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Denby, Detroit: Schools, and Their Students, as Anchors

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Resilience for All

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Abstract

After the City of Detroit declared bankruptcy, many lower-income residents felt ignored by the city government, which remains limited in its capacity to address the needs of all its urban neighborhoods. Mayor Bing initiated the Detroit Works Project visioning process in 2010 to create a shared framework for the future of the city that helped answer short-term questions about city service provision, as well as long-term goals for a “shared, achievable vision for the future of Detroit that could serve as a guide for improving the physical, social and economic landscape.” It was a contentious several years, where many neighborhoods with higher vacancy and crime rates felt forgotten. Many residents felt that existing trauma was not adequately addressed in the initial Detroit Works Project process. But when the Detroit Works Project focused on honoring local knowledge from across the city, the tenor of the discussion changed. The result was a 50-year framework entitled Detroit Future City (DFC), which included implementing a series of pilot projects across the city to actively engage residents in the physical manifestation of that future. The first of those DFC pilot projects—the Skinner Playfield Project and its corresponding Safe Routes to School Initiative in Denby, Detroit—is a story of incredible collaboration, grassroots youth leadership, and hope.

The word “empower,” I truly hate it. No one can empower you. We have the power already. It’s just about utilizing the power, and I think in the City of Detroit, the people have been so misled that they no longer think they have this power to really move the city forward. A lot of the work that we have done at this table, in certain communities, we have reenergized that power with the residents. And that is what it’s about—reenergizing the power residents already have.

—Sandra Turner-Handy, Denby Resident Leader/Community Organizer

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Notes

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    Sandra Turner-Handy, personal correspondence, August 16, 2016.

  2. 2.

    Hakeem Weatherspoon, personal correspondence, August 17, 2016.

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    Karen Bouffard, “Surviving through Age 18: Infant Mortality Rate in Detroit Rivals Third World,” Detroit News, September 14, 2010, accessed July 21, 2017, http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/special-reports/2014/09/10/detroit-infant-mortality-rate/15352931/.

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    James Ribbron, personal correspondence, August 17, 2016.

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    Thomas, citing the UAW’s 1944 “Memorandum on Postwar Urban Housing,” Redevelopment and Race, 35.

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    Thomas, Redevelopment and Race, 63.

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    Sandra Turner-Handy, personal correspondence, August 17, 2016.

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    “HUD Provided Local Level Data,” US HUD, Office of Policy Development and Research, accessed July 21, 2017, https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/nsp_foreclosure_data.html.

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    For more on Detroit Future City and the resulting framework, see https://detroitfuturecity.com/framework/.

  14. 14.

    The Kresge Foundation is based in Detroit and is an influential philanthropic voice in local public processes.

  15. 15.

    Originally this group met in a volunteer capacity, but once their import to the process was made clear the Kresge Foundation funded their work. Pitera notes that, although these stipends were meant for their individual support, each Process Leader opted to donate their stipend back toward their organizational home.

  16. 16.

    Dan Pitera, personal correspondence, August 16, 2016.

  17. 17.

    This table can now be seen in the Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt Museum.

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    Charles Cross, personal correspondence, August 17, 2016.

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    Dan Pitera, personal correspondence, August 16, 2016.

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    Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: New Press, 2012).

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    Anthony A. Braga, Brandon C. Welsh, and Cory Schnell, “Can Policing Disorder Reduce Crime? A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis,” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 52, no. 4 (2015): 567–88.

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    John Kania and Mark Kramer, “Collective Impact,” Stanford Social Innovation Review 9, no. 1 (Winter 2011): 36.

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    For the full review of critiques, see https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2017/01/09/collaborating-equity-justice-moving-beyond-collective-impact/, and also the works they cite, including Vu Le, “Are You or Your Org Guilty of Trickle-Down Community Engagement?” Nonprofit with Balls, January 20, 2015; Vu Le, “Why Communities of Color Are Getting Frustrated with Collective Impact,” Nonprofit with Balls, November 29, 2015; Michael McAfee, Angela Glover Blackwell, and Judith Bell, Equity: The Soul of Collective Impact (Oakland, CA: PolicyLink, 2015); Tom Wolff, “Voices from the Field: 10 Places Where Collective Impact Gets It Wrong,” Nonprofit Quarterly, April 28, 2016; Peter Boumgarden and John Branch, “Collective Impact or Coordinated Blindness?” Stanford Social Innovation Review, February 13, 2013.

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    See “Collaborating for Equity and Justice Toolkit,” KU Work Group for Community Health and Development, accessed July 21, 2017, https://www.myctb.org/wst/CEJ/Pages/home.aspx and “Equity Tools: About the Toolkit,” Policy Link, accessed July 21, 2017, http://www.policylink.org/equity-tools/equitable-development-toolkit/about-toolkit.

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    “Denby High School Partnership,” Detroit Future City, accessed July 21, 2017, https://detroitfuturecity.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Denby-Partnership.pdf.

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    Kassie Bracken and Eugene Yi, “The Detroit Graduates,” New York Times, September 7, 2015, accessed July 21, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/07/us/detroit-graduates-firstyear.html.

  40. 40.

    The Heidelberg Project is a multiblock art installation in Detroit’s McDougall-Hunt neighborhood developed by resident-artist Tyree Gunton in 1986, distinguished in part by its bohemian, beautiful, and sometimes haunting aesthetic.

  41. 41.

    Hakeem Weatherspoon, personal correspondence, August 17, 2016.

  42. 42.

    Hakeem Weatherspoon, personal correspondence, August 17, 2016.

  43. 43.

    Edwin C. Denby High School, “LEA Application—School Building Level Information,” July 7, 2016, accessed July 21, 2017, http://www.michigan.gov/documents/sro/EAA_Denby_HS_-_Section_B_535407_7_540386_7.pdf.

  44. 44.

    Charles Cross, personal correspondence, August 17, 2016.

  45. 45.

    The city changed crime-reporting systems during this time, and the resulting data seem to have inconsistencies, so no direct correlations should be extrapolated—but suffice it to say that the crime rates do seem to be lower since the Skinner Park blitz build in the summer of 2016.

  46. 46.

    Sandra Turner-Handy, personal correspondence, August 17, 2016.

  47. 47.

    Shamyle Dobbs, personal correspondence, August 18, 2016.

  48. 48.

    James Ribbron, personal correspondence, August 17, 2016.

  49. 49.

    Hakeem Weatherspoon, personal correspondence, August 17, 2016.

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© 2018 Barbara Brown Wilson

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Wilson, B. (2018). Denby, Detroit: Schools, and Their Students, as Anchors. In: Resilience for All. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-893-0_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-893-0_5

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  • Print ISBN: 978-1-61091-988-3

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