Innovation: DESIRE PATHS/ The 313 BLOG/ Innovation Funding.

It is a given that innovation arises from the challenge and Detroit is certainly both challenging and innovative, much of the latter coming from its youth.

Thus, the Huffington Post/Detroit reports on the "desire path" plan created by Wayne State University urban studies student, Kyle Bartell, who has observed the "social trails," of the city, where the public may cut across a vacant space to reach a destination.

Taking one of these, with the private property owner's permission, Kyle and associates has created a more formal path, along with benches, to create a space for the public.   There are more to come.

Bench installation screenshot taken from C2 (Cass & Canfield) FB page, It's description:

"C2 Park ( Cass & Canfiled) is a project currently in the planning process of converting a parcel of land into a meaningful public space. Urban parks focuses on improving parks as community and economic assets to neighborhoods." Kyle Bartell

Inspired by and investigating the Kyle Bartell story from Huffington Post has led me to another student story from Detroit: the 313 Detroit Blog of Wayne State law student, James Brady.     http://313detroitblog.blogspot.com

 also on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/#!/313DetroitBloghttps://twitter.com/#!/313DetroitBlog

Filled with terrific drawings of Detroit's noted buildings (James took his undergraduate degree in architecture) and informative links, this is one to keep up with. 

James' post on Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.'s WE ALMOST LOST DETROIT     http://vimeo.com/39505582

FUNDING DETROIT INNOVATION:  From MODEL D: Creative constructive innovation depends definitely upon ideas but also their ability to get funded.  Some worthy suggestions, solution concepts and a call for feedback. 

Call for Ideas: Innovative ways to fund small-scale community projects

From Model D: "Our city is only as strong as the current pipeline of projects we nurture. If we cannot find a sustainable way to fund this future, we might be stuck propping up a past that is growing obsolete."

Detroit: Torino Partnership

Intriguing news about the international exchange between two great cities of automotive/industrial lineage and how their successes, failures and innovative programs/explorations are helping each other.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States "

"Re-Imagining Detroit: The Detroit-Torino Partnership is a 3-year initiative designed to expose leaders from the city of Detroit to the lessons learned from Torino, Italy’s economic rebirth and industrial renaissance over the past three decades."

What Turin, Italy, Has That Detroit Needs

Detroit in Slides: The First Three Visits

In preparation for the Palm Springs Photo Festival, where I am showing the DETROIT: DEFINITION portfolio for the first time to photography and editorial professionals , I prepared a slideshow of impressions from these visits. With great thanks to Mack Avenue Records (Detroit-born! and the sponsor of the Labor Day Detroit Jazz Festival) and to their artist, Gerald Wilson and his Orchestra, the powerful music of "Detroit" from the DETROIT SUITE accompanies the presentation.

I hope you like it.





With great thanks to Gerald Wilson & Mack Avenue Records
“Detroit” from the Detroit Suite written by Gerald Wilson, Brynhurst music (BMI)
© 2009 Mack Avenue Records II, LLC
Gerald Wilson appears courtesy of Mack Avenue Records

All Photographs and Presentation/Compilation ©Copyright Sara Jane Boyers. All Rights Reserved.

DETROIT: DESTINATION

New York Magazine's "Five Point" travel article on Detroit:
http://nymag.com/travel/weekends/detroit/

Lot of them already visited, more to explore. Not just to tour the ruins, as so many feel is so trendy but to meet and discover a complex and amazing city and people.

Woodward Windows

From Street Culture Mash from SCM Sudios in Detroit: WOODWARD WINDOWS, artists working on "sprawl art," filling the commercial vacant shop windows, still so emblematic of Detroit.

SCM Studios is a full service creative agency specializing in experiential marketing. Love what they are doing and how they are using their blog to show their work and direction.

When wandering Woodward, I photographed several windows - this one below published earlier on my blog - that always had seemed to be an artist project. Now realizing that is probably what they were.

Learning about my birth state: The 175th Birthday of Michigan

From today's Detroit Free Press, a selection of historic photographs of Michigan.

http://www.freep.com/article/20120126/COL32/201260472/Ron-Dzwonkowski-Michigan-175-years-old-vital-ever

Year-end Impressions/DayFIVE: 65 Years from Detroit

Day Five 2012 is my birthday, my 66th. Ironically, I am spending it reviewing LA photos from the '80s for a group show to open soon in Los Angeles. In the '80s, I had no emotional link to Detroit. I was in my '30s and not interested in my roots to a tenuous city where I had no family and spent only one year of non-verbal infancy. It now surprises me how little I knew of my birth city.

But since birthdays are about people, no matter how much I would like to avoid this in my photography, it feels important that this last "anniversary" reflection depicts them, the people of Detroit.

Detroit is a friendly city. Perhaps due to what they call "Mid-west values," but also just in the character of the residents, those whom I have contacted have given me amazing access to their homes, their businesses, their lives. They have shared stories of Detroit and of their trials and their dreams. Those whom I have met while photographing on the streets, at festivals or in neighborhoods have been open and willing to share favorite spots in their city, willing to share their lives as I do my work.

Before my first visit, I was told that as a single woman, carting expensive camera equipment, I could not walk Detroit streets alone. While there is crime in Detroit and a lot of desperation, and while I remain cautious in my work as I do in any urban city, I have encountered only curiosity and welcome from jobless citizens on the streets and have felt free walking all around.

It feels like the people of Detroit want their story to be told, but told from all sides. They know they've become a poster city for not all the right reasons but they also understand how they are not alone. What has been happening in Detroit in the 65 years since I left - perhaps my father one of the first to "go west, young man," but certainly in later decades others for reasons not only of Western opportunity but for escaping civic issues within - is happening elsewhere in the United States. What can save us is also listening to Detroit. Its citizens are aware of the pitfalls of too much "one-industry" focus, of civic governance out of control, of educational opportunity wasted. The right people for Detroit are already there. I am honored to have already met so many of them.

The Faust Family, owners of my original family home who have so graciously welcomed me into their lives.

Eric Jackson from Pinehurst, watching out for the neighborhood.

The many union members who chatted with me at the Labor Day Parade.
Those (including Daryl Howard above) in horticulture, bike repair & leadership programs at Earthworks Farm.
"J," who checks in on the Heidelberg Project when the artist is away.
Isabelle and her mother from further upstate who were having so much fun at the Hoedown.
Richard Harlan who is a fountain of Ford history at his Coneys in Highland Park.
Several of these marvelous kids at the Penrose Art Garden.
At Eastern Market on a market day.

Thanks to all of you (and many others) for making this first year of Detroit exploration - yes "definition" - for me and for Detroit what it has been.