Green City Diaries: reclaiming the built environment

Photo by Marvin Shaouni

(originally published 8/28/12 in Model D)

The last six decades haven't been easy on Detroit's old buildings. The large-scale flight of people and capital from the city has left dishearteningly few paths for much of our widely varied historic architecture to take. Anyone visiting the city for the first time can easily apprehend two of them: abandonment and decay, on one hand, demolition on the other.

Historic preservation, emerging in the late 1960s, created a third option: the use of legal and financial tools to designate and preserve sites of architectural and historic significance. The efforts of preservationists have certainly made a meaningful difference here, but historic designation and preservation are not panaceas; they can be defensive, rigid and, at times, ineffective. (The Albert Kahn-designed American Beauty Building, being torn down by order of Wayne State University as I write this, is on the National Register of Historic Places, but that largely symbolic designation won't prevent it from coming down.) Perhaps more importantly, preservation is not as widely feasible in Detroit as it is in other US cities; the staggering level of disinvestment and neglect here has left too many of our buildings too damaged to preserve.

This is a grim and painful situation, and it will persist. "We're going to lose a lot more buildings in this struggle," Susan McBride of the Detroit Historic Commision told me bluntly. Just last week, as if on cue, the Free Press reported that the Toronto-based owner of the Beaux Arts State Savings Bank, built downtown in 1900, is considering demolishing it to make room for, you guessed it, another parking garage. (Let's all sigh together. Or would it be more satisfying to scream?)

There is, however, reason to hope for the future. A host of recent decisions by small business owners, artisans and craftspeople, and even the administrators of large institutions suggests that, slowly and imperfectly, a fourth way of thinking about our historic buildings is burgeoning here. This diary entry is dedicated to sussing out and tentatively exploring this new ethic, which finds many expressions but is rooted in a commitment to finding sustainable solutions to the questions our old buildings persistently pose.

Read the rest at Model D.

Green City Diaries: this land is our land, part 2

Photo by Marvin Shaouni

(originally published 7/17/12 in Model D)

When we began our discussion last week about Detroiters rejuvenating public space, we concentrated on the development and maintenance of one extraordinary park in the North End. This week, we’ll consider the revitalization of another greenspace, Palmer Park in near Northwest Detroit. But we’ll also look at a successful effort to transform a different kind of "public space" with plenty of potential for regional sustainable redevelopment: vacant lots.

Brad Dick, the director of Detroit’s General Services Department (which maintains parks, other greenspaces, and city facilities) told me that of the city’s 300 or so parks, it can currently afford to regularly maintain only 160. When the city announced the closure of 77 parks in 2010, the General Service Department’s maintenance staff had been reduced from 200 to 50 people, its full time staff from 50 to 20. (These are the staffing levels at which it remains, making attentive care to each city park impossible.)

Palmer Park, an historic, sprawling, 296 acre greenspace, was on that list. But in the wake of its official closure, a community of more than 70 supporters has coalesced around it, taking responsibility for its maintenance and programming themselves.

Read the rest at Model D.

Green City Diaries: This land is our land, part 1

Photo by Marvin Shaouni

(originally published 7/10/12 in Model D)

I found myself thinking about public space in Detroit a few months ago while mowing a sizable swath of Lafayette Park with a borrowed push mower.

A few dozen picnic guests were set to arrive in a matter of hours, and after several days of heavy rain, the grass in the park was calf-high. I’d been willing the city to mow all week. "Please mow by Sunday" became a mantra, repeated each morning after I woke up and looked down from my apartment at the park below.

But the grass cutters, with their efficient, industrial riding mowers, never came. (It must have been near the end of the park’s 12-day mowing schedule.) Picturing itchy picnic guests politely pretending to have a good time, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

Detroiters, I thought while trudging behind the lawnmower, make this kind of decision all the time. Living as we do, 700,000 or so in a city intended for 2 million, we take ownership of public space that has been otherwise neglected, tending to it, rejuvenating it, and encouraging its active use.

We do this because we want a better quality of life. We do it because the city can’t always afford to. And we do it in different ways, from simply mowing the grass every once in a while to cleaning up vacant lots or trash-strewn alleys (sometimes planting food or flowers in them afterward), or adopting and maintaining officially closed parks.

When we think about a more sustainable Detroit, which must include our continued social and economic health in addition to environmental concerns, this practice is key. It’s clear that the city is not going to experience a sudden population boom to help fund the maintenance of our public spaces anytime soon, yet these spaces remain. Under such circumstances, they require our care to reach their full potential. Viable public spaces are where we meet and talk with our neighbors. They’re where we play and get fit together, where we share skills and learn from one another. They provide us with the opportunity to pass on our neighborhoods' stories, and to create safer environments for all who use them.

Read the rest at Model D.

Green City Diaries: Motorless meditations

Photo by Marvin Shaouni

(originally published 6/12/12 in Model D)

There’s something about cycling in this city.

