The City Corner, a Crux and Axis

Author: Marlena Hanlon April 3, 2017 2 Comments

Detroit is a unique city in that, aesthetically, it’s not a city at all. It looks, to an eye trained for urban markers, like a suburb which has a size problem and unusual industrial impact. Few commercial corridors exist in relation to the sprawling expanse of yarded homes; of those which do exist, even fewer are scaled for pedestrians. The few which come to mind are the Vernor corridor, Jefferson Chalmers, parts of Cass corridor, a corner on Kercheval, a bright spot in Brightmoor, a small subportion of Corktown, Eastern Market – but only on Saturdays. Rarely is there any organic multi-use, which defines most cities. In the few cases where it exists, such as along Woodward, it is a New Urbanism intervention, recently plopped down to frame the boundaries of investment and “revitalization,” like putting a stent in a failing artery. But even with this intervention, Woodward has thus far failed to understand city-ness: it has adopted a syntax with no content. Its single note of bars and restaurants along what is essentially a 4-lane highway whose ostentatious width deters pedestrians from crossing from one side to another only makes it an attractive highway, not a placemaking vehicle. There are few practical places to shop, to sit along the sidewalk, to linger in de facto public spaces. And the monstrous edifice which will comprise the new hockey stadium will likely kill the flow from Midtown to downtown. Instead, the city, such as it is, is a massive constellation of singular destinations connected not by paths of walkable distance, nor of a thick weave of redundant trains, buses, trolleys which make even larger distances accessible, but by broad, empty channels of asphalt. This results in huge swaths of emptiness inbetween – emptiness amplified by Detroit’s contraction, yes, but we must know and understand that this form, this evidence of its contraction is particular to what was already an underlying structural fault.  In many ways, Detroit chose to abandon the spaces inbetween long ago, and the fact that those abandoned spaces finally became literal and visible should guide us on what not to do next.

And this is what worries me, as it worries so many others. What to do next. Because we are still at a place of opportunity to relaunch Detroit into the vibrant image nostalgia convinces us it could be. But that opportunity is not timeless, and poor decisions made now will generate an…if not inalterable, at least a deeply hardscaped terrain which will largely determine if Detroit ever truly blooms in a future season.

Stadiums and sweeping developments are not going to cut it. Although we have disproven both their economic impact and their placemaking benefit time and time again, we can’t seem to stop iterating the same failed tactics of every decade since the 60s. Next, we’ll propose expanding the convention center, or wait, how about a downtown mall?

No, we need only to look at every thriving city around the world with throngs of people on the street. It’s not complicated. And, in many ways, it’s not architectural, though God forbid we should tell an architect s/he is really not that great at placemaking. Nooks and crannies, the bane of most hyperstylized, essentialist designs, are demonstrably what the human brain loves and craves. The human psyche is hardwired through X years of evolution to want spaces which provide both legibility – recognition and intuitive navigation – and explorability with novelty. If only the environmental psychology people would get together with the architects, and then all have a sit down with the urban planners, we’d be fantastic. But the planners are too busy trying to calculate traffic volumes while issuing tickets for zoning transgressions, while the architects are trying to decide between concrete or stone for the next windowless wall (or maybe a completely glassed atrium this time!), and the psychologists have contented themselves with building a perfect mouse habitat. Meanwhile, somebody in Troy is sure a new stadium would be awesome for his/her monthly excursion into Detroit – it would be doubly swell if an Applebee’s is in it – which is ultimately what we’ll see, because some public economist is using dubious multipliers to show that in spite of all the ground evidence, this stadium will somehow be different and make Detroit great again.

Unfortunately, I personally encountered a small case study of tragic space to place transformation in my own neighborhood. We had a café on an amazing corner of Vernor and Scotten, directly across from a well-maintained, large park and along a pedestrian-friendly walkway. The café had already transformed the corner by simply being itself, instead of the bar which was there before. Yet, it had some operational troubles: the owners did not fully understand what makes a café successful, and so while it benefited from location and its nature, it did not thrive.

