lot of folks here, I remember a city that was special. And I had a great job at the Detroit Medical Center and 14,000 men and women. You ever get a chance to work in a healthcare system? Everybody who chooses that career goes into it because they want to help people. It’s just a—I loved walking into the hospital every day. But the last couple years there, every time I go to the hospital cafeteria, the Detroit employees would come over to my table and sit down. Normally, they want to tell me about some nursing supply shortage on their floor or some doctor who’s treating them badly. Now the conversation’s all turned to “you got to run for mayor.” And I said, “I live in Livonia. I mean, running for mayor never remotely was out by my career plans.” But those employees just kept saying if people of Detroit got to know you the way we did, you’d win and it wouldn’t be that close. And so I decided, you know, I could complain about the city or try and do something about it. Wasn’t sure how the first white candidate in 40 years was going to be received, but I thought I had to give it a try.

And we had this brand new charter with some really vague language. Two judges out of three ruled that I had filed my petitions two weeks too early. Now, I’m an election lawyer. I had my election lawyer with me and the city clerk with me when I filed and everybody signed off on it. And then two months later, these judges say I filed too early. But and so Gary, as you know, I said, “Okay, this wasn’t meant to be.” I went up to my cottage and started to figure out, dust my resume off. But people stood outside the courthouse with signs and protesting the court of appeals and honking. Like the way the court of appeals works is they hear honking on the street and they reverse their previous opinions. This is not really a good strategy. But then people started saying do a write-in and I didn’t really know how a write-in worked and I had to call up Chris Thomas who had been the election director and I said explain this to me. Do you stick like stickers on? He says, “No, stickers gum up the machines.” He says, “That little rectangular box with no instruction on it.” I said, “Yeah.” He says, “You got to get people to write your name into that little box and fill in the circle.” I said, “Nobody’s ever seen this before, but I thought I was going to give it a try.” And I never thought what would happen—that, you know, when the results came in, I carried 92% of the precincts of the city with people writing my name in. Really made me feel an enormous obligation to the people of the city right from day one.

For those of us that have been around in Detroit, we remember the bankruptcy filing and you get your first look after being elected with a bankrupt city. And what did you see? What made you nervous? What aggravated you? And what exhilarated you?

You know, it is—if you weren’t here, it’s indescribable how horrifying it was then. Kevyn Orr was made emergency manager almost a year before I started. So he had been running the city for a year. And while he was an excellent bankruptcy attorney, the cops were being paid 15 bucks an hour and they were leaving in droves. We had the highest murder rate in the country. Businesses were still pulling out. We had the highest unemployment rate in the country. We had 47,000 abandoned houses and the city was knocking down basically 25 a week. You take out your calculator and they would get them all down in 32 years. This is what I’m walking into. They had 65,000 street lights out and the year before I got there, they did basically 500 a month. You take out your calculator and that’s going to take about 130 years the way they were going at this thing. And so when I came in, it wasn’t just a function of the city had a financial problem. The city was operationally nonfunctional.

But I’d lived it once before. When I went into the DMC in 2003, the board before I got there had voted to close Receiving Hospital, close Hutzel Hospital, close the Karmanos Cancer Hospital. They had sent out 2,000 layoff notices and they were down to 15 days cash on hand. The power of people when they work together for a single goal is enormous. And so I went into the city, I did employee forums the same way I started at DMC. And I said to the people in the parks, I need you to cut the grass. And I said to the people at DPW yard, I need you to pick up the garbage. And I went to the garages and said, “The ambulances aren’t showing up for an hour. You guys need to fix the damn ambulances. It’s not the EMT’s fault that the ambulance broke down.” And we just got to work at people doing their jobs and between the restructuring of the balance sheet that happened and really the commitment of employees who—it was embarrassing to be a city employee. You go home and your friends would all tell you, “Well, you know, my garbage didn’t get picked up. Nobody picked up the illegal dumping in the neighborhood.” They wanted to go from being embarrassed to being proud because they got into city government to provide service. And I think today people are really proud to be workers for the city of Detroit.

How tough was it to get the city services back in order when they were in such shambles when you came in? How tough was it? What metrics did you use? How did you accomplish that in the short time that you did?

You know, I had to start with the police department. Because the year I got elected, we had 750 carjackings in the city of Detroit. We were carjacking city. Now think about that. 15 times a week somebody stuck a gun in somebody’s face and took their car. There was no hope of bringing people to come back into the city when you’re facing that kind of threat. And so I sat down with the police department and I said, “Look, we’re going to have strategies and metrics. I’ll give you the money. I want to see your ROI.” And these police are like, “ROI? What’s ROI?” I said, “Look, I’ll put money behind you, but there’s got to be a return on investment, not in dollars, but in reduced violence.”

