Welcome to Detroit
Photo: Jeff Caldwell
Within hours of arriving in Detroit, nearly $14,000 worth of computers, iPods, cameras, and art supplies went missing from the backseat of a car. The robbery was surprisingly quick, executed in the few minutes the vehicle was left unguarded on the street. The two victims knew better than to leave valuables in plain site, yet they hadn’t quite expected the crime. Neither had they backed up their hard drives properly, so the loss was more than just monetary.
Welcome to Detroit.
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Click here to launch a slide show of Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson’s photos of Detroit.
The irony of the reception is that the victims had come to town to positively engage the city through Project M, an intensive immersion program founded by the graphic designer John Bielenberg. Since it began in 2003, Project M has rallied design students and professionals from Alabama to Iceland to go out and design for the greater good. Jeff Caldwell of San Francisco’s the Vega Project, a longtime Project M advisor and a Detroit native, organized this two-week event, collaborating with Doug Kisor, the chair of the graphic design department at the city’s College for Creative Studies. The goal: connect with communities, push the creative bounds of design practice, and confront real problems.
The participating Project M graphic designers and artists—Jen Lee, Jory Benerofe, Mark Wills, Jasen Mehta, and Achille Bianchi—knew the myriad problems of Detroit when they signed on for the project. They just hadn’t expected to be inculcated to its reality quite so quickly. The outside perceptions of the city, they soon learned, were quite true, and Camilo Jose Vergara wasn’t so far off when he (half jokingly) suggested the city be relegated to an urban-ruins theme park . The streets are eerily quiet, the buildings vacant and degenerating, the crime real and persistent. This is a place that inspires comparisons between crumbling housing and feral animals. The people with means long ago abandoned the center city to cluster in a fortressed suburbia. Standing at the intersection of Detroit and Grosse Point says it all: on one side, detritus and decay. On the other, landscaping and affluence.
From left: Project M participants Jen Lee, Mark Wills, Jasen Mehta, and Jory Benerofe. All photos: Jeff Caldwell
Project M participant Achille Bianchi
Project M’ers preparing a project in the city. For more about what this is, visit Project M’s Detroit blog.
So why go to Detroit at all? What draws not just these designers, but the bloggers, the urban thinkers, the artists, the architects, the media? What has made Detroit such a subject of outside speculation? Hell, why did I agree to forgo precious vacation time to fly out and be one of the advisors for Project M? I stalked the barren streets and hiked through urban ruins in search of signs of… something, anything… when I could have been relishing the waning summer sunlight on a beach somewhere.
The fact is that there is something about Detroit, something compelling and frightening that draws you there to consider the landscape. On some level you understand that we did this. All of us. Detroit represents the hubris of American industry, an industry once innovative and now atrophied, an industry that created the car-centric culture that is choking not just Detroit but cities everywhere (no Cash for Clunkers for our dying buildings). It is the fall of Rome right before our eyes, an apocalypse of our own making. It is the death of the American city as we know it and we are all at a loss of where to go next.
And yet.
There are the other truths of Detroit, other things that bring you here.
Object Orange. Heidleberg Project. Open City. Design 99 and the Power House Project.
There are the pioneers, the risk takers, the longtime residents taking abandoned lots and turning them into honest-to-god farms. The designers lost their electronics, yes, but there was also the note on the car from a neighbor who identified the license plate number of the offender. There was the elderly couple rocking on a front porch in the honeyed twilight next to their neatly tended farm with stalks of corn reaching the gutters. There were the gang members who invited one of the designers to play horseshoes while they smoked and talked about the territorial stakes in the city. And there are the beacons of life that defy the corrosion: Slows Bar B Q, the Bureau of Urban Living, The Bronx Bar. Welcome to the other Detroit, the one that is, in fact, quite welcoming.
Sometimes this city feels like it’s on its last breath. Sometimes it feels like a new frontier, like a promise. And you start to think that maybe, just maybe, there is a way out of the ruins.
Project M Detroit continues through September 11. Follow their continued adventures by clicking here.
