Sprouts!

The garden is coming along.  It's fun to see things growing that were little seeds a few weeks ago.  The guy who lives in the house adjacent to the garden has graciously offered us a hose and a functioning spigot, and he is taking over a small plot to grow his collard greens and peppers...because greens just aren't the same with out a little hot peppers.

 I can occasionally convince Adrienne to go along with my crazy ideas--she painted the sign:

And some of the seeds are sprouting:

Spinach planted by Jane

Peas planted by MJ

And the seedlings that Earthworks gave us are starting to go in the ground.  These had outgrown their small little seedling containers.  When I planted them they were all wilted and laying on the ground.  So we watered them, and ten minutes later...

Ok, so they're still a little wilted, but they look even better now

Housefire

I watched this house burn yesterday.  I didn't have the camera with me.  It's quite a sight to see a house burn.  I was hot standing a block away.  The flames are bigger than you think they would be.  I always thought firefighters had a chance, but I've realized that once the house really gets going they're just protecting the house next door. 

This is the third house I've seen burn in the last year and a half...I'd never seen one before then. 

I think the house that was on the land where we have the garden burned.  I keep finding charred bits all over the lot.

health and well being

One thing about living in and working in Detroit is that you can't help gaining a deeper understanding of the inequalities in our society. The patients I work with at the hospitals here--particularly Detroit Receiving--highlight the vast gulf between the educated, resourced elite, and the underresourced underclass.
An example: For most American women, the annual exam--or at least biannual is an assumed right.  In fact when the USPSTF recommended that women really don't need quite as many pelvic and breast exams as they have been getting, there was a public uproar--despite the fact that these recommendations were based in empiric research.
Last week a 40 year old woman came into the clinic complaining of pain and irregular bleeding for the last year.  She had come to the ER twice, and been diagnosed with benign conditions and sent home.  On her third visit, someone finally took the time to sign her up for a free program that screens women for cervical cancer.  It turns out that her last visit to the doctor was 15 years ago.  She knew that she needed to come, but she didn't really have the education to know why, and she never had insurance, so she did what most people without insurance do and came to the ER when she couldn't stand it anymore.  In Michigan two groups of people qualify for medicaid--children and pregnant women. 
Turns out she had inoperable cervical cancer.  So she will have an extended course of radiation treatment and maybe chemotherapy and so forth for several years, then the odds are that she will die. 

So here's the way I see this scenario:  We as a society and as a medical profession failed to provide this woman with the basic preventative health care she needed, and so now we will end up paying many times what prevention or early treatment would have cost us to give her a treatment that has a relatively low chance of long term success and gives her all sorts of miserable side effects.

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

Back in the game

100 + hrs/wk of surgery clerkship plus a new child got in the way of posting for a while....

Reasons to love Detroit #18

18. Cheap land. Back in the summer The Padre and I were talking one day and decided that we should have a garden. A community garden would be a good way to grow some food, meet some new people in the community and generally make our way towards having a positive impact in the city.
During the course of several discussions we roped in MJ the ideas man. It turns out that the City of Detroit actually owns quite a bit of the land in Detroit(Former Detroiters have made a habit of leaving their houses untended for the city to take over over the last 30 years), and it would rather get rid of that land than have to maintain it. So every month there is a list printed of all the available lots. Not many sell so they pretty much stay the same from month to month.
So we went off to the city land office to inquire about the possibility of using one of the lots for a community garden. But as it happens they were more than willing to sell us the land...so for 300 dollars--cash on the barrel--we walked out the proud new owners of our own little slice of Detroit.

Here it is after a few improvements...

the sign wil soon say something...

can't find the original pictures

Christmas photo blooper reel

Mom had a great idea to take a picture for Christmas cards. Clayton sat very nicely through the whole process. The same cannot be said for Mr. B

Housing, Race, and Inequality

I'm reading a book called The Origins of the Urban Crisis. I bought it for my wife for Christmas, because I thought she would enjoy it, but it turned out to be a little more textbooky than I thought it would be(one reason not to buy books online).

Here's what I've learned:

Systemic structural discrimination laid the groundwork for the segregation of Detroit, the ghettoization of black neighborhoods and pervasive, lasting inequality. Vast numbers of blacks migrated from the South in the 1930's, 40's and 50's to northern cities like Detroit. This is what they found...

Detroit was the land of opportunity, the land of jobs, equality, hope. So to Detroit came the poor, the out-of-work, the landless. To buy a house you had to get a loan, to get a loan you needed the backing of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) which based it's recommendations on the annual report of the Home Owner's Loan Corporation (HOLC). The HOLC rated neighborhoods from A-D. A being places they deemed safe bats and loan worthy, D being neighborhoods not worthy of receiving loan money. Every neighborhood with at least one black person in it was automatically rated D. So it was virtually impossible to get a home improvement loan in a black neighborhood.

