What do you know about Highland Park?

WDET reporters have been visiting the city since March, getting to know Highland Park, its history, and its people. These conversations are part of our Crossing the Lines series, which explores what unites and divides metro Detroit as a region.

Highland Park is a city within a city, an enclave of Detroit. At its peak, more than 45,000 people lived in Highland Park, mostly auto workers. Ford and Chrysler called the city home for years. When they moved out, people left in droves. Today, the population is less than 9,000.

One person who stayed is Glenda McDonald. She came to Highland Park as a child in the 1970s and still lives in the city. Voters elected her mayor in 2022.

WDET’s Pat Batcheller spoke with the mayor about her life in Highland Park and her efforts to make the city better.

People, not borders, define the city.

Pat Batcheller: How has Highland Park managed to survive as a city despite enormous financial challenges?

Mayor Glenda McDonald: It’s a place where you come and you’re in a neighborhood, but it’s also a city, so everybody in the city rallies around each other, supports each other. We get our support from our partners, Wayne County, the state of Michigan, and others. And they continue to believe in the city, just like I know that right now, I’m believing in this city, and we’re going to move forward, and it’s going to continue to grow.

PB: What makes you believe in it?

GM: I believe because I’ve been here, I saw what the possibilities are, and I know the endless possibilities for Highland Park. You don’t find a place like this, like the housing stock is 100 years old and it’s still standing and they are beautiful. You don’t find neighbors and community the way you do here. This is one community, and that’s what I use as one of my models, is we are one community, even though it’s 2.9 square miles. I know a person on every single street here. You can’t find it in Detroit because it’s so large.

PB: So, it’s not just the borders that define the city, that make it unique?

GM: It’s the people. The people make it unique. It’s hard to explain that we love each other. We take care of each other when it when it’s necessary, and then also we can disagree with each other and move forward and continue to move forward.

Grow the tax base

PB: No city can survive long without a stable tax base at a stable population. As mayor, what are you doing to keep businesses and residents that you already have here and then attract new ones?

GM: One is to make sure that everybody knows that they’re loved and needed here. That’s one thing we have to do is to make sure that people in those businesses and in this community understand we are a people of unity. And you know, we have to make sure that they all already know, that they’re doing a service for folks that some other people are not willing to do.

And a lot of people stay here because they just love the space, they love the area. They love the fact that Highland Park is just a small community.

Yes, our budget is low right now, but it’s not going to always be that way, and that’s the hope for the future. And people that stay here know that there’s a future.

Fix the infrastructure

PB: Tell me about some of the work that’s going on in Highland Park.

GM: We’re replacing every lead line in this city. We were blessed to get some appropriations from the State of Michigan, and they are having us replace every single lead line in the city. Some of them were over 100 years old. Some were wood. There was, at one time, a lead problem, but there’s not anymore. We have our testing, and our testing show that there’s not lead in the water so. But it’s inevitable that [the lead lines] need to come up, because there’s popping going on.

You know, we have water main breaks, like every other city. And so, at this moment, it’s a great thing to be able to change. And that will help businesses come here, because they didn’t want to come to a failing infrastructure that they would have to replace on their own. Right now, it’s being replaced.

It’s a good opportunity for everyone to come now and start the developments that they would like to see, to start the growth of Highland Park again, get in on the ground floor and be the beacon of light for Highland Park.

PB:  This was something that you’d been going back and forth with the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) for years. You were looking, as I recall, at the prospect of maybe having to go through bankruptcy if you couldn’t work all that out.

You did make a deal. As you mentioned, the state came in with $100 million to help pay off not only the debt [to GLWA], but to fix the root cause of the problems. If you had not been able to secure that money, would Highland Park still exist?

GM: I think it would. I mean, we’re resilient. If we couldn’t go in directions that we needed to go, we could always find another direction. We have been surviving now with this water situation for 20 years. It’s been ongoing and ongoing, and I decided, and along with my team, we’re going to put an end to it right here in some kind of way. And so we got that tentative agreement taken care of.

We’re working with the state. We’re working with GLWA, and hopefully we’ll continue that moving forward. I would say that I would have used whatever was necessary for us to do, to survive in Highland Park, to stay alive.

