Semester D

Just stumbled upon this from a friend in AA’s blog… thought it was pretty cool.

Off their website, the Ice House is: 

Ice House Detroit is an architectural installation and social change project currently taking place in Detroit. Photographer Gregory Holm and architect Matthew Radune will use one of 20,000 abandoned houses and freeze it in solid ice, referencing the contemporary urban conditions in the city and beyond.

And the link to their blog: http://icehousedetroit.blogspot.com/

(Let me preface this post by saying it was written last night, late, not entirely in my right mind, and after just leaving a short-films event in which just about every film was beyond my grasp, understanding, or visual processing capabilities…)

I’m really perplexed by a few things in this city thus far. The “scene”, for one, (and for lack of a better word).

Two observations – one, is Detroit the official hipster capital of the world? I mean no offense to anyone when I say this, especially since those who have brought me to the bars/clubs/restaurants/theaters that have led me to this opinion are some of the most interesting people in the program (ok, actually, everyone is incredibly interesting), and I have truly enjoyed every experience and want more. Granted I’ve only been to 5 or 6 bar/hang outs… but the restaurants, the movies, the new stores – everywhere that seems to be ’successful’ in the city – all have this funky, artsy, hip vibe to them. Some of them are a bit TOO cool for me, actually.

I don’t know about the dress or the musicians, I don’t understand the films, and I have yet to be at a cultural, young venue that didn’t have that vibe. I personally have never been particularly stylish, or trendy. I never really bothered to get into any music scene, or art, or even followed pop culture. And I’m VERY surprised to find myself wishing I had more knowledge in THIS area in order to relate to those around me. Really, I feel “not hip enough” for DETROIT? How interestingly ironic.

Somewhere between the racial gulf, the Michigan-arrogance attitude, the discomfort with my comparatively easy life, the need for vigilance / safety precautions in the city, and this hip-scene thing, I feel as if I am in a more foreign country than when I lived in Germany. Everything I’ve ever known: blue-collar Republicans, farms, New Hampshire, seafood, Ann Arbor, Judaism, a world-renowned (and they know it) University, country music, German… none of it really applies here.

I promised I had two observations, but I can’t quite remember the second; apparently I was side tracked by my continuous realization that I feel very (contentedly) out of place here. … Oh, yes – the one area I haven’t felt unique and wish I had: I’ve noticed a very distinct segregation racially in terms of entertainment. Everywhere I’ve gone has either been almost entirely white or black. Tonight, for example, we went to the Burton Theater to see a short-films collection. The producers were all local from Detroit, and I would have expected a solid, city-representative (or, I suppose, closer to that) audience. Not so much. Every face was white. How is this possible in a city that is so predominantly African American??! I noticed this several times. Is it a difference in choice of entertainment, or am I being taken to places that have a distinct reputation that is atypical of other places in the city? Or are racial prejudices still way more alive than I thought? While I have loved the bars/theaters/restaurants I really don’t like the homogeneity, especially when there is so much opportunity to have the opposite.

That all being said, however, I am looking at this as I have every other life/opinion/value altering experience in my life. By that, I mean openly and perhaps hoping to learn just enough to broach assimilation, so that I can one day throw “Detroit” into my arsenal of experiences upon which to draw in the next unknown one.

Here’s to Detroit, and lopsided hair, urban farms, PBRs, protests, and stop-motion animation…

A few weeks ago, about half of us in the program visited Historic Fort Wayne, an important but neglected historic site in Southwest Detroit. We met with the director, James Conway, who recounted the fort’s history and led us on a tour of the grounds. Those of us in Michelle McClellan’s elective, “Hands-On History at Historic Fort Wayne,” will be working on projects to help Historic Fort Wayne achieve some of the goals laid out in its master plan. Here are a few photos from our visit:

The arguments against urban farming–its small scale, its questionable economic feasibility, and simply its difficulty–are all completely valid. However, these “problems” in my opinion are in fact the solution to what has become our food chain which is at best, misdirected by industry, and at worst, frankly disgusting and pushing some ethical boundaries to the limit.