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Political Hardball: Part 2 Updated
Remembering Frank Lloyd Wright’s Bijou
It’s Show and Tell Time for Building Product Manufacturers
Q&A: Kevin Shanley
Political Hardball: Part 2
SOM and CASE Invent a New Interface
A New Humanism: Part 18
The Green Team Part 13: Game, Sett, Match
On the Road with the Rudy Bruner Award: The Steel Yard - Providence, RI
Designing from Nature
BACK TO TOP
Great Writing
I was captivated.
Comment by anon — September 3, 2009, @ 3:31 pm
wow, more white outsiders who know how to fix detroit. awesome.
Comment by anon — September 4, 2009, @ 9:47 am
The sarcastic “white outsiders” comment is out of line. (It’s also inaccurate, since at least one participant pictured is Asian.) Good ideas and productive action aren’t race specific. Yes, we get the point; the majority black community of the city needs to be engaged and empowered for totally effective action. That’s no insight. But the notion that anyone who is not from Detroit (and it was a Detroit native who organized the Project M visit) and who happens to be Caucasian should just butt out is pernicious and stupid. Why shouldn’t whites flee the city if they and their ideas are unwelcome?
We all created this. It will take all of us to turn it around.
Comment by Bill — September 4, 2009, @ 10:42 am
Wow, what an incredibly superficial read of the city. In my opinion, Detroit deserves more time and attention, more effort, than this blog entry even attempts. As i told the Project M team over dinner, 2 weeks is simply not enough time to understand the complexities of this place or to affect lasting, sustained change. I do not mean to imply that interested and talented people should stay away or not attempt starting the dialogue, but let’s all be realistic about the investment and expected return.
And while the theft which sets the tone for the entire piece was indeed unfortunate, I do not know any urban environment in the world where I would leave valuable media equipment out in plain sight and unattended. Unfortunate, yes, but not a uniquely Detroit experience.
There are many people working on rethinking Detroit, many more than you offhandedly mention, who are NOT “at a loss of where to go next.” You just didn’t take the time to ask. This is all extra disappointing coming from Metropolis. You all really need to spend more time with us here or else, please, just don’t bother to write.
Sincerely,
Gine Reichert
Design 99 / Power House Project
Comment by Gina Reichert — September 4, 2009, @ 3:34 pm
Great entry. I’m extremely interested in seeing where this goes.
I am miffed by the last comment, though. I found the blog writer’s reference to Design 99 and the Power House Project as an appreciation for committed individuals and promising things to come.
Comment by steve — September 4, 2009, @ 5:13 pm
i recently read a blog entry of yours on a baltimore art competition about social justice that was well researched, constructive, and informative. it was a little disappointing for me to then read this article about detroit. a city rich in the topics discussed in your other post.
maybe it is because i have spent more time in detroit or maybe i am more sensitive to outsider’s perceptions of the midwest, either way this brief description of detroit does seem to be colored in a negative light. starting with the opening paragraph about $14,000 worth of equipment being stolen from the project’s volunteers to the often mentioned missed vacation. you obviously did not take the much rewarding plunge into the detroit river off the north end of belle isle — it is pretty dreamy.
still a good piece for conversation. i have enjoyed reading the comments that this article stirred. it is impossible to describe a place like detroit in the number of words and days you had there.
Comment by liz — September 5, 2009, @ 10:24 pm
Ms. Dickinson: I enjoyed your commentary and photos. Please check out sites like: DelRay, Zug Island, Belle Isle and communities like Ferndale, Indian Village, Grosse Pointe, Mexican Town and East Dearborn. Detroit is very ethnically diversified due to immigrant labor force since the turn of the century. I will send some of my own images of Detroit to you as well.
Dave
Comment by Dave Beard — September 7, 2009, @ 8:08 am
The City has risen from the ashes many times. We need to start an historic (literal)Renaissance to revitalize our townspeople. Excite our residents with all the fabulous details of it’s founding.
Not just the things we’ve heard before, but, some real great and interesting details that show this place is so much more than just a city to make MONEY in… Excite residents as in, a collective consciousness, to shop and do everything they can to keep the city afloat themselves. Remember JFK, ask what you can do for your country, not what your country can do for you.
Excite the city residents and school children (with banners to be hung around the city made by schools representing any event or peoples for example) on all of the historic things that took place in 300 plus years, really explore and research. It does not take much digging. Then you will have this place back on track.
