Detroit Archive

  • Urban bee farms of Detroit are not only rebuilding honey bee populations, they are also rebuilding the city and uplifting the community. EcoJustice Radio speaks with Detroit Hives on the work they are doing with bees and community.

    Detroit Hives: Honey Bee Farms as Urban Revitalization

    Posted on May 7, 2022 | No Comments
    Urban bee farms of Detroit are not only rebuilding honey bee populations, they are also rebuilding the city and uplifting the community. EcoJustice Radio speaks with Detroit Hives on the work they are doing with bees and community.

    Continue Reading...

  • The documentary “Here’s To Flint” examines the origins of the Flint, Michigan, water crisis and the determined efforts of residents, activists and researchers to learn the truth about the city’s lead-contaminated drinking water.

    Flint, It’s People, It’s River, Overcomes

    Posted on March 8, 2016 | No Comments
    The documentary “Here’s To Flint” examines the origins of the Flint, Michigan, water crisis and the determined efforts of residents, activists and researchers to learn the truth about the city’s lead-contaminated drinking water.

    Continue Reading...

  • This is the first post in a series where I present the case for Geo-Fauvism, a growing movement of wild earth inspiration in art, literature, music and design. Taking off from the early 20th Century French art "Fauvists" or "Wild Beasts," these cross-disciplinary creations respond to and react against the collapse of global environmental systems, the destruction of indigenous earth-based societies, and a narrowing of cultural opportunities in the mainstream corporatized media. Geo-Fauvists create to reconnect with the wild and heal humanity's rift with the landscape, building a new community based on integration with the ecosystem.

    Geo-Fauvism: Waking to the Wild Earth Through Visual Art

    Posted on June 5, 2015 | 7 Comments
    This is the first post in a series where I present the case for Geo-Fauvism, a growing movement of wild earth inspiration in art, literature, music and design. Taking off from the early 20th Century French art "Fauvists" or "Wild Beasts," these cross-disciplinary creations respond to and react against the collapse of global environmental systems, the destruction of indigenous earth-based societies, and a narrowing of cultural opportunities in the mainstream corporatized media. Geo-Fauvists create to reconnect with the wild and heal humanity's rift with the landscape, building a new community based on integration with the ecosystem.

    Continue Reading...

  • On one hand, Detroit turns the water off for communities challenged by its legacy of disinvestment and neglect. Yet, with urban farming, electric streetcars, neighborhood reinvention, Mayor Mike Duggan’s pledges begin to manifest in the city’s North End, despite considerable financial and cultural impediments. John Eligon elaborates.

    Greening Detroit: Positive Change Moves Slow and Fast

    Posted on July 10, 2014 | 3 Comments
    On one hand, Detroit turns the water off for communities challenged by its legacy of disinvestment and neglect. Yet, with urban farming, electric streetcars, neighborhood reinvention, Mayor Mike Duggan’s pledges begin to manifest in the city’s North End, despite considerable financial and cultural impediments. John Eligon elaborates.

    Continue Reading...

  • For the last 40 years, Detroiters have fled the once-majestic downtown core for the bucolic image of sprawling suburbia. Now an urban revival in the name of "Detroit Future City," complete with forests, parks, farms and waterways, is planned to overcome the financial mismanagement and industrial blight that have plagued the city for far too long.

    Detroit Future: Landscape Urbanism, Antidote to Industrial Blight

    Posted on August 17, 2013 | 4 Comments
    For the last 40 years, Detroiters have fled the once-majestic downtown core for the bucolic image of sprawling suburbia. Now an urban revival in the name of "Detroit Future City," complete with forests, parks, farms and waterways, is planned to overcome the financial mismanagement and industrial blight that have plagued the city for far too long.

    Continue Reading...

  • Ellen Brown writes on how the Detroit bankruptcy seeks to sacrifice pensioners to pay off the big banks, appearing like the "bail-in" template pushed upon Cyprus which restructured their insolvent banks using depositors funds while sparing those from other banks and governments. Stephen Colbert sums up the situation with some levity as Detroit fights its way back to solvency.

