Semester D

In five years, I imagine Detroit to be a place not entirely different, but definitely changed from today. Like Grace Lee Boggs said in her WDET radio interview with Smiley and West, “revolution and evolution are not that far apart.” Nothing will change overnight and it has to begin with individual change – which will in turn be followed by social change. Detroiters have already been working on projects for decades, not to say that they haven’t done a lot, because they have done tremendous amounts of good, but Detroit also has tremendous amounts of issues that need resolving, so it will clearly take a while to revolutionize the entire city.

I expect that Detroit will continue to become more and more popular for young people who are attracted by the city’s pervasive grassroots ideology and the possibilities (artistic, social, residential, and entrepreneurial) that the city offers and I see the population beginning to slow its sharp decline. And I can definitely see myself returning to Detroit again some day for many of the same reasons – even after two months I feel connected to the movements here, especially the urban agriculture movement, something that seems pretty unique to Detroit’s situation. In the same way that Detroit lead the auto industry I see it leading our American society out of capitalism, consumerism, and materialism.