I remember one of the application prompts to the DCBRP asked something along the lines of ‘What do you see as Detroit’s future?’<\/p>\n
I had been out of Detroit for pretty much all of my developed mind, and so I started\u00a0googling prospects for the\u00a0City. It\u00a0turned up\u00a0with\u00a0economic development plans, tech-industry investments, and\u00a0even a few stories about a burgeoning art scene.<\/p>\n
The prompt question was just slightly pointed enough to make me skeptical of all that I read though. So I did a few counter-searches, and I talked to my Dad, and found myself in a land of problems so present and systemic that I felt like I couldn’t possibly answer the prompt in the words provided.<\/p>\n
I did my best though, and I sent in my application, and few months later I was sent home with How to Kill a City. I spent an entire day flipping through its pages, and researching all its referenced videos and articles. The book granted me numbers, and stories, and a name and a frame for all these themes I had seen appear across media. It brought gentrification further away from a perspective, and closer to an inarguable injustice.<\/p>\n
Having that experience, and having read what happened in San Francisco, Detroit, and New Orleans definitely influenced my experience staying in Midtown.<\/p>\n
In a more simple way, it made me drive the roads instead of the freeways to my placement, and made me conscious of everywhere I visited and ate.<\/p>\n
In more complicated ways, it completely shaped how I functioned in my internship for the city.\u00a0Instead of being ‘off-put’ by some of the dilapidated houses I door-knocked, I was ‘off-put’ by a meetings celebrating corporate interests.\u00a0<\/span>Instead of having skepticism for the Detroiters I interviewed, I had skepticism for the Mayor’s development plans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I know there’s still a lot more I need to learn about the City of Detroit. And I know there’s a lot I need to learn about cities, development, and gentrification in general. But I know for having read How to Kill a City, and for my time here in the DCBRP, I will be asking the right questions along the way, and I’ll be having my discomfort and skepticism in the right place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I remember one of the application prompts to the DCBRP asked something along the lines of ‘What do you see as Detroit’s future?’ I had been out of Detroit for pretty much all of my developed mind, and so I started\u00a0googling prospects for the\u00a0City. It\u00a0turned up\u00a0with\u00a0economic development plans, tech-industry investments, and\u00a0even a few stories about […]<\/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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13675","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=13675"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15402,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13675\/revisions\/15402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}