I truly believe we want to live here. We just need a some encouragement. Cool nooks and crannies are always what makes a city unique and real.It does not have to look like a great place. When people are thrilled to be living in an historic and beautiful city, we can forget about what everyone else says. What more does anyone want?
I know this will sound too romantic of a notion, but what can we lose?
Comment by bonnie — September 7, 2009, @ 4:10 pm
I think the theft is indicative of the sort of wide-eyed naivete that the project m people brought to detroit and created the sort of negative reactions you see above.
don’t get me wrong, detroiters need to get over the territorial BS and welcome tourists here to enjoy the truly unique things the city offers (that’s what people in great cities do: they welcome outsiders without being big dicks about how excited newcomers get by what they find there). that said, it would be easier to welcome such tourists if they didn’t come here with some grandiose plan to “engage” and “empower” or whatever. it’s somewhat offensive. the outsiders we really need to engage or empower would have last names like gates, buffet, trump or winfrey. detroit suffers from a lack of capital investment, though it enjoys a glut of graphic designers and creative types who all have great ideas but few means to effect change. believe it or not, we even have our own homegrown graphic designers!
from what I can tell from the blog entries, the project m people left far more humbled by the experience than this article would indicate. how pathetic is it to mourn the loss of a macbook when that piece of chinese-made junk costs more than the houses of so many people living in this city? that loss is a pittance compared to the losses suffered by so many residents of this city you came to “engage”: loss of jobs, loss of dignity, loss of so many lives to drugs and violence. balloons flying from the MCS are all fine and good, and I’m always happy to show tourists the beauty that can be found here, but if you really want to engage and effect change, please come for more than two weeks.
Comment by jdg — September 7, 2009, @ 10:00 pm
I think the territorial pissings of these comments are insane. News Flash: Detroit is and has been dying for quite sometime. This blog and the Project M folks acknowledge and are forced to deal with this in a very real and immediate way, but yet they move on and get past this and find what you residents would call the “real Detroit”, but let’s not give them credit they are still over privileged a-holes who had their fancy computers taken. Serves’em right!! Guess what most folks would not have kept moving on trying to find the real Detroit. Most would have just left, like the countless people who were born and raised there already have. By the way it looks to me like these folks are not only a multicultural lot, but also have some honest to god Michiganders in their midst so why all the pointless negative comments? This comment is especially irksome “how pathetic is it to mourn the loss of a macbook “. What did you read this blog on a papyrus scroll?? Get over yourself. These are just folks who went to Detroit and got shit on and kept moving forward. Detroit needs an army of these people.
Comment by Jim — September 8, 2009, @ 3:29 pm
By way of response to the above criticisms regarding the actions of these designers and the role of Project M in Detroit, I’d like to point everyone to a recent Fox news story. To quote one of the local residents, “This horseshoe park is the best thing that has ever happened to our community in years.”
Comment by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson — September 12, 2009, @ 12:24 pm
Here is the link:
http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/brads_edge/090911_horseshoe_park
Comment by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson — September 12, 2009, @ 12:24 pm
I loved the horse shoe park in Detroit. It was simple and small, yet geneous. I wish I had one on my street.
Comment by Debra — September 12, 2009, @ 12:46 pm
I am reading this blog on a papyrus blog! It’s this new underground technological movement we’re developing here in the city … we haven’t told anyone yet.
Joking aside, I think the comment is trying to contextualize the loss of a tool of privilege in relation to the conditions of the majority of Detroit’s residents. Think broader. Critical dialogues are paramount for progressive change, angry, emotional tirades fail to do anyone good. Everyone needs to open their minds a little bit more.
Comment by Detroiter — September 12, 2009, @ 9:04 pm
The last posting really hit the true focus. Exactly , they got shit on but none of these people went home or pouted. They stayed and moved forward. This is the kind of army what we need in this country.
They kept moving on to begin living in Detroit to research, to feel, to touch, and to hear the inner heart of the souls who live there. Their goal was to use their own creative minds and hearts to assist in a healing spark that will bring some change, to deliver to a community that is that is in need to heal. They sought to bring about togetherness, to install a new light to that would give chance to sustain good life and hope, and just maybe this spark that will inspire a few hearts and mend a few wounds.
