Berglund masters thesis out of site out of mind

Masters Thesis_Lisa Berglund

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The Legacy of General Motors in Lansing Township, Michigan

Lisa Berglund Masters Thesis in Urban Planning and Design The Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, Sweden 2011

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Masters Thesis_Lisa Berglund

Out of Site, Out of Mind The Legacy of General Motors in Lansing Township, Michigan

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Masters Thesis_Lisa Berglund

Table of Contents | Preface 9 |Historical Overview 17 |The Birthright 33

Generational Aptitude, 33 Comaraderie, 35 Consequences, 35 The Union and Personal Identity, 36 Changes in Working Culture and Efficiency, 37

| The Illusion of Tabula Rasa 75 Terrain Vague: A Mythical Creature, 75

The Personal is Political, 77 Seams, Edges and Experience, 78

| Some Problematic Paradigms 81 | The Language Barrier 85 Translations, 85

The UAW and the Future of the Middle Class, 88

|The UAW, GM and Lansing Township 45 |Planners and the City 91

The Bargaining Table, 45

Plant Closures and Regional Response, 45

| More Michigan Manufacturing Cities 51

Flint, Michigan: Vehicle City, 51

Detroit, Michigan: The Motor City, 52

| North + South: A Divide in Working Culture 65

| General Motors Globally 69 | Identity Crisis: Waking Up from the American Dream 73

|Planning for Multiple Perspectives 95 | Suggestions for Redevelopment 97 Anchoring a Changing Community, 97

Education, 99 Trust, 99 Efficiency vs. Diversity, 100

| Works Cited 105

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Acknowledgments I would like to thank a few special people who made this project possible. First and foremost, I would like to express my appreciation to the staff of Lansing Township. Not only have you been tolerant of endless questions, you have continually offered your resources and input without hesitation. By looking through historic files and sharing personal stories with you all, the project really came to life for me. The assistance of Matt Brinkley and John Daher has been particularly helpful. For your breadth of knowledge and your willingness to make phone calls, offer contacts and find documents on my behalf I am very grateful.

To my interviewees, I would like to say that I was truly humbled by your willingness to contribute to this project by sharing your stories and unquestioningly devoting your time. Your perspectives were not only crucial additions to my research, but they helped me to understand a rich dimension of my hometown.

My thesis supervisors Bosse Bergman and Catharina Gabrielsson have offered critical insights and encouragement throughout this project. I would also like to thank Katie See for her guidelines and suggestions during the interviewing process. As skilled academics and warm personalities, they have all been a joy to work with.

Finally, I would like to thank my mom, dad and brother Erik. Your assistance, input and support throughout my education have made all of this possible.

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Preface W

hen I first started my research on the loss of industry in Lansing Township, Michigan, the roots of my knowledge were in academic discourse.

This type of knowledge, of course, makes helpful contributions to our understanding of the urban environment and enables us to frame certain aspects of urban life. However, in the past, it has had its limits in helping us to grasp the exact realities, politics and memories of site. This became evident to me when I began investigating something that I thought would only be support for other texts in my research: the personal narrative.

The more I talked to people about what they believed really happened, the less theoretical literature and its focus on broader trends was actually able to explain.

Although planning literature is a crucial addition to the understanding of trends and the sharing of new ideas in both an academic and practical sense, it should by no means be viewed as a final product. What I mean by this is that theoretical texts are often treated as though they embody universal truths that should pave the way for planning in the future. This is an opposing mentality to treating a work of theory as merely one voice that may add to the many discourses required to advance this increasingly multidisciplinary field.

For me, the danger in applying ideas from broader planning discourses to my actual case was the abundance of answers paired with a lack of rationale. For instance, describing what effects globalization supposedly has had on cities around the world spatially, does not necessarily help me to understand what policies and mechanisms have enabled it. It also doesn’t help

verify if something that happens to look like an effect of the global economy is even related at all. The logic of many popular planning mantras fell apart at the seams as I compared them to actual ground conditions.

The fact that there is currently a fundamental tension between ideas expressed in planning texts and empirical observation is extremely problematic. I attribute most of this tension to the aspirations of many planners to apply their ideas to cities around the world without regard for what’s really important about cities in the first place: their individuality. Regardless of what these thinkers are proposing in terms of broad generalizations, one thing that academics must learn to do in practice is treat theory only as a point of departure.

These assertions should never undermine the value of the empirical.

My site studies started in literature about the Lansing area and evolved into interviews with politicians, residents, General Motors’ employees, Union officials, and government employees among many. As an outsider, I was in need of their perspectives to answer some of the questions I had about the site, and as an account of what happened there. I wanted to ask questions relative to the interviewee’s personal experience with the site. In doing this, I was hoping to piece together the political realities that have created the site and make it complete.

Once I set out to start my semi-structured interviews, I immediately realized that I lacked any kind of knowledge about this type of data collection, and couldn’t go

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on. My education at that point simply hadn’t given me the tools to be able to collect such information. I then e-mailed an old friend and respected sociologist, Dr. Katie See, who (thankfully) humored me and gave me a crash course in the ethics, methodology and strategy of conducting interviews. From there, I started with just a few acquaintances that were related in some way to General Motors in the Lansing area. That handful of people referred me to other people, who in turn gave me phone numbers to even more people who were an expert on the site in one way or another. Before I knew it, I had conducted almost forty interviews, all from people who, for better or for worse, had GM alive in their memory.

Each personal narrative I collected filled a void within the story. Opposing accounts of what had gone on only filled out the story with a political dimension. One person firmly believed that working for General Motors was synonymous with the American Dream, while another claimed that General Motors ruined her marriage. Some worked for General Motors because their father and their father’s father worked there, while others worked at General Motors so that their kids didn’t have to. Many people that lived to see General Motors at its peak production still believe that the industry will make a complete comeback. Many people from younger generations are banking on industries that didn’t even exist back then. These narratives, with their many political and historical dimensions help to describe the less tangible elements of site that are imbedded both in memory and identity.

Of course, as planners, we should be concerned with the physical and spatial dimensions of site. A common error, however, is ignoring the fact that the site itself is only the physical manifestation of the politics and history that preceded it. Although the events and the feelings expressed through personal narrative are not always consistent with each other, these fragmented histories together create a collective reality. The ways in which these inconsistencies are navigated throughout history is what is at the heart of politics in America.

Determining a universal truth to what has happened on site is not only an oversimplification of our roles as planners, it would be an impossibility. Likewise, attempting to understand site using only the physical, tangible items that describe it does not do justice to the complex issues that have created it and continue to shape its future. Cities are human creations; there-

fore trying to grasp a complete understanding of them while neglecting the importance of cultural and social values, politics, history and memory is illogical. The conflicting rationalities within these topics become the site in its entirety, both tangibly and intangibly.

There isn’t a site in existence more fit to describe this relationship than the former General Motor’s plant sites in Lansing Township and Lansing, Michigan. The barren landscape is an accurate reflection of the power dynamics and the political dimensions that I have come across in my research. The site is the result of a long, prosperous industrial heritage concluded by desertion that the community was powerless to stop. The site is the politics. The site is the compromise. This void is symbolic of the sense of loss that some feel, as well as the anticipatory state that others see in it. Attempting to launch any kind of redevelopment process without a comprehensive understanding of the memory and the history imbedded within the site would be to foster an unrealistic expectation for its future. The ultimate goal of this paper is not to arrive at a conclusion about what “really” happened or to propose a plan for redevelopment. Through the investigation of site as both a political and physical manifestation of our culture, I hope to gain realistic insight into the specific needs of the site and the lessons that may be learned about practicing planning in this area.

Having harped on the idea that each individual narrative helps to create an understanding of site in its entirety, it seems only fair that the author’s story be told. Since I have approached the auto culture in Lansing, Michigan as mostly an outsider, I think the reader deserves an understanding of my background and an awareness of possible biases in my perspective. That said, I would like to throw my narrative into the fray: I’m 23. I grew up in a place called Meridian Township that is a suburb east of the city of Lansing. My parents and my friends’ parents would all have fit under the categories of middle or upper middle class professionals. My dad has been a professor at Michigan State University since before I was born and my mom is a career civil engineer and elected democrat. She was elected as an Ingham County Commissioner in 2002, but it didn’t start there. Both of my parents have been either elected officials or had a deep involvement with both the Democratic Party and local politics for as long as I can remember. My childhood memories are riddled with conventions, putting up yard signs and doing literature drops. In high school, during election season, I would

Masters Thesis_Lisa Berglund

sometimes leaflet a neighborhood on the way home from school to help out my mom. Being so present all the time, most of our closest family friends were made through my parents’ political involvement in the community.

Another thing that has been present in my family as far back as my memory allows, is my mother’s insistence that we buy American cars. I know that was out of principle and out of the belief that Americans can prosper on their own industry without buying foreign made brands that have an equal or better American counterpart. In addition, I’m sure it didn’t hurt that many close friends as well as support during election time came from the steadfast partnership between the United Auto Workers union and the Democratic Party. As I’m sure you can imagine, many of the interviews I conducted for my research regarding the unions themselves or politics in Lansing started with, “You sound just like your mother” or “I remember you when you were this tall.”

Although throughout my life artifacts of the auto industry in Michigan have constantly surrounded me, I still have to plead ignorance to most of it. I’m embarrassed to say that despite proximity, few to none of these things ever actually translated into an awareness of this industry that was right in my backyard or the tens of thousands of workers that supported it. When I was in high school, my parents got me a car. It was a Ford Focus. In my mind, I drove a Ford because mom said so. To me, it couldn’t have had anything to do with the fact that we lived in “the callus on the palm of the state shaped like a welder’s mitt” as Ben Hamper puts it so eloquently. After high school, I went on to college. Working in a factory wasn’t an option for me. When I say it wasn’t an option, I don’t mean that my parents wouldn’t have allowed me to. I mean that I was simply unaware of the option.

My awareness came about when I started working as an intern at the Lansing Township Planning Department. It’s hard to believe that I had to work in an office that sat literally across the street from almost 200 acres of General Motors decommissioned plant sites for it to really hit home. That’s where my research began, with the much appreciated support of the staff at Lansing Township.

This research examines site as not only the physical but also the social, cultural and economic manifestations of the presence of large-scale industry in an urban landscape. The results of this research and its implications will describe the site on various scales from personal identity to global economic trends. Using the past, present and future of General Motors in Lansing Township, Michigan as a case study, the link between larger global phenomena such as globalization and the

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free market will be discussed in terms of their sitespecific manifestations. The interface between global trends and local identity, I will argue, is altered uniquely at each locale due to politics, history and identity. Currently, the former General Motors plants in Lansing Township are contaminated and in the process of redevelopment. This thesis will also define the redevelopment challenges for the planner in light of sitespecific research. Finally, the tension between site specificity and generalized discussions will be examined in relation to their problematic roles in current planning discourses and the planning profession. //

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The State of Michigan Milwaukee

Masters Thesis_Lisa Berglund

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Photo from the Library of Michigan Archives

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Historical Overview I

n order to add context to the following chapters, I will first give an overview of the relevant history of General Motors, Oldsmobile and the Lansing area. The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century in Michigan brought the entrepreneurship of countless automobile manufacturers throughout the state. Of these newly founded companies, only a handful of brands saw long-term success. Today the most notable of them are Oldsmobile, Dodge, Chevrolet, Ford, Chrysler, Buick and Cadillac. Ransom E. Olds started building cars in Lansing, Michigan in 1897 and by 1899 had started Olds Motor Works. In 1908, William C. Durant formed General Motors Corporation through the purchase of Oldsmobile among several other brands (Davis 1999). As an addition to production space being leased in Lansing’s Fisher Body Plant, in 1930, Olds purchased the plant sites in Lansing Township. Around this time, General Motors celebrated the sale of the one millionth Oldsmobile (Grimm et al. 2008).

Up until this point, GM management had dictated the wages and hours of the production workforce. Plants were often run and supervised by arrangements made with the Freemasons and Ku Klux Klan members (McAttee 2011). Citing lack of fair representation, workers in the Fisher Body Plant No. 1 in Flint, Michigan went on a sit down strike that lasted almost two months (Davis 1999). The strike was resolved through the creation and recognition of the first contract of the United Auto Workers union. The rights afforded to autoworkers through this contract were by no means extravagant, but the contract officially established the

United Auto Workers as the responsible party for collective bargaining between management and labor (McAttee 2011).

During World War II, the Oldsmobile Forge Plant in Lansing Township halted automobile production and was used to make artillery and vehicles for the war effort (Grimm et al. 2008). A large portion of production workers were called for military service, requiring many positions to be filled by women and immigrant labor. In the decades following the end of the war, GM and its workers had their most prosperous years to date (Davis 1999). Not only did car sales peak, the UAW had contracts offering its highest wages, vacation time, pensions and other benefits. During the 50s and 60s, production was so high, GM could not keep up with demand by employing only the workforce in the Midwest United States. GM began to recruit workers from southern states, multiplying the workforce and making a lasting impact on local culture at plant locations. By the late 70s, GM employment in the Lansing region reached its peak at 23,000 (Grimm et al. 2008).

The 80s brought massive plant closures for areas like Flint and Pontiac, Michigan for budgetary reasons (White 2011). Although Lansing area plants were threatened by the downsizing of GM in other parts of Michigan, it was ultimately decided that Lansing locations would continue to produce some of the new models (Grimm et al. 2008). The UAW was forced to make their first concession in decades when they agreed to pay cuts to prevent bankruptcy (United Auto Workers 2010).

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In 1997, Oldsmobile celebrated its 100th anniversary.

Simultaneously, the Mayor of Lansing, David Hollister was informed that General Motors intended to close several Lansing area plants, including all of the plants located in Lansing Township citing inefficiency as the main reason. Aggressive campaigns to retain GM operations in the Lansing area resulted in the decision to open two new plants: Lansing Delta Township Assembly and Lansing Grand River Assembly (Hollister 2011). In 2004, the last car rolled off the line in Lansing Township, and in 2006 the first vehicles produced at the Lansing Delta Township Assembly plant were distributed to dealers (Grimm et al. 2008). Several years later the buildings at the old Lansing Township plants were demolished leaving no above ground structures and over 150 acres of contaminated soil and concrete.

Employees from the Lansing Township plants as well as other closed plants throughout the country made up the bulk of the workforce at the new Lansing plants (Jewell 2011). In 2007, the UAW went on strike several

times during difficult contract negotiations. Later that year, a two-tiered wage system went in place that mandated that new hires would make substantially lower wages than workers with seniority and also cut pensions for many workers (Fredline 2011).

Unable to find financial stability in the midst of the collapse of the banking industry in the United States, General Motors Corporation declared chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009. The federal government issued the company a 50 billion dollar loan allowing operations to continue, but making the US government the majority shareholder of GM. In bankruptcy, Motors Liquidation Corporation was created to deal with contaminated sites and other liabilities. A 773 million dollar environmental trust fund was created by the Obama administration that will assist communities with contaminated General Motors’ sites to undergo brownfield mitigation in the future. In 2011, General Motors recorded profits for the first time since 2004 (Lansing State Journal Staff 2010). //

Masters Thesis_Lisa Berglund

Photos from the Lansing Township Assessor’s Office

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View of the former site of plant 3 from Saginaw Street.

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The former site of plant 6.

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The former site of plant 6.

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View of the former site of plant 3 from Saginaw Street.

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View of the former site of plant 3 from Saginaw Street.

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View of the former site of plant 2 from West Michigan Avenue.

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The Birthright Generational Aptitude | The profession of automotive assembly in Michigan could be considered its own enclave within the cultural heritage of the American working class. Many lineworkers are living proof that car manufacturing has become not only a regional industry in the state, but has become something that has defined identity and has been solidified as a cultural icon. The profession has become something of an ancestral pattern and transcendent from one generation to the next. General Motors has long provided substantial wages and evolved a very particular work environment. Over time, auto assembly has bred a unique subculture of working class laborers. Many of the lineworkers I have spoken with have described a similar work experience, with similar wages, similar responsibilities, similar hours, and similar shoulder pains. Although the United Auto Workers union has guaranteed equal treatment on the part of management, the experience of each member has been absorbed and recounted in a distinct way, with its own unique consequences. These narratives have bared witness to the changes in the automotive industry and give a unique glance of the root causes of larger spatial consequences in a continuously evolving work culture.

