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PONTIAC, Mich. – As night fell on the city, teenagers ran through the scratchy, overgrown weeds, past a red plywood sign that read “Danger, Stay Away,” and pulled each other through a broken window into the once elegant but now vacant Elmer R. Webster Elementary School.
They set up their own tattered basketball hoop and then placed old cafeteria benches in a circle to relax.
“We can’t go anywhere,” said a 16-year-old who calls himself “Batman” – “Because this is our bat cave.”
“Pontiac doesn’t even have a pool,” a 15-year-old replied, fanning herself on a sweltering day.
The city 31 miles north of Detroit was once a place where almost everyone worked on the assembly line at the General Motors plant, and some even parked a car they helped make in the driveway. The Pontiac Trans Am was a popular choice.
But after General Motors closed its plant in 2009 and the local economy collapsed, Pontiac became a “ghost town,” a nickname given to a local newspaper after the city said it couldn’t even afford to maintain its cemeteries.
Soon, homes, schools, recreation centers, and the once-great Art Deco theaters downtown were occupied by squatters and boarded up. The only businesses that were doing well were pawn shops, residents said.
After years of struggle, Pontiac may finally be on its way to recovery. As real estate prices rose in downtown Detroit, Pontiac attracted large companies looking for cheap space, local officials say. In 2018, United Wholesale Shore, a mortgage company, opened a 150-acre campus with a Starbucks, a hair salon and gyms for its 6,000 employees.
The city’s greatest cause for optimism this year came when the Michigan Legislature approved $50 million for Pontiac to renovate old buildings, clear debris and redevelop green spaces. The city wants to use part of the money to host open-air concerts and build cycle paths.
Then Oakland County, where Pontiac has traditionally held the seat of government, announced it would renovate two downtown buildings and bring 600 government jobs back to the city. The district gave up its offices there in the 1960s.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where all levels of government – federal, state and county – are investing in Pontiac and giving it more attention than we’ve ever seen,” said Mike McGuinness, 29, who grew up here and is now the executive serves as Director of the Oakland County Historical Society and President of the City Council.
It won’t be an easy task. Pontiac’s unemployment rate is more than twice the national average, and local officials have talked about paying a statewide group to help reduce its violent crime rate.
Detroit is far larger than Pontiac and has long loomed over the city like an older brother. While Detroit had Motown and Eminem, GM’s Pontiac factory built the flashy muscle cars that appeared in films like “Smokey and the Bandit.” The city boasts that the bus on which Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, a symbol of her resistance to racism, was made there.
Pontiac and Detroit went through a similar boom and bust cycle: they collapsed during the heyday of automobile manufacturing, then crashed as jobs disappeared overseas.
But while Detroit’s comeback efforts have garnered far more attention in the last decade, Pontiac, a city of about 60,000 residents, is also trying to revitalize.
Pontiac residents joke, with some dismay, that their city is “the forgotten bastard stepchild” of Detroit.
“I always felt like there was a black cloud hanging over Pontiac,” sighed Andre Jones, wiping his brow in the unrelenting sun as he stood on a street corner in a residential area near his home, built 15 years ago which was known to be what he described as “…”Nothing but drugs and prostitution and homeless people passing out in empty houses or overgrown weeds.”
But now there is reason for hope, Jones said, pointing to large tent vegetable gardens created by residents and a local nonprofit. He takes on the work of watering and weeding the garden.
As Pontiac continues to struggle with high crime rates, a lack of jobs and safe, affordable housing – issues that are still realities in much of Detroit – local officials say the stars are finally aligning in Pontiac and they are closer than ever It’s your turn to turn ambitious ideas into reality.
“You know, this place is starting to turn into a nicer, safer neighborhood now,” Jones said, pressing his hands into a prayer symbol. “One day we could even have our city pools back. That’s what I really want to see for our kids.”
Pontiac – Yak Town, or The Yak as it is known locally – is named after a war chief of the Ottawa tribe who fought against European settlers. But the symbolism of his name has long been replaced by the country’s dying auto industry. Now residents have tried for decades to redefine themselves, sometimes failing spectacularly.
