In a letter I received from my parents earlier this month, I found an article published by my hometown newspaper. The article, titled Many of Detroit’s New Wheelchair Ramps Go ‘Nowhere’, reached print and online audiences throughout the greater Chicagoland area on October 10th. Accredited to the Associated Press, the short piece did raise some valid points: a misallocation of public resources, questionable urban planning implementation, compounded development problems and dissatisfied residents.

However, fueled by a few choice quotes and a well-framed problem, the article offered no solution, no outlook. Rather than a constructive thought. it left the reader hanging on a quote by an elderly woman complaining about the damage that degraded roads did to the suspension on her electric wheelchair. The article threw itself in with the lot of Detroit-damning media that has been swirling around the public lens in recent years. The urban decay; the neighborhood blight; the corrupt, bankrupt city government; the same broken tune that lazy, disconnected journalists have been singing into the ears of an all too obliging public.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

 Where those without vision or optimism, see vacant, abandoned land, organizations like Challenge Detroit host company, Recovery Park, see opportunity. Six years in the making, Recovery Park aims to take the Chene Ferry Market neighborhood (pictured above), reclaim it from the natural growth and re-purpose it into a 110-acre urban agriculture operation employing marginalized (handicapped, ex-convicts, under-educated) Detroit residents. This past month our cohort took on the task of envisioning their redevelopment of this land for our Community Engagement Challenge. Through site assessments, graphic design, social media, large-scale volunteer management and other aspects of community engagement, we created a comprehensive plan for them to successfully reclaim the Chene Ferry footprint.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;

 (via @Andajetski)

So I choose not to buy into the abject murmurings of absentee observers. I choose to work in these neighborhoods, to live in these neighborhoods, and to improve these neighborhoods regardless of factors out of my control. I have seen these ramps first-hand and to me they are a fresh start; they are an indent; they are a glimpse into the future development of this city.

but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

– President Theodore Roosevelt