For many lineworkers, the profession of automotive assembly is introduced by their pedigree. Not only do the factories house assembly lines that pump out cars at all hours of the day, they make their mark on the region’s cultural heritage one family after another. Long days of factory work have become a given for some that come from a lineage of automotive assemblers.

Retired Flint lineworker and writer Ben Hamper (1986) describes his seemingly inevitable fate as an assembly line worker in his book Rivethead: It wasn’t as if this profession was a plague that appeared out of nowhere to ensnare my old man. Quite the opposite was true.

His daddy was a shoprat. His daddy’s daddy was a shoprat.

Perhaps his daddy’s daddy’s daddy would have been a shoprat if only Hank Ford would have dreamed this shit up a little sooner.

Not only has Hamper described his family’s long history on the assembly line, he gives the sense that some kind of predestination has landed him there too. Hamper also habitually refers to his career on the assembly line as his “birthright”. He gives the impression, albeit somewhat sarcastically, that as a form of reparation for his family’s long history of hard physical labor in the plants, it was only just that he too would be entitled to the security of a job on the assembly line (Hamper 1986).

There were also people who paid special attention to break the legacy of GM in their family. With the wages and benefits being offered at some points in time, it is easy to see how continuing in the family tradition would have been enticing. As I sat down and talked with former Lansing Mayor Tony Benavides (2011), he openly admitted that his newly immigrated brothers and sisters had GM to thank for everything they had.

He recalled: I remember when I was a kid and going to high school. I graduated in 1967 from Sexton High School right across the street

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from Fisher Body. I remember going over there because we had field trips over there. I remember going over there and I didn’t particularly care for the noise. You know, there was a lot of noise. So, I wanted to do something different.

Choosing to break from a tradition of lineworkers is something that was consciously decided by many. In fact, the last three mayors of Lansing have descended from a GM family. A lot of people break with tradition not in the interest of finding something “better”, but hoping to pursue something that’s just different from the factory workers they’ve been brought up with.

For others that followed their family heritage to a career in the plants, the continuation of such a legacy is a source of pride. Many lineworkers have felt a strong sense of ownership in the production of the American icons made at GM. Mike Green, President of UAW local 652 proudly explained the value of the profession, as it exists in Lansing: One thing that GM does know about is the people that make it happen. The reason those jobs are here is because of the people that are in that plant and because of our members doing the job they do. They build cars. That’s what they do. I’m not the only one. There’s all kinds of generations in there. I happen to be in a fourth generation family, but some people in there are second, third, fourth and fifth generation families. That’s why GM is smart enough to figure out where they’re going to bring their products. They figure out who’s doing the job, and who’s doing the job right In the union hall of the local 652, two local presidents explained that there was a commonly held belief in a high quality of workmanship associated with automotive assembly running in families. They called this, “generational aptitude”. It may not be the genetic predisposition it sounds like. It is partially the result of cultural heritage and partially the result of General Motors’ hiring policies. The GM legacy would be extended by a generation when prospective employees with family in the plants were given priority over people with no legacy to uphold. Some put in effort to evade the family tradition, while others openly embraced the prospect of a career in car manufacturing.

Lansing residents recall the abundance of jobs paired with family connections that resulted in many high school graduates going directly to work in the plants.

That’s not to say that all lineworkers were descended

from a family of GM employees. Working in the plants was an alluring option for a lot of young people during the second half of the 20th century, new blood and not. No college education was required then and GM offered incentives that couldn’t be easily matched by other jobs in the manufacturing sector. A teacher in the area at the time, Trish Ellison recalls: Thinking back on it, there were always some students that you felt had potential for working somewhere other than GM on the line. It was like, that’s what their dad did, and they knew they could do it. They knew they could do it without college prep, they could do it without a college degree. They just accepted it, that that’s the way it was, even though they had the potential to go to college and get a degree.

She said this with a sense of frustration that was quelled by the understanding that given the benefits of working at GM at the time, she couldn’t blame them. Back then, the wages negotiated by the UAW were higher than a lot of jobs that required a college degree. Additionally, the hours of the shifts worked at GM allowed many workers to attend classes while they supported their families. That’s not to say that there weren’t people that already had a college degree who chose to work in the plants. In the 60s, 70s and 80s a vast majority of the workforce had no college education, but many collegeeducated people were attracted by union contracts that offered stability and high wages. It also didn’t hurt that at some points, production was so high that getting a job was as easy as walking into the plant’s administration offices (Fredline 2011).

Historically and increasingly so in recent years, middle class wages have been difficult to earn without a college education. Before the United Auto Workers were established, management was given full authority to determine wages and who got hired and fired when.

Since then, the opportunities afforded by these unions for the working class have maintained a standard that was unimaginable to the first assembly workers in GM’s formative years. The very first UAW contract in the late 30s merely established the union as the responsible party for collective bargaining between labor and management. From that simple bottom line, the UAW has since negotiated into the contracts benefits, pensions, vacation time and some of the highest wages of any manufacturing sector (McAttee 2011). As General Motors saw higher and higher sales, the union saw it as their imperative to negotiate higher and higher wages

Masters Thesis_Lisa Berglund

for their members. Auto workers were not the only ones who benefit from the existence of unions. General Motors as a company acknowledges the necessity for such unions in the wellbeing of their workforce, and the subsequent quality levels of their products.

Additionally, these wages, along with optional overtime when available, allowed assembly workers to be able to afford a middle class lifestyle. As a regional Director of the UAW, Norwood Jewel explained that: If you look at union density here in this country and the wealth of the middle class and you go back four decades and track that, as union density has declined, so have the wealth of the middle class. When people say that the unions created the middle class, it’s very true and the beginning of that was with GM and the UAW. His description paints an image of the UAW as an agent of democracy in a society with a growing wealth disparity. In the views of many union supporters, the mission of the UAW has served as a bridge for this gap through the creation and the expansion of the middle class. Conversations with union officials reflect the idea that the possibility of an American dream for a large portion of the working class was contingent on the negotiations of the United Auto Workers (Fredline 2011).

Former Lansing Mayor David Hollister described the opportunities union wages created for his family and others growing up: There was a middle class lifestyle. Everybody had a cottage at the lake. The kids had everything they ever wanted. They sent their kids on to college. I mean, my dad raised five kids and he was a high school dropout. We had a cottage at the lake. That was the American Dream.

In this context, the role of education and its value in terms of capital has been erased by the wages guaranteed through union membership. This lifestyle and the lack of an education requirement at the time has been a point of contention for some that would like to see a more proportionate reward for higher education.

Camaraderie | The combination of factors in the lineworker lifestyle created a social culture that seemed almost to run par-

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allel to the rest of society. During times of highest production (most of the 60s, 70s and 80s) the Lansing Township plants were able to support three shifts of workers. Based on seniority, workers were scheduled to run the assembly line around the clock. Employees with the most seniority will be offered work on the first shift from early morning until early afternoon.

The second shift is offered to younger and slightly less experienced employees. Finally, on the third shift are the least experienced lineworkers that run the midnight shift (Hollister 2011). The hours kept by GM manufacturers were slightly askew from the workday of the general population. A few lineworkers have said that for this very reason, the people they spent the workday with in the plant were often the same people they socialized with outside of work. Maria Starr (2011), a retired lineworker from one of the Lansing Township plants told me: Working nights and working there 6 days a week, by the time we got out of work, it was like 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning.

We were all wide-eyed and bushy tailed. We would go home and everyone would be sleeping. People who were single, or who had roommates, or even couples would say, “Hey, come on over to my house and have a few drinks and play some pool.” And we did . . .I think our social lives were mainly busier from Wednesday through the weekends. So we would hang out mainly with the people we worked with after hours because there was nothing else to do . . . And we wanted to go out and relax. Sometimes people would go out for breakfast, especially on the weekends, or on a Friday night we would go have breakfast after work. But that was our social life.

The tone of her account highlighted the sense of camaraderie and pride felt by the line workers whose hours required them to live a lifestyle converse to the rest of their friends and family. It felt as though they experienced an existence that they could only count on each other to understand fully.

Consequences | Despite company of a distinct lineworker society and union wages, working in the plants brought several negative consequences for workers. The unusual hours had the potential to cause difficult situations at home, and caused many workers to miss out on family life. Reflecting on her kids’ childhoods, Maria said, “If

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you think about it, there’s a lot we missed. We missed taking them out for trick-or-treating. We missed their Christmas programs. Any events they had at night, we missed that. It was even hard to get a night off to go see your kid play football” (Starr 2011). Although at union wages, workers had little trouble providing adequate income for their families, many workers found it more difficult to get time to spend with them.

Inside the plants, the shear number of employees and busy atmosphere created a cloak of anonymity. Some found that pushing the envelope of what was acceptable in the factory was easier to do than in other workplaces. A retired regional Political Director for the UAW, Bruce McAttee, described the plants: . . . The factory is a little city. It’s a place where there’s constant drama. There’s everything from people that sit in the break area and have bible study at lunch to affairs that take place because people meet there at the shop. Every single thing that you have in the city, you have in the shop. You can be in denial and say that there’s nobody that drinks alcohol. Bullshit. You have a small percentage of people that will run to the bar and have a few drinks. You have some people that go smoke pot. You have people that go do things that they shouldn’t, just like you do in society.

And you have to deal with those folks.

While the union prioritized keeping a drug and alcohol free workplace, individuals working under the influence have been responsible for painting a somewhat negative image of the union in this respect. For every union official speaking out against this stereotype of lineworkers, there is someone else voicing disapproval of the union for it’s handling of these matters. Several union officials have expressed their frustrations with the amount of negative press received on account of delinquent workers in comparison to the rare mention of the unions’ charitable contributions to the local community.

The Union and Personal Identity | In response to the need for better health and safety in the plants, improvement of ergonomic standards has become a part of UAW contracts in recent decades.

Before ergonomics had become as strong of a consideration as they are today, work in the factory took its toll on the body. Through the middle of the 20th

century, repetitive movements of the same parts of the body turned into chronic pains and sometimes caused permanent damage. Constant stretching to work on oversized machinery landed many workers at the plant doctor’s office with strained joints and muscles. Retired lineworker David Benavides (2011) told me: I put in regulators for the windows. You had to climb inside the car. I mean, crawl in. But you’re young, so you can do it. Get in, and fast. Next! Next! I had my older brother come in there one time. . . he worked for GM too, and he was kind of smart.

He always looked for better jobs. I had been in there for some time when he had already been there for several years. He saw me climbing in. Every car, he saw me climb in and I had to put in this thing, and get out and go to the next. He said, “I can’t believe you’re doing this. Why don’t you look for something better? That’s why I’m standing here talking to you. If I had done that, I wouldn’t even be in a condition to!”

Before ergonomic standards, repetitive motions like this were damaging to the body. The nature of this work also made it difficult for some women to compete for jobs on the same level as men in the plants. As health and safety conditions improved, the number of women working in production, and later, management, increased significantly (Fredline 2011).

Until the 60s and 70s, men filled a vast majority of assembly line jobs. The increased prominence of women on the line was facilitated by the women’s movement.

Although the UAW prided itself on being one of the most forward thinking, socially just unions at the time, women were still by and large left out of the conversation (Gabin 1990). Women’s work in the plants before this time was mostly limited to sewing upholstery and assembly of smaller parts (McAttee 2011).

Since the civil rights and women’s movements, many union sponsored groups have been started with the aim of informing members of their rights as workers as well as members of society. Many workers lacked interest in union activities, but for those involved, it has changed their career. The empowerment promoted through women’s groups and charitable events contribute important cultural experiences and add to the understanding of what it means to be a member.

Maria Starr confessed that perhaps she was sheltered from an understanding of her rights and the struggles faced by Mexican-Americans like her. For her, gaining an understanding of the mission of the union, and the

Masters Thesis_Lisa Berglund

empowerment from her subsequent involvement gave her the desire to spread the message to her coworkers.

She told me: When I started out, I never used to be involved. I never went to union meetings, because I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand what a union was. When I attended a Latino Worker Leadership Institute conference, that’s when I learned the backbone of the union . . . So I was on the civil rights committee of my local union . . . I had never understood civil rights, either. To me, I thought that civil rights were just for black people because of the history of the 60s. I really didn’t know the history. I didn’t understand it was for everybody. I never understood . . .

Mexicans rode in the back of the bus too, not only blacks.

For Maria, as with many other workers who have been involved in the union, an understanding of the necessity for such an organization has been a defining factor in their career and exploration of their personal identity. Their involvement also helped them to stay informed as to when and why there would be changes to the working culture in the plant.

Changes in Working Culture + Efficiency | Since the first cars were built in garages by the American auto industry’s pioneers, car production has undergone a complete transformation. A decrease in sales over the years paired with increasingly efficient plant operations have changed the assembly line from what it once was. Economist Tim Jackson (2009) explains that in this situation, due to efficiency, “fewer people are needed to produce the same goods from one year to the next year. As long as the economy grows fast enough to offset this increase in ‘labour efficiency’ there isn’t a problem. But if it doesn’t, then increased labour productivity means that someone somewhere loses their job”. For example, as a regular practice to increase efficiency and consistency of workers, time studies are done on individual jobs. It is the time studier’s job to time and record each step on the assembly line for review by management. In the past, this was done to assure that each employee was keeping up with the rest of the employees. Time study has evolved into a practice that enables management to determine which jobs may be eliminated in the interest of lowering costs. Bruce McAttee explained:

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Another thing was, back when I hired in, they would time study.

They would time study you to where you’re working 46 to sometimes 52 seconds in a minute. Last I heard, they were up to 57 seconds in a minute . . . When you do that, you eliminate jobs.

For every 5, 6, 7 jobs you time study, you eliminate a job. You have a need for less people.

He also pointed out, that efficiency of this level is something that is only demanded in plant work. Downsizing departments in any other field is rarely done by consistent reevaluation based on time.

Decreasing the amount of people on the line has also been accomplished through automation. The use of robots and computers have allowed several different jobs on the line done by several people being paid union wages to be replaced by machines. The use of computers in the more state of the art plants has also raised the qualifications for jobs in GM manufacturing.

Jobs that were once done mostly by high school graduates now require some vocational training or several years of college due to new technology.

Another reason for the decline in union membership is a fundamental change in the way entire plants operate. For a long time, union workers manufactured all the parts of a car in the same place. The outsourcing to secondary suppliers off site has allowed many companies not necessarily owned by GM to become parts suppliers. This means that GM can reduce cost by choosing to do business with one of many competing parts suppliers (McAttee 2011). Outsourcing services has also threatened unionized maintenance jobs in the plants that are known as skilled trades. These workers are required to have vocational training in their trade and are paid more than other production workers. Brian Fredline, president of UAW local 602 told me: They have been under attack more than the production workers have lately because with the new GM, they want to eliminate almost all skilled trades. They want to subcontract that work out to venders. It used to be that when you bought a fork truck, the fork truck came into a General Motors plant. General Motors would own the fork truck; they would maintain the fork truck and their truck repairmen would repair the truck. Now, GM wants to lease the same vehicle and have that company’s on-site truck repairmen in our plants fixing their leased equipment and our truck repairmen no longer exist.

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Strategic, incremental changes to work environment made by management seem to leave union leaders feeling a sense of betrayal as membership slowly dwindles.

In terms of cost, outsourcing is advantageous to General Motors because it allows them to maintain the same production while having to pay less union wages.

