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Saving Schools: Vacancy, Ruin, and Adaptive Reuse in Detroit

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Relational Planning

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Abstract

This chapter follows a small team of urban planners as they tour thirteen vacant schools in Detroit. The schools were selected from a list of fifty-seven that the City of Detroit recently acquired from the Detroit Public School system. They were reputed to be “the thirteen best”—buildings for which “adaptive reuse” might be possible. Drawing on concepts of nonhuman agency, decay, repair, and folk theory, we examine the planners’ engagement with the schools’ surroundings, their affective and emotional reactions to materiality, and how they ultimately made decisions about the buildings’ fate. If the schools impressed the planners—in their historic significance or future potential—they would be “saved.” If they did not, they would be demolished.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of City and Regional Planning, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    James Macmillen

  2. Department of Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA

    Trevor Pinch

Authors
  1. James Macmillen
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  2. Trevor Pinch
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Monika Kurath

  2. ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Marko Marskamp

  3. ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Julio Paulos

  4. University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Jean Ruegg

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Macmillen, J., Pinch, T. (2018). Saving Schools: Vacancy, Ruin, and Adaptive Reuse in Detroit. In: Kurath, M., Marskamp, M., Paulos, J., Ruegg, J. (eds) Relational Planning. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60462-6_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60462-6_12

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-60461-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-60462-6

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

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