Things you might see if you wander around Detroit

One thing about Detroit is that it has unique features you might not find in other cities.  Other places don't necessarily have so many interesting sites. And this is all in an afternoon.

Where else can you move into an abandoned building today just by calling a number.

Where else can you find a church named after the pastor?

I grew up driving by crosses on the side of the road at most sharp turns.  Thismemorial takes it to a whole new level.  It is in memory of a girl who died two months ago when she crashed into this tree.  Apparently they brought out all her belongings and stapled them to this tree. 

The Heidelberg Project (#14)

The Heidelberg Project is one of the most visited sites in Detroit.  Tour buses roll by on a regular basis.  In 1986 this guy named Tyree Guyton got fed up with his neighborhood and sick of waiting for the government to clean it up.  In 1986 the neighborhood was just another example of Detroit's broken social structure dominated by crack houses and prostitution.  So Guyton got neighborhood kids and his family together and started cleaning uop the neighborhood.  They made big piles of trash...then he turned it into a giant piece of instalation art.  He started with polkadots...and painted an entire block of trash heaps wih bright colors...then he moved on to other works.  In 1991 and again in 1999 the city of Detroit demolished part of the project...it seems that certain mayors are more sensitive to criticism than others. 

Guyton's work has been featured in museums around the world over the last 10-15 years, and his movement is increasingly recognized as one of the landmarks of Detroit...something like 300,000 people visit it a year.

                               Weapons of Mass Destruction

The stuffed animal house

The Doors

I thought the mission statement and vision statement were worth reading...ambitious.

The Heidelberg Project is a Detroit-based community organization designed to improve lives and neighborhoods through art.

The Heidelberg Project envisions neighborhood residents using art to come together to rebuild the structure and fabric of under-resourced communities and to create a way of living that is economically viable, enriches lives, and welcomes all people.

Death Camels

Things to love about Detroit #11

11. Optimism:  I guess you learn to see the silver lining when it's always cloudy...or I guess you learn to see the glass as half full when somebody else is drinking all your water every time you fill the glass.

To announce the fact that GM lost 4.3 billion dollars in six months the Free Press chose the headline:

Signs of Hope at GM     for it's print edition.

No seriously though, if you spend enough time around here you begin to realize that everybody has a plan to make things better.  And it's hard not to be optimistic...I mean really there's not much room to go down...

For a good example, here is the Free Press again...

Big Plans for the Future of Detroit

Reasons to love Detroit #6 and # 320

6.  Urban gardening is hip and popular in Detroit...which makes me hip and popular...at least among a slightly uncool subset of the population...
This means that there is lots of support for urban gardening and community gardening projects.  So MJ signed us up for the Garden Resource Program through Earthworks...for 20 dollars we got more seeds and seedlings than we can plant this year.

320. It's close enough to farms that you can get free manure without owning horses.  A quick search on Craig's list yielded several leads...So MJ and I rolled out of town into the country and filled our friends pickup to overflowing.

 MJ and the Padre unload manure

Compost bins, manure pile...the beginnings of a great garden

Reasons to love Detroit-3

It is what it is
Number 3

Detroit is like cutting your own Christmas tree.

Sure an artificial tree is nice...it has that perfect shape, you can store it for use again next year...There aren't any needles to sweep up, if you forget to water it it won't die...you don't have to tramp through the snow with a saw to get it, or spend half an hour on your back in a puddle of water tightening screws saying, "is it straight yet?"...when Christmas is over you just put it back in the box, or if you have room just carry it to the basement and cover it with a sheet...there aren't any holes and there's always a nice top branch for the angel or star...The branches are stright and never out of place...

but in the end it's still fake.

Reasons to love Detroit-16

Number 16
Noel Night
http://www.detroitmidtown.com/05/noelnight.php

Saturday Night we dropped Mr. B off at some friends house and went on our first real date in quite some time. So we headed off to midtown Detroit, and the 37th annual Noel Night. 40 different venues, live performances from kids dancing to a full production of The Messiah, to a lady with a guitar, to hip indie rock bands(MJ tells me that indie rock is the in thing, apparently we all love to be independent together).

The best thing is it's all free, except for food. The DIA had free admission, with several rooms devoted to performers. The library was a mass of people, there was an ice-sculpting competition, and caroling. Woodward Avenue was blocked off. One of the great things was the mix of people. And everybody was having a good time.

