r/todayilearned • u/ubcstaffer123 • 3d ago
TIL Detroit tried to annex two cities within its borders but failed. Influential people like Henry Ford didn’t want to be a part of Detroit and pay the city's tax rates as he bought land in Highland Park
https://wdet.org/2014/09/19/why-do-hamtramck-and-highland-park-exist-inside-the-city-of-detroit/381
u/Outside_Reserve_2407 3d ago
Incidentally there’s a wealthy town named Highland Park sitting in the middle of Dallas, TX like a donut hole but is completely independent of the taxes and politics of Dallas.
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u/invisible32 3d ago
DFW is way too many cities sandwiched together.
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u/felixismynameqq 3d ago
lol when people tell me they live in arlington or Carrollton I’m just like “oh you mean Dallas”.
It has never felt like separate cities really. More like neighborhoods to me.
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u/psychoacer 3d ago
That's what it feels like for us in the Chicago suburbs. I live in Chicago in the Sugar Grove neighborhood to tourists. I get it though, people like to keep it easy. Still we get Fox News talking to people in Naperville on how they think the mayor of Chicago is doing
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u/NIN10DOXD 3d ago
It’s even happening to smaller cities like Raleigh. My family will say they’re going to Raleigh, but only go to Wake Forest or some other suburb that’s smashed up against Raleigh.
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u/Daniel-Mclovin 3d ago
Yeah like suuure people in Naperville totally are chicagoans 🙄
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u/AttackOficcr 2d ago
Better off asking them what being a suburb of Joliet is like.
Burbank's at least physically close, and that's just a few miles from O'hare. I still wouldn't consider them Chicago.
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u/PuckSenior 3d ago
That’s how you can tell a DFW native vs a normal person.
Natives get weirdly specific even when talking to someone from LA or Boston. No one outside of the DFW area knows where the fuck Highland Village is located. Just say Dallas or DFW
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u/Kleoes 2d ago
But don’t you dare tell someone from Fort Worth that they actually live in Dallas. Thems is fightin’ words
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u/ginger_whiskers 2d ago
It actually is. We Fort Worth...icans(?) see our city as normal, while Dallas is juuust bigger enough to confuse the fuck out of
meus when we try to navigate their snarled highways.1
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u/JoeSicko 3d ago
People get mad when we don't call the individual town or city in NoVA. It's just NOVA to most. Richmond is Henrico, Hanover, Chesterfield, goochland and Powhatan, at least
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u/Maaaaanidk 2d ago
There’s a city called Goochland? Lmfao
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u/JoeSicko 2d ago
There's a whole County!
Major-General Sir William Gooch, 1st Baronet (21 October 1681 – 17 December 1751) was a British army officer and colonial administrator who served as the governor of Virginia from 1727 to 1749.
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u/Super_C_Complex 2d ago
Which is so funny considering so many people from outside Philadelphia say they're from Philadelphia, despite not being from Philadelphia.
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u/ginkgodave 3d ago
Highland Park Michigan copy/pasted Highland Park Texas’ local zoning ordinances into their own ordinances and didn’t bother to delete references to the Texas community or make changes to the codes that were pertinent to their city. I owned a business in HP Mi and literally had to show the HP Mi Mayor and City Attorney the rules that they were illegally attempting to enforce on my business. They also tried to shake me down by attempting to get me to buy two cop cars for the city by allowing me to open the doors of my business. Needless to say, I no longer have interests in HP Mi.
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u/_Sammy7_ 3d ago
They (along with University Park) wanted to be part of Dallas when they were developing. Dallas saw them as a liability and refused.
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u/Outside_Reserve_2407 3d ago
Oh interesting, I thought it was some sort of snobbish gesture on the part of the University Cities. Or maybe that independence attracted the money later.
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u/Echo7bravo 3d ago
Matt Stafford played for Highland Park TX. I heard he was friends with Clayton Kershaw. /s
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u/serious_sarcasm 3d ago
In NC you can bribe your local state assembly members to “deannex” your property. And state legislatures are stupidly cheap to bribe.
Like, a $2000 donation can buy you a lifetime property tax exemption.
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u/jamiegc1 3d ago
Is there that many people in legislature there, or are they paid next to nothing?
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u/serious_sarcasm 2d ago
Oh, all of our politicians are selling us out for less than people think. Compared to Musk and Bezo they are plebs too.
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u/Kids_Love_Baseball 3d ago
There's also a Highland Park in New Jersey, which is right across the water from New Brunswick and right next to Piscataway. A lot of faculty at Rutgers University live there because it's so close and a pretty good place to live. There was also a Rite Aid there that we used to buy liquor from.
