Trapped Between Pain and Agony

When Coleman Alexander Young laughs, as he often does, his face crinkles into a wide grin and his shoulders shake gently. But Detroit's Democratic mayor has little to be cheerful about these days. Hit by one of the deepest recessions since the 1930s, the Motor City has an unemployment rate of 16% and faces a deficit of $120 million this year. Admits Young, 63, with typical bluntness: "Detroit is in deep trouble."

The city already seemed beyond redemption in 1973 when Young, pitted against a white law-and-order Republican in a hard-fought campaign, squeaked into city hall with only 12,000 votes to spare. Still scarred by the 1967 race riots, Detroit had the highest per capita murder rate in the nation and within six months faced a budget deficit of $103 million. To combat crime and regain the confidence of the predominantly black city, Young pushed integration of the police department--in 1973 the force was only 15% black compared with 40% today--and assigned more officers to foot patrols. By 1980, the overall crime rate was down, and murders had dropped to 549 from the 1974 peak of 714. Before his first term was up, he had amassed a budget surplus and coaxed $ 150 million from the city's business community to finish building Renaissance Center, a gleaming cluster of office towers and a hotel on the Detroit River.

By supporting the presidential candidacy of Jimmy Carter in 1976, he won a grateful friend in the White House. Over the next four years Detroit became a leader in federal urban-aid grants, totaling $1.3 billion.

The city's renaissance is on the verge of fading. Young is trying to meet Detroit's newest projected deficit by slashing the city payroll by $104.5 million and raising the income tax rate for residents and commuters alike. If the short fall is not met, the city may be forced to declare bankruptcy before the end of the summer. As Young puts it: "Our situation is one where we have to choose between extreme pain and agony."

Scrappy and streetwise, Young was raised in the city's notorious "Black Bottom" ghetto. At 19, he found a job at the Ford plant in River Rouge and plunged into union and civil rights organizing. His union activities got him sacked from job after job, and his left-wing politics also proved too strong for the United Auto Workers union, which forced him out of his post as chapter secretary in 1947. By the time he won a seat in the state legislature in 1964, Young had moved toward the political center, but he still harbors memories. Says Kirk Cheyfitz, editor of Detroit Monthly magazine: "Young draws his energy from the carefully preserved sense of outrage he discovered while being kicked around as a poor black man."

Some of Young's critics have attacked him for giving generous tax abatements to businesses to entice them to build in the city's decaying downtown, while ignoring the collapse of residential neighborhoods. Many whites argue that the mayor plays too much to his black constituency; many blacks complain that economic power remains in the hands of "absentee" white businessmen who live in the leafy suburbs.

Nonetheless, most Detroiters remain confident that Young, who is preparing to run for a third four-year term this fall, will work his financial magic once again. Indeed, Young has hired Felix Rohatyn, the fiscal expert who helped New York escape from bankruptcy, to draft a blueprint to stave off financial disaster. The mayor is also busy trying to attract fresh industries to the city, especially firms specializing in electronics and plastics. Without Young, said Auto Tycoon Henry Ford II, "this city would be dead." His Honor is working hard to keep the patient alive, if just barely.

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