It took a visit from a friend to open my eyes to the (literal) darkness of Detroit’s streets. Earlier this month, my dear friend Iain spent part of his Spring Break visiting me in Detroit (you read that right.. Spring Break in Detroit!). Soon after his arrival, we embarked on a brief 10-minute walk from my house to a local bar. Making our way down the street, Iain asked me an unintentionally provocative question.

“Jessy,” he inquired, “are there no streetlamps here?”

The moment gave me pause. Then I began to laugh, a bit raucously, and somewhat hysterically. I’d walked down this street countless times before and honestly had never realized there were no streetlamps to be seen. If you’ve always lived in cities with well-lit streets, like I had, the idea that I hadn’t noticed the lack of light on this street might seem absurd. It was. Yet somehow, after just half a year of living in Detroit, unlit streets had become somewhat of a normalized experience for me. I hadn’t even thought twice about it.

Iain’s visit helped me realize how much I have immersed myself in the city (perhaps to the point where I no longer bat an eye at unlit streets, haha).Walking together through the streets of Detroit, I surprised even myself with how much I had absorbed. As we went from neighborhood to neighborhood, I couldn’t help but identify every building we passed, discuss every initiative and non-profit I was familiar with, and divulge every cultural anecdote I had picked up along the way. Every point became a point of interest. Every angle brought new perspective.

Before my internship in the D back in the summer of 2012, I never imagined I could learn so much from a being in a place. Yet Detroit is truly a city like no other. Walking down Detroit’s beaten paths, you often can’t help but wonder about those who trod on them before you. You sometimes can’t help but see the socioeconomic disparities between groups of people. And you regularly can’t help but imagine all that the space could be. Living in Detroit, we are not only made to think about development, history, politics, community, culture, crime, oppression, race, art, urban planning, inclusion and innovation… we are part of the evolving narrative.

While not all of Detroit’s streets may be bustling, or occupied, or even illuminated, one thing is for certain: every street has a story to tell. And, as residents of Detroit, these stories shape us as much as we shape them.