The Michigan chronicle. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1936-current, 1943-12-11
THE MEDICAL CENTER

A controversy has arisen over the site selected
for the new medical center of Wayne University.
No one can question the fact that Detroit badly needs
this new center, and all of us regret that such
necessary municipal facility has been so long IN the
planning stage The site chosen for the center, how
\ever has presented some problems which cannot be
ignored or lightly brushed aside.
The site is in definite Negro area and the diff
fculty arises out of the fact that the Negro citizens
of Detroit have had long and unremttlng struggle
to obtain adequate living space within the city limits
Within the narrow confines of the Negro ghetto, our
people have had to pile literally on top Of one another
and congestion has been added to squalor. The living
space of the Detroit Negro has been rgidy controlled
by restrictive covenants and property agreements
and when these have not been used white mobs have
risen to the occasion
1t must be noted too that congestion and squalor
are important health factors and in some respects 1t
has been the physical conditions of our community
life which have made increased hospital facilities
such a pressing need today. AS long as we must
live in crowded jerrybuilt structures which afford
neither light nor air, the municipal hospital needs
will continue to increase. 1t is self-defeating to
maintain vast slums on the one hand and to seek
to correct this condition by increasing hospitali
cation.
we all know today that we must have the proposed
medical center to meet present conditions. What
alarms u.s. however, is the fact that the proposal for
the vast medical center has not been accompanied by
any concrete proposals for solving the already dan
gerous housing condition which may become worse
if adequate living space is not available to those who
will be displaced by the medical center.
Here again we run up against the traditional
Detroit mistake Of piece-meal planning for COM
munity needs. While we have heard great deal
of talk recently about master plan for Detroit, new
housing is being constructed without any regard for
recreationa space and other essential facilities. We
are told these mistakes are being ignored because
of an emergency situation. AS we review the cltys
growth almost everything that has been done in the
last 20 years has been>done in emergency and the
net result has en/ony to create new emergencies.
We believe that the rehabilitation of the blighted
areas of Detroit should proceed in rational manner
with all factors properly considered. We need the
new Wayne MEDICAL center very badly and we need
housing just as badly. While recently plannsg has
gone forward rapidly for the medical center, we
have not been informed of any proposals for Kidding
our areas of the conditions which make the hospitals
so necessary. This is the core of the present con-
troversy.
We must state too that we regard the rigid
control of the land space available to citizens of
color as an affront to ourselves and to the system
of government under which we live We intend
to keep fighting until it is abolished 1t is our hope
that the city fathers will soon realize the folly of
trying to solve housing problem and at the same
time maintain and perpetuate in brick and mortar
the archaic American myth of racism. Detroit has
great future and its development should not be
shackled by short-sighted planning and hamstrung
by petty prejudices