The state took over in 2001

PB: Going back the beginning of the century, the state appointed an emergency manager for the city that lasted about eight years and then state returned control. That fixed some of the immediate problems, but it didn’t really fix all of the financial difficulties. What did the state get wrong?

GM: Emergency management! I mean, I think the biggest issue we had was that eliminating the things that brought people to the city or kept people here caused a flight. And that would be a reason for the decline of revenues.

So, I think if it should have been a different plan of, how do we keep people in the city? What do we do to make sure that the children, the working-class people, the seniors, and everyone else benefit from what we’re about to do? And I didn’t see a benefit in that. I think that especially closing our library, that has been a devastating point for the city of Highland Park.

PB: What kind of shape is the [McGregor Library] in after being closed this long?

GM: Well, we did have an evaluation done, and there are some things that need to be done to it, to get it back in place. And it will take some doing. But it’s not impossible to do.

Attract business

PB: Do you have any businesses coming in in the near future?

GM: Yes, we have, I think, three that’s going to be opening up by the summer. One, there’s a coffee shop coming. Two, there’s going to be a restaurant, and three, there’s going to be a juicing bar, all coming in the same building. One of our developers has a building that has a mixed use at the bottom, and he’s starting to rent it out. So there will be spaces there for them and other businesses that are in the queue.

Here to stay

PB: You say you’ve been here since you were 11. Why did you stay when so many other people left?

GM: Why should I leave? That’s the question. I mean, I own my home. I raised my children here. They were born here in Highland Park. Well, they were born in hospitals, but they grew up here, and it’s beautiful place to me.

It’s the people. You can’t match the people here that stay in Highland Park. They’re resilient, they’re loving, they’re kind, and we take care of each other. Like I said, we have our issues sometimes, but all in all, we love Highland Park, and I love Highland Park.

My children have started to convince me to leave for years, and I will not. I don’t want to go to Atlanta. I don’t want to go to North Carolina. I don’t want to go to where they are. I want to stay right here in the city that raised me and bring it back to where it should be so future generations can feel the same way I feel when they’ve been here 54 years.

PB: What gives you pride in Highland Park?

GM: Everything. The people, the places, the possibility. I have a connection to every aspect of the city, the industry, the auto industry, everything like that, is something that has been a part of my life since I’ve been here. The schools, bringing back the school system, Highland Park Public School System, and we’re still working with the charter system that we have.

We are people who believe in in good things. We are people who believe that things are possible. And I’m one of those people that believes that things are possible if you just put your mind to it. It’s a challenge, but it’s a good challenge. As long as I live here, I’m going to do whatever I have to do to try to make sure that the city survives.

What happens in Detroit affects Highland Park

PB: Even though Highland Park and Detroit are different cities, their fates seem to be intertwined. The things that happen in Detroit have an effect here. We do now see some things, some progress in Detroit. Do you hope that Highland Park will benefit from that?

GM: I know it will. We’re the next leg of the development chain they have developed from Woodward downtown all the way up to the north end in Detroit. And when you’re the nucleus of a large city—and we call ourselves the capital of Detroit because we sit right in the middle—everything affects us. Because you can’t go to Pontiac without coming through Highland Park, leaving from downtown. Even coming through a freeway, you’re going to enter Highland Park off of Chrysler. You’re going to enter Highland Park off the Lodge. You’re going to be connected to the Davidson, which was the first freeway.

We have a connection that is like a bond. What affects them affect us, and that’s why we need to be working together to make sure that every aspect of this is healed, and Highland Park needs to be healed, and that’s what I see for it. I see a healing coming.

PB: Why wouldn’t being physically part of Detroit foster that healing.

GM: Blasphemy! I had to clutch my pearls. I’m sorry [laughs]. Because then it wouldn’t be Highland Park. Most people in Highland Park do not claim Detroit.

I love Detroit. Don’t get me wrong, I go to visit there. But if it’s just looking at Detroit, then you’re missing out on the opportunity to see what Highland Park has to offer, what Hamtramck has to offer. And I’m not advocate. You know, I love Hamtramck too, but my city has a lot to offer, and you miss out on that.

Everywhere I travel, the first thing they say is, “where are you from?” I said, “Highland Park.” “Oh, you’re from Detroit?” “No, I’m from Highland Park. And you need to look that up.”

PB: So, sell me. If I’m looking for a place, either to open a business or perhaps buy a home, what does Highland Park have to offer?

