{"id":3796,"date":"2014-06-17T11:18:11","date_gmt":"2014-06-17T15:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uropcbrp.com\/?p=3796"},"modified":"2020-08-28T14:07:41","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T14:07:41","slug":"blog-3-the-watchers-on-the-wall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/2014\/06\/17\/blog-3-the-watchers-on-the-wall\/","title":{"rendered":"Blog 3: The Watchers on the Wall"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"<\/a>Apologies about the title of this post! I’ve been on a bit of a Game of Thrones\/ASOIAF kick, so I couldn’t resist. It is appropriate though, since this post will all be about my observations of my new work and of Detroit. I’ve been trying to keep my eyes peeled and my mind open, so at least I’ve got that in common with the fictional Nights Watch… though I’m hardly guarding the realm against a deep evil, unless the dark forces of privatization and fracking count.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, driving home from work, I saw something that almost perfectly encapsulated the intersection of “job experience”\/\/”detroit observation”. I was headed down Martin Luther King Boulevard toward Cass from Trumbull. I’ve often noticed in this area many people sitting outside, on grass along the side of the road or other little spots of the like. In fact, right on a corner where there are bushes and tree coverage, some people have set up some chairs in a semi-circle. Monday, June 16th (which is what I mean by yesterday), was exceptionally warm, into the 80s and nearing 90 degrees Fahrenheit. So, though it took me aback, it really shouldn’t have been surprising that a man was walking down the road hawking “Ice Cold Bottled Water”.<\/p>\n

Although festivals, street fairs and special events might feature individual entrepreneurs selling water, I’ve never seen someone on a regular day just out, selling water from cooler dragged behind him. Of course, this got me thinking. Was there a market for this kind of water selling because individuals didn’t have access to clean, cold, running water in their homes? There has been a huge surge in water shutoffs to Detroit residents recently, to the disappointment and disgust of my organization (see here<\/a> for protests). Or maybe some of the potential buyers didn’t have homes. Maybe some of them didn’t trust or didn’t like the taste of tap water… despite the fact that tap water is better regulated than bottled water and there is no discernible difference in taste (maybe tap water even tastes better… see Boston Public Health Commission’s blind taste test<\/a>). And what about the seller? Was he buying bottled water commercially and selling it at a markup…. or was he bottling tap water at home for an even larger profit margin? (It costs, in terms of raw water rate, $0.0003335 for 16.9 ounces of Detroit tap water… vs $1.25 for the same amount in bottled form)*.<\/p>\n

These are fascinating questions… to me at least. But in all likelihood, there are not clear cut and dry answers to them. This is perhaps one of the most important observations I’ve made so far: In Detroit, even a simple event, stray thought or brief encounter can have levels of questions and complexities behind it. Just watching and taking notes can help you discover what questions you want to ask, but you’re not going to necessarily answer them just by being a watcher on the wall. It might take some digging, some researching or some involvement in the community before you can begin to uncover the layers of motivation and explanation.<\/p>\n

And On Another Note: I didn’t grab a picture of the event above (be proud of me Dad! Hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, NOT on the phone!). But this post calls for a picture and a short summary. So, I’m planning on going to Traffic Jam and Snug with a friend who is an Engineering student at Wayne, and she’s said she’ll show me her lab… \u00a0and I want to show her this amazing residential street right across from Traffic Jam that is a historic area and absolutely beautiful. I found it on my morning runs. I’ll try and grab a picture of one or more of these things tonight and post them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*Please keep in mind, this calculation is based on how much Detroit charges in dollar amount per unit of usage of water and does not include the other fees that might be associated with a water bill for a Detroit resident.<\/p>\n

SIGNING OFF<\/p>\n

3rd Week Freida<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apologies about the title of this post! I’ve been on a bit of a Game of Thrones\/ASOIAF kick, so I couldn’t resist. It is appropriate though, since this post will all be about my observations of my new work and of Detroit. I’ve been trying to keep my eyes peeled and my mind open, so […]<\/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":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cbrp-2013"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3796","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=3796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16409,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3796\/revisions\/16409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}