I also think they lost there computers and things for a reason. It allowed them see the true direction they needed to take. It has always been my experience on these kind of trips that you take away more than you give. You are touched by hearts of someone you would never have suspected. What you carry with you is shared with the next project you work on.
Comment by thorn — September 12, 2009, @ 10:05 pm
i think any sort of negativity is a step forward in the wrong direction. we now have a permanent residence in detroit to maintain and it’s now there for us to shape together. criticism of course is welcomed to inform the evolution of any process. however, the more focused we are the more we can achieve. officially, if you have anything to contribute to Plot 63, please do so. we are open space and are now starting to build an identity.
now is a time when we must be more in tune with our goals than ever.
let us start off on the right foot.
people are receptive. as long we implement our plan or any plan with integrity, we can start from scratch and really do anything. all we have to do is care.
Comment by Project M'er — September 13, 2009, @ 10:18 pm
the east side has at least six horseshoe pitches I can think of. one is very close to indian village.
I am glad the project m kids took something from detroit, but like the others who’ve commented above I am troubled by some of the language being used to describe their visit (army…engage…assist…deliver…confront). there is a latent colonialism here (if these kids actually moved to detroit, they might get called “urban pioneers”) i.e. detroiters need creative outsiders to swoop in on white bicycles to help deliver us natives from our post-industrial predicament. as one of the commenters above pointed out, we don’t need any more designers. we need entrepreneurs. we need investors. we need jobs. we need more police officers.
I think it’s unfortunate that this project m has focused (in the media, at least) on what these kids are doing for the city during their 2-week sojourn before they hop on a plane back to wherever it is they’re from. In the end, I hope to hear a lot more about what the city did for them (other than teach them a lesson that anyone who has ever lived in any city knows: don’t leave expensive stuff in full view in your car).
Comment by another detroiter — September 14, 2009, @ 2:02 am
People can gripe endlessly about the failings of their own houses, cars, marriages or whatever objects or situations in their lives need improvement, but the minute someone else points out those flaws – or heaven forbid attempts to help – watch out! It’s like the sister or brother you feel you are allowed to tease mercilessly, but if someone else says the exact same thing you are ready to throw down with them. Taking pride in our city shouldn’t extend to bull-headed, irrational pride. Detroit, like many other great American cities is on life support, and unless we get some help, all kinds of help, even a small group of people set on doing something good, we are going to die.
We welcome all people from all walks of life to come to Detroit. Give what you can, where you can. Big, small we will take you all. Black, White, Purple or Asian if you are here to help Detroit, bring it. Please forgive those of us who love our city so much it is difficult to hear about how much help we need. It stings, but please don’t stop caring just because it bruises our pride. Project M - keep it up. Actually go big! Bring an army, engage us, assist us, confront and deliver us from our issues we are unwilling or unable to confront on our own. Listen to us and use that knowledge to find a way to shock Detroit into a new era of life.
Comment by Go Blue — September 17, 2009, @ 7:09 am
I find it funny that the “beacon of life,” in Elizabeth’s article, is capitalism.
The reason why most guests don’t get Detroit is that it is America’s only post-capitalist society, for better, NOT for worse.
Comment by Rebecca — September 17, 2009, @ 9:03 am
is that Jeff or Doug leaving all these anonymous supportive comments? it doesn’t matter: please stop using the word “army,” dude. it’s totally not helping.
You said, “Detroit, like many other great American cities is on life support, and unless we get some help, all kinds of help, even a small group of people set on doing something good, we are going to die.”
BS. I just want to extend my gratitude to the people in he community of Detroit who are doing something good everyday without seeking internet or local news glory: the church volunteers, the folks at the boggs center, the capachins, the school volunteers, the block club volunteers, the urban gardeners, and everyone else here who gives up their time and money to keep Detroit very much alive. those are the people who are keeping this city from dying, not a bunch of privileged outsiders with fancy eyeglasses throwing a pile of garbage in capitol square and calling it “engaging the community.” It’s not your presence or help that stings us; it’s the fact that when you’re all done patting yourself on the back for what you’ve done here, you leave.