And I realized that to be in the top 30 spots in the police department, you had to have a college degree. I finally said to him one day, “What do you guys have your degrees in?” The top 30 people, 29 had degrees in criminal justice, and one had a degree in chemistry. I’m not sure how he got in there. But I said, “You guys are running a 30,000 employee, $350 million business. None of you would have 29 criminal justice degrees.” I thought, “We don’t have HR expertise. We don’t have finance expertise. We don’t have planning expertise.” And so I could yell at these guys, but it’s not going to do any good. So I went over to the Wayne State Business School and I said, “We have to develop a skill set here.” And they set up an executive MBA program that we paid for it. I said to everybody from lieutenant on up, you want to go to Wayne State and get an executive MBA, you can do it. And the first 14 or 16 signed up the first year. They didn’t really know what this was about.

And pretty soon they were talking about the Starbucks business model around the water cooler at police headquarters. And the ones who were left out said, “What about me?” And then we did it again. Then you had a number of people who paid for their own full MBAs. Chief White was one of the first. He’s now running a billion-dollar Wayne County mental health system.

But what happened is those of you in business, if you now sit in the—every two weeks I have a meeting with the top 30 command staff and you see their response times, their clearance rates, they are business metrics. And the 750 carjackings in 2013, as of today, as we finish this year, we have 76. They’ve cut carjacking by 90%. And they did it by the basics. We put cameras on the gas stations. We followed up on every case. We cleared the cases. When they steal them, we don’t chase them high speed down the street. Put a helicopter up in the air. They don’t even know it’s there till they stop. And then we arrest them. And we got them to change the recision rate because you learned if you carjacked a car in the city of Detroit, you had about 80% chance of getting arrested and put away. We got people to change decisions. But it really was the men and women of the police department along with our prevention groups and the court system who just through basic metrics and management principles have made this city a much safer place.

So many of the business people in the room dealt with a lot of your team through the last 12 years. And you managed to assemble an amazing group of people who were dedicated to doing the job that you wanted them to do. How did you bring those people to those jobs? How did you recruit them? And what were the efforts that you had to use to get them?

Well, you know, if you do this right, and I’ve done a number of turnarounds, you like to keep half the people that you’ve got and get them to perform at a higher level by putting them in a different system with different expectations and bring in some people who pave the way. And we pretty much did that. There were a number of people who were within the city bureaucracy who always wanted to do a good job, but if they tried to hire a person, it took them six months to get through it. They wanted to buy asphalt for the streets. It took them nine months to get it procured. A lot of times the person who’s screwing up in front of you, you know, the bus driver that you’re mad at because the bus is an hour late is because the mechanics didn’t get the buses on the road. Rarely is the person responsible the person who interacts with the public.

But I went and got, you know, Arthur Jemison, who was a top housing official out of Boston, came in. I brought in some—Jed Howbert who really led New York’s comeback, but I paired him with people like Tom Lewand who was a great leader here. And a lot of the talent that had been with me at DMC, a lot of talent had been with me at Wayne County. We put them all together. There’s a young woman up here, Nicole Sherard-Freeman, I brought in in charge of a job training program. By the time she was done, she was one of the finest economic development directors in America. I mean, this is what we did. Now she’s going on to run the Community Foundation. But this is the kind of path that you should have. And so many of these folks have gone on to really big jobs in other areas and we’re proud of them, including a couple you stole from me.

Pleased to have done so. So Mr. Mayor, you know, in the years past, the city was nervous about vying for very big events that would come to Detroit because we were always worried that something would happen and the reputation would be in some ways concerning to us. So you made a decision to vie for one of the biggest events in America, the NFL draft, knowing that it would be huge, but also knowing that an incident could have caused major damage to the city’s reputation. Talk about the world’s reaction to the city of Detroit hosting the draft and the decision that you made with your team to bring it here.

Well, the first few years I was mayor, I got lots of calls—New York Times, Washington Post, CNN. I wasn’t doing national interviews. My attitude was, we’re going to clean up what we’re doing before we start bragging about where we are, because as soon as you start boasting and you have a bad incident, now they double down on the national media laughing at you. And that was a hard thing to be disciplined about. But as the NFL draft came forward and Mark Hollis and the Sports Commission really were the ones who landed it, the big decision we had to make was, you know, I went to Las Vegas, I went to Kansas City, the two previous drafts. They hosted the draft at a huge park way away from their city center, where they had everybody fenced in. And literally, the downtown businesses had no idea there was a draft in town.