In the 70's the situation in Detroit was bleak. So it is not entirely surprising that some of the best events in Detroit date to that period...Noel Night, Dally in the Alley, the Detroit Jazz Festival...

The only problem is that the temperature was in the 20's. There are definitely not enough degrees in this place. So if you have any to spare, send them my way.

Reasons to love Detroit

Number 7
Eastern Market
http://www.detroiteasternmarket.com/

Yesterday was a great day. Started out by going to EM with Age, Mr B and our neighbor. We filled a Radio Flyer to overflowing with fruits and vegetables sold at unbeatable prices, still mostly from local Michigan farmers(though harvest is basically over). In the next few weeks they will make the transition to almost entirely imported produce, but since EM is the distribution point for all the produce that goes out to south-eastern Michigan, the prices will still be drastically reduced.

It's Christmas season, which means a host of vendors selling trees, wreaths, and other assorted evergreen branches arranged into all sorts of shapes and sizes.

You can also buy meat from some vendors, including a whole pig head for 69 cents/pound if that's what you need.

Since 1891, it is the larges historic public market district in the country. Pretty cool.

17 and 18

Reason number 17 tfor communal living:
When you don't have something you need, someone else does.

Example: I don't own a rolling pin. I also don't own one of those round dishes you use to bake pies. But that doesn't stop me from making pie. I don't know exactly whose rolling pin it is. I'd fifty-fifty chance it belongs to MJ or Mrs. Shoe. But who knows. Anyway. Pie is good

Reason number 18 for communal living:
When you make pie you don't have to make it by yourself.

Example: Blackberries were on sale at the market last week. One flat for 6 dollars. I bought two flats, turned one into 7 jars of jam and the other into a blackberry pie. And so we all had pie together.

On schools and other things

The Detroit public school system recently announced that it is going to close another 50 schools in the next year or so. 23 are slated for closures this summer. 600 teachers will be laid off. An additional 30-40 will close next year. There are currently 194 schools in DPS. Over the last few years 70+ schools have closed.

A closed school represents a lot of money. Desks, Books, Chairs, etc etc. Unfortunately due to budgetary concerns most of that capital has been left in the schools to grow dust, acquire water damage, be vandalized etc. Why have so many schools been closed? there are many reasons. 1. population contraction. 2. charter school expansion (about a third of Detroit students are in charter schools)and the biggest reason:

3. money money money. The district just can't afford to keep the schools open. The state recently stepped in and appointed a new superintendent with all sorts of special powers and a special investigator to figure out the finances. Detroit has faced falling revenues for many years for two reasons; population contraction and the impoverishment of the city. Put simply: All the people who could afford to pulled up stakes and got the heck out of Dodge. Anyway, the investigator found an additional 100 million dollars in unpaid debt that the school district didn't know about. A whole stack of invoices stashed in a drawer somewhere.

So where does this leave the students? I guess there's not really any way to describe it...crowded classrooms, limited resources, violent hallways, violent classrooms, jaded teachers without resources or the incentive to actually teach. The dropout rate is over 50% in most high schools, literacy rates in Detroit are below third world levels.

Here are some snapshots:

On March 29, 2006, students at Mackenzie High in Detroit staged a walkout to protest the lack of textbooks and toilet paper. 32 were arrested, with 8 charged for disorderly conduct, and 1 for inciting to riot. Students complained that they had only one textbook per 3 students, an administrator had an expensive plasma television, amid allegations of a missing $3,000, and leaking roofs which damaged 45 new computers in storage.

On August 31, 2007, Detroit Public Schools announced that they have opened a Detroit Police mini-station in Henry Ford High School. Detroit Free Press article indicated that police mini-stations are planned for Cody, Cooley, Northwestern and Central high schools. [54] DPS maintains its own sworn and armed police officers.

So why am I saying all of this? I have a confession. I always assumed that it was possible for anyone to make it to the top in the United States. I always said, "yes there is inequality of outcome, but there's equality of opportunity. If someone born in a poor neighborhood wants to they can make it out." And it gave me a good feeling inside. It justified my lifestyle. It gave me a feeling of superiority. Somehow I was better for having chosen to be responsible with money and for having gotten a job and gone to college and pursued success. And it justified my not doing more to help people.

