• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary says if he were 25 today, he'd chase these two booming opportunities in the world of AI

2

Even as Elon Musk calls philanthropy ‘very hard,’ everyday Americans gave a record $617 billion—despite feeling the squeeze over the cost of living

3

Egg companies made $1.22 billion in profit off a $6 carton — now they’re buying their way out of a price-fixing case with 53 million donated eggs

1

Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary says if he were 25 today, he'd chase these two booming opportunities in the world of AI

2

Even as Elon Musk calls philanthropy ‘very hard,’ everyday Americans gave a record $617 billion—despite feeling the squeeze over the cost of living

3

Egg companies made $1.22 billion in profit off a $6 carton — now they’re buying their way out of a price-fixing case with 53 million donated eggs
Commentary

How Detroit Became a Model for Urban Renewal

By
Peter L. Scher
Peter L. Scher
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Peter L. Scher
Peter L. Scher
Down Arrow Button Icon
January 2, 2019, 11:11 AM ET
A tram runs in downtown Detroit.
DETROIT, MI- JULY 24: The People Mover is a tram that runs a loop around the main downtown places of interest. Interestingly, it goes right past (this photo taken one block from the transit center and does not stop) at the Rosa Parks Transportation Center where many downtown blue collar workers take buses to get to and from work and home. Some African American bus riders complain that the M1 benefits the well-to-do and takes money away from the bus line that needs improvements. Detroit is building a $100 million rail line called the M1 that generally runs along the business corridor on Woodward Ave. Some have asked why a city in constant financial hardship would take on such an expensive project. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post via Getty Images)Michael S. Williamson—The Washington Post via Getty Images
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Imagine a bustling downtown filled with inviting shops, restaurants, and happy patrons. Just a few blocks away sit neighborhoods with dilapidated houses, buildings, and vacant lots, high unemployment and high poverty rates.

This isn’t the story of any one city. In fact, we see this playing out in far too many urban areas across the U.S. and around the world. Some of the wealthiest cities with vibrant and growing economies have neighborhoods that are struggling from lack of investment, jobs, education, and training.

This situation is urgent, but thankfully there is hope: American cities are excellent laboratories for innovation. And no city better reflects this than Detroit.

Since 2014, we have been working closely with Mayor Mike Duggan and community leaders to solve some of Detroit’s most pressing issues. All of our work—from creating a trained workforce to revitalizing neighborhoods to boosting small business expansion—follows a strategy of inclusive growth that strengthens the economy by helping existing residents.

Thanks to the cooperation and engagement of local leaders, significant progress has been made on these challenges. Take neighborhood revitalization, for example. We recognized early on that Detroit would not fully come back if we did not invest in areas beyond downtown and busy commercial corridors. The neighborhoods—communities surrounding downtown and Midtown Detroit that have been hardest hit by the city’s downturn—needed significant help.

In 2016, public, private, and philanthropic partners jointly developed the Strategic Neighborhood Fund (SNF), an initiative that brings together community developers and private, philanthropic, and public capital to help distressed neighborhoods.

Over the past two years, the SNF has been using funds to build commercial and residential real estate, preserve and add more affordable housing, and enhance community infrastructure and services such as pedestrian lighting, safer street crossings, park improvements, bike-share lanes, and the removal of blighted homes. The Coe—the first new mixed-use development in West Village in decades—is an example of one such project developed by the SNF. Now, drawing from philanthropic contributions and public subsidies, the SNF is working on raising an additional $130 million to revitalize seven more neighborhoods in Detroit, on top of the three it already oversees.

Through partnerships like the SNF, the city has been working to create “20-minute neighborhoods”: areas where residents are a 20-minute walk or a short bike ride away from basic needs and services, including grocery stores, restaurants, hospitals, schools, parks, and public transit. The goal behind this is to remove barriers to opportunity by enhancing convenience and quality of life for residents and creating the conditions for which people at all income levels can and want to live.

Boosting growth of small businesses, particularly those owned by minority entrepreneurs, has also been a critical part of our approach to neighborhood revitalization.