If we were going to do this in Detroit and really have an impact, we had to put it out on the streets of Detroit. You want to talk about a high-risk, high-reward move, a lot of the folks were basically, let’s do this on Belle Isle here. What are we going to do with all these folks? But Chief White and the whole planning team from DPD to the Gilbert Group and the like, they all said, “We think we can pull this off.” And so we had a different kind of a draft. We had local businesses involved, not national businesses. We spread it all throughout the downtown area. And Chief White said, “I can handle this. We’ve got the entire city wired with cameras, real-time crime center. We’re ready to go.”

And I can tell you something. Since I see David Lewis from AT&T sitting in the front row, but two hours before they were to open the doors at the NFL draft, all of the cameras went dark. Police headquarters called. Chief White says, “What the hell?” He says, “I can’t see a thing.” He says, “Our whole strategy of letting them go throughout our downtown was through the cameras.”

Now, I was not aware that somebody building the Water Square apartments down the street hit a line and shut down our cameras. Okay, Gary, I didn’t know at the time it was you. But and so my team is panicked, and Chief White says, “I can’t allow this to open without the cameras.”

And they are lined up down the block and somebody says to me, “The only one who could possibly run a line of cameras in the next hour is Ameritech” or AT&T. And so I picked up the phone and called David Lewis, the CEO, and he’s like, “How are you doing?” I said, “Actually, I got a little bit of a problem for you.” And he’s like, “Well, okay, but I didn’t do it.” I said, “I know you didn’t do it, but you can fix it.” And he says, “Let me send my people in.” 45 minutes later, all the cameras went online. We opened. Nobody ever knew we had an issue. 775,000 people, three days in the city of Detroit, nothing but a national thing. And so David, thank you very much for bailing Gary out.

Okay, Mr. Mayor, could you say something nice about Water Square? It is spectacular views. If you haven’t been there, you got one of your tenants right here. Nicole will be glad to tell everybody how great it is. Okay, Mr. Mayor, what was one of the best days as mayor of Detroit?
Well, certainly the NFL draft was three special days. I stood out there all day every day. It’s amazing how much fun it is to listen to people read Dave’s off cards. And when the Lions called and said, you know, Mike, we really appreciate all your support. We want to read off the fifth round pick. I said, “Oh my god, it’ll be an opportunity of a lifetime. It’s the third day. I’m good.” Then they call back and said, “We’re thinking about this. You know, you really have done a good job. I want to move you up to the second day. You can read off our third round pick.” I’m like, “Wow, I have arrived.” And then they call and said, “We got bad news. We traded the third-round pick.” They said, “Oh, well, easy come, easy go.” Said, “But you know, what would you think about doing the second round pick along with Barry Sanders?” And I said, “Wow, this was an opportunity.” So, certainly announcing the Lions second-round pick with Barry Sanders is something I won’t forget.

But there’s so many others. Bill Ford opening that train station that night with Diana Ross and Eminem and a 40-year image of Detroit’s decline being turned around. And I was really surprised how emotionally I reacted to the opening of the Hudson’s building. If you haven’t been over there, but Dan Gilbert has put the old Hudson’s window fronts back up. And for somebody like me as a kid who going to Wonderland on the 12th floor to see Santa is one of the most vivid memories of my childhood to see the way Dan has brought that back on that site was also powerful. So it’s been a lot of really good days with a lot of people here who partnered in making it happen.

And oh, wait, I got one more. There was a day when we had a brand new 20-story bank building, Huntington Bank, that Gary Torgow built across from Comerica Park when he brought his headquarters downtown. So we now have the commercial headquarters. What is it now? The ninth largest bank in America. Tenth largest bank in America. You’re getting there. So I sit at Comerica Park and I see that Huntington sign up over there, Gary. And just so proud of what you’ve done for this community. Thank you.

