One thing that has surprised me after reading the Detroit sections of “How to Kill a City” is just how quickly gentrification occurs. Yes, it is often built on years of systemically-racist laws and regulations, and yes, it consists of constant development pushing and pulling for city “improvements,” changing a neighborhood piece by piece. But when someone’s home is bought by a developer, when they’re given one month and minimal funds to leave a building and people they may have seen as a community, it’s hard to say gentrification is not a shock to the system. One day life seems normal, and in a matter of weeks your neighborhood is unrecognizable.
While I don’t agree with everything in the book, I think it was helpful for us to learn more about Downtown Detroit and the area where our group is living. I spend a lot of time formulating ideas about Southwest Detroit from my observations at work, during my commute, and in conversation with the people who frequent my site. When we operate as a DCERP group, and when we walk, shop, and talk through the areas around us less actively than we may at our sites, the character of what Moskowitz drills to be “the 7.2” has the chance to become background information. That’s part of why reading this book has given me a new perspective on some aspects of my site, as well. The area has not been as directly hit by gentrification as others in that it doesn’t consist of buildings bought and controlled by major developers, nor does it house a large percentage of those who have lost their homes to the actions and rhetoric of these financiers carving away at the city. Still, I see hints of the unified Detroit we’ve discussed in concerns about people being pushed out of the city, as well as in the by-products of related processes such as increased industrialism which carries environmental impacts for Southwest residents in exchange for business and a sprinkling of grants.
5 thoughts on “Week 4: Beyond “The New Detroit””
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Hi Reggie! I also found the description of gentrification as a fast-moving process very surprising, yet understandable when I consider how short notice residents are given before they have to vacate their homes. Many Detroiters who were interviewed for the section in the book and for the documentary we watched during the Thursday meeting said that it seems like entire neighborhoods were wiped out overnight. I have also been thinking about the idea of the 7.2 in Detroit when I go to my community site and see the individuals living in the northwest and the organizing that is happening there. Detroit is not just its downtown, it is much bigger and culturally rich than that.
Hello Reggie! I agree with your thought about while the cause of gentrification has been rooted for decades through racial/economic inequality, many of the residents who lose their homes only have months to figure out what to do next.
Hi Reggie, it also struck me how quickly gentrification can happen. It’s sad because often times it happens so fast it’s hard to react as quickly.
Hey Reggie, totally agree with you and your commentors in the observation that gentrification is quick and (in a way) quiet. It’s kind of ‘silencer’ in the sense that the people who might have a lot to say about their neighborhood being gentrified are silenced and pushed out before the surrounding communities and world can hear about it. I also think it’s interesting to compare our work site neighborhoods with our experience of living in Midtown and our journeys to Downtown. It adds a whole other layer to our interpretation of the book. My mom has always told me how special it is to read a book in the setting where it takes place (she read A Streetcar Named Desire in New Orleans and she uses that as an example haha). While reading and living in Detroit, we’ve been able to mesh the content of the book with our own interpretations (as well as the interpretations of our fellow DCERP-ers ). I’m excited to keep the conversation going!
Hi Reggie,
I agree with how the timeline of how gentrification occurs is very shocking, although there may be years of foundational and systemic changes that cause displacement, at its core the displacement is never expected and uproots most of the families affected by it. That was a very good observation you made!