Detroit Has No Time to Waste Food
A Detroit entrepreneur explains how her pilot projects are building community, local self-reliance, and resilience. … Read More
Feeding Detroit
The Detroit People’s Food Cooperative represents a vital step towards fostering food sovereignty in a neighborhood historically affected by food apartheid. … Read More
Writing Detroit’s Next Chapter
A Detroit-based bookseller shares the purpose behind her store and its profound impact on the community over the past three decades.… Read More
The City Series
In our new season of Building Local Power, The City Series, we take a tour of cities and towns across the U.S. and talk to guests who are working to make their communities more locally self-reliant.… Read More
Declaring Independence in Detroit Through Equitable Internet Access
On Independence Day, Americans celebrate the ingenuity, grit, and fortitude that led us to now. We’ve chosen this day to remember the decision to establish the United States as an independent country. Like other civilizations that have come and gone, America will always have times of honor and unbecoming moments in history, but its citizens have learned self-reliance — it’s in our DNA.… Read More
Protecting Communities from Gentrification
We have a workable model for making housing affordable and protecting neighborhood residents from displacement: a Community Land Trust. Only one city to date has embraced it aggressively and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it began to do so when Bernie Sanders was its mayor. Now a coalition is pushing Baltimore to make a major investment in this model.… Read More
Federal Communications Commission Complaint Reveals AT&T is Accused of Digital Redlining in Detroit
In Detroit, AT&T is facing a formal FCC complaint accusing the telecom giant of deploying discriminatory “digital redlining” tactics. This is the second such complaint filed against the telecommunications giant since the first of the year. NDIA’s report does not specifically invoke race or ethnicity— opting for the phrasing ‘lower-income neighborhoods’. The socio-economic realities of these communities, a result of the banking industries mid-century redlining tactics, has become the impetus for new types of discriminatory investment in these same areas.… Read More
Stop Burning Detroit’s Garbage
Renewed Effort To Stop Burning Detroit’s Garbage Based On Pollution Levels And Environmental Justice. “Mayor Mike Duggan has taken recent actions, both quiet and public, that could signify a commitment to the health and well-being of Detroiters. Recently Duggan signed onto the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement, committing the city to reducing carbon emissions … Read More
Five Ideas from Detroit
A couple of weeks ago I was invited to spend a day in Detroit meeting with local entrepreneurs and sharing ideas for spurring small business development. I came away feeling that Detroit has quite a bit to teach the rest of us about how to build a local economy from the ground up. … Read More