The constant downsizing of the workforce for efficiency purposes is a threat that is now internalized within union culture. The threat of permanent or temporary layoffs is constantly looming in the minds of workers and union officials. Because of slowing auto sales and increased efficiency, the past quarter of a century have brought plant closures throughout the United States.

Union contracts guarantee the opportunity for relocation of laid off workers from across the nation to plants that are still operating. UAW regional Director Norwood Jewell (2011) said: The biggest change would be due to the plant closings in different areas in the state and sometimes even in the country. People move from plant to plant, so you have a lot of people that are relocated from one plant to another. It changes the dynamic of the group as a whole. Because of that, you’ve got people from ten different work sites that all end up at the same work site . . . Take, for instance, the Lansing Delta Township Plant. There’s a large number of people that transferred up from Tennessee . . .You know, the culture of Tennessee is a little bit different than it is in Michigan. So that brings it’s own differences, I guess, in the way people look at things and so forth.

Changes in the working culture of plants have been accompanied by union concessions that have been written into contracts since the early 2000s. The concession with the largest impact has been the introduction of the two-tiered wage system (Fredline 2011). Under this system, new hires earn about half what workers with more seniority do. This was written into contracts when GM stopped recording profits and bankruptcy was looming. In 2009, when General Motors filed for bankruptcy, the wages established by the two-tier system, initially intended to be temporary, became indefinite (McAttee 2011).

For many decades, General Motors enjoyed corporate success that was translated into high wages, benefits and pensions by the UAW. Simultaneous efforts to increase efficiency and corporate bankruptcy have substantially reduced union membership. The addition of automation and other changes in working culture have made it unclear how long the lineworker identity will

be perpetuated for future generations in communities with General Motors’ facilities. The Lansing area has witnessed the fluctuations in the workforce over the past few decades as well as changes in their communities because of plant closings and openings. For union leaders, watching manufacturing jobs be slowly negotiated out of contracts is just as fatiguing as the taxing hours of exertion spent on the assembly line. //

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Lansing Township

Delta Township

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Craft Center (Plant 3)

Lansing Metal Center (Plant 2) Verlinden Plant (Plant 6)

Lansing Grand River Assembly

City of Lansing

The Lansing Region

City of East Lansing

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The UAW, GM + Lansing Township The Bargaining Table | The unique histories and personal relationships involved in contract negotiations have had a great impact on labor-management relationships (McAttee 2011).

Over time, these relationships have begun to shape the way business is done. This rapport that differs by area plays a large role in the reputation and success of negotiations. Given the fact that the union was formed in the midst of an extended sit down strike, it is easy to see how management and labor could continue to have an adversarial relationship. Some labor-management relations have become rather antagonistic over time, whereas in areas like Lansing, substantial efforts have been made to carry on negotiations amicably. Any union official will tell you that when it comes time to go to the table and negotiate a contract, the last thing they want to do is go on strike. Although striking sends a clear message to management, it also jeopardizes wages and job security for the locals involved. Furthermore, a strike damages the relationships involved.

The relationship between Lansing’s UAW locals and management is unique. The efforts made to work as a team go far beyond simply trying not to strike. For both parties, the other is seen as a necessary ingredient in the success of continued operations in the area. Local 652 President Mike Green told me: I think they look at it like we help to run the business. That we get what we have to put out the very best quality product and the rest of the things and when you empower people to do that, it happens. They’ve figured out that we’re not the enemy and

that we know they’re not the enemy. I put it into the perspective that I have to live with them and I have to sleep with them. One wouldn’t be here without the other.

They don’t have to be friends, but the most important part of negotiations is that they cannot become enemies. It’s easy to see how the mission of both parties in bargaining might seem to be fundamentally at odds with each other. In practice, extensive efforts are made to keep these feelings of animosity to a minimum. Programs have been established to instruct labor and management to carry on agreements without placing blame. By looking at contract negotiation as a necessity for the wellbeing of both parties as opposed to competition, an adversarial tone to interactions is at least somewhat alleviated (McAttee 2011). It was also brought to my attention that management and labor in Lansing have even made a similar effort when it comes to everyday plant operations. Former Mayor David Hollister (2011) recalled that in the past, the UAW has even offered temporary office space in the union hall for new members of management who had not yet been accommodated. This relationship with management, although it has become somewhat strained in the union concessions of recent years, is a far cry from the circumstances under which the UAW was established.

Plant Closures + Regional Political Response | While the plants were in operation, relations between

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Lansing Township officials and General Motors followed a similar pattern as other municipalities. Efforts were constantly made to make the Lansing area an attractive place for GM to conduct business. Among the measures taken were the issuance of tax abatements as requested by GM. Knowing the economic importance of GM in the area, the Township Board members consistently unanimously approved tax abatements. Township Supervisor John Daher told me:

ficient plants in the country, some of the buildings on site were over a hundred years old, and the cost of maintaining them in the face of continuing changes to production technology became undesirable for GM. Another factor was that the operations and locations of existing Lansing area plants required GM to pay too many taxes to too many different taxing agencies for their liking. For GM to agree to continue production in the Lansing area, costs had to be reduced significantly (Hollister 2011).

One thing that General Motors expected the Township to do was to give them what was called at the time tax abatement. The minimum tax abatement was twelve years and you know, they expected a large portion, sometimes up to 50% of tax forgiveness over a period of time. I honestly felt that because the law existed, and because the law existed for industrial facilities like General Motors, it was probably a good idea for us to provide tax abatements. Almost to a person, every member of the Township Board was generally in favor.

Around the time that Mayor Hollister was informed of upcoming plant closures for the Lansing area, he was also notified that these plants would be replaced by new state of the art facilities somewhere in the world, but that the location of them was yet to be determined.

The company was to begin research and receive bids from different locations to decide the best place for the new production operations.

A general feeling for many people in the area is that generosity on the part of the township through GM’s struggles has not been reciprocated in recent years when the township has fallen on hard times. The city of Lansing, where adjacent plant properties were located, also consistently voted to give General Motors tax abatements. Through the eyes of Lansing and Lansing Township officials, tax abatements were granted in the interest of maintaining economic stability for not just their municipalities, but for the Lansing region. Most residents agreed, however, a few felt as though GM’s efforts towards corporate citizenship should include contributing to the community by paying full taxes like everyone else.

Dependence on General Motors as such a large employer and taxpayer created an economic monoculture in Lansing Township. It was foreseen that the effects of plant closures with no replacement industry would be economically and socially devastating. It came as a complete surprise to most that the industry that had been the lifeblood of the region and a rich source of cultural heritage for the area would be gone seemingly overnight. Aware of the devastating consequences of the complete loss of this industry for the area, the Mayor began a campaign to keep GM. The campaign’s strategy was guided by past experience and an understanding of GM’s reasoning for plant closures. Mayor Hollister explained the strategy:

In 1997, after almost a century of operation on the Lansing Township sites, General Motors announced the decommissioning and demolition of several factories. The 100th anniversary of Oldsmobile in Lansing was to be a celebration where they would launch the final product to be manufactured at those plants. Several years later, after the production of the last model, the Oldsmobile Alero, was complete, the plants would cease operations permanently. Closure of the Lansing Township plants was accompanied by plant closures in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Missouri and Ontario (General Motors 2005). For the Lansing Township plants, General Motors sited cost as the biggest determinant in closure. Although these plants consistently ranked with some of the most ef-

I hadn’t even been Mayor a year, and I was being told that they were going to close . . . So, I decided to form a “Keep GM” committee . . . I met with Jim Zupka who was the plant manager for the Lansing small car assembly . . . Then we created a logo, “Keep GM.” We put billboards between Lansing and Detroit because we knew that on the launch of the Alero there would be people coming to Lansing to oversee that. We wanted them to see that we were going to keep GM. We went out and raised probably 150 or $200,000 to put together a campaign to keep GM. . . As the launch date came, General Motors indicated to us that this was the most successful launch ever in the opening of a new product. Mark Hogan. . . told us that GM was thinking about building another plant in America for a new product that had not been announced. Because of the success of what we had done with the launch of the Alero, we should put together a

Masters Thesis_Lisa Berglund

plan to see if we could capture it here. Now, there hadn’t been a plant built in America for Ford, Chrysler or General Motors for over 20 years . . .. We had a big challenge. So, we put together this committee and began to develop a comprehensive community strategy to convince General Motors to stay . . . Now, we’re sending the message that the community really is working together.

Then, we convinced Hogan that we wanted to compete for a plant that’s going to be built somewhere in the world. He said he needed 200 acres. Two hundred acres in the city of Lansing? I thought maybe you’d have to take one of the golf courses. Or knock down neighborhoods . . . One of the things we learned from them was to have a disciplined, coordinated strategy and hire an engineer, who speaks engineering, not someone who speaks political.

General Motors doesn’t hear that, they want to hear engineering.

We hired a guy by the name of Ray Tadgerson, who was a local engineer, to coordinate this effort for us. That was a wise decision, because when he said he wanted 200 acres, and Lansing Township didn’t have it, but Delta did, and Delhi did and Meridian did. So we put together 5 sites, one of them in the city of Lansing and it was on 80 acres . . .[The engineer] took that blueprint and took the property that they owned in Lansing at the old site that they were going to tear down, and showed that if you reconfigured how you were going to do the building, you could do it on the site that you owned. You would save money, because you already own it. You’re reusing the property and there’s a lot of advantages.

The infrastructure is there, the water, the sewer, the electrical is all in that spot . . . We convinced Hogan that the Lansing site was the preferred site. Once we did that, he became our spearcarrier internally to General Motors . . . After we got that under way, Hogan came to us and said, “You did such a great job, this is the most successful building we’ve ever done, we’d be interested in a second plant, and we need 1200 acres.” That’s when we went to Delta Township.

The construction of the second plant in Delta Township, a neighboring municipality, was contingent on the drafting of a 425 agreement. This type of agreement is a land sharing agreement that allows tax abatements and other stipulations made in Lansing to be applicable to the plant in Delta Township. In effect, the Delta Assembly plant has become a part of the city of Lansing for the agreement that lasts 50 years. This agreement was favorable to GM who found it disagreeable to have to answer to almost 150 different taxing agencies with the previous plants in the Lansing area (Hollister 2011). With General Motors convinced by the low price of operations paired with consistently top ranked product quality, construction of the two new Lansing area plants began.

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Along with the drawings and costs that were worked out for the new plants, another strategy implemented in the Keep GM campaign was the strengthening of the areas education. It was thought that creating a source of better educated workers by investing time and money in schools could further persuade GM to stay in the region. Tutoring programs in kindergarten through 12th grade education were started and investments in the vocational technology programs in the local community college were made. With more and more education being required to work on the assembly line, the promotion of education in the Lansing area would send the message that along with generational aptitude, the municipalities involved were also supporting the quality of the workforce (Hollister 2011).

By 2006, the new plants were completed, staffed and producing cars. The employees at the two new plants were mostly relocated workers from plants that had closed in Lansing and around the country. Despite quick changes and turmoil caused by decisions on the part of management in the past, most people, including public figures seem to be pretty optimistic about the continued operations in these plants. The future closure of General Motors’ plants again seems to have drifted outside the scope of anyone’s imagination. Public officials like Richard Watkins, the township Manager of Delta Township asserts that although General Motors is a large part of the economy in the area, they believe that the economy is already substantially diversified (Watkins 2011).

For Lansing Township, the negative effects of decommissioning plants have far outweighed the positive regional significance of opening two plants in neighboring municipalities (Brinkley 2011). In 2009, demolition of the Lansing Township plants was completed after a drawn out process of permit approval. In fact, in an effort to ensure complete responsibility on the part of General Motors, legislation was passed that altered procedures covered by demolition permits and brought them to some of the highest standards in the state. Lansing Township is now faced with the time consuming and expensive task of mitigating contamination on the former plant sites and redeveloping the land. Negotiations with General Motors have proven quite difficult over the years and have involved a lot of navigation through corporate bureaucracy on the part of the Township (Daher 2011). Moving forward with cleaning and redeveloping the site has been eased

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only slightly through bankruptcy. The sites have legally been transferred to ownership under Motors Liquidation Corporation, a company created predominately to handle assets that are liabilities. Of progress made and reneging of agreements on the part of General Motors in the years since decommissioning, Supervisor John Daher said: First of all, I’m disappointed that we’ve taken so long to get to where we’re at. For the better part of six years, I’ve known that we were no longer going to have plants 2 and 3. . I want some movement, and I want it much faster than what we’re getting from General Motors . . . I’m in a position where, sooner or later, I’m going to sit down with the township board to see what actions we want to take because we’re getting no resolution that we need from General Motors. As of today, I see that properties four or five years ago are still sitting there with no chance of redevelopment. That’s not what I bought into when I agreed that the properties would be demolished and that we would work with General Motors for redevelopment.

Lansing Township continues to push responsibility into the hands of General Motors. This persistence is quite different from the ways other municipalities have handled sites in the aftermath of plant closures. Many municipalities have sought only monetary reparations for the loss of industry, whereas Lansing Township is attempting to hold GM accountable for the liabilities involved in brownfield mitigation as well. Since both the State of Michigan and the United States Environmental Protection Agency hold the owner of properties accountable for clean up, Lansing Township is apprehensive to take ownership of the sites. In this sense, the Township is inclined to continue negotiations and legal proceedings until mitigation is completed (Brinkley 2011).

The challenges now faced by Lansing Township do not end at the mitigation and redevelopment of the former plant sites. Closure of plants has taken away crucial patronage of local businesses, and left many commercial vacancies. While the plants were operating, it is estimated that an additional two jobs were created in local spin off businesses for every assembly job (Fulton & Grimes 1999). Additionally, in the midst of an economic recession, businesses are having an even more difficult time attracting customers. The lanes of empty road near the sites that were dimensioned to be filled with tens of thousands of workers only echo the desertion felt by small businesses in the area.

Starting in the 20s, neighborhoods near the site have been developed and been home to a large portion of assembly workers. The stability of General Motors in the area translated to the stability of these neighborhoods. Since plant closures, housing values have suffered. Simultaneous plant demolition and the beginning of a recession brought housing values lower still.

Residents of these areas have expressed concern about the high number of foreclosures and lower numbers of owner occupied homes (Ellison 2011). As a result of the high turn over of residence, the sense of community for these areas has diminished. In a conversation with Chief of police Kay Hoffman (2011), she explained that in her line of work, these things translate to shifts in crime patterns and an increase in neighborly disputes.

The prosperity once seen in Lansing Township is now being enjoyed by the new plant locations. Autoworkers and the subsequent business they bring to the area is now helping to support businesses in Delta Township and other areas of Lansing. As an odd reminder of the desertion of General Motors, the administrative offices of the union locals 602 and 652 that represent the relocated work force still lie adjacent to the demolished plant sites.

Agreement on the need to work together as a region to retain GM was a key contributor to the success of the Keep GM campaign. While the retention of GM and the building of the Delta Township plant was made possible by an impressive feat of regional cooperation, its hard to see where Lansing Township gets a word in. Lansing Township Senior Planner Matt Brinkley expressed his disappointment with the way plant closures were handled regionally: Delta Township has benefited greatly from the choice to locate those plants in Delta Township. We know for a fact that the workers that are in those plants are workers from the locals that are still located in Lansing Township in terms of their offices and so forth. So those are people that are now out in Delta Township working and not working here in Lansing Township.

The effect of that is that they’re not frequenting businesses in Lansing Township . . . Lansing Township has not in any way directly benefited from the move to the location in Delta Township. I think that, ideally, if we were working regionally on economic development, we would have done something so that Lansing Township’s issues were addressed. Lansing Township

Masters Thesis_Lisa Berglund

has to take on considerable liability. It spends staff resources dealing with the demolition . . .Maybe some money could have come to Lansing Township to help take care of what is a huge liability for us, and for the city of Lansing, quite frankly.

