Now in its 10th year, DMACS surveys more than 2,000 Detroit residents annually about their priorities and lived experiences. By co-creating the surveys with local partners, including city government, philanthropy and nonprofits, DMACS ensures resident voices reach leaders to inform decision-making.

This project was created between 2024 and 2025 by students in a University of Michigan first year seminar called “Art and Black Power in Detroit: A Public History Project,” with the guidance of Professor Rebecca Zurier and Research Associates Olivia Butts and Irma Maribel Guzman.

Detroiters plan to vote in about the same numbers as they did last fall, according to the DMACS survey conducted last fall when roughly 6 in 10 Detroiters said they would “definitely” vote in the 2024 presidential election. 

DNEP connects Detroit small business owners with U-M students and faculty to solve real-world business challenges. DNEP offers free help with accounting, marketing, law, and technology so local businesses can grow. Students also get real-world experience by working with Detroit business owners.

For Micah Aaron, BS ’13, MPH ’15, growing up in Detroit and later moving to nearby Farmington Hills taught her an early lesson about inequality and helped shape her career studying healthcare systems.

“This place is just so magical in that there are big changemakers in our community that come here for events, and then there are Detroit middle schoolers that are here building robots, and the fact that those two things can happen just side-by-side is part of the magic of this place, in my opinion.”
~ Haley Hart, director of the Michigan Engineering Zone

The U-M Detroit Center celebrated its 20th anniversary with remarks from university leaders, community leaders and researchers, a poetry reading, presentations from Semester in Detroit students along with dance and music performances.

Paul Draus writes: “I’m a sociologist who has worked alongside neighborhood revitalization projects in Detroit for the past 15 years. I’ve observed the bridge project – and the many tensions around it – from the perspective of adjacent communities of Delray and Mexicantown, communities that are largely home to low-income Latino, Black and white residents. The costs and benefits of this binational behemoth are complex and intertwined.”

The study, which analyzed data from six Michigan counties between 2017 and 2021, found that for every 10 additional firearm incidents per year in a census tract, residents had a 1.6% higher chance of dying from cardiovascular disease linked to stress.