Detroit on $1 Million a Day
A response to Ben Austen’s “Detroit Through Rose-Colored Glasses.”
https://www.guernicamag.com/joshua-akers-and-john-patrick-leary-detroit-on-1-million-a-day/
Search Results for: detroit
Jay Walljasper: The Surprise Behind Detroit’s Emerging Comeback
Young people are making a difference in the cities they call home.
https://www.guernicamag.com/jay-walljasper-the-surprise-behind-detroits-emerging-comeback/
Corey Hill: Urban Gardening and Green Economy Flourish in Detroit
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The greater Detroit area is the nexus of an entire host of progressive enterprises, notable for both the diversity of its participants and the diversity of its projects. |
Justin Alvarez: “Imported from Detroit”
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Just as the NFL championship trophy returned to its roots with Vince Lombardi returning to Green Bay for the first time in 14 seasons, another standout of last night’s Super Bowl broadcast reminded the world where manufacturing innovation was invented — Detroit. |
Guernica Contributor John Patrick Leary on WDET About “Detroitism”
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“A lot of the interest comes from a sense that the city of Detroit isn’t just an exception to the rule of the United States…that Detroit is, in some sense, the future of American cities…” |
John Patrick Leary: Further Reading for “Detroitism”
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Leary, author of this issue’s “Detroitism,” offers reading recommendations for putting together Detroit’s story, as well as the increasingly-familiar story of urban America in an era of prolonged economic crisis. |
Detroitism
What does “ruin porn” tell us about the motor city?
Jay Walljasper: Detroit City Limits: Finding Devastation and Hope in a Hard Hit City
The urban-suburban divide in Detroit shows the need to treat a metropolitan area as a single organism, rooted in a sense of the commons.
Video: Urban Farming in Detroit
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing was less enthusiastic than his predecessor about turning Detroit’s ruins into farms. Not anymore.
Letters: Readers (and the web) Respond to Mark Dowie’s “Food Among the Ruins ” and his vision to expand Detroit’s urban farming
In response to Mark Dowie ’s August 1 “Food Among the Ruins ”, a smattering of responses came from readers and around the web, including Treehugger, Freakonomics, and the Detroit Free Press.
Greg Grandin: Touring Empire’s Ruins, From Detroit to the Amazon
To truly grasp how far America has fallen from the heights of its industrial grandeur — and to understand how that grandeur led to stupendous acts of folly — you should tour a set of ruins far from the Midwest rustbelt; they lie, in fact, deep (and nearly forgotten) in, of all places, the Brazilian Amazon rainforest.
Elegy
On critical race theory
Anjali Enjeti: Politics and Possibility
The author talks about the need for structural change in publishing, and why we should all be archivists of our family histories.
https://www.guernicamag.com/anjali-enjeti-politics-and-possibility/
While We Live
The day after I found out my husband cheated, I licked a stripper’s titties.
My Fellow Americans
I am gruff. I’m mediocre. I’m not good at getting what I mean into what I say. Mostly, I’m tired. The same lines, the same debates. Different stages. I’ve been dragged across too much of this country and I know it’s not getting better.
Claire Messud: Life Among the Animals
The writer on Camus, COVID-19, and the undoing of our meaningful lives.
https://www.guernicamag.com/claire-messud-life-among-the-animals/
Darin Strauss: Beyond Biography
The writer on blending fiction and memoir, and exploring the nature of celebrity.
Flour Baby
Ms. Bird stood in front of the class, holding a bag of flour. “You’ll dress up your flour babies, you’ll name your flour babies, and your flour babies will go everywhere with you for two weeks.”
A Drowned World
“It’s quite a lot of sadness, in realizing that everything you love about the world is falling to pieces.”
Ariella Aïsha Azoulay: “It is not possible to decolonize the museum without decolonizing the world.”
The political theorist argues that those whose worlds have been destroyed by five centuries of imperialism have the right to live near the objects that have been plundered from their culture.
https://www.guernicamag.com/miscellaneous-files-ariella-aisha-azoulay/
A Cold, White Sport in a Warming World
In the battle for hockey’s future, it’s a question of #grit vs. Gritty.
https://www.guernicamag.com/a-cold-white-sport-in-a-warming-world/
Everywhere You Don’t Belong
And my life went on like that: people coming and going, valuable things left in a hurry.
With Jazz on the Turntable and a Drink in His Hand
In the dark nights after long days, the music gave our fathers something to cling to.
https://www.guernicamag.com/with-jazz-on-the-turntable-and-a-drink-in-his-hand/
Beautiful in the Distance
The tick doesn’t know that it is strong enough to kill a full-grown human. It only knows that it is hungry.
https://www.guernicamag.com/josh-potter-beautiful-in-the-distance/
David Means’s New Collection of Stories is Unstuck in Time
“I like stories that helix on themselves and twist,” says the author of Instructions for a Funeral.
What Does the Obama Center Owe Chicago?