Comment by anon — September 17, 2009, @ 10:00 am
I just want to let the Project M kids know that there will always be people who react negatively to you trying to help. I have found in my experience that these people who complain so loudly are not the ones who are in need of help. They are frustrated and perhaps a little jealous that you are doing things in their neighborhoods that they can’t control. While it’s true you’re not going to save a city in 2 weeks you are (and were) a positive force for change. Even if you hadn’t done anything with the Plot63, your presence and desire and willingness to help is most admirable. Don’t ever stop caring, and don’t ever stop doing things you believe will improve the world around you.
Proceed and be bold.
Comment by Ben Barry — September 17, 2009, @ 1:43 pm
Apple Inc would be happy to know that so much attention has been given to one of their laptops by so many of you.
I’m a Detroit M’er and my laptop was stolen. Who the hell cares? To set the record straight, I am not a stupid, privileged, naive kid who set foot in Detroit with an expensive camera dangling around my neck begging for attention. I was robbed. How dare anyone say it serves me right? When you witness or hear about a stranger in trouble, do you blame them?
Within the hour of our possessions being stolen, we were able to locate the license plate number, name and home address of the robber, yet the police took little to no action. What was unsettling about this was that our basic human rights—safety and protection—were undervalued and essentially written off. This kind of incidence happens in every city and is not unique to Detroit. It’s an every day occurrence in life that is difficult and frustrating for anyone who has to go through it.
The Detroit M’ers collectively come from diverse backgrounds and experiences. Some have gone to top-tier schools, worked for fortune 500 companies, have children, lived in poverty, can’t afford health insurance, been laid off, and are first and second generation immigrants. We are just people. We took the chance to come out to Detroit despite our unrelenting bank accounts and commitments because we wanted to live, and learn, and see what we can do.
If our desire to “engage” is an indication of coming from a place of privilege, then yes, we are privileged folk.
Our efforts after a mere 2 1/2 weeks were small but honest, and a hopeful beginning to a great relationship with Detroit. We met with some amazing and inspiring Detroiters—neighbors, community leaders, business owners, designers, artists—who all helped shape our perceptions and advised us through challenges we met during our time there. We all may not live in Detroit, but we care about the city and we’re committed to staying connected. Please continue to follow our progress and give us your feedback. We’re listening.
Comment by Jen Lee — September 17, 2009, @ 10:29 pm
“Obama on Wednesday, Sept. 23, promised a new era of U.S. engagement with the world, saying that only by acting together can mankind overcome pressing global challenges.”
I was looking through a photo slideshow on the Associate Press website today and came across this caption, which was listed with a picture of Pres. Obama speaking to the United Nations General Assembly. With the world’s governing powers looking on and listening intently, Obama urged the world to begin thinking and acting together, in unison, to achieve a more harmonious world.
Reading some of the comments above I can’t help but think, “Why DO a bunch of ‘outsiders’ need to come in and ‘fix’ Detroit?”
Well, in my experience, there are two schools of though to every subject. Either a bunch of us “priveleged” young people (who aren’t exactly priveleged, seeing as how the baby-boom generation has managed to vote for people and policy that effectively stripped us of everything moral for the sake of business, capital and individualism)
can come in and ‘fix’ Detroit, or we can come and partake in a PROCESS, no matter the length of time, and ENGAGE, CONFRONT and CHALLENGE others, and ourselves, in how we can COLLECTIVELY brainstorm to create practical, progressive and common-sense solutions to the new strains of severe problems we face today.
We are not here to ‘fix’ anything. We are not missionaries or mercenaries. We are not promoting a doctrine or an agenda.We are here to learn. We are here to act. We are here to try. We are here to organize our respective talents so we can together seek to find what plagues the communities from those who know them best because those living in the ‘hood’ are the ones not shrouded in a bubble of comfort, status and empty credit. Can you blame us for learning or trying to learn? Well, you are.
If everybody was hesitant to lend a hand or partake in a learning experience in which everyone can benefit, we would end up with the same individualistic society in which we now find ourselves. Nothing solved, nothing new, no chances taken and no lessons learned. Ever.
