I've written before about living in Detroit and the toll that it can take on ones psyche. But, lately I've noticed a different aspect to living in Detroit. It is a concept of all or nothing and it has been quite damaging to attempted recovery.
A documentary is out there called 'Detropia.' I haven't seen it because it only screened one night here in Detroit and I wasn't able to get there. From what I gather, the makers of the film were hesitant to show the film in Detroit because it doesn't portray the city in quite a fair light. Or, to put it more bluntly, the cheerleaders of the city were concerned that the film displayed Detroit in a negative context when good things are happening.
I'm torn on this issue. I certainly work hard to defend the city from ignorant people who spout off all the bad things happening here without ever setting foot east of Ann Arbor. Just two weekends ago at Wheatland a woman started to tell me all about how Detroit has nothing left and after I informed her of some good things I realized that it was a losing argument and walked away.
The culmination of all this led me to realize that Detroit faces, and quite possibly the country at large faces, a real problem in terms of all or nothing. In the case of the woman at Wheatland, it was that Detroit lost such a huge swath of population and infrastructure was destroyed that it was time to raze the city to the ground. My perspective is, of course, all the great things happening here, but admittedly, I am not working with the problems directly to know the severe magnitude of said problems.
What I see happening is a call on one side to give up, bulldoze the city and start over, and on the other side, an incessant cheering, rah-rah, feel-good story of how Detroit has turned the corner. I think its safe to say that neither of these visions are accurate.
Enter my evening activity last night. I went down to the Detroit Works Project home base in Eastern Market to attend a meeting regarding transit in Detroit. The meeting was an excellent meeting to attend.
For some context, the Detroit Works Project started back in September 2010. I remember thinking how remarkable it was that Detroit was actually organizing people to start thinking about how to shape the city, and that Detroit was working to have community involvement.
What I didn't realize (didn't pay attention to?) was that the initial phases of the Detroit Works Project were a real mess. Lending an ear to citizens is always a bit of scary thing as you never know what you might get. And in a place like Detroit where the problems are plenty, its a good bet that if citizens have a sounding board, you're going to hear some pretty passionate people.
And the hardest part of the project was that it was meant to lay out a long-term plan for how to start moving Detroit in the right direction. However, people were not thrilled about planning for the what the city looks like 20 years from now, when at the moment the need for streetlights, quality police and fire protection, and a knowledge that city services were going to be provided was a little bit higher priority.
The city decided to split the project into a short-term planning and long-term planning project. And the long-term project was turned over to a design center based at the University of Detroit- Mercy. These were the leaders that we heard from last night. And boy did they have some interesting things to say.
Through all the studies and plans that are on the website, solutions have started to arise. And it must be pointed out that this plan is not exactly a roadmap. It really isn't a land-use plan or any kind of step-by-step guide for what the city should do. As much as I think that's what we as people generally want, we all know that changing things takes time.
But the greatest piece that I pulled from last night happens to coincide with the notion of all versus nothing that was already brewing in my mind. The lead presenter, Dan Pitera, spoke about how one of his observations in this project is that all too often we are looking for a monolithic solution. What do we do with vacant land? Make urban farms of course! How can we attract jobs? By changing to a new economy of course! How can we improve transportation? By adding light rail of course!
The trouble with that approach is that a monolithic solution rarely works for a large city. What was suggested, and what the Detroit Works Project is presenting, is a multi-faceted approach to improving the city, and a recognition that some parts of the city will require different things than other parts.
I really do think this kind of thinking is essential. It isn't just about attracting new tech jobs to the city, its about attracting manufacturing, educational, health related jobs, and other areas we are already strong in to support the city. Its not just about utilizing vacant land, its about studying what the neighborhoods already look like, where strong points are, and designing our neighborhoods to best meet the needs of its citizens.
Movement is happening. It will be a decades long approach to making it work, but it was really the first meeting like this I've ever attended where people weren't pointing fingers and placing blame and making circular arguments about tiny details in the larger scheme. The meeting encouraged people to share concerns and thoughts, but it was very much a conversation, and not a firestorm.
And one final point, the presenter addressed the population issue first and foremost. Its true Detroit has lost a large chunk of people in a relatively short period of time. But to say that the square mileage of the city has anything to do with how it functions is erroneous. Cities cited were: Atlanta (133 square miles; pop: 420,003), Denver (153 square miles; pop: 600,158) and Portland, OR (133 square miles; pop:583,776). Nobody would say that any of these cities are too big to function and if any of these cities jumped to 1 million people, they wouldn't know what to do with them all. Suddenly Detroit (139 square miles; pop: 713,777) doesn't look quite so bad, does it?
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