Okay, so tell us you’ve had a lot of incredible days and therefore we’ve had a lot of incredible days in Detroit. Is there a day that sticks out as a really tough day for you during those 12 years?
Oh, there’s no question. We’ve had four days where we had four police officers who were shot and killed in the line of duty. Three others who were killed in hit and run or traffic accidents and that was seven days the city ground to a halt. The hard thing to accept was the four that were shot, three of them were ambushed. They just drove up and were shot as soon as they got there. Never saw it coming. And you’re the mayor who puts 2,500 cops on the street every day. And when one of them is killed, it’s amazing how much that wears on you and you’re always asking yourself, could we have done something on training? Could we have done something on equipment? But the power of this—when I look at the three instances where literally they drove up or were ambushed before they did anything, you think about those 2,500 cops’ interactions with citizens every single day and they never know when that unexpected event’s going to come up. The extraordinary job the Detroit police have done—there’s so much responsible for the comeback of this city, but those days will make me sad for the rest of my life.

So what are some of the issues you’re dealing with today that mayor-elect Sheffield will have to continue to work on? And what are some of your thoughts about the new administration?
Well, I think everybody here knows I was strongly behind Mary Sheffield. And you know, the fighting between the mayor and the council was legendary. The black versus white, city versus suburbs politics, which is how you got elected in Detroit by pitting people against each other had gone on for so long. And I didn’t know what was going to happen when I got into the race. When I sat in 250 house parties and said, “If you’re voting for me, us versus them politics is over. We’re going to build a city where everybody’s welcome.” And a lot of people said that has no chance. But it turns out the politicians were tearing each other down with the average person. They just wanted their street lights fixed and they wanted the ambulances to show up. They want their kids to be able to play in the park.

But the city council deserves enormous credit because I spent hours and hours with them saying, “Look, we’re not going to land the Jeep plants. We’re not going to land the train station deals. We’re not going to land the Huntington banks. We’re not going to land the Amazon distribution centers if we put on a show of embarrassment at city council when these things come up.” And I got agreement up front with council members that said we’re going to have predictable policies for businesses coming here. We are not going to give you checks up front. I don’t believe in handing you a check and buying you to come into the city, but if you come into the city and you build and you hire, we’ll give you discounts on the new taxes. I got council to agree on that. And so every single time we announced one of these projects, the kind of fiascos you’re seeing statewide over these data centers, they didn’t happen in Detroit because we sat with the neighbors up front. We sat with city council up front.

And city council deserves enormous credit because it doesn’t matter. There’s always some group who’s going to protest whatever you do, no matter what your agreement is. We have people who are against the 5,000 employee Jeep plant. City Council had to sit and listen to that at their meetings and calmly deal after deal stand up and approve it. And Mary Sheffield the last four years as city council president just ran an enormously professional operation. You have a mayor as well prepared in knowledge of city government as you could have.

Now, she’s going to run a staff of 9,000 people for the first time. There’s a learning curve, but that’s true in nearly every city. Most cities the mayors are former council people or state senators who have to learn. Barack Obama had never run anything before he became president. You—there are times when you have policy and a personality as such. You got to have time to develop a management side. But everything I’ve seen about the way she’s running the transition, the way she’s behaving and the fact I’m just so proud of the fact she could actually have a wedding in private. I was just really happy for her because she couldn’t have much privacy from now on.

So let’s talk about the significance of the riverfront’s evolution during your 12 years in office. How is the riverfront part of your 12-year strategy for business, for talent, and population attraction? And as you look back over those 12 years, tell us what it felt like at the beginning and how you’ve been able to create this amazing riverfront that we’re enjoying.

Well, you know, when I went into the Detroit Medical Center and they were losing money and losing market share, we sat down and said, “Okay, let’s stop whining. Let’s take a look at what our assets are.” Our assets are we got these amazing emergency rooms that have potential that we’ve got tremendous research going on. We didn’t try to be somebody else. We built on what our assets were. And I looked at the decline in Detroit’s population and said, “What are our assets?” Certainly the manufacturing base and bringing back the plants was a big part of it. But the other asset we had was that riverfront which has never been utilized at least not from a standpoint of aesthetics. It certainly was for shipping and industry for years.
And so Matt Cullen at GM, the Kresge Foundation, Riverfront Conservancy had gotten us off to a start on what they were calling a riverwalk. But you thought, what if the riverwalk became an entire riverfront? Could we create something unique? And so we took Riverside Park under the Ambassador Bridge, that was closed for contamination. We hauled the contaminants out and built one of the most spectacular parks in the city for the people of Southwest Detroit who felt like they’d been forgotten. And we just basically went piece after piece.

