The Deets on Detroit
No one ever told me about Detroit’s amazing architecture. Detroiters, you are sitting on a goldmine! Man oh man, yesterday morning I went for a stroll along Woodward Avenue down from Circus stop on the People Mover (the most adorably named public transit system in the US) and couldn’t believe what I saw. Apparently Detroit has the largest collection of Mies van der Rohe buildings in the country—who knew? I doubt most Detroiters know that. I doubt most Detroiters want to renovate those buildings downtown, but they are gems.
So when I was on the People Mover at 8:30 in the morning, I expected to see everyone going to work, the hustle of rush hour. Nope, I saw four people on my 15-minute ride and not too many more people walking to work. Detroit couldn’t be more magical, and yet no one is working or living downtown. It was sad to see so much potential wasted.
The Creative Cities Summit was an inspiring event, but because so many of the speakers were the kinds of guys whose jobs have literally become making speeches at summits (Richard Florida, Charles Landry, etc), I felt a little as if the people who are struggling in the trenches were forgotten. I was trying to think of a way to recap my two days in Detroit when last night I ventured out for the opening night of Design Philadelphia. For about five days, design institutions open their doors or hold talks or put up exhibitions related to design. Most impressively was the A Clean Break exhibit. Using a vacant lot on S. Broad Street, Design Philadelphia transformed the open space by erecting some pre-fab houses and other small exhibits on things like vertical farming and recycled furniture.
Philly and Detroit are similar in many respects. They both had an industrial past. They both have crime and education problems. They both suffered some bad city planning. And yet, Philly has really rejuvenated its downtown. I have to think that it’s because a number of small groups do small things like Design Philadelphia where they make use of the consequences of blight. They turn vacant lots into parties. It seems that Detroit has often focused on large initiatives, that while successful and important, don’t have the kind of frequency and can-do energy that city needs. It’s important that young people and people without connections can feel like they can have an impact on the city — that message seemed to be lacking in the discussion at the summit last week.
I’m curious to know what locals and attendees from the event think….
Diana Lind is editor in chief of Next American City.
alc in Detroit, MI on Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 1:39pm
There’s actually quite a lot of people in downtown and midtown Detroit—they just don’t often take the People Mover! The train doesn’t have a large range, and at least for myself, it’s just easier to walk or ride my bike instead of paying for a ride.
Glad you liked the city! Albert Kahn was a major designer of Detroit’s gorgeous buildings.
While there’s a limited number of city-led initiatives, Detroit is actually an amazing draw for entrepreneurs and creative types (it’s what drew me here actually). From The Hub/Back Alley Bikes to the Detroit Evolution Lab to Motor City Blight Busters to The Heidelberg Project to the urban agriculture movement, individuals are transforming the city’s people and landscape with wonderful energy and imagination.
Because there are lower barriers for entry than in most cities, what’s happening here is really uncommon. I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to see all of it! Hope you get an opportunity to come visit again.
Incidentally, I visited Philly for the first time last month—and loved it.
Diana Lind | Next American City on Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 5:52pm
Hey, thanks for this comment. We do hope to return in April. That’s so exciting to hear about these kinds of projects. I wish that there had been some discussion about their success in Detroit—perhaps I didn’t take the right break-out sessions.
Urban in Detroit-Chicago on Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 6:59pm
Yes, Detroit needs to take advantage of it’s blight and I think small projects and social collaborations are the way to go. MOCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit) is one of the recent initiative in Detroit that I think is having a vast impact in bringing people to the city. The city needs more social innovation, but it needs jobs too. My Dad worked in a Ford plant when he was in his 20’s and alot of what I hear from him is, “Detroit needs jobs first! You can’t expect people to come here if there aren’t any jobs!” Which is kind of true, in a 20th century kind of way. But today’s innovative companies, the ones who are changing how we think and act, can be run from anywhere and start-ups will be drawn to locations that are cheap and have a unique culture. For me, if Detroit really draws on what it’s got, it can create a new, desirable social context, through the glorification of what is deemed “blight.” Just check out Sweet Junipers Flickr feed…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sweetjuniper/sets/72157602695025605/
and MOCAD…
http://mocadetroit.org/
thecitydesk on Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 10:30am
I grew up in Michigan and lived in SE Mich. for the last six or so years before coming to Philadelphia four and a half years ago. So, if you wanted a city, it was Detroit. I hadn’t been downtown in a few years- going on the walking tour- it just struck me as so strange that there are still these beautiful old skyscrapers downtown, sitting empty (or largely empty). I’d posted some photos from the conference to my flickr and a friend mentioned that it looked like this massive film set, waiting for someone to come in.
There’s just so much potential in Detroit, but also so much momentum against what has to happen to bring it back. But, with the light rail proposals, it seems like they’re hopefully willing to do it.
It definitely made me even more appreciative of Philadelphia and thinking people really need to start seeing what we have here that works and is good, before complaining so easily. But, well, that’s Philadelphia.
BVos on Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 8:52pm
Hello Diana,
Thank you so much for coming to Detroit and speaking at the Creative Cities conference. It was great to have a younger person who’s intimately involved in urban America giving a key presentation at the event. Thank you also for your great and always timely (from a story subject standpoint) publication.
I grew up in the Detroit suburbs and came back after going to college in Minneapolis. My wife and I (and now kids) have lived in the city of Detroit since 2001 and I work in urban planning and community development. I worked that career in Detroit for several years and now work in Ypsilanti, MI, an industrial suburb of Detroit & Ann Arbor.
At the Creative Cities presentation you said that you’re shooting for an April Urbanexus salon event in Detroit and asked the audience for ideas on what the challenges are facing Detroit. As a Detroit resident and urban planner, I would say that the biggest challege facing Detroit is a lack of leadership from elected officials. This lack of leadership starts at the state level and extends down to the local level at the mayoral, City Council and school board level. In an era of rapid social change and economic decline our local elected officials have been unable to deal with change and economic challenges simultaneously. The issues they’re dealing with do not have easy or quick solutions and no one has the courage to make the right, but potentially unpopular decisions. I’m not talking about an inability of the government to “save” us and doing big plans to fix things, I’m talking about the very basics of government like balancing a budget and looking to the future a few years and creating policy to properly diversifying tax revenue sources in light of failing/declining tax policies. If you can’t deal with financing government as an elected official, your government is going to have and has big problems.