“New York is humbling. You can’t come here trying to control or\u00a0change the city, the city changes you.”<\/p>\n
From Toronto to Philadelphia to Baltimore, I\u00a0spent the last week on a family road trip throughout the East coast.\u00a0Being away from Detroit and seeing these a variety of other cities\u00a0gave me space to reflect on my experience this past year.<\/p>\n
When it comes to Detroit, I often hear the\u00a0tone\u00a0focus on how much\u00a0opportunity there is to create what you want to see in the city, to “make an impact.” The last week was a humbling\u00a0reminder that cities are entities of their own. I’m one of thousands of people, businesses, years of history that shape a place. When these come together they create something more than just the sum of each individual piece – they create a unique rhythm and energy that can’t be controlled or\u00a0molded so easily.<\/p>\n
In other places I see an acknowledgment of this in a way that\u00a0doesn’t always exist when the conversation turns to Detroit. Detroit’s not a blank slate, and no one individual or group should craft the trajectory of the place.<\/p>\n
But even more so, when\u00a0that trajectory is being molded – when there are conversations on the future of a\u00a0city – it’s important to ask who that impact is for, who it is by, and with what intention.<\/p>\n
As someone who has done a series of short fellowship programs since graduating, I’ve been in spaces where I’ve been lucky to have incredible access to decision makers.\u00a0And yet, from Flint to Jakarta to Detroit, I’ve seen a recurring theme: while my college degree and acceptance to these programs gives\u00a0me the opportunity\u00a0to speak to\u00a0key stakeholders and influencers, the individuals living the\u00a0experiences that these policies affect don\u2019t have the same access to the decision making table.<\/p>\n
A quote from a panelist at\u00a0the 2016 Detroit Policy Conference still echoes in my mind:\u00a0\u00a0\u201canything done for us, without us, is not for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the past six months through Challenge Detroit I have had the opportunity to work with\u00a0the Mayor\u2019s office, Detroit Public Schools, the Coalition on Temporary Shelter and now the Downtown Detroit Partnership. I would be lying\u00a0if I said I haven’t reaped the benefits of this vast\u00a0network.<\/p>\n
But as we are providing research and feedback,\u00a0 I’m constantly reminded that I’m not a parent in DPS, and I can\u2019t completely represent\u00a0the perspective of one. I\u2019m not a neighborhood small business owner in the city of Detroit, and while I can try to serve as an\u00a0honest bridge\u00a0between those parties,\u00a0there are very real limitations as to how much\u00a0I can convey. While the research I\u2019ve gathered can be informative, it isn’t the same as having a direct interaction with the individuals who are living the\u00a0experience. Having me as a fellow shouldn’t\u00a0replace direct access to\u00a0decision makers for the\u00a0communities impacted.<\/p>\n
Expertise on a subject matter can come from a variety of places. As Lauren Hood said at\u00a0the Detroit Policy Conference, people can have a PhD in place, in their neighborhood, in the community they grew up in. And when\u00a0the decisions at play directly affect their lives, this expertise is often more relevant than what an academic degree or other professional development program can\u00a0offer, and should be valued in the same way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“New York is humbling. You can’t come here trying to control or\u00a0change the city, the city changes you.” From Toronto to Philadelphia to Baltimore, I\u00a0spent the last week on a family road trip throughout the East coast.\u00a0Being away from Detroit and seeing these a variety of other cities\u00a0gave me space to reflect on my experience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,17,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leaddetroit","category-livedetroit","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/154"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}