What David Egner and the Ralph Wilson Foundation did with the Ralph Wilson Park. It is incredibly beautiful. The conservancy kept moving down the far east side. We took Maheras-Gentry Park, which actually was a site that hosted weapons detectors from World War II, and it built out a beautiful park along Grosse Pointe by the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood. And now Arn Tellem has brought the WNBA franchise and that Uniroyal site that’s been abandoned for 40 years. Instead of it being private condos, it’s going to be high school volleyball and basketball courts, soccer and lacrosse and flag football fields right at the base of Belle Isle, 40 acres of entertainment.

And when Dan Gilbert finishes this Renaissance Center deal, we have got to save the three towers. But if we take down those two towers by the water and build out the rest of the waterfront in a Navy Pier setting, you are talking about as spectacular a riverfront as there is anywhere in America. It helps you recruit young people who want to live here. It helps you recruit businesses who want those young people. It helps college students. People are enrolling in college at Wayne State because they want to be coming to Detroit.

A lot of us remember when Wayne State was a commuter school. You drove in and you drove out as quick as you could. Now people are living in Detroit because they want the job opportunities. We got the Michigan grad school going up on Grand River in AI. We got the Michigan State Research Center. But I’m telling you, the continued development of the riverfront is what’s going to define the city over the next 20 or 40 years. And it was something I was obsessed with every single day.

You talked about the tragedy of the fallen officers, but looking back on these 12 years, crime was always at the top of everybody’s conversation about Detroit. You’ve put some great leadership in the police department and things have changed dramatically. Can you tell us how you did it and how you see the city today?
So we had a good police chief, and James Craig was actually hired by the emergency manager before I got here. I was grooming the next guy, who was my metrics-obsessed leader, James White, who came in and just dramatically built on Chief Craig’s success, and his number two, Todd Bettison, who was the most plugged-in leader to the community that we had. And it was a hard thing. I mean, Bettison and White both applied for the job. And I had to say to Todd Bettison, “I’m going with the person who’s going to drive the metrics, but you come work for me as deputy mayor. Sit in the office next to me. I’ll put you in charge of the fire department and the bus station.” By the time you’re done with me, you’re going to be so obsessed in metrics management, you’ll be ready to go when there’s another vacancy.

Chief White came to me and said, “I want to go take on a billion-dollar mental health system because the mental health system in this area is messed up.” And I had a police chief who was completely trusted by the community who also if you saw what he did at DOT and the fire department, this guy could run any organization. And so the reason that we are so strong, I started to get mad, because as we started to succeed, Columbus hired one of our deputy chiefs as their police chief. Then Dallas hired one of our deputy chiefs. I said, “This is crazy. I’m training these folks up and the management team’s leaving.” So I did what any of you would do. I brought first the chief in and I said, “You want to stay?” Then first it was Chief Craig. I said, “Yeah.” I said, “I’m gonna give you a multi-year contract.” And basically it’s gonna be two years and every year it rolls over another year. If we don’t give a year’s notice, you’ll always have two years job security. He says, “God, that’s great. No chief in the country has that.” I said, “Wait, I didn’t tell you the rest of the story.” I said, “This is a Jim Harbaugh contract. If you leave for another city, you’ve got to pay me two years of salary.” Which means if Chicago goes to recruit him, they’d have to explain to their citizens, not only are they paying a lot of money, they’re writing the city of Detroit a four or $500,000 check. You would only take that deal if you were committed. Chief Craig took it, Chief White took it, Chief Bettison took it. Then Bettison comes to me and says, “They’re after my three top people, the three assistant chiefs all over the country. They’re raiding them.” I said, “What do you want to do?” He says, “I want to give them Harbaugh contracts.” Now, all three assistant chiefs are tied under two-year rolling contracts.

Why? You are seeing the crime rate come down. And this year, I mean, when I started it was 400 homicides, got down to 300, 200. We are at 160 now with a few weeks to go. It is because we have great management and they have partnered with a group of violence intervention groups from the private side where we are paying people who are trusted in the community who have specific geographic areas and who Chief Bettison developed when he was a deputy mayor. You have the violence interruptors partnered with the police in the toughest neighborhoods in America. There is a culture in this city of violence reduction that’s going to continue on. And Mary Sheffield was one of the biggest advocates for the police department, one of the biggest advocates for the community violence intervention. This isn’t something like when Mike leaves is going to come apart. Everybody in that department and city government is behind this. You’re going to see the day the number of homicides in Detroit dropped below 100. Nobody’s ever talking about Detroit as a homicide leader again.

So people all over the country are talking about the comeback city of Detroit, but we know that a number of major cities in America are really struggling. What can large American cities learn from you and from Detroit?