Of course if you had money saved up you could buy a home, unless you were black. over 90% of the neighborhoods in Detroit had "white-only" clauses in their charters. (In fact, our community was barred from living in one neighborhood here because it has a vestigial-only one family per home-rule instituted originally under the assumption that most blacks couldn't afford to own a home by themselves to ensure a white only neighborhood after such overtly racial clauses were ruled unenforceable) And part of the guiding ethic of the national board of Realtors was to never assist in the disruption of the racial homogeneity of a neighborhood. In one area in north Detroit the FHA required a contractor to build a six foot concrete wall between the black and white neighborhoods to qualify for loans to develop land in the white section

So you rent. Of course due to the housing shortage in Detroit rent was expensive. And only a small fraction were open to blacks, and only a small fraction of those were open to adults. Landlords in the black sections of town subdivided homes and apartments, and increased rents. As buildings were converted from white to black the apartments got smaller and more expensive and the owners stopped maintenance.

Work was hard to get for black people. And when they did find it it payed less and was more dangerous.

And so stereotypes were reinforced with black neighborhoods becoming crowded, dirty, poor, dilapidated...And then the city government sought to clean up "blight". They built the freeways through the black areas of town, displacing residents to...even more crowded neighborhoods. And they tore down neighborhoods to build public housing, which reinforced segregation since they were all segregated through the 50's.

Enough details...this isn't a book report...I knew this all before I read the book, I just hadn't put it all together quite like this. But what I want to get across is this. The system was (and in many ways still is) stacked against blacks, the poor, and especially poor blacks. Structurally, from the federal government to the state government to the city government to community charters, to associations of bankers and realtors, to individuals bankers, homeowners, landlords...everything was (and in many ways still is) lined up in such a way to give advantage to those with money and those with white skin.

I didn't know this growing up. It took me a long time to figure out that racism today is an institutional as well as individual issue. But racial tension is so palpable in Detroit. The ongoing conflict between the suburbs (in between then and now most of the whites and the money left Detroit for the suburbs) and the city is clear. And the segregation and discrimination are still here, with money, resources and jobs concentrated in the mostly white suburbs.

If you could be anything

Luthier

This is clearly one of the better words in the English language. Not only that, it is one thing I would like to be if I weren't going into medicine. Woodworking, music, Italy...it has all the makings of a great profession

Huzzah

Clayton Matthew. Born on Christmas Day.

Mr. B isn't sure what to think.


His mother likes him though.

oranges and little boys

Mr. B likes clementines. Generally we peel them and cut them into bite sized pieces. He was rummaging through his mother's bag before we left the house and found his lunch. And he put his lone snaggle-tooth to good use.

U.S. NEWS
DECEMBER 22, 2009
In Detroit, Some See Grounds for Church Planting
New Evangelical Congregations Take Root in Depressed Areas, but City's Deep Burdens Sometimes Hinder Mission

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126142947448500607.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

By ALEX P. KELLOGG
DETROIT -- Crime, unemployment and the housing crisis have chased thousands of people out of this city. But those are the very reasons Eric Russ moved in.

Mr. Russ is "lead visionary pastor" and one of the founders of the Mack Avenue Community Church, named for a long thoroughfare that cuts across the east side of Detroit. He and his congregation at "Mack Ave." represent a small, young corps of church organizers trying to spark a revival -- both spiritual and economic -- in this battered city.

The Revs. Eric Neilson, Leon Stevenson and Eric Russ of Mack Avenue Community Church shared a laugh before the service.
.."We wanted to go where people were forgetting God loved them," says Mr. Russ, 33 years old, who left an affluent church in suburban Cincinnati to move to Detroit two years ago, around the time the city's gradual decline spiraled into a full-blown crisis.

In the past decade, a movement often referred to as "urban church planting" has gained steam in evangelical circles. The aim: to build vibrant congregations and revitalize neighborhoods in frayed communities.

Detroit has long had a heavy concentration of churches for a city its size, and many of them assist the community by doing everything from donating bicycles to opening fast-food restaurants to create jobs. The area also is home to synagogues and mosques, some of which have begun offering assistance such as health-care clinics to members and nonmembers alike. Yet the economic downturn has strained the resources of many religious organizations.

Mack Ave. is among a handful of evangelical churches that have set up shop in Detroit and nearby communities. Their founders typically are transplants like Mr. Russ who say they feel called to help Detroit pull itself back from the brink. With financial support donated largely from churches outside Detroit, a few are beginning to thrive, in some cases creating pockets of rejuvenation in an otherwise decaying urban landscape.

Their success echoes efforts by evangelical churches in places such as Atlanta and Chicago, where new congregations have reinvigorated blighted areas.

But a city like Detroit poses unique problems for church planters. There are festering racial tensions that date back decades, a beleaguered urban infrastructure and, now, a regional economy on its knees.