As Barry Commoner once said, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” While urban farming may appear to cost more (in terms of labor, time commitment, space, or literal food costs), it takes into account all the externalities that the industrial food market machine does not. Our Dollar Menus and Happy Meals may seem cheaper, but only when ignoring many factors, namely environmental degradation, transportation, conglomerate business schemes and government subsidies insuring cheap corn.

I think that urban farming should kept at a small scale because while it may not seem as efficient as large-scale industrial agriculture, it is philosophically different. It represents a move towards the way things used to be done, taking with it the advantages of modern knowledge and technology. Mother nature really does know best, but there is a definite culture shock looming on the horizon. We are going to have to get over our need for instant gratification and massive, one-stop super stores. People (or more accurately, organisms in general) are much healthier and populations are much more stable when allowed to differentiate and specialize at local levels rather than the homogenous culture we have become accustomed to. Unfortunately for our industrialized society, this will require a rediscovery of such novel phenomena as seasonality and face-to-face interaction.

Thomas Jefferson was an important advocate for equalizing America, socially, economically and in this case, agriculturally. He proposed that the United States is nothing more than a giant grid-x, y, and z-where land is land for whatever purpose and everyone everywhere could and should exist in exactly the same way and live the same experience. However, the world doesn’t really work that way. Local conditions are key to survival. From a broad evolutionary perspective, communities are more stable when its members are allowed to specialize and differentiate. This also makes more sense in terms of energy use and natural resource consumption. Why, for example, do we continue to burn down the Amazon (thus contributing to positive feedback cycles of global climate change, desertification and ocean eutrophication) to grow oranges, which grow perfectly well in Florida, where instead, we drain and pave over the Everglades to maximize real estate. Somehow it doesn’t make sense that shipping food, materials, and products all over the world is somehow better than learning to use what we have at hand.

Globalization, in every aspect of our lives, has taken over. Everything we do and everything we are has been reduced to numbers streaming through cyberspace. I can search the internet for just about ANYTHING that I want, and not just find it, but have it delivered to this building by merely entering a credit card number and an address. Then the most involved thing I have to do, three to five business days later, is take the elevator (or heaven forbid, the stairs) down to the first floor to pick it up. I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with this, or that I would change it; it’s a marvel of the modern world. But is what we’ve done with it best for us? Such an exchange of knowledge and ideas is fantastic, but it may be costing us a life worth living. While everyone in the world knowing everything that everyone else knows would be incredible for the progression of knowledge (maybe if Google and Wikipedia ruled the world), it does not mean we should all BE the same. Technology and globalization should offer us all the same resources and the same opportunities, but it should not advocate any particular way of life beyond what is necessary to coexist. What a bore the world would be if we all spoke the same language, ate the same foods, dressed the same way.

This leads me back to urban farming. It’s small. It can’t feed everyone. That’s the point. It’s simply one piece of the puzzle. There is no one answer to any of the problems humans face today. There is no silver bullet to solve the energy crisis. There is no simple panacea to food security woes. Everyone, along with his or her unique methods or field of study, has a part to play–a different part. This is key, I think, not just to urban farming, not to neighborhoods, and not to Detroit, but to any human endeavor of any size. Collaboration and a sense of place are becoming more and more important to everything we do as a species. Whether it’s a melting pot of nondescript assembly line workers or the acres upon acres of maize that cover this nation from coast to coast, it won’t work anymore. There can be freedom, and equality, and maybe even government to tell us so, but it will never change the fact that each person is undeniably and irrevocably different, simply incapable of forming a human yogurt–tasty for sure, but uniform and dull.

Dozens of local, national, and international news articles have profiled urban farming as a transformative solution to many of Detroit’s problems: unused land, high unemployment, declining communities, and a lack of fresh food. However, I’m not at all convinced that urban farming has the properties and possibilities some of its proponents claim it does. My argument is straightforward: addressing those problems would require a scale that urban farms as we think of them today cannot (and probably should not) achieve.