    Detroit Follows Cyprus: Make Pensioners Pay for Bankruptcy

    Posted on August 6, 2013 | 1 Comment
    Ellen Brown writes on how the Detroit bankruptcy seeks to sacrifice pensioners to pay off the big banks, appearing like the "bail-in" template pushed upon Cyprus which restructured their insolvent banks using depositors funds while sparing those from other banks and governments. Stephen Colbert sums up the situation with some levity as Detroit fights its way back to solvency.

    Continue Reading...

  • Urban farmers and gardeners around the world transform abandoned lots into edible landscapes, improving human and ecological health as well as creating beautiful places. Richard Ingersoll surveys a myriad of concepts and projects from around Europe and the United States.

    Urban Farming: Nature, Art, and Society Converge

    Posted on June 30, 2013 | 6 Comments
    Urban farmers and gardeners around the world transform abandoned lots into edible landscapes, improving human and ecological health as well as creating beautiful places. Richard Ingersoll surveys a myriad of concepts and projects from around Europe and the United States.

    Continue Reading...

  • Caroline Libresco: DETROPIA sculpts a dreamlike collage of a grand city teetering on the brink of dissolution. These soulful pragmatists and stalwart philosophers strive to make ends meet and make sense of it all, refusing to abandon hope or resistance.

    Detropia: Detroit as Utopia or Dystopia?

    Posted on September 18, 2012 | 3 Comments
    Caroline Libresco: DETROPIA sculpts a dreamlike collage of a grand city teetering on the brink of dissolution. These soulful pragmatists and stalwart philosophers strive to make ends meet and make sense of it all, refusing to abandon hope or resistance.

    Continue Reading...

  • Detroit Future City, the long-term planning vision for the long-rusting Motor City, embraces the urban farming, permaculture, and ecological urbanism movements seen in cities across the United States, to chart the way to more a prosperous and sustainable future.

    Detroit Works: Urban Farming and Reforestation as Neighborhood Preservation

    Posted on August 9, 2012 | 21 Comments
    Detroit Future City, the long-term planning vision for the long-rusting Motor City, embraces the urban farming, permaculture, and ecological urbanism movements seen in cities across the United States, to chart the way to more a prosperous and sustainable future.

    Continue Reading...

  • Detroit must overcome its landscape sprawl and its prime benefactor: the automobile, to revive the economy and become an environmentally sustainable 21st Century city.

    Detroit’s Sprawling Legacy: How to Overcome the Automobile?

    Posted on March 18, 2012 | 7 Comments
    Detroit must overcome its landscape sprawl and its prime benefactor: the automobile, to revive the economy and become an environmentally sustainable 21st Century city.

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  • Viewed today, Rivera's "Detroit Industry" murals might have prefigured Detroit's downfall, but also envision a renaissance. It harkens to the earth, the races living and working in harmony, where sections of the city have been cleared of distressed neighborhoods and allowed to regrow with food crops, grasses and trees.

    Diego Rivera and the Fall and Rise of Detroit

    Posted on September 12, 2011 | 7 Comments
    Viewed today, Rivera's "Detroit Industry" murals might have prefigured Detroit's downfall, but also envision a renaissance. It harkens to the earth, the races living and working in harmony, where sections of the city have been cleared of distressed neighborhoods and allowed to regrow with food crops, grasses and trees.

    Continue Reading...

  • An urban conceptual art installation called The Heidelberg Project, named after its street location in the formerly central core of Detroit, Michigan, transforms a neighborhood first devastated by the 1967 riots, plagued by unemployment, poverty, financial redlining, racial segregation, then abandoned, burned, and largely demolished but for a few homes set among open grassy fields.

    Detroit Heidelberg Project – Renaissance Through Urban Art

    Posted on September 23, 2010 | 10 Comments
    An urban conceptual art installation called The Heidelberg Project, named after its street location in the formerly central core of Detroit, Michigan, transforms a neighborhood first devastated by the 1967 riots, plagued by unemployment, poverty, financial redlining, racial segregation, then abandoned, burned, and largely demolished but for a few homes set among open grassy fields.

    Continue Reading...