As it relates to my experience with Challenge Detroit, I found our most recent partnership with ProsperUS and TechTown’s SWOT programs to be the most meaningful because of their relationships with the idea of reparations. Our prompts with both organizations focused on improving programming and operations to better serve immigrant entrepreneurs in Detroit. My team spent five weeks speaking with entrepreneurs and visiting\u00a0small businesses in neighborhoods like Southwest and Grandmont-Rosedale while learning about existing practices and opportunities from ProsperUs and best practices from organizations like BUILD and Grand River WorkPlace.<\/p>\n
Toward the end of our project, I asked our partner from ProperUS about the meaning behind their organization’s obligation to help minority entrepreneurs succeed. While some argue that our free-market capitalism allows any good business to thrive, she and I agreed that our city’s complex cultural and political history have resulted in an intentionally uneven playing field. Many\u00a0Detroiters have ideas for potential business ventures, but\u00a0often lack the resources and knowledge required to\u00a0get off the ground. ProsperUS and SWOT are two organizations that help less-traditional entrepreneurs build\u00a0success for themselves and their communities by connecting them with resources and creating culturally-informed structures for their clients.<\/p>\n
In the case of Detroit small business, organizations that\u00a0practice\u00a0reparations and restitution ultimately help everyone thrive: individual entrepreneurs, their families and networks, consumers with demand for a good, neighborhoods receiving economic stimulation, and therefore Detroit as a whole. As Detroit continues to grow, I will continue to prioritize support for small businesses because of\u00a0their valuable role in our local economy, and\u00a0also for their significance as it relates to history. Our communities can only benefit from the work that ProsperUS and SWOT are doing, and I hope that they continue to grow as models for alternative-entrepreneurship support in Detroit and beyond.<\/p>\n
![](\"http:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Screen-Shot-2017-06-01-at-10.19.27-PM-1024x576.png\")
<\/p>\n
— Earlier this year, I saw Ta-Nehisi Coates speak at the University of Detroit Mercy, lecturing on America’s racial history through the lens of Detroit. Every city across the United States experienced and enforced practices of urban renewal, redlining, discriminatory housing, but the large-scale implementation of these practices in Detroit had permanent implications that we are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":276,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[459,598,599,600],"class_list":["post-20726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-capitalism","tag-prosperus","tag-reparations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20726","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\/276"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20726\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nOther suggested resources\u00a0on the history of housing and race-related policies:
\nThe Racist Housing Policy That Made Your Neighborhood<\/a>\u00a0
\n<\/a>The Pruitt-Igoe Myth
\n<\/a>The Origins of the Urban Crisis<\/a> by Thomas Surge
\nHow to Kill a City: Gentrification, Inequality, and the Fight for the Neighborhood<\/a> by Peter Moskowitz
\nEvicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City<\/a>\u00a0by Matthew Desmond<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"