GM: Highland Park has a lot to offer. We have two corridors that are ripe for the picking right now to run a business. You have Woodward Avenue. There’s over 100,000 people who travel up and down Woodward Avenue every single day. And then you have Hamilton Avenue, which is what we used to call the antique row. We had all of these small businesses, and we’re building back that. We have a lot of people ready to build up on Hamilton.

Our housing stock here is one of the best in the country. We have had people travel from across the country to come buy houses. When we’re selling in the auction, we get people from California, from everywhere, who has done the research about Highland Park and the stock here, and why you can’t beat this. For the price of a house that you get here, you’re going to take that house and pick it up and put it in California, and it’s going to be $500,000 to almost $1 million.

So yes, you have to come here. You have to check out what we have. As far as housing stock, it’s amazing. It’s beautiful. We have Craftsmen houses. I live in a Craftsman bungalow. Those houses are very unique. We have Tudors, we have Colonials, we have a variety of housing here. We even have ranches and smaller ones, but they are here. So that’s the uniqueness of Highland Park. There’s every type of house that you imagine.

Metro Detroit’s infrastructure is old. Many of the homes people live in, the streets they drive on, and the drainage systems they use were constructed many decades ago. And most of that infrastructure is considered gray — it’s made of concrete, steel, and asphalt. 

That material is sturdy. But it’s less helpful for navigating extreme weather, especially flooding. The good news is that across metro Detroit, green infrastructure projects are cropping up. 

What do those look like? Why do they matter? And, how can more residents create green infrastructure projects to prevent flooding, and beautify their communities? 

Jim Nash is the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner. He spoke with host Robyn Vincent.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.

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For tens of thousands of people across metro Detroit, this past weekend wasn’t spent relaxing. It was spent in the dark, listening to 70-mile-per-hour wind gusts. Others were likely watching the water line creep up in their basements after days of rain.

When we talk about environmental risk, we’re talking about the collision between volatile weather, intensified by human-caused climate change, and fragile, aging infrastructure. It is the risk your lights won’t stay on, your basement won’t stay dry, and your utility bills will keep rising.

Nearly 95,000 households lost power in this latest storm. While many of the lights are back on, the frustration hasn’t dimmed, especially since DTE Energy’s $242 million rate hike just went into effect earlier this month.

Today marks the start of Severe Weather Awareness Week. Governor Gretchen Whitmer is urging you to “know your plan.” But for many metro Detroiters, that plan is at the mercy of a grid and a regional geography that feels fragile. 

To help us look past the downed limbs and into the systems that are failing, Nicholas Schroeck joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro. Schroeck is the dean of the University of Detroit Mercy’s School of Law and a leading expert on environmental policy.

Hear the full conversation using the media player above.

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These days, when it rains, it much more often pours. That’s due in large part to climate change. Heat waves are longer, winds are stronger, and rains are heavier. 

Meanwhile, much of metro Detroit’s infrastructure is old. And, combined with the downpours, it has led to more flooding. That’s true on Hines Drive in Wayne County; it’s true in East Dearborn; and it’s true in Jefferson Chalmers, or the “Venice of Detroit.” 

In 2021, the eastside neighborhood was declared a “high-risk flood zone” by FEMA after heavy rains flooded many basements and roads. 

The City of Detroit recently announced a $1 million pilot program to repair or replace sea walls for low-income residents to protect them from flooding. What do people in the neighborhood make of this plan? What do they need to protect their neighborhood?

Blake Grannum is a longtime Jefferson Chalmers resident. She spoke with The Metro’s Robyn Vincent about that and more.

The Metro reached out to Detroit Council member Latisha Johnson, who represents Jefferson Chalmers. Her office did not respond to our request for comment.

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Restore 94 is a recent Michigan Department of Transportation project that aims to rebuild nearly 13 miles of I-94.

MDOT’s Media Representative for the Metro Region, Diane Cross, says the project requires tree removal for full reconstruction of the Ecorse interchange. 

Cross explains, “Currently, traffic comes in on the left, which is very unusual and it’s a very old style. We are going to bring that up to current industry standards… That involves rebuilding I-94 through a large, wooded median near Ecorse Road.”

MDOT already owned the patch of land where these trees were located. Cross says their plan for construction is the most time and cost effective. 

