CITY BARN RAISING
written in September 2015
In grade school, I wished I had brown hair, like Laura Ingalls from the popular book series, Little House on the Prairie.
In our childhood game, “Laura Ingalls Wilder” we re-enacted the stories from Laura’s life. I had to play Laura’s sister, Mary, because she had blond hair. My sister was Laura, because she had brown hair. We would dress in historic outfits, from the play box of ‘old fashioned play clothes’, beautiful long dresses for the ladies, button-downs, knickers and knee-hi socks for the boys.
Little House illustrates the everyday life of American pioneers.
We would attach a rope from the ‘house’ to the ‘barn’ and hold on to it when walking to the barn in a ‘snowstorm’ to take care of the animals, like Pa did. A picnic table turned upside down, served as the ‘covered wagon’ and the rocking horse my Finnish ‘pappa’, grandfather, had made would ‘pull us’ through the prairies. I think our fascination with the books, stemmed from the fascination with exploring into the unknown, with nothing but a trunk full of clothes, a few animals, family, a tremendous spirt and faith in the future, to carry those pioneers to a new life.
Families would travel in groups and after finding a place to settle, they would build their town together.
Barn-raising was common practice, where each season, the small group would build one barn for one family, together, knowing that eventually their own family would be the one to have their own barn. In the meantime, neighbours helped each other, in hardship, celebrated the small victories in life, and worked together to build their future. And it involved a lot of hard work, long arduous days cutting down massive trees to build shelter, and then pulling out the stumps to clear land for farms. They celebrated harvests together, cooking large amounts of food, gathering for storytelling, and usually ending with a barn dance. This method of building a place together is a classic American tale. Often today, with the emphasis on the individual, we forget that our communities today, were built historically, through collaboration.
In Detroit, I often think of the smaller scale development happening in neighbourhoods, as a ‘city barn raising.’
Small businesses help each other to build out their spaces, sharing tools, pitching in, volunteering and supporting each other. When a new business opens, many neighbours in the community show up in support. This is the classic American story of entrepreneurship that I like to tell. Sure, small business owners work hard for years to develop their concept and refine their product. But, none of us could open our doors, without the support of our neighbours and friends. Detroit is simply too small, and too spread out, to survive on passerby clientele. In Toronto, a new restaurant opens, and enough people walking by stop in to try it, the successful new business is supported, simply by its geography within the city. Recently, while visiting Toronto, I also heard tales of restaurants and then closing, because they couldn’t survive, due to expensive, saturated and competitive market — especially independent established due to competition from nearby chain stores. Detroit, a place without a lot of pedestrians, depends heavily on community support and suburban customers. What makes Detroit special today, is the slow (and hopefully sustainable) growth of small businesses rooted within their neighbourhood, rather than chain stores on every street corner.
Perhaps it is cliche, but in 2015 the seventh Starbucks location opened, within the city center.
That is unheard of for any American city, even half its size. Instead, neighbourhood based coffee spots have started making their roots here, acting as anchors in the neighbourhoods. That is American way I like to talk about. Of course you cannot walk for very long in New York or Toronto, without seeing a Starbucks. This is not about Starbucks, nor is it about chain stores. It is about Detroit, and its lack thereof.
Recently, Astro Coffee, a Corktown staple, became the host of Michigan avenue’s first Parklet.
A part of the “People First Project,” led by Human Scale studio’s Chad Rochkind, opened with amazing community support. Chad is an 8–80s fellow, a program supported by the Knight Foundation. The parklet claimed a couple of the highly sought after parking spaces along Michigan Avenue, and was an effort to address the much needed right-sizing of Michigan Avenue. This is not unlike efforts in places like San Francisco and Portland, where parklets have become a trend. But in Detroit, it is truly a method of addressing urban issues. Michigan Avenue was enlarged years ago, to accommodate street cars. These no longer operate on Michigan Avenue, creating a giant six lane street where cars tend to drive too fast, creating a dangerous and disconnecting thoroughfare for pedestrians and bicyclists. Strangely, the only deterrent to driving too fast, is the many crater sized potholes along Michigan Avenue.
I spent a peaceful Saturday afternoon sitting in the parklet reading a book.
Others wrote novels on their laptop, while many socialised with their friends in the warm Michigan sunshine. Pedestrians claimed streetscape, generally reserved for automobiles. In the Motor city, which has a strong car culture, in a small way, this parklet addressed the much needed right-sizing of Michigan Avenue. It was only a few years ago that bike lanes were painted on the wide street, part of the Corktown/Southwest Greenway effort. Still, traffic travels too fast, making the avenue not friendly for pedestrians. For several weeks, cafe goers can contribute to the right-sizing movement for Michigan avenue by adding their thoughts and concerns on a number of posters up at Astro coffee, to gather information and ideas from the people who use Michigan Avenue everyday. “There is something wrong when you go into every restaurant and they are full, but if you step onto Michigan Avenue, it looks like a ghost town, said Daisuke Hughes, owner of Astro coffee. “We want the energy that exists inside our business to spill over into an active street life.” (source: http://www.mlive.com/business/detroit/index.ssf/2015/08/group_to_turn_detroit_parking.html)
Sadly, the parklet was short-lived.
The state of Michigan, (which has jurisdiction over Michigan Avenue) unfortunately does not have a method for procuringa permit for parklets. After a few weeks, I witnessed folks dismantling the parklet, after the MDOT (Michigan Department of Transportation) put a stop to pedestrian friendly green space due to its lack of a permit. A few years ago, this would not have happened. Not because the government was more progressive; but because there was not enough resources available to monitor these type of happenings. The folks leading this effort, along with its host, Astro coffee, still wish to bring the parklet back. It received overwhelming support from neighbours, friends, and cafe goers. Someday soon, we hope to see it re-emerge, to celebrate public space for people.
As we find our way through the redevelopments in Detroit, many of us have grown accustomed to the culture of lawlessness.
When this type of regulation begins to take hold, we struggle to make sense of it, and struggle to live with it. In Corktown, we are soon going to start seeing parking meters installed, as a part of the city’s efforts to raise funds post-bancruptcy.. A similar neighbourhood in any other city has had parking meters for decades. This type of change is difficult to accept, and definitely an adjustment for those of us who have been around for a while.
Let us not forget the community roots that have been cultivated here, during the shrinking of the city, and at the beginning of Detroit’s so-called rebirth.
As development grows throughout Detroit, some of us feel that we are losing that Detroit community spirit. This is inevitable, but my hope is that it will remain at the core, and those of us who are working hard like the Ingalls did, back in the 18th and 19th centuries, to build the future (although different — we plant trees instead of taking them down; we pick up trash, and gather to celebrate business openings) we should pause and reflect on the reasons we started various projects/businesses/civic efforts — it was to create something for future generations to build upon, and for me, it has been about striving to create a genuine, community based, unique American city.