After becoming a year behind in rent, the owners sent out an SOS, and I responded. I had some specific skills for the problem – once a recovery consultant, I had done some successful cafes and my particular background in community development and urban planning added benefit. I had a number of solutions for the problem, but most small businesses become an extension of personality and ego, and parsing processes for improvement from personality is a tough bit of twine to unbraid. Initially, I offered a large chunk of money and operational changes, but that was too much loss of control. In lieu, I offered to do a pop-up at night in the space with a standard revenue share. This would have had several collateral benefits: it would have brought new equipment and resources into the day business, refocused attention on the location for increased day traffic, and likely have paid the rent in full. But in the end, the owners were unable to let go of disbelief that their own failing approach wasn’t right, and so not surprisingly, it closed.

But that is only background about why and how I became involved at all in what happened to the space. The space is in a beautiful building, in a beautiful spot, proximate to thriving places and up-and-coming uses. It is one of the few examples of an organic Detroit multi-use space, with an original residential over ground-level commercial use. There should be no question that the space was ideally suited for prime placemaking. But in spite of my best efforts to resurrect a corner café which would spill onto the sidewalk and into the park, with an adjacent retail shop, the property managers just could not overcome a suburban mindset. They did not understand the building, the area, the people. I was told, literally, that poor Mexicans do not drink frilly coffee and retail use couldn’t be supported by the area. I was told – by the CFO, who was an accountant recruited from a car company and lives in the suburbs – that Detroit is not a place where good spaces exist outside sports complexes and Slows. This, in spite of the obvious evidence that Mexicantown through Springwells is the most successful commercial corridor in Detroit, extending for miles with primarily small businesses – largely due to the influence of Latino culture which so highly values and expects street life. This, in spite of the testament to community strength in the adjacent park. This, in spite of the global evidence that cafes are the true public spaces which cross class lines, and become, when properly placed, hubs for community, art and, in some cases, revolution. Because place matters.

But also, right use matters. And so instead of moving forward with keeping this space a prominent place within the community, it was instead salted by placing a non-staffed, mostly closed “branch” of the property manager’s social service agency in it. Seeing where it was going, I tried to engage the city councilmember. I tried to engage the building owner’s board. I tried to engage the city district liaison. No one responded. No one recognized the importance of the matter. What had been a beacon – even with its struggles – for neighborhood interaction, and a magnet for feet and eyes on the street has now been transformed into a lifeless corner. All because the decision was given to someone who does not understand urban placemaking, or the spaces in which it’s made.

And so, this is what I fear. This was only a corner, but a pivotal corner. It only takes one pivotal corner to become a cornerstone for a cascade of reactions which either enliven or sap a community. As these decisions stack – made by those who have a sensibility which is intrinsically counter-urban, who do not understand the lexicon but have both means and authority – it is the community who will live – or not – in how the spaces are rewritten. This is why we must become our own planners and stop waiting for it to be fixed, but rather do the fixing. We must vision and implement our own corners, by our own means.

In my own neighborhood, this discussion is being “managed” by a small cadre and their invitees. This level of engagement is insufficient, seeking control by branding larger forums as unwieldy. In other neighborhoods, this may be “managed” by large developers, or not be discussed at all, resulting in implementations staking out space without any apparent process of self-determination. This has both good and bad outcomes: good projects can be killed by a vocal minority who do not have to live with the consequences and cling to a position where perfection is the mortal enemy of the good. We must remember that echo chambers can exist among all points of view. But to have no channel even for process is a certain path to disenfranchisement.

To the means of creating a channel for community voice, I am willing to support any community at a neighborhood level who wishes to start planning or implementing their own built image of Detroit. As meeting facilitator, as process strategist, as jargon translator – or as support for your own facilitator, strategist or translator. It is at the corner store, café or park that communities are made, and so making those corners is what matters most.