You know, I get a lot of calls from mayors and the mayor’s conference has had me host many on what we’re doing. But it all starts with the fact you got to be willing to let go of us versus them politics. And there’s a bunch of mayors, bunch of elected officials, got a bunch of elected officials in Lansing who get elected by running on us versus them. And you can get elected that way. And once you get there, all the business people that you attacked in order to win, they’re moving out. I mean, you know, you’ve seen some of the business left Chicago are leaving New York, etc. It is hard to come back from that.
And what we’ve proven in Detroit is I made a deal with Jeep. And they came, but I made one condition that they had to offer Detroiters jobs first before they offered anybody else. And I held sessions at churches with Detroiters. And I said, “Look, here’s the deal. They’re interviewing Detroiters first. If we don’t have qualified people, they hire whoever they want.” We’d have 200, 300 people in a church. “You’re going to be on your feet all day. You’re going to have to pass a drug test. You’re going to pass that eighth-grade math and reasoning test. You don’t do well on your eighth-grade math and reasoning test today. We’re going to give you a sample. We got tutoring at the churches before Chrysler actually invites you in.” We sent Fiat Chrysler 12,000 qualified Detroiters that hired 5,000 people, all 5,000 residents of the city of Detroit, $60,000 jobs with benefits to start. We moved 5,000 families to the middle class in one fell swoop.

And so I had people saying, “Why did you give Chrysler a tax break?” But the great majority of Detroiters said, “Are you kidding me? 5,000 jobs?” And then Adient had to come in and put in a 500-employee dashboard plant to service the Jeep plant. Lear had to come in and put in a seating plant to service the Jeep plant. And now hundreds more jobs. You can support your community and support the business at the same time and explain to the members of your public, we’re a whole lot better off being respectful of the business community. But that also means I need to have business leaders who are sensitive enough to embrace Detroiters. And I have been so lucky with Dan Gilbert, with Chris Ilitch, with Bill Ford, with Huntington and Gary Torgow, with most of them that people have been willing to come in and say we’re going to partner in a way that we want the city’s help, but we’re going to make sure the city benefits. And it’s made my job a lot easier.

Two last questions because we’re on a very tight time frame here. The first is when they write the book on Mike Duggan, what are the few accomplishments you’re most proud of you’d like to see in that book?
Oh, I just think the one thing is this last mayoral election. There was no us versus them, no black versus white, no city versus suburbs. You had a mayor elected promising to build on what I’ve done, take it further into more neighborhoods and take it farther. I think I’ve changed the politics of this state, this city at least. I’m ahead of myself. Got one more to go. But I’ve changed the politics of this city that I think long term people in Detroit, if you tried to run the old us versus them politics, they would vote you out in a second. People love what’s happening in the city and they love a city where everybody is welcome.

Doesn’t he look great in a tie?
The last time I’ll wear one in a while unless you’re interviewing me again.

So, Mr. Mayor, in 23 days you’re retiring. Yeah. Any plans for the future?
Thank you all very much.
Did you really want me to answer that?

Yeah, absolutely.
You know, when I ran for mayor, I didn’t know how people would feel about me running, whether they thought politics as usual was working or not. And I look at this state, 60% of our third graders don’t read at grade level. It’s been going on for a long time. We lead America and our young people moving out of state under the age of 30, second in the country in unemployment. And the one thing you can count on in Lansing is the Republicans get elected by tearing down the Democrats and the Democrats get elected by tearing down the Republicans. And there are a lot of people who believe that’s the right politics. And if you believe that that’s right, then you can keep voting for the choices that you have because you’re going to have a good traditional Democratic and Republican choice. But if you think that the direction of this state would be better served by somebody who said, let’s fix the problems of the schools. They aren’t Republican and Democrat teaching third graders to read. Let’s build a tech economy where our young people can stay. It’s not Republican or Democrat. And so I’m just going to say to the people of the state, if you’re tired of politics as usual and you want to try something different, I’m going to be campaigning really hard. And if you decide you like what’s happening, and Gary, I’ll probably be calling you for a job in a year.

Sandy Pierce. Thank you very much.