In this respect regional cooperation has turned a blind eye to the needs of Lansing Township, and the municipality has been labeled an economic has been. Seemingly uninhibited by the plant closures of the past or chronic downsizing, the Lansing region continues to look ahead towards a future with GM. For the time being, the newly built manufacturing facilities are still state of the art, and are still increasing production as GM emerges successfully from bankruptcy. There is one lesson that Lansing Township has learned with deleterious consequences and continues to learn with hopeful anticipation as brownfield mitigation ensues.

It’s that in the future, things can change. //

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More Michigan Manufacturing Cities I

n order to draw comparisons in later discussions, I would like to introduce some events at two other Michigan municipalities: Flint and Detroit. Both of these cities have been known for their automobile manufacturing at one point in time, and still are to some extent. The goal of this section is not to treat my investigations as complete, but to introduce different areas in need of more research. Information included here is stated for use as a political comparison of ground conditions with the acknowledgement that in depth site research is still needed.

Flint, Michigan: Vehicle City | Since 1903 with the opening of the first Buick factory, Flint, Michigan has been shaped by manufacturing as its main industry. A couple decades later, the city gave itself the nickname Vehicle City and had boosted Buick to General Motors’ best selling brand (Davis 1999).

Although production continued to rise, the relationship between labor and management grew increasingly sour. At the time, there were no contracts or unions for the workers. This left all the discretion for hiring and dismissing employees to plant management. At the time those duties were frequently contracted out to groups like the Freemasons and the Ku Klux Klan.

Eventually, these conditions led to a 44 day long sit down strike in Flint in 1937 (McAttee 2011). During the strike, employees stopped production by occupying the plant and were supported by people who gathered outside the plant as well. The strike “was highly con-

troversial because, from GM’s point of view, it was an illegal takeover of corporate property. From the union viewpoint, it blocked vital General Motors production while preventing employment of strike-breaking non-union workers” (Davis 1999). The strike ended in the establishment of the United Auto Workers union.

Many rights were afforded to workers through later contracts, but the first UAW contract established the union as the responsible party for collective bargaining along with a few other parameters.

In 1954, the 50 millionth GM car was produced at a factory in Flint (Davis 1999). When production and employment peaked in the area, about 68,000 people were working at 15 plants. Although production ran smoothly most of the time, an antagonistic relationship between management and labor resulted in more frequent strikes when compared to other areas (McAttee 2011). By the 80s, Flint was one of the hardest hit areas when GM underwent widespread downsizing.

Kettering University archivist David White (2011) explained that the reason for plant closures in Flint was the interest of “downsizing of the company [and] maintaining newer new factory buildings. Unofficially those in power in GM and Delphi was a generation that grew to hate the union and due to the strike history in Flint, this was a way for them to get back at the union”. The largest wave of lay offs happened in 1986 when about 30,000 manufacturing jobs were cut. The plant closures and occasional strikes have continued since this time (Donelly 2002). Plant closures in 2009 brought the total number of auto assemblers down to around 6,000 and the number of plants in operation

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from 15 plants open during the 60s, to only 5 or so that are staffed today.

At a time when management and labor at many locals were trying to improve their relationship, many locals in Flint continued to have rough negotiations when it came time to write contracts. Some areas put considerable effort into refining their negotiation process so that the two parties could work more like a team instead of opponents. More tension was added when Flint was faced with the threat of downsizing. Bruce McAttee, who was UAW Financial Secretary in the region at that time told me: If you go to Flint, in several of the work sites, they rebelled against this new process. Because of that, eventually General Motors said, screw you, we’re just not going to deal with you.

We’ve got other places where we can go and they’re doing just fine . . . A lot of that came about because General Motors just said, well why would we go there where they refuse to even consider the possibilities of cooperative process?

Although massive downsizing was being done across the board, the loss of industry for Flint was accelerated by lack of cooperation with management. On paper, downsizing was cited as the reason for closures, but the management labor relationship in Flint is commonly perceived as antagonistic.

With gradual plant closures continuing into 2009, and a manufacturing workforce down to about 6,000, the physical, social and economic climate in the area has been devastated. More than one in eight homes sits vacant, and large stretches of demolished former GM plant sites await redevelopment. “This has left large vacant parcels of land in three sections of the city unusable due to the pollution of the property. Those who could transfer to other GM plants have done so cutting the population to levels equal to the 1920s,” said David White. In fact, many of the workers that have staffed the Lansing Delta Township plant were relocated from the Flint area after recent closures. As with many areas, the unemployment and vacant properties are difficult to address in trying economic times. For the time being, Flint fights the uphill battle of redevelopment and stabilization. There is a lot of bitterness towards GM on the part of the municipality and the unions in Flint in the aftermath of downsizing. Many people in Flint share this same sentiment. As a retired clerk and assembler in a Flint plant, James Peltier (2011) said:

Since I left with a sour taste in my mouth, I’ve never gone back in the plant for a visit. Sad isn’t it? I still see some of the guys on the golf course or out and about for coffee. A lot of then are dying off. I guess that’s the way it is. We’re born, we work, we die.

Detroit, Michigan: The Motor City | In the beginning of the 20th century, Detroit became the cradle of the American auto industry. Detroit, as well as other cities in Michigan like Lansing and Flint saw the entrepreneurship of countless car brands.

General Motors was created when William C. Durant purchased several of these brands and formed the Detroit based corporation. The city of Detroit housed many manufacturing operations throughout the next decades, most notably those of Ford, Chrysler and General Motors. These companies became known as “the big three”. During the 20s and 30s, the abundance of manufacturing jobs attracted immigrants as well as workers from the south, diversifying and altering demographics in the city forever. As with Flint and Lansing, parts of the housing stock in the city were built for the purpose of housing large numbers of autoworkers.

World War II brought new types of manufacturing to the automotive assembly plants. To aid in the wartime effort, car plants were converted to manufacture tanks, airplanes and artillery. As a result, Detroit’s economy grew, and so did its population. In the years following the war, large amounts of people moved out of the city. Racial tensions mounted in the midst of demographic changes due to large-scale migration. In 1943, the first of the cities race riots took place, further polarizing black and white populations and causing many people to move to Detroit suburbs. This event marked the beginning of continued economic decline for Detroit (Public Broadcasting Service 1999).

The 50s and 60s brought new highway construction and further decentralization of the city that displaced many residents, predominantly the black population (Public Broadcasting Service 1999). This created a political climate that set the scene for the second race riot in 1967. Following this event, more abandonment and escalating crime rates deteriorated the city further.

Over the years, as numerous car manufacturers in the city were bought and sold and more operations were

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moved out of the city to surrounding areas, many factories in the inner city were abandoned as well. These factories for the most part still exist as recognizable relics of the former manufacturing base in Detroit. Vacancies in factories are mirrored by extremely high rates in residential vacancies. Decaying houses and crumbling infrastructure has become the image of Detroit for outsiders. Migration of industry and the city’s inhabitants have made their mark on the built environment, and are contentious issues in the history and present day politics of the city. Oddly, known mostly by a notorious reputation and desertion, the city remains the home of General Motors’ worldwide headquarters.

In 1980, as an effort to boost industry in Detroit, Mayor Coleman Young, with the support of the UAW and GM proposed that a new assembly plant be built on the border of Detroit and neighboring municipality Hamtramck. This proposal was very controversial, since it necessitated the demolition of a large area of housing for construction to begin. Poletown was an area settled in the 20s and 30s by a predominantly Polish immigrant population. The area was the proposed site for the Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant. Through eminent domain, the supreme court of Michigan ruled that the acquisition of this neighborhood was constitutional because it contributed to the economic development of the city. In response to this ruling, many Poletown residents as well as people from outside of Detroit protested by picketing and having sit-ins. In the end, relocation costs were granted to more than 4,000 residents that would have to leave their homes and businesses to be demolished in Poletown. Demolition also included razing several churches and schools (Nolan 2000).

Construction began on the new Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant in 1981. When the plant was built, it was expected to be a crucial advancement for GM “during a time of crisis in the auto industry. American carmakers, under attack from Japanese imports needed to cut costs and GM believed that a new factory with robots and other cutting edge technology was just the answer” (Taylor 2009). Today, after GM’s emergence from bankruptcy, the Detroit-Hamtramck plant operates one shift four days a week and employs about 1,000 assemblers (GM News 2009). In recent years, the plant has been well publicized as the production location chosen for the Chevy Volt, an all-electric car.

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Establishment of the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant is a sore topic for many Detroiters who have watched their city deteriorate into prairie. The politics involved in razing a residential area in favor of building a factory is something that has sent a strong message to city dwellers. Once a manufacturing town, Detroit continues to fall victim to its own bizarre political climate.

The combination of devastating social, economic and political conditions have left the city desolate and nonfunctional from the outsider’s perspective. For these people, observing the city is as mournful and detached as viewing a shipwreck from the surface. For the people who live there every day, the physical condition of the city does not define their identity. The belief that Detroit is still a valuable and living part of the region’s cultural heritage cannot be observed in the deteriorating urban environment. Grassroots initiatives like the Heidelberg Project and The Powerhourse Project aim to pay homage and to resurrect the city life. Reinhabitation of the shells of crumbling buildings, new uses are found for an area that still echoes its former purposes.

A desire for revival and recognition is felt in the lively spirit of the communities that still exist in Detroit. //

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Former site of manufacturing operations in Flint, Michigan

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Housing erected for the General Motors workforce in Flint, Michigan

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A side street in downtown Detroit, Michigan with a view of General Motors’ worldwide headquarters.

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The Packard Plant in Detroit, Michigan.

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Artistic installations of The Heidelberg Project in Detroit, Michigan.

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North + South: A Divide in Working Culture I

n its heyday, and predominantly during the war effort, manufacturing regions in Michigan and surrounding states gained a reputation for job abundance and security. Automotive assembly plants were struggling to produce enough with the workforce they had.

These conditions attracted laborers from the southern United States as well as immigrant populations. UAW president Brian Fredline (2011) described the circumstances: It used to be that this was the Mecca of job security, Lansing, Flint and Grand Rapids, for, I’d say, half of the United States.

People down south would move up into Michigan to get a factory job. They knew that there were jobs and opportunities for their families ad infinitum. If things didn’t work out where I’m living, I’ll just move up to Michigan and get a factory job and work there for thirty years.

Mass migration of southern workers throughout the 20th century was actively encouraged by recruitment campaigns by car manufacturing companies. Cultural and racial differences in the newly introduced population have significantly altered demographics in manufacturing communities. Over time, as a result of differences in labor regulations, the southern states have seen an increase in manufacturing jobs that compete with the once unchallenged dominance of northern industry.

The existence of trade unions plays a large factor in the location of manufacturing operations. Several pieces of legislation have resulted in the designation of free collective bargaining states and right-to-work

states. Free collective bargaining states require as a condition of employment that workers become a paying member of their respective trade unions. These states are predominantly located in the north where a vast majority of American car manufacturing plants are. Right-to-work is a term that describes states that have trade unions, but where employment is not contingent upon membership. This type of employment exists predominantly in the southern states. Over time, foreign car companies have established manufacturing operations in the United States. Wages paid in right-towork states are consistently lower and provide fewer benefits than jobs in states where union membership is a requirement for employment. Unions rely on power in numbers, which means that workers in right-to-work states are less likely to be able to gain leverage in collective bargaining processes. For foreign car manufacturers, the lower cost of labor helps significantly increase profit margins (Jewell 2011).

Differences between workers’ rights in the northern and southern states can be seen as a continuation of a cultural divide with roots deep in history. It can be said that the adoption of right-to-work legislation in southern states has resulted, to some extent, in their becoming prey for exploitative foreign car manufacturers.

UAW regional Director Norwood Jewell (2011) said: One of [the threats] is the non-union facilities in the south, obviously. They’re able to pay their people whatever they want. Some of them have half the plants as temps. The reason they do that is so that they don’t have to pay their healthcare.

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Distribution of Manufacturing Plants

+ ++ ++ ++ ++ + + + +++ + + ++ + + + ++ ++ + ++ + + + + +

+

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+ General Motors Plant + Foreign Company Plant

Right to work states

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Map from AFL-CIO

Right to work states

Free collective bargaining states

The multiplier effect of this type of industry has only a fraction of the impact of the manufacturing operations in the northern states in American manufacturing plants. Not only do workers have less disposable income to support local businesses, the parts that the cars are assembled with are rarely locally manufactured.

A majority of the parts are imported from other countries. Using American labor for assembly allows foreign brands to claim that their products are “Made in the U.S.A.�, when a majority of the parts are not produced on American soil.

It is difficult to pinpoint the origins of the differences in working culture and their geographic associations within the United States. Many of these policy differences are consistent with a cultural and political divide that has been present since the founding years of the country. In this sense, the Mason-Dixon line contin-

ues to be a barrier in the recognition of workers rights and a symbol of the continued use of human beings as commodity. //

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General Motors Globally I

n a similar fashion to foreign companies manufacturing their cars on American soil, in recent decades, the big three have opened many plants abroad. That’s not to say that this is a new practice. Foreign production and partnership is something General Motors has taken part in since it’s founding (Davis 1999). In fact, early in the 20th century, the newly formed General Motors was a conglomeration of both American and European brands. As a result, GM manufacturing has been a global operation for almost a century. The most recent changes in location have included Asian countries in the manufacturing sites. For example, China has become an increasingly important market for GM. However, trade regulations have made it unfeasible to import American manufactured cars. Not only are tariffs on imported cars quite high in comparison to importing into America, policies are in place that require a certain portion of the cars parts to be manufactured locally (The Economist). As a result, American companies are selling Chinese made GM cars that have reached even higher sales than in the entire American market.

There are also many GM models that are made by cheaper foreign labor and imported into the United States to be sold to Americans. For example, many small car-manufacturing operations for consumption in the American market are based in Korea (Wall Street Journal 2011). Comparing the cost of foreign labor plus importing costs with the costs associated with producing and consuming American cars has some interesting implications. It seems that the costs associated with unionized labor, non-unionized labor

Photo from Michael Davis

and automation are being weighed against each other to determine the balance that will result in the highest yielding business model. For GM, the consequences of the choice of business model can be observed in an increase or decrease in profits. For many communities that rely on GM, the consequence is the loss or continuation of sustenance from the areas economic lifeblood. //

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Identity Crisis:

Waking Up From the American Dream

T

he history and politics that developed with the presence of General Motors were reflected in the communities that surround the plant sites. At present, a lot of aspects of the physical environment are signifiers of GM’s past in the Township. Bars and convenience stores across the street from the plants that were frequented by lineworkers struggle to stay in businesses. Formerly fueled by the assembly worker culture as much as anything, these places are forced to find a new clientele fast or move on. Neighborhoods that were built to house workers remain, but are ill equipped to answer to a market based on the demands of today’s families (Daher 2011). With families constantly outgrowing their homes, neighborhoods are less stable than they once were when they were adequately sized for demands and jobs were constantly available. These homes were built to satisfy the middle class of times past. Entire neighborhoods went up that supported the lifestyle that was molded into a reality through years of collective bargaining.

For the people who moved into these homes when they were brand new, the thought of Lansing Township in the absence of General Motors was unthinkable. The way people talk about GM in the township during that period of time, you would think the two things were synonymous. The wages and benefits that union members got were seen as a godsend to many who were living a lifestyle that would have been just out of their grasp otherwise.

Railways, roads and other infrastructure are still in operation, but provide only a fraction of the services

they once did while plants were operating. Chief of Police Kay Hoffman (2011) described the changes to me: West Saginaw would have such heavy traffic, that at just about any time of day, you couldn’t make a left hand turn if you wanted to. GM was running shifts around the clock . . . They had a lunch break at two o’clock or something and it was always busy. The traffic was heavy, and the local shop bars were just jam packed . . . Then, when one shift would get off at 3:30 in the morning, it was just like the middle of the afternoon on West Saginaw. Now, as you know, at just about any time of day, you could go out to West Saginaw and make a left hand turn. You could shoot a cannon down West Saginaw and not hit anything.

