<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2018Detroit\u2019, is French for \u2018strait\u2019. \u2018Le detroit du lac Erie\u2019 means \u2018the strait of Lake Erie\u2019. A strait is a specific immutable space with the most important \u00a0characteristic being the possibility of geographic mobility. A strait is a place for water to flow, ships to travel, bridges to connect, and ideas to pollinate. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Similarly, human beings are a physical constant that allows for mobility. Our identities are the sum of our personal and ancestral movement between geographic locations. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In my case, I am a Moroccan, born and raised in Rabat. As a teenager, I expressed my roots through my father\u2019s. In my cultural bubble, I was from the city of Errachidia.<\/span><\/p>\n When I moved to South Africa, it seemed more relevant to map my identity in the space that contrasted against where I was at the time: in the Moroccan context, I was from Errachidia, but in the African context, I was a North African. <\/span><\/p>\n A few years later, in the American midwest, my mobility had broadened my sense of place, experience of geography. Therefore, in America, I am an African.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a nutshell, my identity is the sum of the mobility – or lack thereof – in my own life as well as that of every single person who helped in the making of me. I think of my professors who made it to class. I think of my parents who found each other away from their birth cities. I think of the taco truck owner, my busy dentist, the stranger who almost ran me over, and the person in line \u00a0before me. In reflecting on mobility, I think of all the ways in which human beings define and are defined by movement. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n So, if Mobility is a practice bigger than cars, engines, and their industry; if it is a question of personal identity, what does it mean to design the experience of mobility? <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u2018Detroit\u2019, is French for \u2018strait\u2019. \u2018Le detroit du lac Erie\u2019 means \u2018the strait of Lake Erie\u2019. A strait is a specific immutable space with the most important \u00a0characteristic being the possibility of geographic mobility. A strait is a place for water to flow, ships to travel, bridges to connect, and ideas to pollinate. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15,17,12,18],"tags":[626],"class_list":["post-23477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-givedetroit","category-leaddetroit","category-livedetroit","category-playdetroit","category-workdetroit","tag-mobility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23477","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\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/challengedetroit.builtrare.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}