WEEK 6 – Detroit Community-Engaged Research Program

WEEK 6

A couple weeks ago, I had the awesome opportunity to accompany my supervisors on a bus tour throughout the Osborn neighborhood. As a designated Skillman Good Neighborhood, it has seen some increased investment in the last few years. This bus tour was more or less a part of that, organized by a consulting firm who is making a strategic plan for the area. They invited a variety of community groups to come along and pick specific parts of the neighborhood they specialize in to share with the rest of the bus. It was a great tool for me to see more of the larger neighborhood we are working within, and learn some important history that has helped lead the area into it’s current state.

My hometown of Midland, housing two major, international chemical companies, has managed to escape relatively unscathed from the decline of the auto industry in Michigan. Dow Chemical buys declining properties to slap their name onto and create their version of a perfect corporate city (one to which I hate returning). But it is very different than Detroit, which is about 17x bigger and has seen most of it’s major corporations leave it behind. Parts of the Osborn neighborhood have certainly seen major effects of this, and it has seen one of the highest foreclosure rates in the city. It has not, however, seen hardest hit funding from the city, which more often focuses on communities that are still relatively stable to attempt to keep them from becoming unstable. However, many people still live in the Osborn neighborhood, and they must deal with the devastating effects of blight and abandonment without help. One of the community members on the bus from Black Family Development explained how it is very dangerous for children to walk to Osborn high school, as predators lurk in overgrown foliage and abandoned properties. He also explained how speeding and negligent drivers have caused teddy bear shrines to pop up all around a local elementary school when children get killed by cars.

My supervisor also explained some very interesting history on the way, such as the effects that the city closing off 6 Mile/ Mchnichols for the Colman A. Young airport had of the local economy. When people had to re-route themselves on their way across town, she explained how it killed many of the businesses in the area.

All in all, I was left overwhelmed. While the neighborhood has many assets still and many people are working tirelessly to make the community a better place, there is so much blight and abandonment that I wonder where one could even start to make it a safe and livable neighborhood again. My supervisors constantly seem overwhelmed and frustrated, as they have to jump through so many hoops just to get a simple start on the big visionary plans and ideas they have to make the community a better place. It doesn’t help that the city won’t listen. But they work tirelessly to use their limited resources to improve the lives of the people who still live in the neighborhood, just like they themselves do.

The tour started off on a funny note, though: we saw a deer in the middle of a community garden right in the middle of the city. Being from Mid-Michigan and having family in rural Thumb-land, I know plenty of people who have done serious damage to their vehicles by ramming into one of these bad boys, and can view them daily when I’m home. I of course immediately knew what it was when I saw it, and didn’t think twice about it until I heard someone say, “I’ve never seen one of those before!”

Meet Hank, just hanging out on Mchnichols.
Meet Hank the deer, just hanging out on Mchnichols.
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