There are plans to replant trees around the new roadways once construction is finished, says Cross.  

“Obviously they’re not the same mature age and probably number of what we’re removing—that is a large, wooded area that has not been touched for 50 years or so—but that is now where we’re going to move the freeway through, which will make it much safer for drivers.”

This story is part of WDET’s ongoing series, The Detroit Tree Canopy Project.

Part of the affordability crisis hitting American families is happening on our plates.

One local wholesale distributor says multiple factors are driving food costs up: President Trump’s tariffs, labor shortages and heightened immigration enforcement, and problems in the trucking industry. And all of that hits Detroit harder than most places. Many Detroit families struggle with food insecurity, and Congress just gutted the federal safety net that millions of families depend on.

Still, whether prices go up because of a tariff or a drought or a trucker shortage — if you don’t control any part of the system, you just absorb the hit. You are at the end of a chain somebody else built and no food pantry, no matter how well-run, changes that.

Natosha Tallman says the answer is not more charity — it’s infrastructure: commercial kitchens, cold storage, distribution, ownership. A system where Detroiters grow food, process it, sell it, and keep the money. 

Tallman and her team at the Northend Christian Community Development Corporation, which runs the Oakland Avenue Urban Farm, are trying to build that infrastructure. She joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss what it takes to move from a system focused on food charity to one of food sovereignty.

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Michigan’s bitterly cold winter has many staring down high energy bills — the highest in the Midwest. These rising costs have kept utilities on people’s minds.

Some recent headlines have, too.

Last week, a federal judge fined DTE Energy $100 million for polluting the air around Zug Island.

DTE Energy said in a prepared statement it is “extremely disappointed in the court’s ruling and its negative implications on the domestic supply of coke to the U.S. steel industry.” The company said it plans to appeal to the 6th Circuit Court and maintains it “has been operating within the limits of the valid original state permit – both today and during the time period in question.”

Two days later, state regulators approved another rate hike for DTE — a $242.4 million increase that will add roughly $4.93 to the average residential monthly bill starting March 5. DTE said the investment is delivering results, pointing to what it called its most reliable year in nearly two decades.

“Since 2021, DTE’s electric bill growth has been among the lowest in the country compared to other states,” said Matt Paul, president and chief operating officer of DTE Electric. “Our actual bills remain below the Great Lakes region and national averages.”

“A never-ending cycle”

That same week, DTE posted over $1.5 billion in operating earnings — more than $100 million higher than the year before. Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel called the pattern “a never-ending cycle of rate hikes.” She said the system should be questioned when a utility projects record profits while asking customers to pay more.

In other energy and environmental news, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday on the future of Line 5 — the 73-year-old oil pipeline running through the Straits of Mackinac. 

Meanwhile, communities across the state are in revolt over data centers that could consume more electricity than entire cities. DTE has said that data center contracts are separate and that residential customers will not subsidize their rates.

So given all this, today we’re asking: who is in charge of utility costs and safety in Michigan? And when things go wrong, who is accountable? Nick Schroek has some answers. He is dean of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, a leading expert in environmental law, and served as a special assistant prosecutor during the Flint Water Crisis. He joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro.

Editor’s Note: DTE Energy is a WDET sponsor.

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The price of water has been steadily rising in Southeast Michigan. Now, one of the steepest rate increases in the Great Lakes Water Authority’s decade-long history is up for a vote.

GLWA is proposing roughly a 7% water rate hike and a 6% sewer rate hike for the fiscal year starting July 1 — the second straight year exceeding the 4% cap the authority held for its first decade. GLWA says the money is needed to replace aging infrastructure: 83.6 miles of transmission main are past their useful life, and the system is largely funded by ratepayers.

At the authority’s January board meeting, residents pushed back. A GLWA representative acknowledged that 155,000 Detroiters are already enrolled in water assistance programs, roughly one in four residents.

Noah Kincade, who leads Detroit Documenters for Outlier Media, joined Robyn Vincent to break down what’s driving the increase, how rates are set, and what residents can do.

Listen to the full conversation above.

How to get involved

Residents can contact state lawmakers about Senate Bills 248–256, which address water affordability, or call We the People of Detroit’s water hotline at 1-844-429-2837. The GLWA board holds its public hearing and vote on Feb. 25 at the Water Board Building (735 Randolph St., Detroit) and via Zoom. Last year, public testimony led the board to reduce its proposed hike before the final vote.

