My romance with cities started early. I credit my parents—they were always good about taking us downtown to Chicago. Mostly to the kinds of places you get dressed up for—museums, theaters, that sort of thing.
Certainly that colored my thinking, hanging out in all those pretty places. Now I understand it's only one dimension of any city. But for better or worse, it was my point of entry. It was also, thankfully, the spark of a flame that still burns brightly today.
As a child of the suburbs, I always loved watching the skyline come into focus, and then crossing the threshold into a big exciting new world. Walking in the shadows of skyscrapers and navigating crowded city sidewalks was magic. I could sit on a park bench for hours watching the hum of human activity around me. (Still true today—give me a table at a sidewalk cafe, and I'm AOK.)
Chicago was alright, but New York seemed even better. Bigger, brighter, more globally significant. My grandparents gifted annual subscriptions to the New Yorker, and I devoured any movies made by Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese or Spike Lee.
Then there were the postcards from my globe-trotting aunt, mailed from places like Beijing and Amsterdam and Istanbul. Seeing beyond the bright lights to darker corners only enhanced the allure. I fantasized about hanging out in Left Bank cafes and Harlem jazz clubs. I was pretty sure I was born in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Mostly, I was enchanted with cities because they seemed to have the very BEST of everything. The greatest architecture, the newest fashions, the most promising young filmmakers. All my favorite writers and musicians lived there. And for starry-eyed hopefuls, it was like this universal rite of passage: "If I can make it here, I'll make it anywhere."
I just loved all of that aspiration bursting from studio apartments and soaring towers and crowded subways. Waiters and taxi drivers, artists and traders—all riding the same trains and buses, dreaming of making it big. The density and diversity of activity was intoxicating. I couldn't get there fast enough.
Eventually I would. New York, Washington D.C. and Paris to live, lots of other cities to visit. I would study architecture and urbanism, I would work in jobs to celebrate or improve the physical city. And I would come to take for granted the importance of place and why cities matter.
Until I came to Detroit. Here, everything I loved about cities was different. Everything I knew had to be reconsidered—sometimes reaffirmed, sometimes relearned. The very basic tenets of urbanism—like the importance of dense, walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods (and all of that other good stuff Jane Jacobs wrote about from 1960s Greenwich Village)—weren't necessarily a given in the Motor City.
After all, the value of land was all topsy-turvy here. Often assets were regarded as liabilities. In New York, we fought to preserve open space; here, there was too much. Where they tore down to build bigger, we demolished for less. We seemed to be awfully good at making parking lots in places where other cities made public spaces. And I was struck by the absence of civic leadership demanding another way.
This was in 2002. It was a jarring transition. Sometimes disappointing, sometimes downright infuriating. But over time I would begin to understand. When you're stuck in survival mode, just trying to keep the lights on, vision and long-term thinking feels like a luxury you can't afford. I've been there myself, just trying to pay the bills. You fall into bad habits of deficit management when you should be seeking creative alternatives.
Eight years later, the needle has moved. A little bit or a lot depending on whom you ask. More local leaders talk about smart growth and adaptive reuse as vital components of economic development. We've gone from "what if" we had mass transit to "how" and "when." That's something. Even as the population shrinks, there are more voices demanding and creating change.
It's exciting to be a part of that movement. You learn to celebrate small victories—a building saved, a small business opened, a good candidate elected. The pace often feels glacial in the face of urgent challenges, but there are signs of hope everywhere. The grassroots activity—the artists and activists and entrepreneurs working at street level—is SO good. That's the upside, that's what keeps me interested and engaged.
But the high-level decision-making around here really blows. What we do in the name of "development" is too often desperate and destructive. We don't plan, we react. We scratch itches, we miss opportunities, we fear change—and then we wonder when that renaissance we keep hearing about is really gonna happen.
Some people claim to love Detroit exactly how it is. I am not one of those people. My relationship with this city is complicated. It's a love/hate deal, and I'm still learning to accept that tension—to embrace it even. It's not easy to dwell in that space between acceptance and intolerance of the status quo. What things should be given time and space to work themselves out naturally? What things MUST change?
In my humble opinion, decades of disinvestment in Detroit demand some pretty major corrective measures. We need more regional leaders committed to undoing what James Howard Kunstler calls "the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world." Sprawl has severely undermined our city, and until we all agree that the region won't flourish without a strong core, our greatest assets (human capital, infrastructure, innovation) will continue to erode.
