Detroit’s primary election is less than a month away. Nine candidates are on the city’s ballot for mayor. WDET has been bringing you interviews with those candidates. 

Detroit businessman and mayoral candidate John Barlow sat down with WDET’s Jerome Vaughn to talk about his vision for the city.

Barlow says back in the fall of 2023, he started to study possible candidates as they considered joining the city’s mayoral race.   

“No one was able to convince me of a plan or a team that was organized or mobilized enough to be able to perform these duties once elected, or even to campaign properly to get elected,” he said.

Barlow says he did his full assessment of the field — and as a lifelong Detroiter — he felt the need to step into the mayoral race as a candidate who would represent both his generation and future generations. 

“I could not sit by and not put my name in the hat to give Detroit a real choice, from my perspective,” he said.  

Barlow says the city is on the cusp of a new era. He says the city was in a similar position in the late 1960s, when officials put in a bid to host the 1968 Olympics. If elected, he says he’d have the city put together a bid for the 2036 Olympics.