And so I guess my point is this: Equality of opportunity in this country is a myth. A kid who grows up with no education, with parents who weren't educated and don't know how to fight for him, with no prospect of a job, in a place that the rich have abandoned and left for dead, does not have the same opportunity to succeed that I did. I don't say that to condemn anyone, or to try to goad you to action. Most of the people who read this blog do more than I do to help people anyway. But I say it as a confession. I was wrong. And I am one of the rich who turn their backs on the poor.

On labels

So I've been working on going back and labeling the blog entries I've written in the past, now that I've discovered that you can have your labels run down the side of your blog and people can click on them to search.

I do a few every week. So they're not done yet. And won't be for quite a while...but that's neither here nor there. But I have realized that I have written about a lot of topics.

I reported about a year and a half ago that there were no supermarkets in Detroit...I have to say I was relying on a News story, and it was completely false. There are all sorts of grocery stores in Detroit. True there are fewer than you would expect, and they're not really national chains. But they're here. So I formally retract my poorly researched and preachy post.

On houses in Detroit

I couldn't believe the part about a house being sold for $2000. Unable to contain my curiosity I checked Zillow.com and sure enough, there are LOTS of houses going for
that, or less, and they don't look like they've been trashed nor do they appear to be located in slums and ghettos. I found one in Oak Park for $1000, three bedrooms and two bathrooms, completely updated kitchen and bathrooms, curb appeal... Wha...??????

So now I am REALLY curious. How can this be? What is happening that people are selling their homes for such a pittance? Is the Detroit area suffering from radiation poisoning? Weird mold infestation? Are the winters that bad?

A friend of me sent me this e-mail--it's a sentiment I've heard before, so I thought I'd comment on it. I'm no expert in the economics of home sales--but I think the etiology of this condition is interesting, so here goes.

1. Detroit's infastructure was built to accommodate 5 million people-mostly in single family dwellings. In the fifties, there were more single family homes in Detroit than in any other city in the world. Auto-industry jobs paid well, it was a growth industry, and almost all of the lower management, mid-management, and head honchos for all of the major auto companies worked and lived in the Detroit area.

2. The population topped out just under two million (some estimates say just over 2 million) in the late fifties, and now stands at a somewhere between 750-800 thousand. So there's a huge housing surplus.

3. In the late 90's and early 00's-when gas was cheap and SUV's were in, it looked like the auto companies might turn the corner. The city contracted out the demolition of some of the homes that had been abandoned, Then they convinced all sorts of people to invest heavily in building new housing--condos, apartments, lofts, townhouses. Then gas prices went up, and everybody realized that the auto companies were never going to make it out of the hole.

so a) there's a huge glut of housing in Detroit.
b) nobody in Detroit is confident they will have a job for very long. Even the Detroit Public Schools have had to close the doors of a number of schools to save money and pack more students into fewer classrooms.
c) housing prices are falling nationally anyway
d) the population of Detroit is still going down
e) forclosures have drastically reduced the price buyers have to pay for houses. Banks are unloading houses for a fraction of their former value, just to get them off the books.

On top of all this, taxes are not insignificant in Detroit. It is not uncommon for houses that are selling for 20,000 to have an annual tax bill of 10,000. And the city is very reluctant to lower the taxed value of the home. (an example of the impact of taxes here is the story of the restaurants on the block that was first announced as the location of the casino in town. Their property values shot up due to speculation, their tax bills went up, they went bankrupt, then the location was changed, but they stayed bankrupt and now there's a row of abandoned storefronts.)

The ripples of instability have spread out to neighboring communities, so that property values in nearby towns are also incredibly low.

It's a perfect storm of bad economic news.

Things I like about living in Detroit

Not having to drive 45 minutes to school every day.

The YMCA--42 foot climbing wall, and raquetball courts

Waking up every morning to the sunrise over the river

Mack Avenue Community Church--keeping it real serving the people of Detroit

Liquor stores that accept food stamps

Mexicantown--great food like being home again

Not living in the suburbs

Did I mention not having to drive home at the end of the day

There's a plank in my eye

zip, per capita, median houshold
48105: 34,534, 73,103
85621: 10,691, 22,801
85711: 16,901, 30,909
48201: 11,641, 16,921
49269: 18,905, 48,472

Of power, race, and beautiful women

The mayor of Detroit is a man named Kwame Kilpatrick. He was first elected in 2002 and reelected in 2006 (there's the power part). For the record (its relevance will emerge) he is a black man and he is married(there's the beautiful woman part).

