Different futures for different neighborhoods: The sustainability fix in Detroit

Abstract

Growth elites use cultural workers (artists, clergy, intellectuals) to rebrand old industrial cities as ecological delights that bring the market, society, and nature into harmony. Cultural workers’ vision of transforming the industrial city into a green commons has deep historical roots and enduring appeal. The market appropriation of this utopian vision is at once a revalorization technique and a conflict suppression maneuver. Merging theorization of practice, black urban politics, and the sustainability fix, this study frames the volatile relation of growth elites and cultural workers in Detroit as sustainability was made to mean resource enclosures. Cultural workers used their ties across cities and countries to fight the fix. There is a conflict between economic and cultural capital to control the spirit of capitalism and its relations with society and nature.

Reappearance of the Public: Placemaking, Minoritization and Resistance in Detroit

“…I did not know that city planning would merge with the CBD placemaking of a billionaire developer who moved his headquarters downtown the same year that I arrived, and I could not foresee the CBD protests that would erupt in US cities. These events pushed me to theorize about black agency in the CBD as I completed my study of city redevelopment (Montgomery, )…”

“…I did not know that city planning would merge with the CBD placemaking of a billionaire developer who moved his headquarters downtown the same year that I arrived, and I could not foresee the CBD protests that would erupt in US cities. These events pushed me to theorize about black agency in the CBD as I completed my study of city redevelopment (Montgomery, 2015). 3 For my case study, I used mixed qualitative methods that enabled a triangulation or (more aptly) a crystallization (Richardson and St. Pierre, 2005) of findings: I talked with planners, activists and residents, analyzed government, business and foundation materials (documents, media, statistical data) and observed redevelopment meetings, political demonstrations and land uses in greater downtown and three areas beyond it (a high-income majority black area, a low-income majority black area and a low-income majority Latino area).…”

Design Anthropology as Social Design Process

“…The positioning of designers and "creatives" in Detroit's urban renewal narrative of the past eight years is an example of this dynamic. Positioned by the media as a blighted, empty wasteland and 'blank canvas' waiting to be reimagined by developers, entrepreneurs, cultural workers, and members of the creative class, the narrative of Detroit's "comeback" privileges "pop-ups," "start-ups," "bootstrappers" and "urban pioneers" (Gregory 2012 andBergland 2017;Montgomery 2015). Some backlash toward newly arriving creative talent is driven by concerns of increasing gentrification and lack of representation of the demographic diversity of local entrepreneurs and existing residents' contributions to neighborhood stability, crime prevention and blight mitigation.…”

“…Detroit has a history of distrust in the planning process, with significant hurdles to participation attributed to a strong sense of neighborhood autonomy and a legacy of neighborhood-based coalition building that kept communities in tact during years of economic divestment (Brookmeyer 2000). When the DFC was formulated, significant efforts were made towards community "stakeholder" inclusion in the planning process, yet these efforts were unsuccessful in meeting the level of inclusivity desired by many residents (Montgomery 2015). The DFC is a 50-year strategic framework plan for the city funded by a public-private partnership between the Kresge, Kellogg, and Ford Foundations (Detroit Works Project Long Term Planning Committee 2012, Clement and Kanai 2015).…”

Writing Urban Space: Street Art, Democracy, and Photographic Cartography

“…Artistic conversations that mark sites of gentrification, describe the role of race in housing patterns, or call for decolonization are entangled in broader issues of democracy, justice, access, and recognition. As Montgomery (2015) observes, "Growth elites dominate the reinvention of Detroit because they command the funds to rebuild it" (p. 548). On one hand, the battle for public space continues.…”