Okay, stay here because we have some questions from the audience. I don’t know, I can’t get to all of yours because there’s so many, but okay, mayor, we’re going to start with: 2025 saw Detroit’s first growth in population in 60 years. You said to judge you on population growth. Was that harder than you thought it would be? And what is the key to keep it going?
Oh, yeah. It was. And but 7,000 last year were top 25 in the United States. To look at the national map on population growth was see a circle at Detroit. I had to like look again. Been since 1957. On the other hand, those 7,000 people were almost all either single adults or adults with very young children. Almost no families with school-aged children are moving into this city. And ultimately the public schools, not just in Detroit, but the public schools of this state have to be turned around. I think Dr. Watlington and the school board have done a good job. But this state still diverts a billion three a year from that 6 cent sales tax that you were promised was going to go to K-12 schools. We got to put the schools money back in the schools including in the city of Detroit. But the ultimate long-term Detroit population gain depends upon a really vibrant Detroit public school system.

Okay. Is there a figure from Detroit’s history or American history that you most try to emulate in your work?
I don’t know that I most try to emulate, but you know, I watched Teddy Roosevelt, who marched to his own drummer and was disliked by both the Republicans and the Democrats, ended up going his own way. So he ended up doing quite a bit for this country. So maybe somebody who tried it that way.

Okay, here’s another one from the audience. What’s the thing people most often get wrong about Detroit?
You know, you have to visit and it’s why the NFL draft was so important. Because people still have the images in their heads. I will bet you once a week I see on social media a picture of the Packard plant saying this is Detroit today. Of course, the Packard plant is gone. We’ve got a new development project getting started. You have a lot of people who want to keep telling the story of Detroit the way it was and you can say things intellectually but once you get them here and they see—everybody who comes tells their friends. I think probably the thing I love the most is the number of people who say, “My friends from out of town, the folks who live in Birmingham, I said what did you do? We took them downtown.” People of the suburbs are now showing off the city of Detroit as their community and that’s it. So if you want to do one thing to help, invite all your out-of-town friends in. Preferably not in January or February. But when they get to see the city, they’ll love it, too.
Although, I’ll tell you, it was cold this weekend, but you walked down Woodward Avenue on Saturday or Sunday. Would you believe it? It’s jammed. The stores are jammed. They’re carrying shopping bags. It was like when I was a kid. You can’t believe—it just—for somebody who remembers what it was like to go shopping with my parents downtown to see the sidewalk lined with people carrying shopping bags on a cold day. It’s really special.

Okay, this one is also from the audience. Sorry Huntington for a minute, but your relationship with Jamie Dimon is a masterclass in respect and collaboration that led to a $2 billion investment. Tell all of us the story of how that happened and how he helped with the new Chrysler plant, the railroad.

The railroad. So you’ve obviously got the local JP Morgan guy that set that question up here. But you know, I wasn’t even sworn in yet when I was in the transition office, got a phone call. I said, “Jamie Dimon’s on the phone.” And I said, “Yeah, that’s really funny.” They said, “No, no, I think it’s really him.” And so I’m sure I’m being pranked, right? And so I answer the phone. I recognize his voice. “Mayor, you know, I think given what’s happened in this country, I think we ought to be maybe looking at investing. I’m going to send a guy out named Peter Scher, and we think we probably invest $50 million in Detroit.” I said, “Great.”

So out comes Peter Scher, today one of my dearest friends. By the time—I didn’t know him, he was vice chair at JP Morgan. And he came in and says, “We have an idea. We put money into this and money into this and money into this.” And I said, “Are you done?” And he said, “Yeah.” I said, “Here’s a map. I need loans in this neighborhood. I need loans for the commercial strip here. I need this.” By the time I was done, I said, “I’m going to put you in the car. I’ll show you that I’m right on what I need.” He almost missed his plane. They became so engaged in the neighborhoods in what we needed. And when we weren’t getting enough loans to black and brown owned firms and legally the government can’t discriminate by race or religion or the like, but JP Morgan set up with the Kellogg Foundation an Entrepreneurs of Color Fund, started 50 companies that should have had traditional bank loans but were excluded. Then they were there and they just kept coming back and putting in more.

And the thing I’ll always remember is Jamie Dimon personally he kept showing up when somebody would get a mortgage and fix up a house. He wanted to come down and walk through the house with a woman in East English Village and he’s just a truly good human being. And what they have done for this city in a bunch of different ways. So the story they want me to tell, I’m going to run one minute overtime. But I had this deal. I convinced Chrysler that it was down to us and South Carolina for this Jeep plant except that they had like a 600 acre cornfield and I had this idea I could close St. Jean Street and buy land from the Moroun’s and buy this here and buy this there. So I said, “Guys, just give me 60 days to buy the land. If I don’t get it bought, go down to South Carolina.” And they said, “All right.” And so I put the deals together. The people who thought to be the most difficult people in town. I got deals with all of them except one damn rail line ran right through the heart of where we needed to be. And it was a stub that ran to the old DTE coal plant on the riverfront. And the coal plant had been gone for decades. This rail stub is sitting there between Jefferson and the riverfront where I need to build.

