DETROIT (Michigan News Source) – Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan has said he is committed to removing commercial blight from the city and one of the goals was to have all existing blight removed by the end of 2024.

To do that, the city created a demolition department in 2021. Since then, the number of full-time employees in that department has increased from 56 to 119 in 2024. It has been part of an overall pattern of growth within the city.

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Since the city came out of bankruptcy in December 2014, there has been a 46% increase in full-time employees while the city has experienced a 7% decrease in population over that same time period.

The city employment has grown from 7,291 full-time jobs in 2019 to 9,039 in 2024. That’s a major reason why city expenditures have increased from $1.5 billion in 2014 to $2.1 billion in 2024.

The city’s General Services department has grown from 436 full-time positions in 2015 to 1,174 full-time employees in 2024. The city added 182 recreation department jobs to General Services in a departmental merger in 2019. The General Services department manages the city’s vehicle fleet, forestry services, vacant lot maintenance, city-owned building maintenance, and park and recreation center planning, design, improvements, and programming. That department also operates and does maintenance on the 310 public parks and 18 recreation centers in the city.

Some of the additional jobs are due to a reclassification of a small number of contractual employees. The City Council employees were on “personal service contracts” in 2015 and not considered full-time employees until 2017 when they had 45 employees. Now, the City Council office employees 145 full-time positions.