Dear Cielo,
Pienso que voy a aprender mucho en esta programa. Quiero practicar mi español y conectar con los residentes de mi organización. Es chulo que 90% de los residentes aquí son españolas hablantes. En serio, solo estoy escribiendo en español porque tengo bloqueo de escritor.
Now that I got that out of my system, I really do expect to learn a lot in these next two months. From brushing up on my Spanish to learning the internal workings of a Community Development Nonprofit, I think there’s only room for growth on my part. I also expect to get to know the city better, digging deeper into its history, adventuring beyond the sports stadiums and theaters. All in all, I hope to gain a stronger sense of what role I can play in social change and develop valuable experience to fill that role.
At Brilliant Detroit we were tasked with work that will be both challenging and exciting. We are planning to research and generate a guidebook for all future expansions of the organization. As a nonprofit that’s only been open for two and half years, Brilliant Detroit has already quadrupled in size. Hopefully we will be able to pull out important details from these previous expansions and determine what works (and what doesn’t) when developing Kids Success Neighborhoods.
Currently I’m feeling somewhat baffled by how compact Detroit is. The 7.2 square miles that was referenced so frequently in Detroit’s chapter in How to Kill a City is certainly coming to life in a way I hadn’t seen before. Growing up and coming to the edge of the city to visit my grandparents, I always found Detroit to be vast and sprawling. The spindle style layout can make Detroit feel so large and so small depending on how close you are to the center. Today, with the DIA just a few blocks behind our apartments and Comerica settled neatly between the museum and Campus Martius, I pass by new landmarks with every block. In fact, the downtown is so small I even ran into my best friend’s brother in just two hours of being here… twice!
With that said, there’s a stark contrast of gentrified central Detroit and the blighted areas surrounding it. Just driving ten minutes to the South on Michigan Ave it’s dramatic watching the buildings change as you drive. The distribution of wealth is not subtle. It will be interesting over the next few months seeing how much time I spend in Midtown relative to the surrounding areas. I hope I’m able to support some of the local businesses near Brilliant Detroit’s homes and discover some of those hidden gems before I leave.
See you on the other side of two months!
-Skylar