Indvidualism for life vies for the waning of humankind and community as we know it. We are not going to organize as a better population by protesting higher gas prices. We are becoming global, therefore we must organize on levels unheard of and not thought of, until now, if we want to achieve any sort of positive result for the future.
Comment by Achille — September 23, 2009, @ 7:10 pm
I find the territorialism and naivete of the posters who are questioning the right of Project M to be in Detroit (most of them conveniently anonymous), that rail against M because afterwards the participants leave, and thus surely must have no stake in Detroit.
Do a little research, and you’ll realize how ridiculous this is.
In terms of stake, Jeff Caldwell (advisor) grew up in Detroit. Doug Kisor (advisor, CCS), hosted M, and works and lives, you guessed it, in Detroit. Jasen (M Participant) is from Detroit, as is Achille (M Participant), and he currently resides in the city of Detroit. 4 out of 7 is a pretty high percentage last time I checked.
I’d say they know Detroit, and have a right to “engage” with the city. And we know who they are. Because they use their names when participating, instead of critiquing and complaining anonymously. They’ve put themselves out there to be lauded and criticized, and I respect them for that.
Informed criticism is necessary and helpful. Debate fosters positive change. But uninformed critique just looks foolish.
Commentor # 20 (anon), you know who you are. Don’t anonymously call out Jeff and Doug and insinuate that they are “posting anonymous supportive comments”, and then not have the conviction to sign your own name. What have YOU done for Detroit lately, # 20?
Oh yeah, full disclosure time. I was an Project M advisor in Detroit. I also lived and worked there as a designer, so damn right I was invested in the city and felt like I belonged at M. And no, I didn’t ask anyone’s permission before I went.
Cheers to the M’ers and advisors who gave a damn about a city they grew up in and wanted to come back, and to those who had never been, but spent 2 weeks of their life in Detroit, trying to see what makes it tick, and giving something back to a city that yes, they will leave at the project’s conclusion. And thanks to all the people that traveled to Detroit spending their time and money to be part of the solution, not the problem.
Huge thanks to Jeff and Doug, Jen, Mark, Jasen, Jory and Achille for pushing through and making change. Plot 63 touched hearts, and in the end, that’s what matters.
And thanks to Detroit, its residents and its spirit. It deserves to be known for its greatness. And we’re all on the hook to make it better. I only hope more people from other cities will take the time participate in its renewal.
Comment by Ryan C. — September 24, 2009, @ 1:56 am
Ryan C and other Project M’ers:
If you’re so concerned with the “renewal” of Detroit, why would you let your friend/co-worker publish such a negative blog about the city? You’re saying we should feel sorry for them because they “spent 2 weeks of their life in Detroit”, and that they “gave a damn”? No. They got paid to do an assignment in a troubled city. Their shit got stolen. Realizing they made a mistake in leaving expensive equipment in plain sight, they looked to place the blame elsewhere, and it ended up on the city itself. Thus, their view and willingness to be open-minded about Detroit was ruined from the beginning. Look at the photos you posted above - heavy with negativity; “Sorry We’re Dead”, and a guy on a bike in front of an abandoned building. Yea, in Detroit we don’t have anything nice and the only cool building we have is the train station, and yea, that’s abandoned too.
You’re all complaining about the negative reaction to this post. What did you expect? Your people made a mistake and whined about the mistake they made, which then segued into pointing out other negative aspects of the city, citing that they wasted precious vacation time to be there instead of on a beach somewhere. Detroiters have a enormous sense of pride for their city. Of course they’re angry that your reporters visited only to turn around and complain about Detroit’s shortcomings. If you want a positive reaction, stop bitching, and show us what you’re working on to better our city. Otherwise, you look and sound like a bunch of stuck up brats who got paid to complain about a city they left behind a long time ago. And please, spare everyone the shit about “unrelenting bank accounts”. People with unrelenting bank accounts can’t afford to tote around $14,000 worth of worth of computers, iPods, cameras, and art supplies.
Lastly, nice job on the clean-up work in the comments section, where has Ms. Dickinson herself been to make excuses for her rudeness? “Maybe, there is a way out of the ruins.” There probably is, and it starts with people focusing on positive reasons to foster change in a place that needs help, not by complaining about it.
