This has been a really hectic week, but really fulfilling. I went back to Ann Arbor and almost missed my bus to come back 🙂 Anyway I found a really cool hat at Eastern Market during the Juneteenth Festival, and for the first time learned about its history in depth. I also went a little further with “how to kill a city”; I think it is an insightful book. It explained gentrification in plain language and concentrate on a core narrative about how the governments have been complicit in accelerating gentrification. I really love the topic of gentrification, because this is a phenomenon that is really close to me (actually my neighborhood back home has been through some similar changes like New Orleans and Ann Arbor, in some ways, resembles the problem in downtown Detroit). I believe the discussion about Detroit would encourage us all to do some soul searching. Many of us have been working for non-profits under the umbrella of economic development orgs with ambitious missions, and for those of us working in Midtown and Downtown, it is imperative to also evaluate our work through critical lens, because simply making the neighborhood around us livelier doesn’t necessarily benefit Detroiters as a whole. Circling back to my own experience with my orgs, I am looking forward to next week learning more about cool small businesses that have been our clients, which also intersect with our learning group’s topic. I am also exposed to coop business model in a green garage meeting last Friday and looking forward to learning more about it! That’s it!