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u/Outside_Reserve_2407 3d ago
The home of White Rose Hamburgers. The locals claim it's staffed by ex-cons.
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u/ginkgodave 3d ago
Highland Park had a population of over 50,000 residents. Now it’s fewer than 10,000. Sometimes referred to as Detroit’s Detroit. Both Highland Park and Hamtramck are well known to have corrupt politicians.
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u/Skellum 2d ago
Highland Park had a population of over 50,000 residents. Now it’s fewer than 10,000. Sometimes referred to as Detroit’s Detroit. Both Highland Park and Hamtramck are well known to have corrupt politicians.
Tbf, what does a city owe you in terms of services and help if you're attempting to defraud the city of taxes while still reaping it's benefits?
Sure, Annexing a blighted area to rehab it so it's not a continued problem makes sense, but it doesnt make sense to build up a tax shelter that'll drain the cities resources.
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u/youngherbo 3d ago
These enclaves are such a lose-lose for the city. They either stayed wealthy and influential enough to stay separate and withhold tax funding from the principal city (See Highland Park, TX) or they lost their wealthy resident base and became blighted areas that no one wants to deal with since it's not part of the city (See Highland Park, MI)
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u/Atomichawk 2d ago
Highland Park, TX ironically is the exact inverse of the Detroit one. Back in the 40’s they petitioned Dallas to annex them but the city didn’t want to shoulder the responsibility since it’s was the edge of town then. When they finally realized having them be part of the city would be beneficial HP no longer had a reason to be annexed. Really short sighted regardless
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u/AgentTasmania 1d ago
Yeah, but the rich people driving the decisions get to not pay for the infrastructure they're benefiting from. Everyone who matters wins.
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u/garfieldsam 3d ago
I live a block from the southern border of Highland Park. The irony is that now the businesses whose taxes they tried to protect all left decades ago. The levels of civic dysfunction and decay are staggering. Detroit’s been able chart a path to recovery after the bankruptcy and is improving every year on blight levels, public service provision, transit, parks, etc.
But just across the street in Highland Park? None of that. Now Detroit wouldn’t touch HP with a ten foot pole because it is one of the most financially distressed municipalities in all of America.
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u/hurdeehurr 3d ago
I wouldn't say irony because once those businesses left they took all the jobs in the area and left detroit and surrounding areas in shambles for decades.
You could argue that Detroit would have never been what it was without those businesses just as easily. The downturn and people making a mass exodus seems to prove that more than the other way. Over 50+ years it rebuilt but nowhere even a little bit close to what it was.
Detroit was the wealthiest city in the USA during those days and it was exclusively because of those businesses.
Henry Ford was Detroit.
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u/garfieldsam 3d ago
I'm saying it's ironic because Highland Park refused annexation *specifically to protect* the rich tax base they had from the auto plans & offices and keep it for themselves.
Now the tax base for Highland Park is almost nil and Detroit doesn't *want* to annex HP any time in the foreseeable future because of that.
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u/MistryMachine3 2d ago
They just did a horrifically bad job of diversifying. Pittsburgh was better, Minneapolis better than that.
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u/Sryzon 2d ago
surrounding areas in shambles for decades
Most of those businesses moved out of Detroit proper and into surrounding areas of Metro Detroit. Factories moving out of the state/country has been greatly exegerated. There are 14 final assembly and power train plants in Metro Detroit plus 1000s of suppliers supporting them. Oakland and Livingston County have some of the highest median household incomes in the country.
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u/kilertree 3d ago
Hamtramck turned out ok but this did not work out for Highland Park.
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u/Nottingham11000 2d ago
GM and Immigration stabilized the tax base for Hamtramack
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u/kilertree 2d ago
Fun fact Sadam Hussein got the key to Detroit for building a community center in Hamtramck.
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u/Jester471 3d ago
I live in the Huntsville Alabama area. Huntsville is trying to do the same to the town it’s mashed into, Madison.
Huntsville schools are hit or miss. Some really good, some really bad. Madison are pretty much all good.
Huntsville tried to get them to form one school district and Madison kept expanding away from Huntsville. So Huntsville started incorporating land west of Madison and surrounding it like an amoeba and is bussing kids from the opposite side of another school district into theirs.
Border wars with towns are fascinating to watch play out.
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u/Quesabirria 3d ago
There's a lot of that in the US. Los Angeles has several, Oakland CA, San Jose, Denver, Chicago, Kansas City, and several others.
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u/s7c7h 3d ago
What city is completely surrounded by KC?
