2D

IN DETROIT WE'VE COME TO BE KNOWN FOR OUR SHORTCOMINGS. EVEN WHEN OUR SUCCESSES ARE UPLIFTED THEY SOMEHOW STILL SEEM TO PLAY SUBTEXT IN A STORY WOVEN TIGHTLY AGAINST OUR STRUGGLES.

We have exported (and in some cases imported and internalized) a flat, 2D story about Detroit. Our binary bio.

Detroit's narrative of resurgence is plagued by talk about resilience that sneak disses our hardships' scope and scale and blames its residents for the city's persistent problems—and then forks over recognition for a hallowed revitalization to our constant fiddling and reframing of economy, the reigning king of conversational community development.

All that is left over for our "resilience", if we’re honest, is contempt.

Our resilience, and all that it manifests, becomes a marginalized set of assets in an economic kingdom. By default, a threat to the way things work. It is a disruption simply by refusing to be assessed by its sticker price and denied legitimacy as a result.

As the story goes, a brighter tomorrow will emerge in spite of those challenges.

In reality a brighter tomorrow can perhaps only be the result of them—as we identify them and call them by name, learn to navigate them, address them, and talk about them in ways that people understand. Erasure only serves an eager culprit, economics, to make off with the spoils of a community that functions in alternative economies. These economies function with such dexterity that communities around the world are falling over themselves to listen and rewrite their own approaches.

But at home... were given tickets and sitting in court.

We’re criminalized for taking on the lots next to our homes and beautifying them as best we can to preserve our own homes and the surrounding community. For buying the building down the street that was sitting and rotting, open and dangerous, and fixing it ourselves even though it continues to burn and get dumped on. For creating public art in public spaces—to beautity and reanimate spaces where our institutions have shut the doors. broke out the windows. and cut all relief.

We are criticized and sanctioned for or our role in systems that have created a fabric that holds up and has preserved the community when the city could not provide such a net. Berated by a civic institution that doesn't understand and charges the victim when it doesnt know what else to do.

Welcome to Detroit. New Detroit. Our two D's.