But if you don’t have that luxury, you can’t.”
Moving to a majority-black city like Detroit, for a white person, then, is a decision to jump back into the questions society has yet to fully confront.
“I appreciate the fact that I’m an ethnic minority in a city … I look around and I don’t see a reminder of my own ethnic heritage in the faces around me. And I didn’t realize that I would value that so highly,” said Jack VanDyke, who completed both his undergraduate and masters degrees at the University, and now lives in the city. “I wouldn’t know what I was missing (if I didn’t live here).”
But in the case of University graduates moving to Detroit, it’s more than a construction of black versus white, or even city versus suburb.
“Sometimes the idea is that people at universities come with all the answers, and it’s just a matter of implementing them — that’s far from the truth,” Kurashige said. “There’s also a lot going on in Detroit that people need to learn from.”
To do community work and activism, whether in food justice or the environment and human rights, is certainly a reason to move to Detroit. But there is challenge in creating what can be seen as a comfortable, college-educated class of missionaries.
“They should be trying to work themselves out of a job,” said Malik Yakini, a lifelong Detroiter, educator and activist, “Try to empower the community in which they are working, so that the people in that community can take those jobs and empower others (in turn).”
To become part of the city, you must “transcend your whiteness,” as Tobier said, but more than that, break out from what is associated with whiteness: a certain collegiate and suburban comfort.
Betsy Palazzola, 23, graduated from the University in 2007 and now lives near the Wayne State University campus. Her neighborhood now is much more racially mixed.
“Detroit in a lot of ways is friendlier than Ann Arbor, Palazzola said. “People say ‘hi’ to you on the street. A lot of people find that once they live here for a while they start to know everybody.”

But if you don’t have that luxury, you can’t.”
Moving to a majority-black city like Detroit, for a white person, then, is a decision to jump back into the questions society has yet to fully confront.
“I appreciate the fact that I’m an ethnic minority in a city … I look around and I don’t see a reminder of my own ethnic heritage in the faces around me. And I didn’t realize that I would value that so highly,” said Jack VanDyke, who completed both his undergraduate and masters degrees at the University, and now lives in the city. “I wouldn’t know what I was missing (if I didn’t live here).”
But in the case of University graduates moving to Detroit, it’s more than a construction of black versus white, or even city versus suburb.
“Sometimes the idea is that people at universities come with all the answers, and it’s just a matter of implementing them — that’s far from the truth,” Kurashige said. “There’s also a lot going on in Detroit that people need to learn from.”
To do community work and activism, whether in food justice or the environment and human rights, is certainly a reason to move to Detroit. But there is challenge in creating what can be seen as a comfortable, college-educated class of missionaries.
“They should be trying to work themselves out of a job,” said Malik Yakini, a lifelong Detroiter, educator and activist, “Try to empower the community in which they are working, so that the people in that community can take those jobs and empower others (in turn).”
To become part of the city, you must “transcend your whiteness,” as Tobier said, but more than that, break out from what is associated with whiteness: a certain collegiate and suburban comfort.
Betsy Palazzola, 23, graduated from the University in 2007 and now lives near the Wayne State University campus. Her neighborhood now is much more racially mixed.
“Detroit in a lot of ways is friendlier than Ann Arbor, Palazzola said. “People say ‘hi’ to you on the street. A lot of people find that once they live here for a while they start to know everybody.”

Room to build

This is not a story about Kwame Kilpatrick or common crime, urban blight or SWAT-team raids of after-hours parties. These things exist in Detroit — it would be unfair to pretend they don’t. But to ignore what else is going on outside the city’s more sensational stories would be to fall into the dramatic suburban conception of Detroit as a city where good rarely happens.
“We need various forms of alternative media,” Yakini said. “People only get a part of the picture. There is crime in Detroit; people that live here are impacted by crime. But there are many other realities out there that you don’t hear about.”
Emily Linn, 30, comes from a multi-generational family of native Detroiters. Since graduating from the University in 2000 and moving back to Detroit, she’s spent summers working in Paris and New York, but always finds herself returning home.
“It sounds cheesy, but I do think it’s an especially exciting time to be in Detroit,” said Linn, who runs a small business called City Bird with brother (and 2006 University grad) Andy. “I was in New York for four months this summer, and I love New York, but it also made me re-appreciate the things I like about Detroit. A big part is there are a lot of opportunities to do your own thing or start things, and a great need.”
The city’s lack of people has created a number of problems, obvious as the boarded-up buildings visible from the safety of your car. On the flip side, all of this extra, empty space — physical in terms of housing, as well as space for ideas and innovation — presents opportunities not available elsewhere.
“If you do have a good idea in Detroit, because the city is so starved for good ideas, you might not know what to do with all of the traffic that your good idea produces,” VanDyke said. “It’s a good problem to have, which you probably wouldn’t find in New York City.”
Growing up in the Dallas-Forth Worth area, VanDyke said he didn’t feel any specific geographic allegiance after graduation, and stayed at the University for a masters in urban planning, to pursue transportation activism. Now, as part of a collective, he operates a bicycle shop, The Hub of Detroit, and non-profit bicycle education programs, Back Alley Bikes.
“People sometimes ask me, ‘Oh, you got a masters degree in urban planning, and you work at a bike shop. Do you ever think of working in the field?’ ” he said. “But I am working in the field. I’m ‘shifting the modal split,’ but I’m doing it one 14-year-old kid at a time.”
Campaigning for transportation change in a city like Seattle, for example, with already established bike lanes, wouldn’t be the same.
“Your social capital investment has a way better return in Detroit,” Van Dyke said.