Infrastructure that was once at its limit with plant traffic is now nearly as desolate as the demolished plants it once served. The lack of traffic has translated to high rates of commercial vacancies that flank roads that were once major arteries serving the manufacturing industry in the area. In the background, the state capitol building is barely visible above the trees. The capitol faces downtown Lansing, leaving the nearly 200 acres of contaminated industrial land at its back.

UAW officials have expressed that their recent contracts leave them with the lingering feeling that adequate jobs and wages for their workers may already be a thing of the past. Union concessions in contract negotiations of the past few years have been a complete overhaul of the wages and benefits won in more prosperous decades. Substantially reduced wages

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since bankruptcy as well as compromised benefits and eliminated pensions for some workers have made it difficult to support a family with a manufacturing job. The middle class lifestyle of the American auto assembler seems to be a memory. These changes have required the UAW to rethink the avenues they are using to support their members. In decades that exhibited higher earnings for the company, the union was focused on getting pay increases, safer working conditions, pensions and benefits. Now, the union has been working with their younger members to secure their future in the event of even more downsizing that is expected in light of ever increasing efficiency and outsourcing. Local 602 President Brian Fredline (2011) talked to me about the need to safeguard a future for employees through education: If your plan A was to follow in your father and grandfather’s footsteps for generations and just go to work in the factory for thirty years, as of about the year 2000, you better have a plan B. Plan B, even if you’re working in the plant better be an education. You can still work on second shift and go to school during the day. In our industry right now, you better have a plan B, because plan A can leave like a thief in the night.

Although for the Lansing area, the introduction of the first new GM plants in North America for twenty years has largely been viewed as a victory for the region, questions arise about how long that success with last.

After dodging the bullet for almost a century, the General Motors plants in Lansing Township were scheduled for decommissioning, and the workers went into early retirement or relocated to one of the two new plants. This point in time seems to mark a schism between the loyalty that some unquestionably feel towards GM and a feeling of betrayal after years of work to keep them. The scarcity of manufacturing jobs for new hires has also marked a generational divide between people for whom the absence of GM was incomprehensible and a younger generation that seems unaware and indifferent to its presence.

For newer generations, its difficult to see even traces of the patriotism that drove the mass consumption of American automobiles through the 20th century.

American products are a rarity these days. The generation of consumers that carried the big three to their peak sales in the 50s and 60s was privy to an image

of American quality that has been diluted by foreign products over time. It’s difficult to logically place the responsibility of favoring domestic brands in the hands of a consumer base that lacks any association between products and their source. An increasingly globalized market has created alternatives that make themselves available at such a rate that no one can find the time to ask questions.

The efficiency in which automobiles are now being produced is as much of a catalyst for change as anything. Finding a connection between union membership, production numbers and recorded profits for General Motors proves difficult because, well, there isn’t one anymore. The rate at which automobiles are being produced is increasingly disproportionate to the amount of people needed to make it happen.

Not only are there less workers, the initial format that constituted an “assembly line” is now fractured, with parts of operations being sent to different locations in the interest of time and cost. Decreases in union membership equals less leverage when the union goes to the bargaining table. With this, the wages and pensions once enjoyed by copious amounts of lineworkers is a thing of the past. Efficiency and changes in methods of production have proved to be a difficult and perplexing fact of life for union leaders, contributing to the unknown status of the future of professional automotive assembly in Michigan.

Adding to the confusion, politicians and municipal officials continue to harp on the idea that General Motors and Lansing is and will continue to be a timeless and enduring economic partnership. This outlook is challenged by the weariness of a labor force that have suffered the beginning symptoms of an industry that is losing its connection to the robust, stable workforce put in place to create it. In many ways, communities in the Lansing area have been formed around the existence of General Motors. Traces of the auto assembler culture exist in ways that become invisible and commonplace to the average person living in its midst. Factories, traffic and shop bars disappeared as quickly as the wages and pensions. For many, the removal of these manifestations resulted in the immediate awareness that some of the things that had been so cemented in the routine of the area were born from industry. A result of a long history of compromise is that little about the future of the area makes sense without guidance from General Motors. //

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The Illusion of Tabula Rasa Terrain Vague: A Mythical Creature | At this point, it’s difficult for me to imagine comprehending a site of this size and importance at a glance.

The significance of the site for the people that know it cannot be grasped driving by, looking at a plan or even walking through the fences at its periphery that visually designate it a brownfield. The site is not only physical, and the politics of its past didn’t disappear when the buildings were razed. Conversations with people who carry the embedded memory of the site with them find their identities altered by it. Likewise, the involvement of the people in the Lansing area has impacted the site physically. The act of working, living and prospering based on the success of the industry here is difficult to walk away from and even harder to detach from personal history. Everything from the experience of monotonous work in the factory to the drafting of demolition permits has informed the physical environment.

These acres of contaminated land, as they exist, are a direct result of the politics, history and memory that preceded them for an entire century. Prairie like conditions spanning over 150 acres are not alien or outside of the city, they are the physical manifestation of all that has transpired and the result of business as usual.

It’s difficult to expect planners to completely take on the role of the historian or sociologist when approaching a site. However, it is the faulty tendency of many planning discourses to regard landscapes as only their physical manifestations. This outlook is lacking in its investigation of the histories or identities that result in the physical. For many paradigms within the plan-

ning profession, the tendency is to understand human behavior and identity as a result of one’s physical surroundings. Movements throughout planning history have claimed to promote the betterment of the human condition and even contribute to social justice. Planning paradigms like New Urbanism and the City Beautiful Movement treat planning as a one-way dialogue that is capable of informing the behavior of citizens and contributing to the functionality of the city as a whole. This outlook negates the fact that people are individuals with unique contributions and personal memories attached to site. My research and the narratives I have collected can contribute another way of understanding the physical environment of cities. To be sure, the physicality of the plants played a strong role in the area personally, economically and culturally.

In the end, the existence of the plant at all was subject to external, less tangible factors like profit margins, efficiency and union politics. At times the physical seems to inform the politics and history, but the fate of the physical is also dependant on outside, human-driven factors. The current void that once served as a highly productive manufacturing plant is the specific result of a reciprocal relationship between site as an object and the social structures that are capable of informing its condition.

In light of the connection between the plant sites and personal history, it is understandable that the sight of these places as barren brownfields can be evocative of many feelings. As I had more and more conversations with people, it became clearer that for many, a very real sense of loss is being felt. The presence of this site has

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become a scar that is an unfamiliar representation of all the successes, failures, relief and trauma embedded in its history. Some conversations seemed to turn into a lament for the loss of a piece of identity that is both intensified and memorialized in the visual presence of site. These feelings are exemplified in these statements: Even now that the plant’s gone, it’s sad. My girlfriend and I drove by it and it’s sad. I go, “You know what makes it so sad?

We grew up in this plant.” I was 22 when I got hired in. I was 52 when I retired, and that was because I had to.

-Maria Star, retired lineworker It’s sad. It feels like part of your heart is missing because that was part of General Motors. A huge part . . .It was sad to see it go down.

-John Brockmiller, GM Test Driver and Engineer There were a lot of people who spent their lives with General Motors. They started there when they were 18 years old, and that’s where they retired from 40 years later. I’ve got to believe it was awfully hard for them to see those plants be torn down . . .there’s a lot of people in this town still that have such a long history of GM in their family.

-Kay Hoffman, Lansing Township Chief of Police I’m trying not to be depressed about that site. Every time I drive by it I think, ok, at one time, that site provided thousands and thousands of jobs to not just people in Lansing Township, but people in the entire region and today it’s vacant.

-John Daher, Lansing Township Supervisor These perspectives add a historical and even an emotional dimension to the understanding of the site that is of critical importance especially in the redevelopment process.

Through the propagation of many prominent planning mantras, brownfield sites have gained a reputation for being empty, and even external to the city.

Contrary to what conversations and site investigations have shown about the plant sites in Lansing Township and other areas, some widely read authors promote the image of brownfields as alien and non-relatable. Author and architectural theorist Ignasi de Sola Morales Rubio (1995) describes these areas as “terrain vague”.

He has derived this terminology from “terrain”, having the connotation of “land in its potentially exploitable state but already possessing some definition to which we are external”. The second word, “vague” he says,

“descends from ‘vacuus’, giving us ‘vacant’ and ‘vacuous’ in English, which is to say, ‘empty, unoccupied’ yet also, ‘free, available, unengaged”. He describes the physicality of these spaces: Here only a few residual values survive, despite the total disaffection from the activity of the city. These strange places exist only outside the city’s effective circuits and productive structures. From the economic point of view, industrial areas, railway stations, ports, unsafe residential areas and contaminated places are where the city is no longer.

Framing these areas in such a way, you would think that they somehow dropped out of the sky at some point, completely lacking past and future. These descriptions connote that a lack of context or site specificity is a fundamental trait of brownfield sites. The missing dimension here, is that contrary to being “where the city is no longer”, these sites are the specific manifestation of the history and politics that drive change in the urban environment. History of automotive assembly in Flint has connected to the local identity in such a way that, even though a vast majority of manufacturing has been lost and now lies barren in the city, natives still think of their community as a “GM town” (White 2011). Similarly, as can be understood by testimony, these sites are very much alive in the identity and politics of Lansing Township as opposed to being the passive dead zones the author seems to be describing.

Another term, “drosscape”, was introduced by planning theorist Alan Berger (2006) to describe areas like brownfields that he calls “waste landscapes”. In the same way that Sola-Morales uses terrain vague to imply that non-productive areas are somehow outside of the city, Berger introduces drosscape. He also includes in these landscapes parking lots, airports and shipping yards. It is difficult to see the logic in placing such a diverse array of land uses under the umbrella of dross.

Not only does this outlook subscribe to a conventional planning notion of what typologies are deemed to be part of the urban environment, it is insensitive to the prospect that unique histories come together to create these sites. In addition, the author discusses the challenges of cleaning and redeveloping brownfields in generic terms. The unique circumstances and politics involved in the past of each brownfield site make it impossible to describe a “typical” mitigation process (Brinkley 2011). As a result of treating these landscapes as typical cases with similar solutions, few questions are

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raised about the history or the needs of those that may be involved in a future redevelopment project. The promotion of such a simplified view detaches the site from its past and the real consequences of design in its future.

Berger makes abstract generalizations of a similar degree when it comes to the creation of these landscapes.

In an effort to explain the evolution of these sites, he says that “The first step in delineating and reclaiming the potential of these physically excluded sites is to mentally recognize that such waste deposits are the inevitable results of growth. Waste landscape is an indicator of healthy urban growth” (Berger 2006). In an effort to not make a value judgment on the sites themselves, he has neglected to address the people who have been affected negatively by this “healthy growth”. In all, this way of describing brownfields is not only unaware of the less tangible attributes of site; it fails to fairly assess more than one economic point of view.

What was healthy growth for GM, Delta Township and the city of Lansing, was devastating to Lansing Township, housing values and businesses near the site. The propagation of such perspectives further reifies the prioritization of corporate interests in urban environments.

The Personal is Political | By reviewing different narratives and perspectives of the events that have transpired, we see that these opinions are directly informed by one’s familiarity with the site. As geographer D.W. Meinig (1979) puts it, “any landscape is composed not only of what lies before our eyes, but what lies within our heads”. Physicality as well as association stemming from personal experience informs the viewer’s perception of place. This notion raises questions about what it really means for a site to be “empty”. Few would agree that these GM plant sites were empty while they were the workplace of tens of thousands of car assemblers. Now, after the factories have been razed, the site is physically empty. However, the memory imbedded in site and the political and cultural weights it carries are as powerful as ever.

To ignore the fact that an “empty” site is still strongly charged with the cultural identity of the area would not only be an oversight, but would dissociate the planner from important queues that can help to inform the re-

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development process.

One of the few subjects that have been successful in linking personal experience with broader social consequences is feminist theory. In a widely published memo, Carol Hanisch (1970) declared that “the personal is political”. In reacting to our environment based on our own experience and background, we in turn inform the general political climate. Identity has played a large role in political discourses concerning the past, present and future of the plant sites in Lansing Township. Many differences in perception exist among the people who are personally acquainted with the GM plant sites. In the past, these differences have manifested themselves in the local political discourse regarding happenings in the community or at the factories in particular.

One issue that exemplifies the situated political perspectives of different parts of the community is air quality regulation. In the early 2000s, residents in Lansing’s West Side neighborhood that sits adjacent to the operating factories complained to the Department of Environmental Quality about odors coming from the paint shop. Complaints filed by these residents threatened the approval of an air quality permit that would allow General Motors to continue producing cars without having to install additional scrubbers or other air purifying technology. This neighborhood has a stable population influenced by high rates of home ownership and a strong sense of community. Many people that live in this neighborhood are professionals that have lived in the neighborhood for quite a few years (Rose 2011). This neighborhood was not home to many lineworkers that relied on a job at GM. In this way, their interest was to protect their families and properties at the cost of potentially losing some favor with General Motors. For active members in the neighborhood association, their perception of GM and the plants were marked with encroachment on their personal property and a disregard for the natural environment (Michigan Environmental Council 2002). For many of these residents, the inside of the plants and the process of automotive assembly were completely unknown to them and their family heritage.

On the other hand, the fact that GM’s air quality permit could potentially be denied, halting production, sent the union, its members and the municipality into a panic. In their minds, these odors were something that was commonplace and harmless that their work-

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ers endured daily. To them, the plant and its internal working’s were a part of life. For Lansing’s more vocal West Side residents, the factory was something that they would prefer not to be associated with in that regard. In the end, the Department of Environmental Quality approved the permit and at the cost of copious amounts of time and money for the union and GM. A year later, the plants were closed. (Fredline 2011). For the time spent negotiating air quality issues, the dispute caused a rift in the community, driven by differences in personal experience. Even though the factories have been completely demolished, it’s obvious that these two groups of Lansing residents still maintain a very different idea of the role of the factories. Conversations reveal a group that perceives the plants as something foreign that might even be a liability, and another group that perceives the site as something that once provided jobs to sustain the working class. For residents, baring witness to changes in General Motors in the Lansing area, their personal identity has undoubtedly contributed to the political.

Seams, Edges + Experience | The edge conditions of this monolithic, barren stretch of land that was once the economic lifeblood of the area in themselves carry different physical and mental connotations. As an industrial area, physical separation from the surrounding community was necessary for security. Jane Jacobs explains that, “Massive single uses in cities have a quality in common with each other.

They form borders, and borders in cities usually make destructive neighbors. A border – the perimeter of a single massive or stretched out use of territory—forms the edge of an area of “ordinary” city” (Jacobs 1961).

The concept of edge conditions as “active contributors” to the way urban spaces are used is borrowed from planning theorist Kevin Lynch who also describes the importance of the “seam”. “While continuity and visibility are crucial, strong edges are not necessarily impenetrable. Many edges are uniting seams rather than isolating barriers, and it is interesting to see the differences in effect” (Lynch 1960). While these authors discuss the impact of edges and seams quite literally and physically, I would like to extend this metaphor to a more figurative and psychological application. The edge around Lansing Township’s former plants has been translated into a different mental image of the

site for all those that come into contact with it based on past experiences and associations. Perceptions of this edge have changed over time as the contents of the lot have gone from a fully operating factory to an expansive void.

Some narratives describing long hours spent at the plant for workers who became like family to each other seem to eliminate the notion that the edge condition serves to segregate. For the workers, the edge can be envisioned as a seam between one part of their life and another. Even for people who didn’t work in the plants but had family working there, the notion of the edge can change as the things inside of it, although not completely familiar, hold a certain personal significance. For still other people who have not themselves been involved with the inner workings of the plants, the edge condition in its segregating capacity might become more pronounced. In conversations with residents of other areas of town with little connection to GM personally, the plants seemed alien or almost foreboding. Some residents of the West Side Neighborhood who were involved in political matters regarding the factories, but were removed personally and socially gave the impression of strong dissociation.