Scott Thomas is director of Acts 29 Network, which helps found evangelical churches nationwide. He estimates that new churches generally take three to five years to establish themselves, but given the lack of resources in Detroit, "it would probably take seven years" for a new church to survive without funding from donors outside the city, he says.

Citadel of Faith opened its doors six years ago in a former synagogue in an ailing area near Boston Edison, a quaint historic neighborhood north of downtown. Founder Harvey Carey, a Chicago native, says he has lured a dozen families, both black and white, to move to near Citadel from outside the city. He says his church has helped close a handful of local drug houses by holding ad hoc services on their lawns until the dealers could no longer operate.

"I didn't know anything about Detroit," says Mr. Carey, 43. He spent 14 years as an assistant pastor at Salem Baptist Church on Chicago's South Side before moving here in 2003. "I had no connections here," he says of Detroit. "It was literally a spiritual directive."

Evangelical church Mack Ave. opened its doors on Easter Sunday in Indian Village, an upscale neighborhood on Detroit's east side. Its congregation of some 70 people is racially diverse.

Mr. Russ and his pastoral team count on a wide network of financial supporters -- churches from Ohio to Massachusetts to Nova Scotia as well as his old Cincinnati congregation -- to help cover the $600 monthly rent plus salaries for three pastors.

Still, young evangelicals who have moved to Detroit to join and help develop nascent congregations say the city can be a big adjustment. Last year, Jason McLean, 23, came to Detroit to join the Mack Ave. congregation from suburban Wayne, Mich., where he had lost several jobs and felt directionless, he says. He now lives in a church-owned house with three other young Mack Ave. members. He and his housemates, all in their 20s, prefer to have dinner parties at home than go out in Detroit at night, where they don't always feel safe, Mr. McLean says. "The lack of a police presence has been tough to see," he says.

Detroit wasn't founder Mr. Russ's first choice. The son of two drug addicts, he attended seminary in Massachusetts and spent time as a missionary in Uganda. After that, he took a job near Cincinnati and had planned to settle down there with a comfortable suburban congregation.

That changed after he and a small group of seminary classmates and other friends visited Detroit over Christmas three years ago. Local church leaders suggested Mr. Russ and his group focus on a particular neighborhood where they saw an acute need, and an opportunity.

While Mack Ave. was established in a historically affluent enclave, dilapidated neighborhoods that never recovered from 1967 riots surround the wealthy core. Just around the corner from the church are liquor stores, gas stations and empty storefronts.

Before the church opened its doors, Mr. Russ and his congregation spent a year and a half working in the community, focused on addressing basic needs. They offered backpacks of school supplies to children and sold toiletries and fresh fruit at street corners for pennies on the dollar. And before they had their own building, they began knocking on doors in search of parishioners.

Once he arrived in Detroit, Mr. Russ joined the neighborhood association in Indian Village and became a block marshal. He has purchased two homes in the area, rehabilitating one with the help of another church before selling it to a member of his congregation for little more than he bought it for.

More than a dozen families affiliated with Mack Ave., most from other states, ultimately purchased homes in the area and made improvements to them, hoping to demonstrate their intention to stay in Detroit.

But they are never far from the realities of Detroit. Mr. Russ once had his car stolen, only to recover it himself in a confrontation with thieves. Another Mack Ave. pastor, Leon Stevenson, and his wife were robbed at gunpoint in front of their home last fall.

Mack Ave.'s founders say they sense a lingering skepticism toward outsiders -- particularly whites -- who settle in the city. Indeed, a few of the founding members of the church ultimately left, deeming the divide too wide.

Tony Stec, 29, who attended seminary with Mr. Russ and worked as administrator of Mack Ave., left after less than a year. Mr. Stec, who is white, had racial epithets directed at him on the street, and says he ultimately felt unwelcome and unsafe. After deciding he didn't feel comfortable relocating his wife here, he took a job at a church outside Des Moines, Iowa, instead. "I wouldn't necessarily discourage anyone" from going to Detroit," says Mr. Stec. "But I would certainly preface it with the realization that it's going to be difficult."

Write to Alex P. Kellogg at alex.kellogg@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A19

Reasons to live in Community-78, 2, 161

Number 78
You don't have to eat duck by yourself

I know this is basically a repeat of something I already said. Last weekend I wanted to cook a duck. Age wanted no part in an such endeavor. But since we live in community, I didn't have to eat duck by myself. The guys had duck and then played games, and the girls went out to dinner and a movie.

Which brings me to

Number 2
It's more fun

There is almost always someone to joke around with, hang out with, have serious conversation with, share a cup of coffee with...etc. It's more fun. And when you play games you aren't limited to chess or checkers. When you want o play raquetball you don't have to play against yourself. Killer Bunnies is the current hit game, though Settlers of Catan is the old standby.

Which brings me to an important corollary

Number 161
When you play the Settlers of Catan, you can always special build

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.