And I go to the rail company and they say, “Sorry, we don’t sell our assets.” I said, “Well, somebody must be able to.” “Well, only the CEO in DC can make these decisions. It’s a call of the CEO.” I couldn’t get a call back. Then I realized JP Morgan’s their banker. So I called Jamie Dimon and I said, “Jamie, I need you to get this railway company to sell me this stub.” Jamie and Peter Scher, they get the guy off the golf course. He says, “What in the hell are you doing? The city’s got 5,000 jobs at stake and you guys are being jerks.” So the local guy, the next day I get a call back from the local guy. “I was furious. You had Jamie Dimon call my boss?” And I said, “You told me the decision had to come from DC.” We got down to the last 48 hours. Everything else is done. They still hadn’t signed. And so I called back to Jamie and Peter. I said, “I don’t have it.” They call back and the guy from the railroad CEO says, “I’m told by my people this is an essential spur. I just can’t do it.” I said, “Give me five minutes.” I got in my car and I drove down. This completely overgrown with weeds and shrubs hasn’t been used in 30-year rail stub. I take a picture on my cell phone. I send it to Jamie. 15 minutes later, the guy calls up and says, “Where do I come to sign?” But that’s the kind of partnership. But I’ve had many, many of you in this room have been my partners on many of those kinds of deals. Thank you to all of you for everything you’ve done to support me.

Mayor, you talked about the fabulous riverfront. Talk about the connection with the greenway through the neighborhoods.
Oh my god. Yeah. And so, you know, many of the worst neighborhoods of this city back up to abandoned railway lines. And over the years, tons of abandoned cars, garbage in people’s backyards. And our team came in and said to me one day, “What if we tear out the rail lines and build in a greenway?” And it really was people in my general services department, Brad Dick and those folks. And we just started chipping away, buying one section after another, landing state money, landing federal money, ultimately now linking up to the riverfront down behind the train station on what they call the Southwest Greenway. You now have property values booming in neighborhoods in this city where they have now the most beautiful parks in their backyard instead of thousands of abandoned tires. But that’s the reason why you see the Detroit News poll at about 84% approval ratings. People in these neighborhoods know what’s happened to their quality of life and as a city we work really hard to try to touch every corner.

Okay, we just have time for a couple lightning round questions for both you, Mayor, and you, Gary. Oh, good. Okay. Name a person other than a family member that you would like to have lunch with, and they have to be alive because some people go back to people that are dead. Somebody that’s alive.

Sandy Pierce.

Mayor, I’d have to think about that. You don’t want to have lunch with Sandy?
Sandy Pierce. Thank you.

Okay. What profession other than your current one would you like to try if given the chance?
If I had life to do over again, it never occurred to me that football coaches would be the highest-paid people in America. But I could have been really good at those schemes and stuff. So I think I’d have gone back and become a college or an NFL football coach.

I for sure do not want to be mayor. That’s easy. Probably a doctor. Probably a doctor. I like that doctors can help people a lot. And probably a doctor.

Okay. What was your first paying job, Gary?
My first paying job was I worked in a catering operation where I was in charge of taking the chicken and sticking it in the vats. And that was probably what cured me from ever eating chicken again.

Mayor?
After my senior year in high school, I spent the summer on the back of a garbage truck in the city of Southfield. And man, those garbage men work hard. I did—anytime I thought about dropping out of school, I just thought about the alternatives, but it was—I learned a lot that summer.
Okay, last question. Advice to your 25-year-old self.
You know, everybody when I was 25 told me to go to Chicago, LA, or New York. If I could go back, I’d say to my 25-year-old self, go to Detroit. That’s where the future is.

I couldn’t agree more. Same thing.

Thank you both. Let’s give him a warm—Thank you. Thank you. You didn’t mind me telling your story, did you?

Not at all.

Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, real quick, you delivered us a 12-year masterclass in leadership, and we can’t thank you enough, and we’re looking forward to hosting you sometime on the campaign trail in 2026.

Ladies and gentlemen, tell your friends and colleagues to join the Detroit Economic Club or a bunch of cool people on time every time. This meeting of the DEC is now adjourned. Thank you. Have a good week.

Editor’s note: This is a transcript of the Detroit PBS video of the event generated from its YouTube channel here.