Perceptions of the edges and seams around the plants have no doubt changed slightly since demolition, which are the accounts that I have collected. Even after demolition, the perceptions of site are strongly linked to class and background of the individuals. A majority of working class people or people that have some kind of association with manufacturing that I spoke with seem to look back at the plants fondly and with nostalgia. For many, General Motors in Lansing has become symbolic of hard work coming to fruition. This site, in effect, has supported their families and sent their kids to college. On the other hand, many people, often from less relevant backgrounds or those that haven’t witnessed the direct effect of the plants in such a way, may have the tendency to view the plants as being disconnected from their reality. The perception of how these sites interact with the rest of the city has everything to do with experience and background. As such a large contributor to the middle class lifestyle, these factories come to be something especially symbolic based on a class division. These same identities have intersected in a way that has actively contributed and will continue to shape the site’s physicality through politics, history and culture.

Masters Thesis_Lisa Berglund

Memory and heritage runs deep within the site, even as it lays barren. Projections on what the future of the plant sites will hold is a very politically charged topic for the area. As the difficult task of mitigating this brownfield is navigated, the challenge of redevelopment draws nearer. The voices of many parts of the community share their hopes for redevelopment. Personal histories collide as those who have a personal connection with the past of the site express their concern about their role in its future. Regardless of what redevelopment, if any will take place on the site, it too will alter perception. Over time, the memory of the site as it relates to car manufacturing will die out with the generations that are able to connect that reality to experience. For newer generations, the association will be something detached from the factories. It will be something unknown to past generations that spent their lives toiling on the assembly line. It will be the next scene in the collective memory of the city. //

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Some Problematic Paradigms R

ecent decades have brought many generalized discussions of global economic trends that have significantly altered business as usual. Planning discourses have interpreted many spatial conditions to be the direct effect of various global phenomena. To be sure, globalization and decentralization make their marks physically in many instances. The challenge, however, is to link these greater structures of capitalism and globalization to their local and site-specific actors. Playing a role globally does not mean that these trends are physically manifested in the same way in cities around the world. In addressing globalization and capitalism as broader structures, we need to closely link them to their unique interactions with politics and identity of site on an individual basis.

Before discussing the spatial implications of broader economic structures, it is important to delineate globalization or decentralization as in Lansing Township, as an inherent trend in capitalism. This is not to say that globalization is not a prominent or important trend, but that it is in need of further site-specific insights as it relates to case specific conditions. Instead of something that is one in the same with capitalism, I would like to discuss globalization and decentralization as a side effect of our current practice of capitalism. These global trends are a result of the free market as a system that necessitates growth and competition. For the basic tenets of capitalism that govern the actions of corporations, proximity is not the driving factor. The most important rule to capitalism today is that in order to be a worthy competitor, profit margins must constantly increase. For corporations, this means “the imperative

to sell more goods, to innovate continually, to stimulate higher and higher levels of demand is driven forwards by the pursuit of growth� (Jackson 2009). In these efforts, the good or service being offered must yield the largest difference between the cost of production and the revenue earned. To increase profit margins, it is illogical to expect that substantially raising the prices of goods will result in the same sales or ability to compete with other vendors. This means that usually the best way for companies to remain competitive is to continually search for ways to lower the price of production.

Answering to this need alone does not automatically result in a globalized or decentralized economy. This can be observed in the Lansing area as well as the newest GM plant in Detroit. The connection between capitalism and globalization is made through the increasing disparities in the distribution of wealth and power in the world’s population today. Outsourcing some or all parts of production not only broadens the pool of prospective business partners; it allows potentially cheaper foreign labor and resources to be exploited. This practice as it relates to GM factories and the people they employ has resulted in secondary parts suppliers and commissioning work to outside, non-union firms.

Non-industrialized countries have the potential to bare the brunt of this exploitation due to the wealth disparities with industrialized countries that are more often than not the headquarters of multinational corporations. However, in the Lansing area and Detroit, the need for growth and expansion on the part of companies in a capitalist economy did not result in the search for labor and resources abroad. There are other ways

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to increase profit margins that are often more ideal for corporations than seeking cost reducing strategies elsewhere. As we have seen in the case of General Motors in Lansing Township and most of its other American operations, profit margins were also increased through efficiency. This efficiency was catalyzed by local conditions (such as property costs, generational aptitude and politics) that favored locating a new, more state of the art factory in the Lansing region. Although globalization is a very popular topic, it is important to view it as a global trend that is strongly informed by local conditions, not just as a necessary evolution of capitalism.

In this way, it is only one of many potential outcomes for capitalists seeking growth and higher profitability.

Discussions of global spatial trends as symptoms of globalization are the result of contributions from many planning theorists. Among these, theorist Peter Marcuse (2008) has outlined spatial typologies that he deems to be consequences of globalization in his article, “Globalization and the Forms of Cities”. This piece is essentially a catalogue of what he asserts are the spatial ramifications of an increasingly globalized economy. These paradigms include “mega-cities”, “skyscraper clusters”, “gentrified neighborhoods”, “ghettoes” and “brownfield sites” among many. Not only are these categories in themselves quite obtuse, they only address globalization as something that is visible in world-class cities. Speaking about the specific spatial manifestations of global economic trends as though they are consistent is ignorant to the fact that politics and histories differ from place to place. Marcuse’s typologies paint globalization as a phenomenon that occurs equally everywhere, regardless of the identity of site.

We can connect this discussion to what we know about events that have transpired in Lansing Township, Lansing, Detroit and Flint. The brownfield sites in Lansing Township were not a result of manufacturing operations migrating abroad. Although global competition played a role when bidding for the new plants, the decommissioning and relocating of plants was a result of inefficiency and unavoidable obsolescence. Local political strategies then persuaded General Motors to open two new plants in the region. For Detroit, the political prowess of the UAW and the municipality paired with GM’s need for new, efficient facilities resulted in the demolition of a neighborhood to make way for new factories. The contentious union relations in Flint

and massive corporate downsizing were the main contributors to General Motors closing a vast majority of facilities leaving behind massive brownfields. For these cities, there is no direct connection to globalization as a driving force in deindustrialization of areas of the city.

In these cases, cost, local politics and the cultural heritage of the areas were central to the decisions made by the corporation, not a desire to relocate production abroad.

These examples are not raised in the interest of promoting the idea that brownfield sites cannot be the product of internationally migrating manufacturing sites. To be sure, there are many examples of brownfield sites that are the direct result of displacement of industry abroad. The point I am making here is that describing the physical manifestations of globalization as something that is consistent for all cities is ignorant of the fact that local politics provide what can be described as a missing link in globalization discourses.

Site-specific conditions have a way of catalyzing or hampering the effects of globalization and corporate decisions. Ignoring that capability strips cities of important identifying traits that make them unique and to some extent autonomous.

Some conversations have emerged that support the idea that urban conditions and their consequences can not be treated as uniform. Ash Amin and Stephen Graham (1997) discuss problematic generalizations about urban trends in “The Ordinary City”. They explain that: The problem with paradigmatic examples is that analysis inevitably tends to generalize from very specific cities, both in identifying the changing nature of urban assets and highlighting normative suggestions for policy innovations elsewhere. What should be a debate on variety and specificity quickly reduces to the assumption that some degree of interurban homogeneity can be assumed, either in the nature of the sectors leading urban transformation or in the processes of urban change.

Even if generalizations about what is happening in cities as a result of larger trends were true most of the time, it’s difficult to see how they are helpful to planners. To a certain extent, these trends are not very helpful to a profession that is required to work at least to some degree with site-specific conditions when designing. Planning discourses that promote the understanding of site only through the recognition of conditions happening elsewhere are damaging to the planning

Masters Thesis_Lisa Berglund

profession that should be informed by site-specific research. As a prominent post-modern urban theorist, Jane Jacobs (1961) has been a leading thinker in the discussion of social aspects of site and the rejection of the notion of a universal urban condition. The very diverse components of cities around the world deserve special attention instead of common antidotes for their problems. She summarizes this point: “The pseudoscience of city planning, and its companion, the art of city design, have not yet broken with the specious comfort of wishes, familiar superstitions, oversimplifications and symbols, and have not yet embarked upon the adventure of probing the real world�. In order to address site-specific concerns an awareness of site-specific conditions is necessary, making the need or appropriateness of global generalizations about urban spaces highly questionable. //

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The Language Barrier Translations | Differing goals and different avenues for achieving them strictly define the relationships between municipalities and corporations. These interactions are an extension of the broader influence of the global presence of capitalism that plays out differently in each scenario dependent on differing politics and individual relations.

Contradictions of capital driven corporate actions and quality of life standards pushed by the municipality and others are often at odds with each other and sometimes create difficulties in the actions of the community as a whole. Understanding the requirements and priorities of corporations and municipalities is crucial if they are to coexist. Corporations need to choose ideal locations to grow and prosper as a company and respond exclusively to capital incentives. Communities and municipalities must find a way to operate with corporations in a way that promotes social justice and high quality of life for workers and citizens. At some points, municipalities, corporations and other parties are able to work together to coexist. On the other hand, it can be said that the difficult negotiations between GM and Lansing Township reached a stalemate over what can only be described as a language barrier.

For corporations, the language of capital gains is the driving force in decision-making. Often located out side of the communities that their decisions effect, companies are not always held accountable for the social implications of their actions (Fredline 2011).

As discussed earlier, the primary motivating factor in strategies are increasing profit margins and growth as a

company. Since the major measure of the success of a company are the profits it reports, the choices made are based largely on cost and efficiency (Hollister 2011). In business, corporations operate by inscribing a value in all goods required in production that is more complex than just its use value as an object. As an example, “In the pre-capitalist world a coat exists as an object whose meaning is defined in terms of warmth but within capitalism the coat becomes metamorphosed into a commodity of exchange value which is a social hieroglyphic transferred upon it by the capitalist social system� (Haugaard 2003). In this way, capitalism requires corporations to understand nearly everything in terms of monetary value. In Lansing Township this idea of commodification of nearly all aspects of production, including labor, lead to many difficulties in getting GM to stay and continue supporting the community. Karl Marx (1848) explains the relationship between labor and corporate growth in the Communist Manifesto: In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e. capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed; a class of laborers who live only so long as they find work, and find work only so long as their labor increases capital.

These laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.

The need for increasingly wide profit margins were pursued through lower wages and increased efficiency, which became a point of contention with both the UAW and the municipality. Economist Tim Jackson

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(2009) discusses the inversely proportional relationship between quality of life and prosperity with ever growing efficiency measures in his book Prosperity Without Growth. General Motors understands that, “Efficiency improvement stimulates demand by driving down costs and contributes to a positive cycle of expansion” (Jackson 2009). For others, an efficiency improvement is seen as job loss, but GM understands this relationship in terms of capital. However, the need for increasing profit margins does not mean that corporations are inherently at odds with the goals of unions to increase wages. Corporations are aware that in order to enjoy the benefits of a more productive and more sustainable workforce in the long term, ample wages and good working conditions must be supplied.

For virtually all other stakeholders, the language of quality of life is spoken in making decisions that affect the community and labor. Throughout GM’s history in the Lansing area, a key objective on the part of the municipality has been to retain the company in the interest of its residents and the continued prosperity of the area. Retaining GM was a key priority for the region during major plant closures largely because it threatened the quality of life and financial future for citizens.

Keeping GM, for the municipality, translated to high quality of life, health and care through retirement for workers and their families that would be gone with the factories (Hollister 2011). For the unions, it was important to negotiate wages that would help their members to support their families and live a comfortable middle class lifestyle.

The purposes of this discussion are not to establish this language barrier in terms of its moral implications or any kind of value judgment, but instead to point out that difficulties in negotiations are due to a fundamental incompatibility in objectives. The closures of plants in the city was due to the need for GM to grow as a company and was a result of their capitalistic goals, in the same way that negotiating higher wages is the unions prerogative. UAW local 602 President Brian Fredline (2011) explains: GM’s goal, like any other corporation, is to produce the highest quality product at the lowest possible cost. That’s their mantra.

They’re not like the UAW, who cares about the people side of it, the community side of it, the family side of it. They don’t care about it and they’re not supposed to. They’re a corporation out to make a profit at the lowest possible cost.

Even in light of the difficulties posed by this language barrier, there are many avenues through which it has historically been transcended. Although the capital driven actions of corporations seem to be ever present, the specific ways discrepancies are resolved on a local level are site specific and even personal. For municipalities and unions, learning to speak capitalist has defined their level of success when it comes to doing business with corporations.

A key example of this is the way the Lansing region handled plant closures and was able to convince General Motors that Lansing was the ideal location for their newest plant operations. From a history of tax abatements, increased efficiency measures and other queues, Mayor David Hollister and his team were aware that the best way to appeal to GM was through cost projections and efficiency; the same logic that called for the decommissioning of the plant sites in the first place.

Hollister said, “One of the things we learned. . . was to have a disciplined, coordinated strategy and hire an engineer, who speaks engineering, not someone who speaks political. General Motors doesn’t hear that, they want to hear engineering.” The appeal they made from a cost and efficiency standpoint resulted in the creation of two new plants for the area. In proving that these new facilities were a best buy for General Motors, the region was able to secure many jobs valuable for the employment of not only Lansing area residents, but also for workers who migrated to the area after plant closures at other locations.

The objective of negotiating with General Motors as a corporation motivated by the profits it records is exemplified in the UAW’s core mission, which is to achieve, “social and economic justice” (Fredline 2011). At it’s founding in the late 30s, the UAW was established to serve as the responsible party for collective bargaining on behalf of labor in General Motors plants. Assuming this role in itself points to breaking the language barrier as a requisite for carrying on business on both the parts of the union and GM. For the union, the shear number of members and capacity to control production (as exhibited in the Flint sit down strikes of 1936 and 1937) give significant leverage in negotiations. At the time that the UAW was negotiating its highest wages into contracts, “the UAW’s size and strategic position gave the union tremendous leverage. Throughout the post-war period, the million-member UAW was

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ng ndi a t ers d n Quality of life U Social justice

Experiential qualities

Environmental protection Education

Qua nti tat ive

Capital gains Keep GM campaign Union’s power in numbers GM’s charitable donations Education investments

Healthcare

Efficiency

g ndin rsta de Un

Qua lita tiv e

Transcending the Language Barrier

Increasing profits

Commodification

Tax abatements Growth

Union goals

one of the largest unions in the United States . . .it had the ability to shut down an industry that, at its peak, directly or indirectly employed one in every six Americans” (Boyle 1995). By translating the mission of the union that was based on caring for its members to GM in a way that meant halting production and becoming a financial burden, the union was able to gain substantial advantages in negotiations. That’s not to say that the union-management relationship is based on the threat of striking, but that the union has learned to translate its own strength into terms that General Motors can understand and respond to. General Motors has witnessed that for the Lansing area, higher wages and better benefits are seen in the happiness of the workforce and in the quality of the end product. The goals of unions not only benefit the workers, but through a boost in morale, better quality products with a higher profit margin may be produced. Through these translations, all types of unions have made their power understood in terms of capital in order to gain leverage in contract negotiations.

When the role of unions and other elements of the local political climate related to interactions with GM are compared in Lansing Township, Flint and Detroit, there were several different outcomes. The three mu-

nicipalities were all faced with losing jobs supplied by the same corporation, however, the success of each case was determined by their ability to navigate the language barrier and appeal to GM. We have seen that Lansing Township was unable to gain any leverage when plant closures were scheduled, but some jobs were kept for the region through the opening of new plants. The persuasive point here was using cost and efficiency as an argument. Of course, determining the level of success of this effort as a feat of regional economic cooperation is dependant on who you ask.

For Flint, the results have been much different. Economic devastation has followed the loss of tens of thousands of GM manufacturing jobs. In this area, the notoriously militant union and its workforce became too demanding and too resistant to compromise (McAttee 2011). This contentious relationship marked by strikes and bitter negotiations made the workforce of Flint an economic liability for the company. Having the ability to set up shop nearly anywhere in the world, General Motors decommissioned many plants in the area, putting their economic priorities ahead of the social justice based incentives sought by the union.