Detroit has the highest percentage of black-owned businesses, 77%, out of America’s 50 most populous cities. Meeting the needs of these entrepreneurs has been vital in unleashing their power as drivers of opportunity and local economic growth. The Entrepreneurs of Color Fund—facilitated by the Detroit Development Fund, with funding from JPMorgan Chase and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation—provides low-cost loans and access to technical assistance to people who can’t obtain traditional forms of capital. This fund has been so successful that in 2018 it attracted new investors, tripling in size to $18 million and recently expanding to San Francisco, Chicago, and the South Bronx.

While much work remains to be done, these comprehensive efforts on the ground have yielded a blueprint for addressing the most vexing issues faced by cities around the world.

Recently, JPMorgan took this model to France, announcing a $30 million investment across Greater Paris with a particular focus on the region’s neighborhoods with the highest poverty and unemployment rates. The investment will target distressed neighborhoods with the goal of boosting small business growth and providing people the skills training needed to climb the economic ladder.

Our urban renewal model works because it helps provide people with opportunities to improve their lives. The residents I’ve met want civic, business, and community leaders to set aside their parochial interests and work together to solve community problems.

My hope is that more cities will look to our work in Detroit for solutions to stubborn economic challenges. We all have a stake in restoring struggling cities, and we can only get there through meaningful collaboration.

Peter L. Scher is the head of corporate responsibility and chairman of the mid-Atlantic region for JPMorgan Chase.

About the Author
By Peter L. Scher
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Commentary

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Commentary

katie
CommentaryData centers
Katie McGinty: The energy economy’s biggest waste problem is already inside the system
By Kathleen “Katie” McGintyJuly 6, 2026
5 hours ago
cc
CommentaryEducation
Former Trump official: Washington finally let Pell Grants pay for welding school, then buried the idea in 85 pages of red tape
By Caroline CasagrandeJuly 6, 2026
6 hours ago
k
CommentaryBox office
How Hollywood’s youngest filmmakers are exposing Gen Z’s real problem with AI
By Reid LitmanJuly 5, 2026
1 day ago
k
Commentary250 Years of Innovation
Media leadership unity in defying Trump’s assault on free speech: standing tall against historic comparisons
By Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Jeff Bewkes, Kay Koplovitz, Tom Glocer and Marvin KalbJuly 4, 2026
2 days ago
ds
CommentarySoftware
I argued with the father of open source for 2 years. Now the AI fight is the same — only bigger
By David SiegelJuly 3, 2026
3 days ago
ashok
Commentary250 Years of Innovation
The greatest startup in history: What we can learn from America’s founders at today’s AI frontier
By Ashok N. SrivastavaJuly 3, 2026
3 days ago

Most Popular

Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary says if he were 25 today, he'd chase these two booming opportunities in the world of AI
AI
Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary says if he were 25 today, he'd chase these two booming opportunities in the world of AI
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezJuly 5, 2026
1 day ago
Even as Elon Musk calls philanthropy ‘very hard,’ everyday Americans gave a record $617 billion—despite feeling the squeeze over the cost of living
Success
Even as Elon Musk calls philanthropy ‘very hard,’ everyday Americans gave a record $617 billion—despite feeling the squeeze over the cost of living
By Preston ForeJuly 4, 2026
2 days ago
Egg companies made $1.22 billion in profit off a $6 carton — now they’re buying their way out of a price-fixing case with 53 million donated eggs
Law
Egg companies made $1.22 billion in profit off a $6 carton — now they’re buying their way out of a price-fixing case with 53 million donated eggs
By Wyatte Grantham-Philips and The Associated PressJuly 2, 2026
4 days ago
The stock market is about to suffer a 'snapback' and will lose much of this year's gains as 'speculation is hitting extreme levels,' BofA warns
Investing
The stock market is about to suffer a 'snapback' and will lose much of this year's gains as 'speculation is hitting extreme levels,' BofA warns
By Jason MaJuly 5, 2026
20 hours ago
Meet the Zillennials: The luckiest micro-generation in the workforce, born between 1993 and 1998
AI
Meet the Zillennials: The luckiest micro-generation in the workforce, born between 1993 and 1998
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 3, 2026
3 days ago
Mark Zuckerberg takes business calls on a jet ski wearing his $800 Meta glasses—and insists 'the other person could not tell'
Big Tech
Mark Zuckerberg takes business calls on a jet ski wearing his $800 Meta glasses—and insists 'the other person could not tell'
By Sydney LakeJuly 5, 2026
1 day ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.