Other People's Reports
My office is at 1212 Griswold---next to Capital Park and the bus terminal----in downtown Detroit. One block from Campus Martius Park and Compuware. Or for long time Detroiters, one block from the old Hudson's on Woodward.
I walk through downtown wondering what it might have been like when the city was at its peak ----- two million strong in 1959. Buses, trains and trolly cars. Shops, businesses and restaurants at each turn. My father, having returned from China after WWII and gone to University of Detroit on the GI Bill, worked two blocks from where I do today at that moment. Many of the buildings are the same, yet, it is a different time and condition.
I think of my relationship to Detroit: to this region. In the past three days, I found myself in downtown Ann Arbor doing an errand, shopping for produce at the Eastern Market, listening to our city's orchestra at the Max, having a coffee in downtown Northville and over to Lansing to meet relatives. My workday can as easily have me in Auburn Hills, Downtown Detroit, Mount Clemens, Northern Oakland County or downriver. This is the geography of my community.
---------------------
In Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Prize winning book "Instanbul", he writes about his relationship with his city after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. These insights made me think more about my relationship with my city and region. As I read these, I inserted the word Detroit for Instanbul and Auto Industry for Empire.
"Instanbul's fate is my fate. I am attached to this city because it has made me who I am."
"For me, it has always been a city of ruins and end-of- empire melancholy. I've spent my life either battling with this melancholy or (like all Instanbullus) making it my own."
"I sometimes think myself unlucky to have been born in an aging and impoverished city buried under the ashes of a ruined empire. But a voice inside me always insists this was really a piece of luck"
"Once imprinted in our minds, other people's reports of what we've done end up mattering more than what we ourselves remember. And just as we learn about our lives from others, so too do we let others shape our understanding of the city in which we live."
------------------------------
At a recent meeting with civic leader's from around Southeastern Michigan, I was struck at how many had found their way here in the past 5 to 12 years. Yet, how much of the conversation trickled to events that took place 40 years ago.
2007 will mark 40 years since the riots of 1967. I was five year's old when the riots took place and I have no recollection of the events. Most of the nearly 5 million residents in Southeastern Michigan either have no recollection of '67, weren't' born, or didn't live here. Yet, I feel the presence of its impact in my work almost daily.
Pamuk says: "...just as we learn about our lives from others, so too do we let others shape our understanding of the city in which we live." I wonder how much of the shaping of our relationship to the city of Detroit has been through other people's reports? Have the historical deficits blinded the present day assets and opportunities?
Since I was a child, I have always witnessed the relationship people have to their birthplace in the region as an 'either/or". Either I am pro- suburb or pro-city. It is rarely an 'And'.
As long as I can remember, the region has struggled economically because of the world moving from an industrial giant to a service economy to a global information age. Even in our self-described boom times of the past decades, there has been a constant shrinking of the industry that built the city and region.
What is the relationship I am shaping for my children to the city and the region? That is why for me the work of the regional alliance One D: Transforming Regional Detroit is so important. One D is working on the new story to this region. It recognizes our history, but it is putting its energy on building a new capability to lift the financial stability and quality of life for all in the region. One D is about the work of today and tomorrow: faith that when we work in the collective we will see progress.
Might this 'new story' be the "other people's reports" that are passed onto our children to shape their understanding of the city and region?
How have 'other people's reports" shaped our relationship to the City of Detroit and the region?
Thanks for reading, pass it on.
I walk through downtown wondering what it might have been like when the city was at its peak ----- two million strong in 1959. Buses, trains and trolly cars. Shops, businesses and restaurants at each turn. My father, having returned from China after WWII and gone to University of Detroit on the GI Bill, worked two blocks from where I do today at that moment. Many of the buildings are the same, yet, it is a different time and condition.
I think of my relationship to Detroit: to this region. In the past three days, I found myself in downtown Ann Arbor doing an errand, shopping for produce at the Eastern Market, listening to our city's orchestra at the Max, having a coffee in downtown Northville and over to Lansing to meet relatives. My workday can as easily have me in Auburn Hills, Downtown Detroit, Mount Clemens, Northern Oakland County or downriver. This is the geography of my community.
---------------------
In Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Prize winning book "Instanbul", he writes about his relationship with his city after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. These insights made me think more about my relationship with my city and region. As I read these, I inserted the word Detroit for Instanbul and Auto Industry for Empire.
"Instanbul's fate is my fate. I am attached to this city because it has made me who I am."
"For me, it has always been a city of ruins and end-of- empire melancholy. I've spent my life either battling with this melancholy or (like all Instanbullus) making it my own."
"I sometimes think myself unlucky to have been born in an aging and impoverished city buried under the ashes of a ruined empire. But a voice inside me always insists this was really a piece of luck"
"Once imprinted in our minds, other people's reports of what we've done end up mattering more than what we ourselves remember. And just as we learn about our lives from others, so too do we let others shape our understanding of the city in which we live."
------------------------------
At a recent meeting with civic leader's from around Southeastern Michigan, I was struck at how many had found their way here in the past 5 to 12 years. Yet, how much of the conversation trickled to events that took place 40 years ago.
2007 will mark 40 years since the riots of 1967. I was five year's old when the riots took place and I have no recollection of the events. Most of the nearly 5 million residents in Southeastern Michigan either have no recollection of '67, weren't' born, or didn't live here. Yet, I feel the presence of its impact in my work almost daily.
Pamuk says: "...just as we learn about our lives from others, so too do we let others shape our understanding of the city in which we live." I wonder how much of the shaping of our relationship to the city of Detroit has been through other people's reports? Have the historical deficits blinded the present day assets and opportunities?
Since I was a child, I have always witnessed the relationship people have to their birthplace in the region as an 'either/or". Either I am pro- suburb or pro-city. It is rarely an 'And'.
As long as I can remember, the region has struggled economically because of the world moving from an industrial giant to a service economy to a global information age. Even in our self-described boom times of the past decades, there has been a constant shrinking of the industry that built the city and region.
What is the relationship I am shaping for my children to the city and the region? That is why for me the work of the regional alliance One D: Transforming Regional Detroit is so important. One D is working on the new story to this region. It recognizes our history, but it is putting its energy on building a new capability to lift the financial stability and quality of life for all in the region. One D is about the work of today and tomorrow: faith that when we work in the collective we will see progress.
Might this 'new story' be the "other people's reports" that are passed onto our children to shape their understanding of the city and region?
How have 'other people's reports" shaped our relationship to the City of Detroit and the region?
Thanks for reading, pass it on.
Labels: Window on Community
posted by UWSEM webmaster at
3:28 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home