The political climate of Detroit has handled the pres-

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ence of General Motors in another way still. The demolition of Poletown to make way for a new, automated manufacturing plant was encouraged by the UAW, local politicians and even a supreme court ruling.

Putting GM’s corporate interests ahead of the happiness of many Poletown residents seems to undermine the backbone of the union, which is the promotion of social and economic justice. This situation points to the ease of retaining GM being based on the behavior of the union and the municipality which was, arguably, to the detriment of the quality of life for citizens of Detroit.

These three cases with the common control variable, General Motors, point out the presence of capitalist tendencies for a corporation that either compromised (Lansing), militantly promoted (Flint) or abandoned (Detroit) the general tenets set forth by the UAW: social and economic justice. Exemplified by local politics in these communities is the fact that larger economic trends like capitalism effect many cities. The mistake, however, is to detach these larger trends from the way they interact with site-specific conditions. Implications of a capitalist society exist globally but the real effects and the real events can be seen only as they unfold on a local level with site-specific consequences.

The UAW and the Future of the Middle Class | The profession of collective bargaining in itself carries implications about definition of class division.

Creating a constructive dialogue between labor and management at all is something that is a significant accomplishment when compared to the rights of workers before establishment of the UAW. Upholding standards for wages and benefits for the significant number of people working in the plants allowed for a lifestyle that was impossible without union negotiations. As explained earlier, the union feels that they have played a significant role in the creation of the middle class by assisting in negotiations with corporations that control the means of production and the capital to back it up.

In order to widen the middle class, unions have spoken a corporate language and translated their power into commodity for the few people that harness the power of capital. In this way, they exemplify Marx’s (1848) idea that “Capitalism is therefore not a personal, it is a

social power”.

Middle class wages became an important contribution to the urban economy in Lansing Township, Detroit and Flint while plants were in operation. In effect, the disposable income created by union contracts helped to support local commerce. Retired lineworker Maria Starr (2011) recalls her worries around the time the plants shut down: We weren’t excited, because we knew that once this plant shut down, there was going to be minimal workers going to the Cadillac plant. What’s going to happen to the rest of the workers?

And then you think, well what’s going to happen to the city? We were the ones always shopping and buying take out.

In the after math of plant closures, we see the effects of the loss of the middle class. High commercial vacancy rates and high turnover in residential areas create an unstable economic climate. Although new plants have been opened in the Lansing area, changes on the corporate level have made it difficult for contract negotiations to result in the same wages as earlier decades.

In fact, wages for new hires are a little more than half of what they would have been just a few years ago.

These new contracts with substantially reduced wages have had noticeable effects in the Lansing region. CEO of the Lansing Economic Development Corporation Bob Trezise (2011) explains: We had 36,000 GM jobs some 20 years ago. We now have somewhere around 5,000. Many of those are making substantially less than what they were making. To me, this has created a substantial working poor for people above 55 years old . . . they are poorer, thus, we have less taxes as do the state and schools.

Retail has suffered greatly . . .and luxury purchases are all way down.

In all these ways, the union contracts, because of the shear number of people they benefited, were at one point an important and stabilizing force in the urban economy of the area. The vast reduction of wages has decreased taxability and made disposable income nearly non-existent for many workers.

Consequences of another change in contracts, the elimination of pensions, have yet to be seen in full. The combination of the inability to save for retirement because of reduced wages and the loss of pensions could create very difficult financial stress for some parts of

Masters Thesis_Lisa Berglund

the population in their retirement. Former UAW Financial Secretary Bruce McAttee (2011) puts it this way: When I retired, I could actually get a check for a monthly wage and I had a little nest egg in the bank. Now the thing is that we’ve gone literally over night to a person who is making $14.95 an hour, they can’t provide for their family completely, they certainly can’t put money away, and we’ve cut their pension . . .

We’ve taken away any possible means for them to have dignity in their later years.

The population that will face difficulty in retirement is only a fraction of the workforce that GM employed in the Lansing area just a few decades ago. As factory efficiency is increased and profit margins grow wider, many union leaders have anticipated that membership will continue to fall. However, changes in manufacturing culture are by no means the end of the mission of the union. As long as corporate decision-making is informed by capital, that is to say, as long as capitalism is at large, the wealth disparities in place will most likely require collective bargaining to serve as a support system for the middle class. //

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Planners and The City A

s a relatively new profession, planning continues to situate and define itself as a practice. The increasing multidisciplinarity of planning along with its changing relation with other professions has resulted in offshoots of the profession like urban design and landscape urbanism. There is one (of many) remaining tension, however, that I would like to address. The planning profession has had a difficult time answering to both the roles of the designer and a mediator with the obligation to practice in a democratic way. At times when the heart of the debate actively addresses the role of the planner as a mediator, creative design solutions are not often the result of the discussion. These in depth discussions about situated reality, identity and experience seem to predominantly be discussed in relation to policy and public discourse (Healey 1996).

Conversely, many planning paradigms only implement design strategies by addressing the city as an object, without discovering the site as a unique place tied to identity and memory (Burns & Kahn 2005). Instead of researching site and the people who care about it, and allowing those parameters to drive the design process, we see top down planning processes. From my perspective, the real success of the planning profession would be the equal incorporation of these two parts into a more holistic practice.

In relation to the importance of the connection between memory and site, we can see the gravity in analysis of existing conditions (both tangible and intangible) as an important point of departure for planners. This means reaching out to the community and playing an active part in gathering the information that has informed

relationships to site. Patsy Healey (1996), a planning theorist known for her contributions to discussion of participation describes planning practices before the introduction of participative planning: “Their focus was heavily on material conditions, and on who should get what, not on how people come to understand and value the qualities of their environments. They were therefore ill placed to recognize the cultural diversity in our midst”. In the recognition of the importance of intersecting identities and politics lies an understanding of conditions that not only exist on site, but also helped to create it. For Lansing Township, this information provides important queues for the direction that redevelopment can take. Knowledge of the history of site also sheds light on the relationships and communities that will continue to have an influence through the redevelopment process. The role of the planner as a mediator is linked to a multidimensional understanding of site. Politics, history and memory reveal a collective reality of site and “through creative encounter, interests are formed around new ideas” (Healey 1996). Personal narrative and a thorough investigation of site not only uncover the intangible qualities, they help shape an understanding of the needs and expectations of the community once redevelopment gets underway.

On the other side of this is the designer that sees oneself as responsible for the end result or the built object. Informing design projects programmatically and stylistically through existing conditions is crucial. Carol Burns and Andrea Kahn (2005) in their book Site Matters explain that:

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Not only are physical design projects always located in a specific place, the work of physical design also necessarily depends on notional understandings between a project and its locale. Given that design reconfigures the environment using physical and conceptual means, articulate comprehension of site in physical and conceptual terms should be fundamental. Surprisingly, however, the design field overall has scanty literature addressing the subject.

In this way, expectation that the community will engage in the final result of a design project is predicated on the designer’s ability to engage with the community in an analysis of the site. This notion is where I find past and current trends in planning theory and practice to be troubling.

Many movements in the field of planning have offered prescriptive, non-site specific solutions that intend to address problems supposedly faced by all communities.

This tradition in planning “has its roots in a modernist conception of society. As such, it has been based on a belief in planners’ ability to manage events in pursuit of the greater public good” (Rydin 2007). Planning perspectives based on the top-down design of lifestyles for the general population can be seen in many planning movements throughout the short history of the profession. An early example of such a paradigm, Ebenezer Howard’s garden city, claimed to remedy the problem of overcrowding and other urban problems with a spatially specific format for satellite cities that would be built in the periphery of larger cities. The book Garden Cities of Tomorrow offers a desirable spatial configuration that aims to serve as a “stepping stone to a higher and better form of industrial life” (Howard 1902). In all, the Garden City offers a general solution to problems that Howard deems to be universal for all cities.

A modernist planning paradigm offers prescriptive solutions to urban problems in much the same way.

Favoring standardization and separation of functions was thought to impose some kind of organizational structure and even achieve a utopian vision of urban life. These types of spatial configurations were seen to be the antithesis of the human condition, especially as it exists in urban environments. In time, “The arrogance, unrecognized bias and relentless homogeneity of the planned city forms dreamt up by modernist planners were especially lambasted by a wide range of social movements” (Graham 2001). For modernism, the realities of site specificity and local identities have

rendered such a strategy for planning obsolete.

A group of planners that seem to be denouncing the mission of modernist planning, new urbanists don’t seem to be doing much better. The Charter of the New Urbanism describes the movement as, “committed to reestablishing the relationship between the art of building and the making of community through citizenbased participatory planning and design”. At the same time, normative perspectives are imposed by prioritizing, “the reconfiguration of sprawling suburbs into communities of real neighborhoods” and “bring[ing] people of diverse ages, races, and incomes into daily interaction, strengthening the personal and civic bonds essential to an authentic community” (Congress for the New Urbanism 2001). These strategies seem to undermine the idea that identity exists in communities even when they are not “designed” to have them. New Urbanists appear to be so preoccupied with injecting identity into site, that they have neglected the fact that each site already has an identity that requires it to be addressed as completely unique, with no need to add “authenticity”.

These few paradigms exemplify the continued acceptance of generalized remedies for “urban problems” that are indiscriminately prescribed for universal use. If cities are unique and imbedded with their own unique histories and narratives, it seems vulgar and irresponsible to approach cities generically. What’s more, is that many of these planning mantras describe some types of spatial qualities as being “good” or “bad” or “lacking identity”. When this is done, only one vision of urbanity or built environment can be envisioned, and no room is left for diversity or flexibility in local identity. We have seen in Lansing Township that even a vast, contaminated, brownfield site can carry with it a history that runs deep in the collective memory of the area. Other examples of sites commonly labeled “placeless” are the suburban neighborhood or any area viewed as sprawl. It is important that we address the idea as planners that these areas too are home to someone and a contributing part of local identity (which exists, even if none of these mantras deem them “interesting”). Attempting to remedy conditions created by past planning paradigms through new conventions does a complete disservice to the profession. In fact the inability of these paradigms to design in response to site-specific conditions makes calling them “design” at all questionable. “Design paradigm” seems to be an

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Subject Variability v. Scale in different Professions Universal

Astronomer

Global

Pilot

Continental

Economist

National

Urban Planner Regional

Civil Engineer Local

Household

Personal

Molecular

Architect Assembly Worker

Lawyer Physician

Psychologist

Fine Artist

Chemical Engineer Low variability between subjects

oxymoron.

If popular planning mantras have not been able to accurately describe the affect of global urban phenomena as they relate to site specific conditions, its not very convincing that planning, as it exists, is equipped to address urban problems. The relationship between planning, broader trends and their interface with the one of a kind nature of each city, doesn’t seem to be very well understood by the profession. It’s odd that a profession lacking an understanding of the need for context in the analysis of its subjects should be considered professional at all.

The object that any profession aims to address possesses a certain degree of variability from case to case.

These generalized relations can be seen in both diagrams above. I agree it is difficult to accurately catego-

High variability between subjects

rize different professions as they relate to the variability and consistency of the subjects they deal with. At the risk of making some problematic generalizations, I have done so anyway. These assumptions will serve as a backdrop for comparison with the relationship between the professional and his or her subject in a more familiar field: urban planning.

A physicist, for example, relies on the laws of physics to behave consistently (except of course in extraneous circumstances). The expectation of physics to be able to explain other phenomena consistently is a notion that the field hangs its hat on. Another example is the economist. Based on specific instances as well as global trends, economists rely on being able to anticipate fluctuations in the economy based on generalized principles. On the other end of such a spectrum, it could be argued, the artist searches for original interpretations

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Site Specificity v. Scale of Planning Movements Universal

Global

Continental

Economist

National

Regional

Local

Urban Planner

Modernist Planning The Garden City New Urbanism SmartCode Drosscape Terrain Vague

Historic Preservation

Household

Communicative Planning Lawyer

Personal

Molecular Low variability between subjects

of their subject in each piece. Perhaps, in the middle of the spectrum is the lawyer. While they must deal with a unique subject at the beginning of each case, they must reach a conclusion or an argument by connecting this subject somehow to the broader structure of laws that govern it. The responsibility of the planner’s understanding of the city can be seen as similar to the lawyer’s obligation to each case. On the one hand, each site contains distinct identifying characteristics, but on the other hand, these characteristics are required to be connected to some extent to larger global trends.

One outstanding difference of course being that if a lawyer practiced law as arrogantly and with the same disregard for case specificity as planners, they would be disbarred.

It is interesting then, that the planner continually views its subject in terms of general trends, much like an

High variability between subjects

economist views their subject. For the economist, this is a necessity because projecting into the future requires some guesswork; the future is not yet here. However, for the planner, the oversight of viewing the urban environment solely as it pertains to global trends is not so appropriate. Empirical observation is possible and necessary to more accurately describe the local conditions as they relate to broader trends. For planning discussions, what seems to be lacking is the multiple dimensions that make up the site as opposed to solely relying on normative perspectives on the physical environment; the history and local politics help to tell the story too. //

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Planning for Multiple Perspectives T

o summarize the general crux of my argument, I will use an analogy relevant to my research.

The relationship between place specificity and global trends can be likened to the relationship between union members and the union. Although local and national contracts govern and create a framework for general rules, wages and benefits, these contracts obviously do not completely define lineworkers as human beings. Union membership, though it may influence income, working hours and even class does not exclusively dictate personality, background or perspective of individuals. These contracts serve as a general framework from which union members operate and provide for themselves in their unique lifestyles.

Similarly, globalization and capitalism guide many processes in the urban environment. These processes or tendencies, however, do not render cities devoid of history or cultural heritage. A more important aspect of global trends than their ubiquity is the specific ways they manifest themselves in each place. The interface between local identity and global capitalism, as we have seen in Lansing Township, Detroit and Flint have the potential to be greatly influenced by local economies and politics. A common notion of globalization as an all-powerful “equalizer” as opposed to just one more element of site negates the individuality of cities. Ash Amin and Stephen Graham (1997) contest the idea that globalization has similar effects in all cities and promote the notion of site specificity when discussing global phenomena. Treating all cities as the same eliminates the idea of local history and identity, “Thus the very essence of the city—the concentration

of diverse intersections between and within such activities and elements— [that] tends to be lost” (Amin & Graham 1997). In this way, the forces of globalization and capitalism should be regarded as just one more thing to be aware of on site, in the same way that the existence of General Motors or the union are characteristics of the site.

These relationships reveal the problematic nature of attempting to describe urban conditions as universal.

Cities contain unique politics and histories that make them unable to completely subscribe to the tendencies set forth by global trends. Attempting to apply universal solutions that have somehow made it to the forefront of planning discussions is arguably not design at all. Robert Beauregard (2001), a theorist specializing in the revival of post-industrial cities said that, “Our collective quest should not be for ideal types but for evolutionary possibilities”. Offering similar, prescriptive planning solutions that claim to “fix” urban problems in a multitude of locales is an illogical strategy. Doing so would be ignorant to the unique conditions on site as well as their part in catalyzing unique interactions with global phenomena.

I would like to urge the field of planning to spend less time and energy thinking up and implementing strategies that they deem to be universal solutions. Instead, I would like to push the discussion in the direction of site discovery. Exploring new ways of understanding all elements of site is a far more realistic platform for design and problem solving than trying to design for all the world’s cities at once.

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In addition, these site studies should hold tangible and intangible elements of site at levels of equal importance. Many sites are difficult to understand from the perspective of an outsider. This is not remedied by simply labeling them “terrain vague”. Exposing multiple truths and realities of site is done through a more in depth analysis, not by relying only on the physical to express all important aspects of site. Imbedded in site are narratives that have informed the production of the physical dimensions of site.