We talk a lot about the past around here. Sometimes it feels like we're stuck in a blame game. We spend too much time making excuses and fighting old battles. We point to corrupt politicians, we fault the media. Past mayors, white flight, The Big Three, the unions—everyone has their favorite public enemy. Sometimes I want to stand atop the tallest, emptiest building and yell: "Can we just agree it was ALL of the above and move on already?"
To be sure, there are some very important lessons to be learned from our history. If we don't study and understand, we are bound to repeat mistakes. But I'm more inspired by people who seek out solutions and best practices. The historical and political bullshit can paralyze you if you let it. We need more forward thinkers and bold ideas. We need to be less afraid of taking risks and testing new ideas. And we need to create the conditions for creativity to flourish.
That's a big shift for us. We're talking about culture change here.
Recently, we're also talking a lot about storytelling—how to do a better job of writing our own story instead of letting others do it for us. Most agree that Detroit has been dogged by persistent misrepresentation in local and national media for much too long. What bleeds leads, and all those doom & gloom headlines have only reinforced negative perceptions of the city—which, in turn, undermine our ability to attract people and investment.
Some say we have a perception problem, others say we have a reality problem. I think it's pretty clear we have both. Anyone who says Detroit is dead or not worth saving doesn't know what they're talking about. And anyone who defends Detroit just the way it is is foolish.
The challenge here is to avoid hyperbole. It's a fucked up place, it's a beautiful place. It's in a downward spiral, it's in the midst of renaissance. If you spend enough time here, you'll find that both of these are true.
But the real Detroit dwells somewhere between our two dominant narratives. And part of the challenge and opportunity for those of us who live here is to communicate our own truth as honestly and loudly as possible.
As the oh-so-wise Chimamanda Adichie explains:
"The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story the only story. It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. Stories have been used to disposses and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize."So the Detroit story I try to tell everyday is one of opportunity and possibility—of creativity and community flourishing in unexpected places. It's a story that can't be told enough: passionate people doing great things in complete defiance of an uncreative establishment and a challenging environment.
From my perch behind the counter of my little shop, I get to meet all kinds of people who are remaking themselves, and, by extension, their city. The best ones aren't missionaries here to "save" Detroit. They're just doing their thing to bring truth and beauty and meaning to their own lives, which in turn creates more vitality and opportunity around them.
This energy and tenacity is contagious, so I try to put myself in the middle of it whenever possible. I surround myself with people who want the best for themselves and their city and aren't waiting for an invitation or perfect conditions to do their thing.
But every once in awhile, when I see that good energy thwarted by larger forces, I get angry. That's when I trade in my Detroit cheerleader hat for my critic cap. If I complain and cajole, it's just because I care.
So yeah, my love affair with cities is a bit more nuanced now than it was as a romantic teenager. Where I used to marvel at verticality, I now see stratification. And once in awhile, all of that glorious ambition in one place can feel more inhumane than inspiring. The point is not to crush humanity, but to nurture and celebrate it. Healthy places find ways to strike this balance.
But even as I question the prosperity and hubris that built our cities, I have found a new reason to love them. In a world of diminishing resources, concentrating ourselves in urban centers is more important than ever. Occupying less space, sharing public amenities, retooling old buildings and infrastructure instead of constructing new are more efficient, more sustainable, more responsible ways of living and doing business.
After all, if you care at all about protecting the natural environment, the best thing you can do is stay away from it. Live in a city.
Or if you care about innovation—of any kind, really, whether technology or democracy or gastronomy is your thing—cities are designed for that. The exchange of ideas, the diversity of people, the mix of culture and commerce—all this density of activity breeds serendipity and opportunity for new ideas to emerge and propel us forward.
It's like what E.B. White once wrote about New York:
"It is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village—the visible symbol of aspiration and faith, the white plume saying that the way is up."This, in a nutshell, is why I love cities. And this is what I want for Detroit. To be a beacon pointing towards a better future. To have the audacity to be the very BEST.
Can we do that? I think in many ways we already are. We just gotta learn to better recognize and nurture it when we see it.
Sure, the "best" may look different to you than to me. But that's the beauty of cities— multiplicity. No single choice or voice. Just a collective chutzpah that says, simply, the way is up.
