I have really started to get used to an office routine now and have been able to get more responsibilities from Pat. The 9 to 5 still seems pretty boring but most days I am able to get out of the office and go to meetings or walk through parks and residential areas in north east Detroit. For the most part, the blocks are being well maintained but there are always a few problem houses or streets that bring down the whole community. The most important goal for Nortown right now seems like it should be forming block clubs and getting people invested in their streets. If that happens, hopefully more businesses will start to move in and it will be a snowball effect for the neighborhood. All along Van Dyke there are a lot of abandoned businesses and no community anchors. There are four types of businesses I have been able to reliably see on every street: Salons, Medicinal Marijuana dispensaries, Auto Shops, and Corner Stores. There definitely needs be a diversification in the area and there are a lot of commercial properties that could be upgraded in order to accommodate this need. Hopefully with my research project I will be able to identify and assist Nortown in its mission to target these properties.
I have loved living downtown and going to restaurants and biking everywhere. Having a bike down here has by far been the best mode of transportation and after being inside for most of the day, biking around has been my favorite activity. have been going home on Sundays but I want to spend the whole weekend here next week because I feel like I have been missing a lot of the exploring other interns have been doing. I want to take a tour of some of the cool art exhibits they have in the city and go to the DIA too so hopefully I can do that this weekend. There are also a few more restaurants I want to try and pop ups I have been hearing about so those are on my list of things to do as well.