A bit of history:
1. During his first term in office Mr. Kilpatrick was embroiled in a scandal...it was alledged that he had an affair with his chief of staff (that makes it women). There was also a major issue over the doling out of city contracts ar some such that was the more important issue at the time. The man who blew the proverbial whistle was fired before he could get the whole story out, it was all covered up and lots of paper was shredder.

2. Also during his first term Mr. Kilpatrick was found to be having an affair with another woman(too bad there's no word meaning three women). So during his reelection campaign he went on TV and had an emotional moment with his wife where he apologized and vowed never to do it again and so on and so forth. And she said she was struggling with the pain and so on and so forth. Anyway he was reelected based apparently on the widespread perception that the white establishment of Detroit was out to get him (there's race)

3. Last fall the man who was fired for exposing the mayor's misbehavior fired suit under the federal whistleblower's protection act. As a part of that suit Mr. Kilpatrick testified under oath that he had never had an affair with his chief of staff. And she did the same. It didn't matter however because the jury found for the plaintiff. The city appealed and eventually settled with the lucky man who lost his job to the tune of several million dollars(taxpayer money in a city that can't afford to maintain basic services).

4. In January the Detroit Free Press aquired Mr Kilpatrick's work cell phone records under the freedom of information act and combed through his text messages. It was revealed unambiguously that he did in fact have an affair with his chief of staff and perjured himself during the trial. And he knew the whole time that the affair was a matter of public record easily accertainable by the public.

This is where I come in. I have taken to going down to the gym a few times a week and walking and running on the treadmill. I like to go at 7:30 and watch Jeopardy. So I went down there and turned on Jeopardy, except it wasn't it was Mr. Kilpatrick doing the whole "sorry I'll never do it again" song and dance routine with his wife. They were on every channal, so I had to listen to him go on and on about how he's not stepping down etc. I was a little upst because to my mind he really shouldn't even be given a stage upon which to act. And they canceled the show I was going to watch. Then, they had a little segment of reactions to the speech...every black respondant said they believed him and felt sorry for him and felt like he should be given another chance. Every white respondant thought he should step down. There were also protesters marching in the street against the white people of Detroit and the media for persecuting the Mayor. It was fascinating to me. It seems like race is a bigger issue here than in Arizona. I could be wrong. Anyway...here...or in Detroit anyway...its a chasm, a huge dividing factor. Not in personal interaction as much...but certainly in cultural outlook and approach major issues. I'm not trying to imply that all blacks or all whites think alike. Just that there is a major cultural divide in this city.

5. Mr Kilpatrick is currently embroiled in a scandal concerning a topless dancer who turned up brutally murdered and is currently believed to have had several affairs in office.

6. The thing is, he seems to have done a pretty good job as mayor of Detroit...not most people's dream job. The city has seen consistent improval by all accounts under his watch.

supermarkets

Farmer Jack's used to be the only supermarket chain operating in Detroit. When Farmer Jack's went out of business, they sold their supermarkets to Kroger. Kroger decided to buy all of the stores except for the ones in the city of Detroit. This left Detroit without any supermarkets.

So Detroit has no supermarkets. Why? It seems like at least one supermarket could make it in a city of 800,000 people. So why didn't Kroger pick up any of those stores? Well to start remember that grocery store operate on the slimmest profit margins in retail. So you have to sell a lot of stuff consistently and not have any extra operating costs. So what did Kroger say?

1. Theft: Theft rates are significantly higher in Detroit than anywhere else. That's a big cost and security gaurds are expensive.

2. High slip and fall liability: Detroit residents are more likely to sue than others. This is obviously a big cost.

3. Food Stamp cycles: food stamps aren't really stamps, and when those little cards get refilled by the government on the 1st of the month everybody goes out to buy groceries. This cycle makes it harder to do business.

This kind of thing fascinates me. So what can we learn from this.

1. Crime breeds poverty. Lots of people think the reverse is true, and they are certainly mutually reinforcing. Rudy Guliani's one great insight was that if you stop crime, you reduce poverty.

2. Lawsuits are dumb. This is the same kind of "They owe me something" mentality that leads unions to destroy this state. They also hurt the entire society.

3. Relying on the government to fix poverty doesn't work. (ok that's a stretch...but it doesn't)