The Approach

            With some difficulty, I begin to discuss my time in Detroit. I mention that this task is difficult because Detroit has become a token into the “hip” world of experience these days. A city of bankruptcy, corruption, and mostly poor people (as the negative media portrays it), it is, on the other hand, first, and foremost, a city with people working to make it resilient-- full of grit, hard work, and an insistence that the people of the city will not give up. Through these images, negative and positive alike, one is able to associate one’s experience in the city with being a part of this “resurgence” in the city, a part of the process of creating something that was not there before—we, the educated class of (mostly) white people who are newcomers to the city, are receiving national media attention for our presence in the city—again, both positive and negative.

            It is this image with which I struggle. Though through a requirement I must journal about my experiences, my conception of journalism, especially in Detroit, has become increasingly cynical. Where are the stories about the water crisis and the activism pushing back against it? Despite an article published just this past week as an op-ed in the New York Times, just a few weeks ago, a journalist crafted an article that did not include one person of color in its content—despite the fact that Detroit is a city whose population is 90% people of color. Yes, definitely, some news sources will highlight specific black-owned businesses making a resurgence, or an urban farm such as Feed ‘em Freedom Growers or D-Town Farms, but rarely does this get woven into a larger conversation about race in the city, something which is blatantly poignant each and every day of living there.

            It is therefore that I wish to highlight my experiences in Detroit not about the specific, enormously positive happenings (although there are many and I will likely speak about them), but more so about the various goings-on that I notice around me. It will be centered on my specific view of the city; however, I seek to avoid romanticizing or exotifying the city and the people of the city. Detroit, importantly, is a majority-black city and the majority of my experiences as of yet boil down to examining the stark difference in income and opportunity between the majority population and the small, white, minority population. This is a unique situation in the United States, specifically in the Northern part of the country; and is especially important given Detroit’s specific spatial and political history.

Background

            Historically, as soon as the G.I. bill came along, veterans who were white were more easily able to move to the suburbs and start a home and a family outside the grime and smaller space of the city. It was this first step that began the facilitation of white people moving outside the city limits and as the black population continued to be unable to secure well-paying jobs. The auto industry began its shift to the Global South and the American South, poverty increased, and the times changed—for the worse for most of the black population, and for the better for most of the white population. The majority-black unions in Detroit were known for being extremely strong, which further prompted the auto companies to move, in order to avoid this barrier. For the factories that moved out to the suburbs, the lack of regional transportation and general financial capital among lower-class workers led many to be unable to follow their jobs elsewhere. This is not to say that some of the white, blue collar, working class population did not also struggle—the shift of jobs away from the center of the city and into new parts of the country prompted further exodus for many people following their skills to elsewhere in the U.S. However, within the city directly, many became stuck in their socioeconomic and physical location, especially within the black population.

            Approximately 20 years after the G.I. bill was initiated, a major race “revolution” broke out within the city. At the peak of summer heat, a riotous mass of people and violence, made up of mostly the African American population, broke out into the streets leading to upwards of 43 deaths and a declaration of national emergency high enough to bring in the National Guard. This occurred largely as a response to decades of the black population being continuously subjected to unfair laws and circumstances, and the inability to move up and forward, especially as the economy declined and jobs moved elsewhere.  Concurrently factoring in unfair drug laws that placed a disproportionate amount of black males behind bars in the 1980s and the segregation and polarization of the city in relation the suburbs, the city continued to decline.

            Today, the city is beginning to work itself out of bankruptcy headed by the first white mayor in 40 years, despite his lack of power, as Emergency Manager Kevin Orr currently holds the reigns to the city. Given these powers in the middle of the night by the Republic legislature and governor in Michigan, Orr maintains control over the city’s finances and police department at the very least, and will (hopefully) end his term in October of this year, as was originally planned and hoped for. In the meantime, non-profit organizations and community development corporations (CDCs) and various other smaller community organizations have continued to fill the gaps that the city’s municipal services have been unable fill for years.

            In Detroit, the goal of my time here is to explore the ways in which the larger narrative among Detroit’s residents is shaped by the actions or inactions of various community organizations and new developments throughout the city. Detroit can be seen through the theoretical lens of being a conflict-zone, though not in the terms that all might think of. When one thinks of conflict, images might appear of ammunition, AK-47s, and dead bodies. While this is technically accurate, those images are more so the means by which conflict is oftentimes, in this society, mediated and fought through. The conflict, however, is what is beneath the surface of the means by which it is fought—the reason why the fighting occurs. Conflict, as is often seen, revolves around resources. For instance, one can argue that most of the conflict in the Middle East is fought over prime real estate for the oil industry, as well as general diplomatic purposes. In Detroit, conflict appears in a variety of different ways that often play themselves out in a different means than stereotypical conflict.

