T-46: The once and future city

Part of the reason we are taking our bike ride across the country is to see how other places operate, how they have weathered the disinvestment in public life that has been the norm for the last 25 years.  We have been so embedded in Detroit, which certainly is its own unique self.  We are interested to see if how it is in the big out-there.  Even so, very little riles me up quicker than folks who don't diddly about Detroit making big time pronouncements about how to "fix" the city. 

I recently read an article in which the writer was touting the influence and necessity of small entrepreneurs as the salvation of Detroit.  While it was a well researched article, it missed the boat because the writer was not much aware of the way in which life in Detroit has already left the 19^th century model of centralized commerce and government.  Detroit, both through choice and necessity, has found ways to invent key structures of daily life,  whether that is food, cash free economics, or a deeply rooted maker culture. 

One cannot tell the story of Detroit’s rebirth without discussing its central role in transforming the food economy.   With miles of open and incredibly fertile river bottom land, more than 2000 community gardens, and an active local food movement, Detroit is a the center of the urban agriculture movement.  It is not unreasonable to think it will be food self sufficient in 10 years.  And… this is a movement centered in the African-American community.

Another feature of life in this city is the robust social capital that keeps this place running.  There are time banks, thousands of grassroots block clubs and community groups which do everything from patrolling the streets, to tutoring kids, to running city parks.  Detroiters are past masters of “making a way out of no way”.  The resilience of the African-American community fuels this, of course.  The community has been ignored (or mistreated) by officials for so long, that other structures to solve problems are put in place.

This is what I call “the Auntie network”.  Battalions of kin and near kin organize the structures of life, from baptisms to funerals, from transportation to home repairs.  When you want something done, you engage families, not individuals, in this city.  When I say families, I don’t mean daddies and mommas and kids…. I mean grandma, grandpops, aunties, uncs, cuzzes (1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd) bros, sisters, and all their kin.  A typical family reunion can bring together hundreds of people…it is an organizing feature of the social, economic, and community life in the city.

Finally, one cannot omit the central role of the culture and arts in this city.  Singing, storytelling, painting, poetry, film, dance, and more... are daily occurrences made by all sorts of people.  With food being grown in the neighborhoods, folks that know how to get stuff done with little money or help, and super cheap housing, it is possible to live as an artist here.  I know this and see this every day, having founded and run a community based theatre for the past 22 years.   Matrix Theatre Company has employed thousands of artists and engaged tens of thousands of residents.  We see them go on to make art with and around us, year in and year out.

So, yes the structures of 19^th century commerce and government are broken and nearly gone in the city.  But a new, organic, self-determining and self-creating structure is already here.  Those who have eyes to see it, already do it.