The year the GM plant closed, the city had a $6 million budget deficit and $100 million in debt. It was run by three successive state-appointed emergency financial managers between 2009 and 2015 to stave off bankruptcy.
Oakland County disbanded the underfunded Pontiac Police Department and contracted law enforcement services to the county. Pontiac firefighters were merged with nearby Waterford Township.
Many residents said they applauded those decisions because the Pontiac Police Department was broke and response times were slow, if any.
Pontiac’s population fell by 30 percent, from 85,000 in the 1970s to 60,000 today, as many middle-class white and black residents moved to the wealthier suburbs.
The town felt like an island of poverty in the center of one of the state’s wealthiest counties, residents say.
A high-profile attempt to revive his prospects turned into embarrassing nonsense. In 2009, investors used federal tax credits to open a film studio at the abandoned General Motors plant.
The studio produced a few small films, including “Oz, the Great and Powerful,” which began filming in July 2011, but not the hundreds of jobs that local officials had hoped for. (A Pontiac resident got to play a body double for Michelle Williams in the role of Glinda.)
Within two years, the studio announced it was closing and selling its props, including portions of Oz’s yellow brick road.
The city’s pride suffered another blow with the demolition of the Silverdome, which sports broadcaster Howard Cosell called “the most magnificent football structure of its kind” on opening night in 1975.
The 80,000-seat stadium, former home of the Detroit Lions, has hosted tractor pulls, the 1994 World Cup and concerts by Madonna (who spent her childhood in Pontiac) and even Elvis. But it fell into disrepair – once, in 1985, parts of the roof fell on Lions players. The stadium, which cost $55 million to build, was demolished in 2018. In 2021, Amazon opened a new robotics fulfillment center where the Silverdome once stood.
The stadium’s collapse was painful for local residents, said Tim Shepard, who grew up attending football games and concerts at the Silverdome in the 1980s and 1990s. However, he said there is still reason for optimism: the Amazon facility is “a significant win for the city with benefits that will continue for years to come.”
Is Pontiac ready for a revival?
After decades of decline, even jaded residents say they are seeing real improvements, including the reopening of several parks.
“Pontiac had its ups and downs,” said Terry Connolly, 66, who worked for GM product development in Pontiac City from 1979 to the mid-1980s.
Connolly said he hopes to open a day-long Pontiac Transportation museum this year to “instill pride in the city among school children.” They are passionate about cars and can say, “Look what my city has done.” ”
The museum could attract thousands of visitors each year, he said, pointing to the crowds that turned out this year to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the two-seat Pontiac Fiero.
“There are so many car enthusiasts, and they came and ate at Pontiac restaurants and bars and stayed at Pontiac hotels,” he said.
“For me, it’s also about the incredible civic pride that this city once had,” Connolly said. “We’re going to bring this back. People will recognize that Pontiac was a place of hops and was like the Silicon Valley of cars, trucks and buses. And it can be a place to hop again.”
After college, Coleman Yoakum left Arkansas for Detroit to take part in the fabled city’s comeback. But when he arrived in 2011, he realized Pontiac needed more help.
After more than a decade, Yoakum says he is starting to see real progress. His nonprofit Micah 6 has built neighborhood-run greenhouses on the city’s west side filled with tomatoes, peas, peppers, okra, collards and collards. They’ve also opened a small grocery store – the only place you can buy fresh vegetables in this part of town without having to cross a seven-lane highway, he says.
“It’s just so beautiful here,” said Tanya Autrey, 50, who was once homeless and now works in the store. Nearby there are stands of snap peas, kale, grapefruit and apples. “Before, we just ate chips, a Slim Jim and drank a lemonade at the gas station.”
Yoakum and other local activists also have larger goals, including transforming the historic Webster School, which opened in 1920, into a community center with a grocery store, a gym and programs for children and youth. His nonprofit has already raised $30 million for the restoration project.
Recently, local skateboarders and cosplay groups have asked to film at the former school, which closed in 2007.
“It’s a sign that the hustle and bustle of coming to a town like Pontiac isn’t completely overloaded and just defeats your goals and helps the community,” Yoakum said. “And Pontiac is at the forefront of this.”