In 2008, 400 Detroit-area community gardens harvested about 165 tons of food according to a May 2009 Al Jazeera report. However, a 2000 report on food consumption (pdf) from the USDA suggests that the average American consumes about 700 pounds of fruits and vegetables a year. That’s a high estimate — so I’ll halve it for a very conservative estimate: 350 pounds per person. Even with a lower number and not accounting for the 5-month Michigan growing season, those 400 urban gardens could feed about 470 people vegetables for a year — in a city with a population of over 800,000.

A MetroTimes article notes that some urban farms can earn up to $15,000 an acre. I don’t doubt that number — but my bet is that money comes from well-off patrons like restaurants, not people who are struggling to get by. That’s one of the tensions of urban gardening: to be profitable, you may need to leave out a core demographic, and there are only so many high-end buyers in the region.

Urban farms generally grow vegetables, and therefore don’t address the core problem of American industrial farming: the massive amount of petroleum and subsidies used to grow corn, wheat, and soybeans. It’s difficult for urban farms to arrange cost-effective processing and storage and of these crops on a small scale.

Finally, gardening is hard. It’s one thing to bus in once a year as a volunteer and work on a garden. It’s another to actually manage an acre of plants for a season.

Urban farms certainly are not all about scale. They’re about building strong, small communities, reconnecting with what we eat, and eating better. To deal with tens of thousands of lots, urban farms would need to disconnect from those vital components. Struggling for scale will lead to the same problems agriculture faces today: a reliance on a few heavily mechanized, oil-fueled producers.

I suppose I just wanted to provide a quick update. Because while the semester ended in May (April?), Semester in Detroit did not end. In fact, I’m not sure it ends. Ever. But I know our avid readers are dying to know what happens next….

I guess I will speak for the group, and then for myself. Quite a few of us are still in the city. And if we are not in the city, we are in the vicinity. And if we are in other states, we occasionally think of the city nostalgically (I am guessing…)

So about 7 or so of us remain somewhere in the city, mostly working with non-profit organizations. I have the distinct pleasure of working for Matrix Theatre Company, which I absolutely adore. It is an incredible opportunity for me to combine all things I love: theatre, art, and kids. It’s another organization doing interesting things in the city. I am able to work with puppets and promote social justice at the same time. (How often does that opportunity arise?!) I am also able to work with some incredible people who have become mentors and wonderful role models and friends.

The US Social Forum is coming next year, and I am so excited for all these social activists and community leaders to be in OUR CITY! This is such a crucial time for the people of Detroit and I am just hoping we can all pull together to make something beautiful happen. There are some great projects, some of which are flying under the radar.

I am living in Southwest Detroit with Salam, who is another SiD grad. She is working for ACCESS and it makes me happy to remain connected to SiD and we are able to share experiences and still reflect in the way we were able to last semester. We have been attending Detroit City of Hope meetings at the Bogg Center and trying to remain active and connected in the community, while still maintaining our own obligations. I am trying to find time to make my own art among all these social activism activities!

Finally, I will promote my own organization’s activities. We are having a fish puppet party tomorrow evening from 5-10. We have to complete about 1000 fish puppets for this weekend’s RIVER DAYS FESTIVAL which is noon-8 Fri-Sunday at the River Walk.

Hope to see you all there!!!!!

peace, bottle fish, and dowel rods,
jenna

Hey Mom,

We drove around Detroit and the trip was hilarious! Me an twelve other girls on a bright orange, short bus.We traveled to Indian Village. I saw that house we were considering. It looked better, but we were definitely better off not living there. We rode past the Manoogian, there was a Benz truck in the driveway. Ma, there were so many new developments!

I kinda miss the whole architecture office scene, again. We went into the Westin (OMG!),the place is gorgeous! We toured the houses with the pineapples around the corner from UprepMS.They’re adorable inside. I saw a lot of stuff I had scene plenty of times before.It was a different experience of it all, though.
Well, I’ve decided on my ideal format for my creative writing book…Wow, I realize I am in a hilariously awkward position here. I put myself here, its like high school all over again. I had fun visiting this city as an outsider! I’m having a blast with my past.

