Letter to my Former Self \u2014<\/p>\n
Cole,<\/p>\n
Coming in to this program, I\u00a0wanted to substantially impact a community this summer. That desire to impact change in the city of Detroit has not gone away \u2014 rather it has flourished. However, I have come to realize that one 20 year old who comes to the city for 10 weeks cannot possibly hope to have the kind of impact that I had so dearly hoped for when I eagerly applied for this program back in January \u2014 or even when I moved here in late May.<\/p>\n
Change is not simple, change is not easy, change is not the norm, and as I’ve learned, sometimes change isn’t wanted!<\/p>\n
Before you do something, you should have a plan as how to do it. And to create a plan for something, you need to have experience.<\/p>\n
So my experience this summer was not in the “change” stage, but rather the pre-planning stage. The field work that I did in the last 10 weeks has helped me\u00a0learn when change is necessary, how to implement it, and what a plan for the future of the city should look like.<\/p>\n
I spent a lot of time looking at neighborhood assessments, the city’s strategic plan for the future, and speaking with community members about the future \u2014 and now I feel like I have more of a grasp on what I can do to help this city.<\/p>\n
But, a lot of times in life, it’s not about what you can do<\/em>, but what you will do<\/em>. As a lifelong suburbanite, I’ve always felt that I can<\/em> do something to help Detroit and its residents. Many people can sit in the back seat and say turn here, go there. And that’s what I’ve heard for a lot of my life \u2014 Detroit should do this, should do that \u2014 I would do this. Well, then why don’t you go do it yourself?<\/p>\n Because I stepped into the driver’s seat for one summer, and I didn’t realize the kind of oncoming traffic that was blitzing the city of Detroit.<\/p>\n Now, I know a little more about why\u00a0change is hard to come by, and why its taken so many\u00a0years of recovery to get to the point that Detroit is at today.<\/p>\n Because now I know that people aren’t trying to make this city a bustling city of 2 million and return to its industrial roots. I learned that Detroit needs to be rooted in its neighborhoods, and building solutions for the future starts with building solutions from the ground up \u2014 at the community level.<\/p>\n Now, I feel ready to make a plan for what I can do to seriously help Detroit and make a tangible impact on a community. But now, I have to leave :(. So while my brain is churning with ideas and solutions and bright thoughts about what the future of Detroit can be, I will return tomorrow to my suburban life and then move to Ann Arbor in the fall. BUT \u2014 now I have many new perspectives on issues that I thought I had figured out long ago. And it will be cool to revisit those things as I move forward with my life.<\/p>\n But that also means that I feel that my work in Detroit is not finished. I want to make a guarantee right now: Week 10 of this program will not be my last week in Detroit.<\/em> \u00a0And I’m looking forward to the future!!<\/p>\n Sincerely,<\/p>\n Cole Zingas<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Letter to my Former Self \u2014 Cole, Coming in to this program, I\u00a0wanted to substantially impact a community this summer. That desire to impact change in the city of Detroit has not gone away \u2014 rather it has flourished. However, I have come to realize that one 20 year old who comes to the city […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dcbrp-2015"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1669"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15835,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11713\/revisions\/15835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}