Thank God I got a new bike seat.<\/p>\n
My bike has been my main method of transportation this summer, and it went through a lot with me. From our normal three mile round trip to work and back each day to random bike trips for work, from a bike ride through southwest with Dominic to racing through the rain to avoid being completely soaked, my trusty bike has been with me through it all this summer.<\/p>\n
So it was a fitting end that my last big event for work was a ten mile bike trip to urban gardens in the lower east side. I really had no idea what to expect from this trip, and what I saw blew any expectations out of the water. I saw beautiful gardens that brought communities together. And that was just a very small sample of the thousands of family, school, and community gardens throughout the whole city.<\/p>\n
In a lot of ways, that last bike trip was similar to my summer. Bike trips have more-or-less framed many of my activities in the past ten weeks, but a bike can only take me so far. I may have seen a lot of absolutely wonderful things in my time, but that was just a snippet of what the rest of the city has to offer. Downtown, Midtown, Corktown, and New Center, are amazing, but they aren’t everything.<\/p>\n
Too often, positive media attention and economic investment are centered around those areas of “Greater Downtown.” Admittedly, a vibrant urban center is absolutely essential for any thriving city. But in the neighborhoods lies the future of Detroit.<\/p>\n
I was also apprehensive about whether or not my placement would serve the whole city, especially the neighborhoods, or focus on Greater Downtown. I was ecstatic to discover throughout my time here that Detroit Future City does a lot of work in the neighborhoods in cooperation and coordination with well-established community organizations. From the upper east side to southwest to the west side, DFC had projects in just about every part of the city. While I was not directly involved with many of those, the two projects I had heavy involvement in, a green calculator and DFC’s Field Guide to Working with Lots, will serve the entire city.<\/p>\n
Although the last bike trip, like so many other adventures and even my experience at my placement, was not what I expected it to be, I think I am better off for it. The past ten weeks have exceeded my expectations by giving me experiences completely different that what I anticipated. And for that, I am tremendously grateful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thank God I got a new bike seat. My bike has been my main method of transportation this summer, and it went through a lot with me. From our normal three mile round trip to work and back each day to random bike trips for work, from a bike ride through southwest with Dominic to […]<\/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-6342","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\/6342","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=6342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16053,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6342\/revisions\/16053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}