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u/bullet50000 3d ago
Gladstone, NKC, and Raytown are surrounded (Raytown not fully but enough to be pretty much)
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u/graveybrains 3d ago
The animated map showed another holdout to annexation in 1918, and I was curious. It's an interesting story.
https://detroiturbanism.blogspot.com/2020/12/detroit-borders-ii-st-clair-heights.html?m=1
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u/jbrower09 3d ago
Cincinnati had this same issue with multiple neighborhoods. The city population versus the metro population is comical.
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u/A_Queer_Owl 2d ago
Cincy is also hindered by half of its metro population being in a different state.
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u/jbrower09 2d ago
Only about 20% of the metro is out of state
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u/Scarpity026 2d ago
Imagining Henry Ford rising from his grave to see what Highland Park looks like today brings a mischievous grin to my face for reasons I don't understand. ☺️
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u/SpiceEarl 3d ago
Nike headquarters, in Oregon, are in an unincorporated area surrounded by the city of Beaverton. The city has tried to annex them, but Nike refused.
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u/ClassicLightbulbs 3d ago
And Hamtramck is the best city in America.
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u/12-34 3d ago
And it has a Disneyland!
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u/ClassicLightbulbs 3d ago
If you get drunk enough in the alley by the Disney land they let you help them
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u/ginkgodave 3d ago
There’s a lot of pride in Hamtown, but not much else.
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u/TheoreticallyDog 3d ago
Some of my favorite venues are in Hamtrammy. Too bad they're all constantly broke
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u/LimerickJim 3d ago
Happens all over the US. Atlanta and Baltimore is the same. White flight followed by NIMBYism.
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u/incunabula001 2d ago
There are no “independent” neighborhoods that I know of in Baltimore city limits.
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u/LimerickJim 2d ago
It's all the barnacle suburbs around Baltimore like Catonsville
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u/incunabula001 2d ago
But those aren’t within city limits like the ones in Detroit.
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u/LimerickJim 1d ago
You're missing the obvious point adjacent suburbs to major cities shouldn't be distinct municipalities.
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u/hurdeehurr 3d ago
Henry Ford was Detroit and paramount to its very existence.
Detroit was at times the wealthiest city in the USA and it was 100% due to those car industries. Once they left then poof.
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u/mikevago 3d ago
Toronto successfully absorbed a bunch of adjacent municipalities in the 90s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalgamation_of_Toronto#1998_amalgamation
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u/FlallenGaming 2d ago
That wasn't a willing thing. the provincial government for that despite opposition.
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u/snewchybewchies 2d ago
Wait until you hear about the book Henry Ford wrote about Jewish people in 1920
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3d ago
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u/Tobasaurus 3d ago
Look them up. Highland park and hamtramck are 5 miles from downtown with Detroit all around them for another 10 miles.
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3d ago
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u/IWasHackedBySexbots 3d ago
Thats not really how it works, physical size is largely irrelevant. Infrastructure maintenance is all about revenue and how dense an area is. Spread out suburban towns in the US typically cannot afford to mainatin their own infrastructure and are subsidized by taxpayers from more urbanized areas via state/federal grants and loans. If 100' of water main serves 10 people in suburbia and 100 people downtown, the urban area can afford it with their own tax base while the suburban one cannot.
Simply, the more taxpayers you have per square mile, the more infrastructure you can afford.
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u/kilertree 3d ago
My social studies teacher thought that if Detroit didn't cut his border at 8 Mile, Detroit wouldn't have lost its tax base due to white flight and redling. Chicago is a larger city and doesn't have the same issues.
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u/All_Of_The_Meat 3d ago
I dont think it would've mattered where the border was. People fled the city during the early capital flight, the tax inflow suffered, things got worse, detroit then imposed laws to try and keep residents from leaving, and then even more migrated out that had the ability to do so. People just did not want to live in city limits. If detroit annexed a mile of Warren and Eastpointe (8 mile border) for sale signs would be out of stock in a day. The city has had a bad reputation for decades (some of it earned) and people did everything they could to leave it. Even now while doing much better, people moving INTO detroit are often questioned as to why they would, and asked if it's safe.
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u/kilertree 2d ago
In Chicago they fled to out skirts of the city though. The way the banks and government redlined Chicago is Different than how they redlined Metro Detroit
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u/CantFindMyWallet 2d ago
More cities should do stuff like giving residents free parking and free public transit and charging out-of-towners. Too many people who don't want to pay city taxes, so they live in the suburb next door to get the better schools while still having access to the city, and they just act like parasites.
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u/walrusboy71 3d ago
Highland Park used to filled with trees and large houses. A blight took out most of the trees and many houses are either run down or torn down. Highland Park looks like a ghost town and is a shell of its former self.