How Southfield became a suburb to watch

Local press stalwart Jack Lessenberry sings praises to Southfield's surprising successes.

Excerpt:

"Today, Southfield’s neighborhoods are neat and well-kept. Ranch and two-story houses are on leafy streets a few blocks from the office towers across from the city’s civic center.

Southfield has a huge, impressive new library that other suburbs envy. While there are concerns about the city’s public schools, there has not been the enrollment collapse Detroit schools have experienced.

Southfield’s ethnic transformation has been nearly as dramatic as Detroit’s. The population was less than 1 percent black in 1970. Twenty years later, it was 29 percent."

Read the rest here.