Getting around Detroit by bike isn’t exactly new; it started, in fact, in the late 19th century, and has remained an affordable transportation option for resourceful Detroiters for decades. But as in other US cities reimagining themselves with sustainability in mind, the current moment feels, well, momentous. More widespread adoption, greater visibility, and tentative infrastructural developments have all aligned in recent years to suggest that in Detroit, cycling is on the rise and here to stay.

In our previous diary entry, we focused on people who choose to get around Detroit on foot or by bus. Some of the reasons they mentioned included getting to know their city better, the fact that these modes of transit are more social and humanizing than driving, and the regular exercise they provide. Those reasons all apply to cycling too. But urban cycling is a unique transportation experience, and with its apparent local boom, we thought it deserved an entry all to itself. Our subjects this month are three Detroiters who choose to bike the Motor City. Their stories and perspectives are distinct, but united by the shared conviction that when it comes to getting around Detroit, bicycling is often best.

Read the rest at Model D.

Allied Media Projects: Creative communications for the future

Photo by Marvin Shaouni

(originally published 5/8/12 in Model D)

It’s almost that time again: every summer since 2007, media makers (and reformers), social justice activists, radical educators and librarians, technologists, youth organizers, artists, and musicians from around the country gather in Detroit for the Allied Media Conference (AMC).

Their mission is to explore how participatory media are (and yet could be) used to create a more just and creative world. Members of this diverse and expanding "network of networks" come together to organize and strategize, and to share stories, information, and tools. They envision a future in which greater numbers of people can access and use empowering technologies to tell their own stories, and to start meaningful conversations about issues relevant to their communities.

The AMC originated in 1999 in Bowling Green, OH as the Midwest 'Zine Conference. It’s currently coordinated by Allied Media Projects (AMP), an organization that emerged out of the conference in Bowling Green and later moved it to Detroit (in part because of the city’s long history of community organizing and grassroots media production).

AMP’s small staff works out of the Furniture Factory in the Cass Corridor, in a vibrant space designed to foster interaction and collaboration. (Think pods, not cubicles.) Hosting the annual conference is the most visible work they do, but their other, lesser known and locally focused projects, Detroit Future Media (DFM) and Detroit Future Schools (DFS), are remarkable, and well worth a closer look.

Both projects are about fundamentally changing the city: "One of our goals is to transform Detroit’s economy into a media based one," Operations and Outreach Manager Adriel Thornton says. "One way to do that is through Detroit Future Media. We’re also concerned with transforming education in the city. That’s Detroit Future Schools."
Read the rest at Model D.

Green City Diaries: Walk the walk

(originally published 4/24/12 in Model D)

Francis Grunow, a northwest Detroiter who moved to New York for school and stayed a few years for work, describes a transformational moment he experienced there after college: the realization that he could get anywhere in the city he wanted to without a car. He felt, in that moment, "the distinct sense of being freer than (he’d) ever been before."

Francis is back in Detroit these days, working out of the Green Garage with New Solutions Group, a public policy consulting firm that’s concerned, in part, with improving transit in Detroit. (Read his recent Model D piece about Detroit’s transit history and potential future here.) His daily commute is a 200 or so foot walk from his home in the Canfield Lofts through the Green Alley adjacent to the Green Garage. He meets most of his clients by bicycle. While he doesn’t feel anything close to the expansive sense of transit freedom he did in New York, he does feel that "within a fairly defined area of greater downtown, I can get anywhere I want to most of the time with walking, biking, or the bus, and it’s pretty reliable."

Francis isn’t alone, and this phenomenon is worth a closer look: every day, in a city built resolutely by and for cars, people to choose to walk, take the bus, or ride a bike as a viable way of getting from here to there. As Detroit develops into a greener and more sustainable place, where cars play a smaller part in a more balanced and humanizing transit ecosystem, what can others learn from their stories?

That’s the question we’re exploring in this two-part diary entry. This month we’ll talk about taking the bus and walking, and next month we’ll look more closely at cycling.

Read the rest at Model D.

Green City Diaries: March is for scheming

Photo by Marvin Shaouni

(originally published 3/20/12 in Model D)

It’s almost growing season in Detroit.

Across the city, hundreds of farmers and gardeners who grow food in their backyard, community, market, or porch gardens are collecting seeds, turning and adding compost to their soil, and getting together to talk about what they’re planning to plant, and how, in all their varied plots.

For this month’s diary, we’ve been skimming the deep well of wisdom that exists in Detroit’s gardening and farming communities to learn more about their work. These interconnected communities have grown here for decades, and their numbers continue to multiply as more and more city dwellers come to understand and embrace the transformative power and practical value of participating in a sustainable local urban food system.

The benefits of growing one’s own food are legion. To name a few: In a country where most food travels between 1500 to 2000 miles to reach our plate, choosing to grow fruits and vegetables can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from industrial agricultural practices and long-distance transportation. Fresh produce is more nutritious, and it tastes better. And community gardening, more and more, is being understood as a powerful generator of social capital.

We talked to a small but diverse handful of gardeners and farmers to learn the reasons why they do what they do, their insights into the local resources available to support new growers, and the specific preparations they’re making for the season.

Read the rest at Model D.