Mayor Mike Duggan Victory Speech November 2nd, 2021 Election
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who has announced that he won't run for a fourth term, tells the Detroit News about his accomplishments, including the city's growth in population for the first time in many decades.
"I would never have left until the population started to grow and we achieved that. We officially got to where we're growing. I did what I wanted to do," he tells Editorial Page Editor Nolan Finley.
In 2022, for the first time since 1957, the city saw a gain of residents -- about 1,852. Not a huge number, nonetheless, it was a reversal of a bothersome trend.
In talking about his accomplishments, Duggan, 66, tells Finley:
I always thought of this in this way: The first four years was almost completely consumed with basic services. Get the street lights on, get the grass cut in the parks, get the ambulances fixed and on the road. And the second four years was about the growth. It was about landing the Stellantis plant, getting Factory Zero, getting the investment into the city. And then this last three years has just been a lot of fun. And driving the unemployment rate down, driving the violence down. And just doing a project like with the Joe Louis Greenway and the Riverside Park and rec centers. So in my mind, it always was three phases.
Asked what the issues are for the next mayor, he said:
There's a lot to do. If I were running for reelection, I would be talking about the need to rebuild this city further and include more people in the recovery and continue to reach the neighborhoods we haven't reached. There's much more to do, but you're going to have a new mayor come in who's walking into one of the finest police departments in the country, one of the most beautiful park systems in the country. A huge surplus and not a deficit.
Duggan did not address rumors that he might run for governor.
Click here to read the full interview.
Also watch, WDIV's Devin Scillian's Sunday interview with Duggan.
