Dave Bing
Mayor of Detroit
By Andrew Stevens, Deputy Editor

29 March 2010: The avuncular frame of former Detroit Pistons basketball star Dave Bing now finds himself in the mayor’s office of the city following his 2009 election victories. A leader in both the sporting and business arenas, Bing’s honours include the Basketball Hall of Fame and National Minority Small Business Person of The Year. However, the mayor’s most immediate challenges are the city’s crippling debt and its ever shrinking population.

Bing was born, not in Detroit, but in Washington DC, in 1943. The 6ft 3ins mayor overcame a childhood eye injury to join the Springarn High School basketball team, going on to attend Syracuse University, playing for the Syracuse Orange team and becoming a leading scorer in all America. As a point guard, albeit with an unorthodox playing style, he went on to play several seasons for the Detroit Pistons from 1966, before the Washington Bullets and retiring at the Boston Celtics in 1978. His sporting honours include the Basketball Hall of Fame and the NBA’s 50 Greatest Players list.

Off-season, Bing worked as a teller for the National Bank of Detroit and following his retirement from the game joined a local steel company, working in its warehouse and sales divisions. He left in 1980 to found his own company, Bing Steel, which was not an initial success, losing his invested funds. Bing then reorientated the company towards the supply chain for local manufacturers, landing contracts for the region’s large automakers and was honoured by President Reagan in 1984 as National Minority Small Business Person of The Year. Bing expanded his company into a wider manufacturing concern, which continues to this day. From his initial investment of $80,000, Bing grew the company into a $40m a year concern in just five years.

Bing’s entry into Detroit city politics, albeit as a successful businessman and role model, followed a turbulent era. Not only has the city had to grapple with depleted finances amid the recession and its build up, as well as the flight from many of its unsustainable neighbourhoods, but also the largest governance scandal to hit any major American city for years. The city’s swaggering former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick (2002-2008) made history as its youngest at just 31 and was given the honour of addressing the 2000 and 2004 Democratic conventions, suggesting a national political career following his stint in city politics. However, Kilpatrick agreed to step down from office and pleaded guilty to two felony misconduct charges that stem from a sex scandal. Kilpatrick admitted to two counts of obstruction of justice after his lawyers struck a deal with prosecutors. As part of the plea agreement, Kilpatrick served 100 days in jail and must pay $1m in restitution. He also is barred from holding public office for five years.

Following Kilpatrick’s departure, the city council president Kenneth Cockrel was sworn in as acting mayor, running the city from September 2008 to May 2009. Cockrel was defeated in the May special election for the post, having placed second in the February primary against Bing also. Bing has since won both the August 2009 primary and November 2009 general elections, both against challenger Tom Barrow. Since re-election, Bing has struggled to balance the city’s budget and is now considering drastic plans to downsize the city to its urban core, ostensibly abandoning unsustainable deserted neighbourhoods by cutting off municipal services.

Detroit operates under the strong mayor-council model, with the city council of nine members all elected on an at-large basis. The city sits in Wayne County, Michigan. First best known as the centre of US automobile production, Detroit was then famed as the city of the Motown sound in the 1960s, before the burgeoning Detroit techno scene of the 1990s made the city’s name globally resonate once again.

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