Once again facing a dearth for words, I would like to take this opportunity to direct my readers to a particularly insightful reflection written by a first time visitor to Detroit.

In What Ruin Porn Means To a City Rebuilding Itself, Julia Shiplett discusses her first trip to Detroit, her expectations, discomforts and realizations. I admire her depth of reflection, appreciate her honesty, and celebrate her accurate capture of Detroit’s essence. If more visitors to the city embarked on a similar pilgrimage, perhaps Detroit could be seen as the multifaceted municipal it is instead of the troubled caricature it has become.

And for that reason, I in some small way disagree with Julia. She wrestles with feeling unwelcome, insensitive, and presumptuous after unabashedly traipsing into a less-than-traveled area of the city. I would argue it is much easier to recoil into the oblivious comfort of “fair trade coffee”, air-conditioned cars, and iPhones than to live in the tension of the knowledge of glut and lack. Instead of being “scolded…for gazing at a homeless person”, what if we were to strike up a conversation with one? After all, Julia never would have had her epiphany if she hadn’t been willing to see Detroit with her eyes and heart open.