24 Hours in Highland Park: The City of Highland Park: A History to Cherish…a Future Worth Fighting For

Perhaps the best way to describe Highland Park is to view the 2.97-square-mile city through polar-opposite lenses.  In essence, the Highland Park story is a riveting tale of two very different cities: one filled with prosperity; the other gripped in the clutches of urban decline, blight, and systematic erosion of a once-hefty tax base and economy. Once known nationally and internationally as “The City of Trees” and “A Model City,” Highland Park was home to award-winning schools, immaculate neighborhoods and streets, and large and majestic homes.  Jobs were in abundance, thanks largely to two giant automotive entities:  Ford Highland Park Assembly Plant and Chrysler Corporation’s World Headquarters. The city, at its peak, boasted a population of nearly 60,000 in the 1930s into the ‘40s. Today, the city has a population of just under 9,000. The steady flight of people has left a number of streets in Highland Park, especially west of Woodward Avenue over to Hamilton Avenue and some points westward, with abandoned commercial and residential structures. In addition, the famed Ford Assembly Plant that manufactured millions of Model T cars and Chrysler’s World headquarters have long vacated Highland Park, leaving a tailwind that negatively impacted the city’s tax base,...