As I’ve written before, although I am from mid-Michigan, I have spent a good chunk of my college career interacting in a variety of ways with this city that I have grown to love. Last summer, I interned in Southwest Detroit. I am a director of the Detroit Partnership on campus, through which I have interacted with organizations all over the city, most notably (to date) in Brightmoor and Delray. I have taken classes that have brought me to the West Side, and over the past 3 years I have visited my cousin on many an occasion, becoming familiar with the artist culture of Midtown and New Center. This summer is my first real interaction with the East Side, and I have been taking every opportunity to learn what I can about the unique aspects of this region of the city. So far, I’ve gathered that the East Side has many great defining features and distinctive struggles. It is less dense than the West Side and therefore the city and Matty Mouron think they can turn it into an industrial forest (all while Hantz literally plants his own forest of Christmas trees to everyone’s confusion), but so many residents (most notably my supervisors) are passionate about their parks and neighborhoods and fight to make Northeast Detroit a great place to live. It is also home to historic neighborhoods like Indian Village, the Eastern Market, Pewabic Pottery and one of the best examples of Detroiters reclaiming their city, the Heidelberg Project. However, it also has the same inspiring pride and deals with the same effects of disinvestment that I’ve noticed in the rest of Detroit.
The culture of Nortown CDC is certainly an interesting topic to think about. It is unlike any other workspace I’ve ever been in, in that there are no full time employees, but essentially only two older women who have lived in the neighborhood for many years and volunteer a huge chunk of their time. As a result, there is a huge age gap. In some ways it is great- with age of course comes immense experience, and I have learned a lot listening to their take on what is happening in the city, their memories of the neighborhood, and their vision for a brighter future for the region. On the other hand, it creates a huge technology barrier for how I am used to functioning and how my supervisors have learned how to do things for the past 25 years. It has been difficult for me to work with the archaic machines and without some technology that I’ve grown used to in office settings, as well as to navigate the outdated ways they handle problems and execute day-to-day business, but I am doing my best with it.
This post was really enlightening. I think as someone who is not familiar with Detroit, it’s easy for my to lump the city as a whole, but your post reminded me the city has so many sectors and community and cultural pockets, each distinct with their specialities, but connected in their immense pride for the city and united in struggle. Great post!