           

Land as a Resource

            First and foremost, land in Detroit, as in most conflicts, is a hotbed issue. Detroit has a significant amount of land and only recently has it become the central topic of discussion in many circles. Back in 2012, when Dave Bing was the mayor, he, with other leaders, began an initiative called the Detroit Works Project which has morphed into today’s current incarnation of Detroit Future City. The initiative began concurrent with Bing’s (then unheard of) proposal and plan to “shrink” the city by moving people in high-vacancy neighborhoods into neighborhoods with lower rates of vacancy. This was amid the worsening state of the city as the former mayor was being convicted of various corrupt financial practices, and the city began to more strongly take to the headlines in the national news for its unprecedented collapse.

            To say the least, Bing’s approach to fixing much of the city’s problems was not well-received among residents. Many, among the activist circles, still believe that the master plan behind closed doors in the mayor’s office today is to follow this “shrinking city” plan. However, what the Detroit Works Project found, throughout its two years of gathering opinions and reaching out to the residents in the city, is that the city government could not simply move people out of their homes and completely get rid of neighborhoods. Instead, based on the priorities that people expressed were necessary, a group of city planners, engineers, and community leaders convened to create the Detroit Future City Framework. This Framework is the current guiding documented plan for the next 50 years of the city. The Framework is emphasized to be a “living” document, that is meant to be changed and altered according to the city’s and the citizens’ particular needs throughout the years. However, the plan’s main focus is on the land use within the city and how it can be altered and bettered through various efforts of green infrastructure, repurposing, and working on each area’s assets.

            This particular aspect of the conflict over the land in the city is something that is not being immediately felt or dealt with on a day to day basis across most reaches of the city. Instead, one can also understand the conflict over land as a resource through the lens of the hot-button topic of the generation: gentrification. Through attending a number of conferences that convened various city and community leaders, gentrification was the common concern and most talked about topic in each case. It is a topic that is difficult to avoid when discussing the changes to the city’s landscape and property these days, and many different factors play into the discussion, no matter which way it goes. This discussion merits a blog-post in and of itself; so, stay tuned for that at some point in the near future.

           

Blight

            One of the conferences I recently attended was titled “Blight Boot Camp,” organized by Detroit Future City and hosted by Wayne County Community College. The day-long event featured presentations by various community leaders and organizers about various ways in which they are fighting blight in the city. To clarify, blight is broadly defined by any area or place that looks untended to, dirty, trashy, or falling apart. Nearly 1/3 of Detroit’s land is unpopulated, though at its peak it was booming with vitality and people. The city’s area encompasses the size of San Francisco, Boston, and Manhattan all together, and approximately the size of Manhattan is abandoned or vacant. One of the primary concerns of community organizations and city government alike is the elimination of blight and alternate uses for blighted landscape.

            Conflict especially ensues over issues such as this. One of the large perpetrators of neglect have been absentee property-owners and landlords, as well as a maze of a system of ownership of city-owned property. What has been even further contested is the methods and ways in which blight is being eliminated these days. Concerns over eliminating blight in a timely fashion have run alongside concerns about environmental and health contaminants released during blight elimination, and have created a muddled landscape upon which blight elimination is now working. The Detroit Land Bank is attempting to clear up some of the murkiness over city-owned properties, and thereby making it easier for people to identify who owns the property as well as helping the government identify which properties should be their first and foremost priorities. Again, more clarity will be given on the topic of blight in a future blog post as it is an intensively complicated topic to pursue at the current time.

All in all

            Most of what has been written in this blog post so far are thoughts I have thought about on a daily basis. The city is fraught with so many problems and there are many hands in the pot trying to fix the problems, with little clarity as to how best proceed and do more good than harm. The most interesting aspects about the city to me currently is how the people and various organizations respond to different actions taken by city government in an effort to help alleviate many problems in the city and how well they succeed or not. The more I understand the various issues, the more I have begun to understand that politics and policy play an even larger role than I expected, and that most of what is interesting is what happens in relation to new policy changes or decisions made by the city government. The people of Detroit are resilient, passionate, and ready to fight for their rights to a proper livelihood where the government provides municipal necessities efficiently and effectively. Furthermore, many of the newcomers to the city, despite the fact that our presence is conflictual, are working hard to find a place within the city that is helping create the capacity for and uplift the work of longtime residents. As an initial assessment from what I’ve seen and with whom I have talked so far, it is evident that what is critical for us newcomers to do is ensure that we fight alongside the longtime residents for fair housing, hiring, and job-training practices across the city in order to work to find a place for all residents throughout the city, old and new. Despite its problems, it is imperative to stay positive to keep fighting for the best for the city, with hopes of its revitalization becoming reality.