Hamtramck_web

munities,” with Detroit the most distressed city in America. But, unlike some other nearby locales, whose populations were decreasing along with the re- gion’s slumping economy, Ham- tramck’s actually began an uptick in 1990s. Today, it is still growing, while becoming one of the most ethnically diverse and interna- tional cities in the American Midwest. Its population of 22,000 is made up of its older Polish community as well as newer immigrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, Bosnia, Ukraine, Albania, and elsewhere. This latest wave of new residents has changed the nature of Hamtramck– in 2015, it became the first city in the country with a Muslim majority on its City Council, and its econ- omy has moved from reliance on its General Motors plant to many small commercial and entrepre- neurial businesses. Katrina Powell is Hamtramck’s City Manager. She was appoint- ed in November 2104, by an Emergency Manager on behalf of Michigan’s Department of Treasury, to oversee the financial re-building of the city. “We started at ground zero,” she says. “The community has been in a AT A GLANCE HAMTRAMCK, MICHIGAN WHAT: A city of 22,000 WHERE: In Wayne County, surrounded by the City of Detroit WEBSITE: www.hamtramck. us HAMTRAMCK, MICHIGAN distressed state for a very long time.We’re just now getting our finances somewhat stabilized to be able to take on some additional things. We have an amazing Master Plan; just not a lot of it has ever been implemented. So we’re starting to implement those things. I’m in the process of hiring an Economic Development Director; I just hired a City Planner. Hopefully, I’ll be able to have my Economic Development person, as well as my City Planner, work togeth- er to get things moving– addressing some of our Master Plan.” Meanwhile, Powell outlines some of the recent infrastructure projects that the City has embarked upon: “Two years ago, our streets were in complete disarray; we had potholes everywhere,” she begins. “So, we set about doing a study on all of our roads to really understand exactly what we were working with.We know they’re bad, but let’s get a ranking on the worst streets and make sure that when we come up with a plan of what we want to do, we know where we’re going to start.We were able to get every street ranked. Then, we sat down with our city engineers and came up with a plan of attack on how we would address the needs.” “We did several road projects last year,” she continues. “We also started doing spray patch-