The tour wasn’t boring, but I’ve seen it all before, ya know!?! It was cool to have answers to some of my own unpronounced questions. I do believe the best part of it all, for me, was seeing the girls embrace the moment. I’ve always appreciated observing people enjoying stuff, but the girls bring a whole new light to this place. Mom, I love Detroit so much!!!I’m grateful to be from inside of it…but I sometimes wonder what it would all mean if I were from the outside.(The only question that I will never have an answer to).

Lovingly Yours,

Shel

Lolita Hernandez, local author and professor of the Creative Writing course for the program, took us around Grosse Pointe in order to show us the stark divide between East Detroit and the suburbs. It was incredible, really. I knew that the eastern side of Detroit faces some unique challenges – 70,000 of the 100,000 vacant lots in the city of Detroit are on the east side, for example. Yet, when I saw the neighborhoods in which every other lot was vacant, the image of an urban prairie realized in my mind. It makes me think that urban agriculture is a viable option for Detroit, because there’s no way redevelopment projects could utilize all of that land. Also, it made me happy to think that I could be part of a city that is going through a process that sorts through what is and isn’t necessary to the city – who wants to invest themselves in Detroit’s re-imaging/re-imagining and who wants to cut and run.

As for Grosse Pointe, I’ve never seen so much wealth in my entire life. And no wonder – Oakland County is the wealthiest county in the country. Seeing mansion after mansion on the waterfront dwarfed what I considered to be the “richer” areas of Bay City. After listening to Lolita and Katie, a student in her class, talk about how Grosse Pointe was invested in the city, I couldn’t believe it. Seeing the stark contrast between urban prairie and the suburban elite debunks that argument. Perhaps the residents of Grosse Pointe make their money in the city, but it seems obvious to me that it’s at the expense of true Detroiters.

art by josh cochran

After what felt like 11 hours of HGTV: Detroit, Michigan we made our way back to le towers where I laid in bed thinking back on the day. While the lights from the downtown skyline reverberated upon the windowpane my thoughts imitated the same idea. Reflecting back on the tours for both Lolita and June’s class. 

Our class ventured in and out of the corridors that shape the city of Detroit. Our first half of the tour focused on the luxurious landscapes of Gross Pointe narrated by our own fellow classmate. A once resident of the city, our tour guide definitely had interesting anecdotes about the community of shores and grosses. The second half of the trip was led by my urban studies professor, June Thomas. Our first steps on her tour were mostly residentially related. We passed by some of the old housing projects, which was nice to see outside of a black dot located on an 8X11 sheet of paper. 

My favorite part of the trip involved visiting the homes from the late 1800’s, early 1900’s. These homes were beautiful castles fit for kings and queens. Every single detail in these homes were thought out and executed in such an elegant way. As a future homeowner I now have some interesting solutions for living spaces and what NOT to do with my bathroom decor. As I walked in through the homes I began to think more and more about the time period and the people who once walked down these stairs or lounged on these couches. Suddently a sad and truthful thought popped into my head, “would I be allowed to be here when this house was first built? If I were not a maid or servant would I be welcome to sit in front of the fireplace?” The stunning realization of this hit me hard and for a few minutes I felt very strange sitting on the violet plush loveseat opposite a mirror that reflected my image. Yet, after staring at myself for a few seconds longer I realized that times have changed and that I should not dwell in the past. All that exists in this world is now available to my free will.   

Once the hours, minutes, and seconds passed after our walking and sitting around the tiggerific (= orange) bus I realized I acquired a bit more from this tour then I thought.

Side note: The positive impact of experimental education was easily reinforced by this tour.

When one is actually learning about a city while living there it allows the pupil to truly absorb more within a short amount of time. It is kind of like learning a language. When one immerses themselves within the language they begin to make connections and observations easier. Due to the fact that one needs them in order to live. Compared to being taught Italian in a crowded 26 person, boring, no windows, beige class room at the bottom of the MLB- the vineyards, boconnotti, and cute boys in vespas attract me a little more.