Some of the Council members, moreover, were notorious for not getting along among themselves; and those were only the petty issues. In June, City Councilwoman Monica Conyers resigned after pleading guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy to commit bribery and admitting she had accepted cash-filled envelopes in exchange for her tie-breaking vote on a city contract.  “In the city of Detroit, no one is wildly optimistic about the future at this time, but there is a sense that the politics that will take place will not be the politics that had been taking place prior to this election,” said Lawrence A. Dubin, a law professor at the University of Detroit Mercy Law School. “They have expressed a sincere desire to put the city’s interests first, which will be refreshing.”  Among the newcomers is Charles Pugh, the Council’s president-elect, who in his first bid for public office received more votes than any other Council candidate. Some attributed his success to his celebrity as a news anchor, while others cited his life story, which includes a series of setbacks all too familiar in a chronically distressed city.  In the campaign, Mr. Pugh pledged to change the culture at City Hall, and positioned himself as business friendly, hard on crime and supportive of regional mass transit. “We need a higher standard of ethics and transparency and competence and cooperation, not just with each other but with our region and our state,” said Mr. Pugh, 38. “That hasn’t been the message of the past, but it’s a new day.”  Mr. Pugh’s mother was murdered when he was 3 years old. His father committed suicide four years later. Raised by his grandmother, Mr. Pugh, earned a scholarship to the University of Missouri, where he studied journalism. But more recently, his financial troubles have played out in public: He almost lost his downtown condominium to foreclosure earlier this year after leaving his news position to run for office. The mortgage is being modified, and Mr. Pugh remains in his home.  “I want Detroiters to know that you don’t have to come from a rich family, you don’t have to have degrees from Harvard, you don’t have to be somebody who had two parents, and you don’t have to be straight,” said Mr. Pugh, who is gay, in a recent interview. “I want people to know that you can go through difficulty, but that difficulty can’t define you.”  Toward the end of the campaign, Mr. Pugh and four other novice, like-minded candidates decided to join a loose union based on shared ideals, and they all won. The others are Saunteel Jenkins, a social worker; André L. Spivey, a pastor; James Tate, a former police spokesman; and Gary Brown, a former deputy police chief whose wrongful termination lawsuit helped expose statements that led to Mr. Kilpatrick’s guilty pleas and resignation.  Four incumbents remain on the City Council, but the new members, at least so far, suggest there will be no animosity between old and new. When the new Council members take office on Jan. 5 , they will face the immediate task of grappling with a $300 million hole in the $3.1 billion budget and a local unemployment rate widely considered underestimated at 27 percent.  “We have to tackle crime and public corruption, a high foreclosure and illiteracy rate,” said Mr. Spivey, 35. “We have a lot to do.”  Ms. Jenkins, 39, apprenticed with the Council as a college student, then worked for years as a councilwoman’s chief of staff. She, too, emphasized the need for more regional unity, and also better race relations.  “One of the things that’s very distracting about this region,” Ms. Jenkins said, “is that it is one of the most segregated areas in the country — much of what we’ve done in the public policy area has been based on perceptions formed by our 1967 race riots. We want to form much more cooperative relationships.”  Ms. Jenkins’s financial troubles also became part of the campaign. She defaulted on a mortgage this year. She has since restructured the loan, and remains in her home. Mr. Pugh and Ms. Jenkins argued that their mortgage issues did not affect their leadership potential.  “The situation that a lot of candidates found themselves in was not dissimilar to what people were facing,” said Francis Grunow, a civic activist and former executive director of Preservation Wayne, an organization that seeks to protect architecture and neighborhoods. “It raised eyebrows, but it did humanize them and helped people relate to them. I believe it is a good group.”  A version of this article appears in print on December 22, 2009, on Page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: For Detroit Council, New Faces May Offer a New Chance. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
After the election of five new members to the City Council, expectations are growing that the city will see its first significant shift in governance in many years.