In light of these discussions, I would like to propose an adjustment in the design process. As a response to the infinite dimensions of site both tangible and intangible, I would like to offer that maybe the master plan is an overused tool at most points in the design process. The view of site offered by a master plan is similar to that of a geographer. “The chief badge of the geographer is the map. To him, a place is at once a location, an environment and an aerial composition, and the last is best expressed on a map, a symbolization of the spatial arrangement of the elements of a locality” (Meinig 1979). Instead of viewing the specifics of a locale as a particular “spatial arrangement” the addition of the perspective of a historian results in a more holistic understanding. Geographer D.W. Meinig (1979) describes this role: . . . the historian sees the particular cumulative effects of processes working upon the particular elements of [a] locality.

The degree to which the historian relates the particular to the general depends on his purpose, but any historical view clearly implies the belief that the past has a fundamental significance, one aspect of which is so pervasive as to be easily overlooked: the powerful fact that life must be lived amidst that which was made before.

These different ways of understanding site are difficult to explore solely in plan and section. Representing ideas in this way is exclusive to conveying only a few types of information, mostly physical in nature.

Furthermore, the knowledge and experience required to fully grasp the information in plan makes this format inaccessible to the general population. In this way, opening a dialogue about planning that includes multiple perspectives is potentially hampered by the use of visual tools only understood by few. An expansion in our understanding of site entails an expansion of our representation of site. //

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Suggestions for Redevelopment Anchoring a Changing Community | The narratives and perspectives I have collected in my research have been truly touching and influential in a way that I never imagined when I was introduced to Lansing Township. Encounters with people of many backgrounds all feeling a unique sense of ownership to something so physically empty as the former plant sites have reinvented my expectations for redevelopment. The factories that operated for a century in the Township have forever altered both the landscape and its history. With the remaining artifacts of industry on site and in the collective memory of the region, redevelopment confronts and must respond to truly unique circumstances.

Several queues can be taken in redevelopment from the research I have conducted. In confronting the realities of the site, needs and desires of residents are uncovered that can be used to inform the redevelopment process in both negotiation and design. The difficulty of appeasing the community while at the same time navigating corporate and municipal demands is something that the Township has done in the past. Although the tasks ahead for Lansing Township are daunting, within the events of the past century and current conversations among stakeholders are pieces of information that make it possible.

One such issue created in the plant closings that should be addressed in redevelopment is the loss of a focal point for Lansing Township. As a result of plant openings in nearby municipalities as well as a change

in working culture, not many people living in Lansing Township neighborhoods work on the line at either of the new GM plants. What was once a strong group identity for many people living adjacent to plant sites is now fragmented. UAW President Brian Fredline explained: There used to be 22,000 people in Lansing that worked for GM. . . now I wouldn’t think that there’s 3,000 in Lansing proper that work for GM. Probably less than that . . .we’re not confined to the community anymore, nor are we tied to it anymore . . . there’s no anchor.

It’s difficult to replace a community anchor of such magnitude, especially when the absence of GM operations has broken up stable neighborhoods in need of anchoring in the first place. From the perspective of many residents, the redevelopment plan should at least address the history and collective memory of the site in this manner. Currently, the power and ownership derived from having a stable community with a collective sense of agency can be seen in Lansing’s Westside Neighborhood. Low turnover of housing ownership along with the establishment of a neighborhood association has allowed this area to gain leverage in promoting their interests. The more fragmented communities of Lansing Township that are adjacent to the Westside Neighborhood do not have a voice in the same way and are rarely able to contribute to dialogues with decision makers. Creating another anchor and sense of community to the same effect of the GM plants may be close to impossible initially. The instability of the neighborhoods surrounding the plants make it difficult

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for community building to take place or for residents to feel empowered as a collective voice in Township matters. However, the importance of developing a focal point with functions that are inclusive and community building should be a priority.

An additional quirk of the site is that Lansing Township is made up of five noncontiguous areas. For many people in the Lansing area, these seemingly arbitrary boundaries between municipalities go unnoticed in daily life. This point is important to acknowledge if a new community anchor is sought in redevelopment.

Since downtown Lansing is so near by, it’s difficult to perceive of two city centers so near to each other when the borders of the two municipalities barely register to most. Navigating these borders (or lack of borders to some) will be an important task for the municipality in creating a master plan that not only serves Lansing Township, but is also coherent with the surrounding neighborhoods, businesses and municipalities.

The expense and legal complications in the way of mitigating the site to start redevelopment don’t make it any easier. After mitigation lies another set of challenges. Although it’s quite a tall order for the municipality of Lansing Township, one necessity of redevelopment is the creation of stable jobs that can potentially translate to stabilization of surrounding neighborhoods.

Changes in nearby industry, as previously discussed, as well as a housing crisis have made it difficult for Lansing Township neighborhoods to settle and build community in recent years. Areas that used to be almost completely owner occupied and well kept have shifted toward a trend of rentals, neglect and high foreclosure rates. Attracting a stable population through the creation of a diverse array of jobs should be a priority.

Township Supervisor John Daher (2011) said, “Who’s going to want to buy it and redevelop it when we can’t create new jobs in this community? You can’t redevelop real estate if you can’t create jobs, and that’s what we have to do simultaneously with the thought of even redeveloping that site”. Imbedded in that statement are the broader implications of the alteration of the workforce and demographics in the region due to changes in industry.

As an added challenge, the housing stock that exists in many areas of the Township was built for a typical family of a GM lineworker from the 20s into the 60s.

The demands satisfied by building these new develop-

ments are no longer the tastes of families looking to buy property. The “ideal” lifestyle now demands housing that is much larger (Daher 2011). This makes it difficult to include the same types of families in a future vision of the site. What were once suitable homes for a family of five are, by today’s standards, more suitable for one or two people. New demographics should also be taken into consideration in redevelopment plans.

What will most likely be a smaller and younger population in these housing areas may create the demand for activities to be oriented to a new age group. This may require ease of walkability, connectivity to downtown and universities as well as retail and entertainment aimed at this audience.

Baring witness to the history of site, we have discussed the importance of situated perspectives that differ with background and experience. Some people view the site as having a close connection to their personal life, while others view the industrial area as somewhat alien to its surroundings. The edge condition of this single use industrial site was described earlier as either a seam that connects or an edge that divides. Regardless of the future design of the site, the capacity for this area to become divided or united from its surroundings is something that should be paid special attention. If this site is to be used as a community anchor, the physical and mental accessibility of the redevelopment project should be considered. Defining the edge condition of the new project and how it interacts with adjacent properties is a crucial and strategic moment in the design process.

As we have seen, local stakeholders and politics have actively shaped the decisions made on site throughout history. In the redevelopment process, it is important to recognize that these dynamics have not disappeared with the productivity of the plants. Most likely, the charged history of the site will be ignited beyond current levels during redevelopment. Hints from the past show that Lansing Township as well as the surrounding communities have not only the interest to be involved in redevelopment, but also the political mobility to do so. In this way, conversations about new uses and mitigation necessitate a constant and open dialogue with the community. It is inevitable that this community, with such a huge personal stake in the property will become involved in the planning process.

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Education | It should be acknowledged that as a strategy put in place to support a continued workforce for GM, contributions have been made to education in the Lansing area. Part of convincing General Motors to open new plants in the region was a campaign to increase the quality of education received in public schools, as well as in vocational programs at the local community college. It seems like a unique symptom of GM’s leverage in the area that extra attention is given to education only when it supports the interest of economic development. Instead of a means of personal empowerment or to achieve upward mobility, education is being used as yet another corporate incentive. Instead of using education to feed into GM’s needs, perhaps we should take a hint from the current strategy of the UAW. Supporting the further education of their members has offered a “plan B” if for some reason they can no longer be employed by GM or they cannot support themselves on the wages being offered. Education can be used as a tool to broaden the imagination of the region, instead of using it to feed into the need for manufacturers.

My point here is not that there is a lack of education in the Lansing area. On the contrary, there is an abundance of education opportunities. However, many of these opportunities were created in the interest of a local economic hegemony. If corporations have become a worthy of education investments, the economic diversification and empowerment of a population that is entitled to more than what GM is offering is worthy as well. Education is at its best when it opens doors for individuals and creates options for communities, not when it is used as a corporate incentive. Tailoring education to suit the needs of a manufacturing base in the Lansing area should continuously be evaluated in terms of the future of manufacturing for the region.

Broadening the scope and purpose of education may help to support the diversity of education opportunities in the area.

Trust | Throughout the 20th century, GM employment contributed greatly to the widening of the middle class in the area. When wages earned by lineworkers are com-

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pared to their education level, the power possessed by the UAW has been transferred to the upward mobility of its members. In turn, for many, this mobility was transferred from generation to generation along with the profession. Jane Jacobs (1969) said, “One of the social preconditions of economic development is not so much the opportunity for a person to change his work (and his class) from that of his father, as is often supposed, but rather the possibility of changing radically his own work and his own place in society during his own working life”. The presence of General Motors as such a readily available employment opportunity with high wages created that upward mobility for many people. However, once factory jobs were secured, there was little opportunity for significant promotion within the manufacturing sector. This fact is important, because such a large part of the population was captivated by this attractive opportunity. Not only did the region become economically dependant on car manufacturing, few new industries were created.

On a personal level, for union members working for high wages, benefits and pensions during GM’s heyday, the lack of upward mobility after hiring in was not a concern. The ample wages being earned were more than enough for most families to live a comfortable lifestyle that would otherwise be unavailable. In recent years, these wages have been reduced as a result of bankruptcy and a continuing drop in union membership. Jobs on the assembly line also require more education than ever. Regardless of these facts, the heritage of the assembly worker being passed down in the family and in the region lives on to some extent.

The trouble is, that the wages in union contracts are not only a fraction of what they were just several years ago, there is no real opportunities for upward mobility within the manufacturing sector. In addition, due to efficiency measures, these manufacturing jobs are becoming more and more scarce. Instead of contributing to greater numbers in the middle class, these jobs are now steadily adding to a population of working poor, with no hope of increasing earnings as long as they have a job on the assembly line.

In light of these facts, the Lansing area must reconcile the loss of prosperity in manufacturing jobs with the continued economic prioritization of General Motors.

The results of a lasting attachment to the auto industry paired with a decreasing workforce can be seen in the Lansing area. With the memory of a once prosperous

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middle class that was supported by GM, it is difficult to turn away from the region’s identity as a major auto manufacturing area. For the Lansing area to fully reach the goal of an adequately diversified economy, to some extent, it must part ways with its identity as solely a GM town. Instead of allowing and even promoting a single corporation as an industrial hegemony, the corporation could perhaps become one of the many contributions to the economy of the region in the future.

Lansing city council member Carol Wood told me, “The important thing I think, is to make sure that not only are we doing things that encourage GM to stay, whether it’s abatements, whether its working with education, whatever it is that keeps their business in our community, but that they are also fulfilling their promise to us” (Wood 2011). In the past, GM has had to close plants earlier than expected, been unable to follow through on agreements made with Lansing Township and understaffed new plants. With the nature of the events of the past and the effect on local communities, continuing a vision of the city as a car manufacturer seems to be unpractical. As Wood suggests, a constant evaluation of the relationship between the Lansing area and its business partners is necessary. In a continued attachment to the corporate identity of GM and their history in the area, the upward mobility of current and future generations is jeopardized.

In the past, the Lansing region has exhibited quite a clear understanding that businesses, respond mainly to capital incentives. A history of tax abatement and competitive plant proposals would lead one to believe that the relationship is understood as solely economic.

It is difficult to watch an area that has quite intelligently navigated this language barrier to all of a sudden believe in a revival of car manufacturing in the area, in light of the adoption of an efficiency driven business model. We again run into the difficulty of the collective memory imbedded in the site. Nostalgia and longing for the return of the industry of the 60s, 70s and 80s has led some residents to believe in a complete postbankruptcy turn around for the corporation, and thus, the communities that serve it. The community appears blindsided to the obvious patterns of decentralized industry as well as a slowly dwindling need for professional automotive assemblers.

Efficiency vs. Diversity An obvious trend that should be used to inform economic development, the fact that industry changes and always has, is also being disregarded. Evolving economies of cities is difficult when industry offers the same product, decade after decade. Economist Jane Jacobs (1969) explains that the extended economic success of cities is not based on continually improving efficiency, as in the strategy of General Motors. For corporations to have a lasting effect on the continued development of a city, “new work” must be created through division of labor, and new applications for the technology that a corporation has become expert in. This can be seen to some degree in the secondary parts suppliers that open near GM plants. Overall, however, in the past century, new work created by GM has been minimal.

Instead, the efficiency of the same work has been prioritized. Not only has this stagnated the manufacturing economy in Lansing over time, it has continuously reduced the amount of the workforce that union wages are supporting. This business model is an ironic turn from the product diversity stemming from expertise in internal combustion that lead to car manufacturing becoming an industry in Michigan in the first place.

Ideally, the redevelopment of the plant sites would keep these lessons learned from GM in mind. Not only is it important to create jobs for the area, the industry that supports this employment should continually evolve.

Proximity of related industries could potentially create a synergistic effect and encourage evolution. As suggested by economist Joseph Schumpeter, “capitalism proceeds, he said, through a process of ‘creative destruction’. New technologies and products continually emerge and overthrow existing technologies and products. Ultimately, this means that even successful companies cannot survive simply through cost-minimization” (Jackson 2009). Creating an environment where new technologies could be nurtured could help to stabilize the area economically in the longer term. Additionally, business models like the increased efficiency of manufacturing are counter to the collective efforts to curb resource consumption all over the planet. In these types of strategies, fewer and fewer employees are able to benefit from more and more resource consumption on the part of the company. Designing the newly mitigated plant sites to work on a business model counter to this superfluous type of consumption would not

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only help to support a growing trend in diverse green businesses, it would do justice to the history of environmental abuse that has taken place on site.

Union leaders expect membership to continue to drop due to increased efficiency and to a lesser extent, global competition. In this way, the two new plants in the area could potentially be seen as a way to taper job loss in the manufacturing sector over time, as opposed to all at once as experienced in many other parts of the country.

The retention of some jobs, albeit a fraction of what once existed, could be a way that job loss gets spread over a longer period of time, as opposed to an acute shock to the region. Since there is no reason to expect that GM will stop increasing efficiency, replacing these jobs in other parts of the economy could become a consideration in the redevelopment process. Creation of jobs in sectors that require similar amounts of education as well as the opportunity for promotion could be good for the local economy in this transitional period and in the long term.

Diversifying an economy and creating “new work” as Jane Jacobs calls it, is not as easy as turning on a light switch. In the past, efforts to create diversity in industry have been pursued although somewhat hampered by the continued belief that General Motors would always be around, spreading its prosperity throughout the region. Although General Motors has gone bankrupt, cut thousands of jobs and substantially reduced union wages, there is still a belief on the part of decision makers that GM will, yet again, be the region’s saving grace. Having become familiar with this relationship as an outsider, the only explanation for this is a romantic vision of a prosperous past with General Motors. This becomes dangerous when those in charge of making decisions cannot see the very real consequences of prioritizing one business relationship above other economic strategies.

For Lansing Township, addressing the past and present economic and cultural significance of General Motors in the area is crucial for redevelopment. Not only is GM the legal owner of the site, the local identity is still very much attached to the operations that once went on there. As a result, many residents have already expressed interest in being included in the planning process. If anything, this process should act as a support system for a community that is still in a transitional period. This moment in the history of the region has

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been described as “uncharted territory”, making the need for a community anchor or focal point as great as ever (Fredline 2011). Should the opportunity to redevelop this site present itself amongst these difficult economic times, its role in economic development through this transitional period could be substantial.

The task ahead for Lansing Township is marked with legal and environmental difficulties. Redevelopment is contingent on perseverance through what seems to be a stagnated economy throughout the country. This challenge is added to the navigation of infinite political, historical and cultural dimensions that have influenced the past present and future of the site. Spanning nearly 200 acres, the potential of this site as an economic force and a community anchor is told by the history imbedded in it. //

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