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The Michigan Department of Transportation has big plans for I-94 in western Wayne County. 

Crews will rebuild and repair the freeway between I-275 and Michigan Ave. at the Detroit-Dearborn city limits. 

MDOT project engineer Bill Erben says the work will start with clearing shoulders and medians in February. Erben says that includes removing some trees.

“For every tree that we cut, we replace trees at the end,” he says.

February weather is notoriously unpredictable, so the timing is important—especially for wildlife.

“There’s a prohibition on cutting trees during the season that’s conducive to bats mating,” Erben says. “So, we have to get the tree removal done from an environmental standpoint.”

Reconstruction and rehabilitation

Erben says the Restore 94 project has two main components—rebuilding and repairing.

“We start just to the east of Wayne Road and it’s all-new pavement through Beech Daly,” he says. “And then there’s significant section of pavement on westbound 94 from Southfield to the [Ford] Rouge [complex] that will get replaced as well.”

Between I-275 and Michigan Ave., MDOT will install five new bridges and create a new interchange at Ecorse Rd.

Spokesperson Diane Cross says drivers will have access to Metro Airport at all times.

“Drivers will always have I-275, which we redid in the last couple of years,” she says. “If we’re working at Merriman Rd., we’ll make sure Middle Belt Rd. is open and vice versa.”

Getting around it won’t be easy

MDOT plans to shift traffic from one side of the freeway to the other, starting with the westbound lanes. That will reduce traffic from six lanes to four. Erben says the goal is to keep traffic moving on 94 throughout the project.

“There will be local detours, but the bulk of the project is to try to maintain traffic on the freeway,” he says. “We’ll have temporary ramps that will carry traffic from one side to the other.”

The three-year project will affect homes and businesses along 94 in Allen Park, Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, Melvindale, Romulus and Taylor. That includes the Ford Rouge complex.

Erben says he’s listening to stakeholders. “We’ve met with Ford already, we’ve met with the mayor of Taylor,” he says. “We’re going to do whatever we can to keep that line of communication open.”

Toward that end, MDOT has two public meetings on the project. The first takes place at 1 p.m. on Feb. 2 at the Allen Park Department of Public Services on West Outer Drive. The second happens at 4 p.m. on Feb. 11 at Taylor City Hall on Goddard. 

The Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor is nearly open, and its community benefits process is winding down.

The bridge will create a second international crossing between Detroit and Windsor-Essex and has been in the works for years. It was first proposed in the early 2000s and the Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority was created in 2012. In 2019, a Community Benefits Plan was published by the Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority. 

Residents on both sides of the border, including Delray in Detroit and Sandwich in Windsor, were engaged through a number of meetings and an advisory council was assembled. The report highlights key issues raised by community members:

• Workforce development
• Landscaping and aesthetics
• Construction effects
• Community safety 
• Economic development opportunities

Heather Grondin is the Chief Relations Officer for the Windsor Detroit Bridge Authority. She joined The Metro to look at what community benefits were delivered for residents of Delray on the Detroit side, and Sandwich on the Windsor side.

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The Great Lakes Water Authority has started building a new tunnel in southwest Detroit. The project will divert excess stormwater from a large sewer line along the Rouge River to a retention and treatment basin nearby.

Potential to address a longstanding problem

GLWA Chief Operating Officer Navid Mehram says the tunnel will reduce the risk of flooding. Additionally, it should mean fewer basement sewage backups during heavy rain. “We’re making an investment in our existing system by rerouting some flows, so that we can leverage an existing facility that wasn’t receiving all the flow it can treat,” Mehram says.

The tunnel will be almost 4,000 feet long and several feet wide. Nehram says GLWA expects to finish the job in 2028. “Our projects are very large,” he says. “This is a tunneling project, which is extremely complicated.” Besides reducing sewage backups, Mehram says the project will also make the system more resilient to heavy rain. “This not only provides us with water quality improvements along the Rouge River, but it can also provide a backup for our Water Resource Recovery Facility,” he says.

Who’s paying for it?

The project will cost $87 million. Mehram says GLWA will use both government grants and sewer rate revenues to pay for it. He says it will not increase customers’ bills.