\u201cI don\u2019t come from Detroit, but her diesel motors pulled me\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
The first part of that quote is true.<\/p>\n
Now I can\u2019t say much about diesel, or motors, or diesel motors, or automobiles at all. I drive a used car of a make I won\u2019t disclose for fear of being un-American. But, I can speak to the \u201cI don\u2019t come from Detroit\u201d portion of the line (as well as to the song itself \u2013 it\u2019s \u201cThe Once & Future Carpenter,\u201d a fantastic track from The Avett Brothers’ most recent album,The Carpenter.)<\/p>\n
I came into the city not having many ideas on what to expect from this experience. I knew of a couple major colleges in the state. I knew the entire state is two separate land masses (more including islands I suppose), which was made visual by peoples\u2019 use of their hands to demonstrate state location (which I always found excrutiatingly annoying\u2026 and now find useful). I remember at some point between the ages of 7 at 15 thinking it was weird that Canada was to the south in parts. And I assumed what most people did about Detroit – that it was dying.<\/p>\n
What doesn\u2019t get out there as readily is the upside to the city. And that\u2019s what I hope to do with this program – to acknowledge the real problems here in an actual way, to try and aid in their solutions, and to showcase the great things about the city in the midst of this struggle without downplaying or ignoring the issues.<\/p>\n
I see movement starting in the city\u2019s core. They say in order to aid a body when it\u2019s cold one must insulate or stimulate the core first and warmth will move to the appendages, and this idea could apply to Detroit. Properties are being bought and renovated, businesses are coming in, and people are getting interested – which is fantastic. To achieve success as an entire city, this “warmth” must be spread. It\u2019s our duty now to contribute as the tiny vessels we are (to continue this body metaphor) and hopefully affect some bigger change. And I hope to bring in the perspective of an outsider to aid in this.<\/p>\n
And listen: I know the body metaphor is overused and cliche when it comes to referring to any unit, or team, or whatever. \u201cEach individual part works together for a whole,\u201d and things like that. Sure it may be tacky. But there\u2019s a reason it\u2019s often used.<\/p>\n
So, in both literal and figurative terms: Stay warm. Get warmer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cI don\u2019t come from Detroit, but her diesel motors pulled me\u2026\u201d The first part of that quote is true. Now I can\u2019t say much about diesel, or motors, or diesel motors, or automobiles at all. I drive a used car of a make I won\u2019t disclose for fear of being un-American. But, I can speak […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}