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How Design Activists Hope to Turn Around Detroit

January 20, 2012 by the polis blog
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The Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC) is not content with the status quo when it comes to built environment professionals — especially architects. Based at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture since 1994, it sees the production of architecture as a political act, one that supports or disrupts the actions... [read more]

Shrinking Cities: The Forgetting Machine

January 18, 2012 by Jason King
with 161 views
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One of our supplementary readings for the Shrinking Cities group is the recent essay by Jerry Herron on The Design Observer entitled 'The Forgetting Machine: Notes Toward a History of Detroit.'  The author is from Wayne State and has been a resident of Detroit since the early eighties, so it avoids some of the outsider rhetoric, but... [read more]

Why Ruin Photography Won’t Revive Cities

January 17, 2012 by Kat Friedrich
with 59 views
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Grist republished a feature article claiming that “ruin porn,” a genre of photography which focuses on decaying cities, can help reignite our appreciation for the Rust Belt and aid in urban revitalization. Here are a few of the problems I see with this attitude toward photographing damaged cities: Photographing poverty doesn’t end... [read more]

Hillbilly Urbanism

December 16, 2011 by Jim Russell
with 458 views
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Despite Brian O'Neill's best efforts, Pittsburgh isn't part of Appalachia. However, Pittsburgh is located in Appalachia. Confused? Don't be:Hardly any part of the U.S. typifies the concept of rural like Appalachia. Even the most outdated historical stereotypes persist: hillside shacks, impoverished children with no shoes, moonshine.... [read more]

Photolog: Harvesting the Positive Potential of Detroit

November 8, 2011 by Project for Public Spaces
with 149 views
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And it worked. On October 29, PPS was thrilled to be part of a very successful harvest festival outside the wonderful neighborhood produce market Peaches & Greens, which is celebrating its third anniversary. Although flanked by vacant lots, Peaches & Greens proved to be the right spot for the festival — and the event showed how this could evolve into an even better place for the neighborhood to come together. [read more]

Signs Of Life In Downtown Detroit

September 21, 2011 by Kaid Benfield
with 162 views
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    Don’t count the Motor City out just yet.  Companies are now fleeing its suburban office parks for downtown, writes Louis Aguilar in The Detroit News: “When MyInsuranceExpert.com announced last week it is moving its headquarters and 85 workers from Troy to one of the downtown Detroit office buildings bought by... [read more]

Art and Transformation in Detroit

September 1, 2011 by the polis blog
with 221 views
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Previous posts on Detroit by fellow Polis bloggers Alex Schafran and Anna Fogel largely highlight the abandonment and heaviness of this complex Motor City. Unfortunately, this is quite easy to do, as the potential for a positive future for the city is sometimes hard to uncover. A shrinking city, Detroit’s population fell by more than... [read more]

Vertical Farms Need a Residential Piggyback

August 19, 2011 by Tyler Caine
with 263 views
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Urban farming continues to ride the wave of sustainability with efforts sprouting up across the country that find very real and fruitful results. The rush of interest has maintained conversations of massive towers buried in the center of urban cores to produce local, sustainable crops for city dwellers. However, the conceptual mecca of farming in the city, vertical farms, still remains mired in the theoretical world due largely to the unwillingness of any funding sources to make the first cut on a bleeding edge development pattern. On their own, large vertical farms in the cityscape bring costs that may be insurmountable for a largely unproven model, but if the system was paired with high-end residential and positioned as an amenity then new crops could get the prime exposure they need to test their strength where it its needed most. [read more]

A Powerful Statement in the Form of Urban Folk Art: Detroit's Amazing Heidelberg Project

August 2, 2011 by Kaid Benfield
with 222 views
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      Detroit's problems of urban distress, decay, and inner-city abandonment are all too well-known.  Yet the city remains host to some amazing architecture and resilience.  I have come across no more impressive example than artist Tyree Guyton's amazing, two-block Heidelberg Project. Named for the east-side... [read more]

Artist Colony Successfully Reseeding Detroit

June 27, 2011 by Next American City
with 342 views
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An aerial shot of Power House Production’s home base - a Detroit neighborhood near Hamtramck Credit: © Mitch CopeIn “Michigan: Detroit in Decline” - an article written by TIME magazine in 1961, which sadly remains relevant today, the words of Henry Ford II resonate strongly in relationship to a Detroit-based non-profit: “Detroit... [read more]

Improving NeighborhoodsThrough Placemaking

June 17, 2011 by Project for Public Spaces
with 340 views
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Kresge Foundation Announces Grant to Support Placemaking in Detroit PPS is thrilled to announce that we’ve been awarded a grant from the Kresge Foundation for our program, “Rebuilding Detroit Neighborhoods through Placemaking and the Power of 10.” PPS hopes this new project will lead to more markets like Detroit’s Eastern Market, which... [read more]

Does Detroit Need "Right Sizing"?

June 10, 2011 by Kaid Benfield
with 188 views
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    At the bottom of this post are two short videos about Detroit, both featuring architect and planner Mark Nickita, principal of the city's Archive Design Studio and a lifelong Detroit resident.  In a very refreshing change from the mind-numbing negativity one usually hears about the city, Nickita is upbeat and... [read more]