Comment by Megan — September 24, 2009, @ 3:08 pm
Megan, it’s nice that you actually signed your name to your post. Thank you for joining the discussion.
However, your suggestion that “They (M’ers? Advisors?) got paid to do an assignment in a troubled city” is factually incorrect. No one got paid to be part of M Detroit, each participant pays to attend, and the amount they pay funds the project they undertake. M Advisors travel on their own time and money to take part.
I’m certainly not complaining about the reaction. Discourse is good, and necessary. I take issue with the lack of understanding, and the close-minded “it’s my city” attitude, which is ultimately detrimental to the process.
I ask only that before blanket statements are made that a basic understanding of the process is acquired, then we can get on to the good stuff, which is dialogue which will hopefully lead to positive and lasting action, and isn’t that what we all want?
As for the stolen equipment, you leave stuff in a car in a major metropolitan area, it will probably get taken. Lesson learned.
And again, despite the barbs, I still believe in Detroit.
Comment by Ryan — September 24, 2009, @ 4:47 pm
Megan, I have to take issue with your comments. I think you make a good point about the need for positivity, but I think it’s a bit lost in the vitriol you spew and the mistaken assumptions you make. More broadly, I think it misses the point of this whole exercise. (And really, does anyone deserve to be robbed? Not to be ridiculous, but I imagine you wouldn’t apply the same logic on exposed computers to a girl who is dressed in revealing clothing…)
These guys could have gone to Detroit and been ‘project happy,’ reporting back only on how great everything was. And they could have uprooted their lives and stayed longer. They probably could have found a way to get paid for the trip. And, if they had been luckier, they could have left their stuff unattended for five minutes without it all being stolen. But to dismiss their trip because it lacks some of these qualities above is close-minded and a gross oversimplification of the situation.
Detroit right now, as anyone reading the news in the last couple of years knows, is in a very perilous position. As you (and this blog post) point out, however, it’s also a hive of innovation and beauty. But to gloss over one in service of the other forces a complete lack of perspective.
Comment by Jon — September 24, 2009, @ 5:19 pm
yo, I just want to thank Achile and Jen and Mark and Jasen and Ryan and Jory and Jeff and everyone else involved in Project M. The horseshoe pitch you installed in our neighborhood is the best thing that has ever happened to us. Since you installed that horseshoe pit, crime has all but disappeared in our neighborhood. Because of that horseshoe pit, everyone in our neighborhood is now gainfully employed. Our schools are now shining beacons of public education and all of our students graduate and go on to college. all of the abandoned houses in our neighborhood have collapsed and roses and sunflowers and collared greens grow there now. Thanks to Project M, our neighborhood is like a little slice of heaven. But more than anything, you touched our hearts and that’s what matters. Forget the losers and idiots volunteering to feed hungry families and helping poor detroiters navigate the social security system or helping vulnerable detroit youth (suckers). didn’t they know they could just build a horseshoe pitch on a vacant lot! gawd, they should have just gone to art school instead of majoring in “social work.”
in all seriousness: thank you for coming to detroit. you are welcome back any time. no one feels territorial about you coming here. what we feel territorial about is the fact that you Project M people are such glory hounds. this article, the tv spot, the comments, your blog; it all comes off like you think you deserve PRAISE or GRATITUDE for the goofy little projects you did here. tourists are always welcome, even tourists with art degrees and goofy little projects. but that’s what you were: tourists. every day there are people here in the trenches doing far more than you will EVER be able to do. where’s their recognition? where’s their article in Metropolis? you got your recognition, and now you get the dark side of it: the voices speaking truth about how you don’t really deserve it.
Comment by anon — October 2, 2009, @ 3:32 pm
give up on this city. it deserves and appreciates nothing.
just leave and listen for the death rattle.
Comment by anon — November 1, 2009, @ 10:02 am
only in detroit do tourists come and think they deserve a fucking medal for it.
as angelinos how they feel about the hordes walking around hollywood, or san franciscans how they feel about the midwestern masses down in fisherman’s wharf, or new yorkers and the times square sidewalk hogs. tourists are always annoying. it’s not just detroiters who think so.
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