Call for Submissions: Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook
Detroiters need to get to know their neighbors better. Wait -- maybe that should be, Detroiters should get to know their neighborhoods better.
On Not Winning A House In Detroit
This month, a nonprofit called Write A House announced the third and fourth winners of its unusually generous Detroit revitalization scheme: whole houses in Detroit, for writers, forever, for free.
What To Do When You’re Accused Of Gentrifying
Uh-oh, it finally happened. You’re caught in a debate -- most likely on Facebook -- about gentrification in Detroit. And everything was going just fine until someone called you -- you! -- a cause of gentrification.
Abandoned Tires Prove Both Blight And Boon For The Motor City
One 2014 morning on Detroit’s northeast side, residents along Mapleridge were horrified to find that 10,000 tires had been stuffed into a row of abandoned houses on their street.
How Michigan’s Municipal Policies Led To Crises In Detroit and Flint
Michigan has the most decrepit cities in the United States...It’s not just a result of neglect. It’s a result of policy.
On Leaving Detroit
I have a dear friend who is planning to leave Detroit very soon to move West. After living in and around Detroit all his life, he is taking a new job in sunny California. He is, by definition, the very demographic Michigan wants to hold on to...
When You’re Embarrassed To Be A Michigander
Supposedly, “Michigander” is an offensive term, first coined by Abraham Lincoln as an insult. Lincoln thought Lewis Cass, the great Michigan governor for which so much of our institutions and municipalities are named...
Up In The Morning & Off To School In Detroit
On my first day of sophomore year in 1982, I transferred from St. Martin DePorres High, a very small, very focused, very caring Catholic high school, to Northern Senior High School, a very large, very chaotic, very cold public school.
Arabic And English In Dearborn: Language Is More Than Just A Skill
As she sat in a dim conference room wearing a black coat, rays of sunlight lit up Suzan Harb’s face as she spoke of the differences between her native Lebanon and her new home of Dearborn.
“This Is Not America. This Is Dearborn.”
Nestled in a corner of the Flying Carpet Café with some of his favorite Lebanese delicacies, Nagib Kadri smiled a few times at the mention of his birthplace in Lebanon. But he calls Dearborn his real home.
Hamtramck: Where Diversity Rules
Residents of Hamtramck say they know the secret to a peaceful existence among those of varied cultural backgrounds and faiths: close living. On Evaline Street, cream-colored homes with balconies stand a few feet apart ...
Until Then We Deal: Punch Bowl Social And Being Black In The New Detroit
Nolan Finley, a columnist for the Detroit News, recently asked for the second time where the black people were in downtown Detroit. Has he been to Punch Bowl Social lately? Let’s talk about Punch Bowl Social for a bit.