{"id":12400,"date":"2014-10-31T04:39:11","date_gmt":"2014-10-31T04:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/challengedetroit.org\/blog\/kennethandejeski\/?p=70"},"modified":"2014-10-31T04:39:11","modified_gmt":"2014-10-31T04:39:11","slug":"the-man-in-the-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/the-man-in-the-arena\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man in the Arena."},"content":{"rendered":"

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’<\/a>,\u00a0reached 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\u00a0public resources, questionable urban planning implementation, compounded development problems and dissatisfied residents.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0woman complaining about the damage that\u00a0degraded\u00a0roads did to the suspension on her electric wheelchair. The\u00a0article threw itself in with the lot of Detroit-damning media that has been swirling around the public lens\u00a0in 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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"9305782035_b89f924848\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0Where those without vision or optimism, see vacant, abandoned land, organizations like Challenge Detroit host company,\u00a0Recovery Park<\/a>,\u00a0see opportunity.\u00a0Six years in the making, Recovery Park aims to take the Chene Ferry Market neighborhood (pictured above),\u00a0reclaim 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.<\/p>\n

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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;<\/h2>\n

\"IMG_20141007_084338\"\u00a0(via @Andajetski)<\/h6>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So I choose not to\u00a0buy into the abject\u00a0murmurings of absentee observers.\u00a0I choose to\u00a0work in these neighborhoods, to live in these neighborhoods, and to improve\u00a0these neighborhoods regardless of factors out of my control.\u00a0I 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.<\/p>\n

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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\u00a0souls who neither know victory nor defeat.<\/h2>\n

– President Theodore Roosevelt<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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’,\u00a0reached print and online audiences throughout the greater Chicagoland area on October 10th. Accredited to the Associated Press, the short piece did raise some valid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12400","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\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}