On the South Side, a monument to the former president’s legacy becomes a contest over the terms of gentrification.
https://www.guernicamag.com/what-does-the-obama-center-owe-chicago/
My Mother’s Secret Ballot
She and I both grew up near Detroit. How could she vote for Trump?
The Family Dolls, Featuring Charlie, Leslie, & More
Why it’s okay to play with Manson family paper dolls: The first six installments of John Reed’s Manson Family Paper Doll book. Print & Color Yourself!
https://www.guernicamag.com/the-family-dolls-featuring-charlie-leslie-more/
Those Years in Montreal
You would not believe what the secret police is interested in. Fetishes, preferences, noises made in bed, how you brush your teeth.
Eve Ewing: Other Means to Liberation
The poet and sociologist’s gleefully unorthodox work on blackness.
Not Tragedy, but Atrocity
Grappling with the legacy of the Algiers Motel Incident, half a century later.
George Plimpton and Papa in Cuba
When Ernest Hemingway agreed to his famous Paris Review interview, he had no idea he’d be helping the CIA.
https://www.guernicamag.com/george-plimpton-and-papa-in-cuba/
Plunge
Three months after my father died, my blood clotted for the first time.
The Members of Place Lab: Beautiful Objects, Blighted Spaces
The Future of Cities: The Chicago-based urban design team on rebuilding neighborhoods, gentrification, and the “magic” of Theaster Gates.
https://www.guernicamag.com/beautiful-objects-blighted-spaces/
Brett Story: The Prison in 12 Landscapes
Sabrina Alli interviews Brett Story about her latest film, which unearths the presence of the prison system in our everyday geographies.
The Pretensions of Pop
A look at the secret, defining force in a field largely comprised of autodidacts and bedroom enthusiasts
Darnell L. Moore & Kai M. Green: Conversation in Black
Darnell L. Moore and Kai M. Green write to each other about life as black feminists.
https://www.guernicamag.com/darnell-l-moore-kai-m-green-conversation-in-black/
Roslyn Bernstein: Museum as Laboratory
A new exhibition in Pittsburgh explores the modernist past of the city’s architecture, and the way forward.
https://www.guernicamag.com/roslyn-bernstein-museum-as-laboratory/
Radical Realism
An exhibition at the Jewish Museum brings together a group of largely unknown artists creating provocative and unexpected work.
Green Thumbs in the Motor City
Boundaries of Nature: Huge swaths of Detroit have been surrendered to the wild. What happens when we try to take them back?
https://www.guernicamag.com/ed-winstead-green-thumbs-in-the-motor-city/
Sarah Stillman: Just Out of Frame
The journalist on the “strange, extractive” process of interviewing; second-, third-, and fourth-act stories; and coming to reporting as “a real, whole person.”
Let’s Party Like it’s 1984
Does Hollywood’s reboot obsession point to a more pervasive cultural trend?
https://www.guernicamag.com/james-orbesen-lets-party-like-its-1984/
Diana Baird N’Diaye: A Measure of Worth
Boundaries of Taste: The folklorist and curator on self-expression through adornment in African-American communities, and fashion as a political act.
Only Son
“Some are really crazy,” the nurse said. “Others are just pretending.”
Sharon Zukin: Built for Humans
The sociologist on the role of the artist in gentrification, challenges to affordable housing, and the commodification of New York City’s loft lifestyle.
Don’t Call This the East Village
A squatter’s history of gentrification.
https://www.guernicamag.com/dw-gibson-dont-call-this-the-east-village/
Other Cities
There were so many places he could have lived, but he lived in the shack so he could dream of his daughter.
Elisa Albert: Where Do I Write? All Over The Damn Place
On community, urban sprawl, infant mortality, and the Albany food co-op.
https://www.guernicamag.com/elisa-albert-where-do-i-write-all-over-the-damn-place/
We Wear the Mask
The writer on coming of age in dichotomous Baltimore and being warned against writing about race.
Back to School
The former assistant secretary of education grapples with the school-reform movement and the systemic issues that plague American education.
Outlaw’s Territory
Disregarding Hunter S. Thompson’s advice, Danny Lyon set off to “record and glorify the life of the American bikerider.”
Grace Lee Boggs: Small Rebellions
The civil rights icon on Detroit, the limits of protest organizing, and what she’s learned over seven decades of activism.
Austerity Economics Is Like a Kick in the Groin
RoboCop’s lessons for our time.
https://www.guernicamag.com/austerity-economics-is-like-a-kick-in-the-groin/
Regime Change in America
An empire in decline (city by city, town by town).
https://www.guernicamag.com/peter-van-buren-regime-change-in-america/
So Long, Suckers
“Oh, it’s just so fabulous in New York, you can really just learn to step over people’s suffering bodies.” A response to Didion’s famed 1967 essay.
Krazy Komic
One hundred years later, why is George Herriman’s Krazy Kat still so radical?
A Nation Called to Action
“George Packer’s The Unwinding details the bitter realities of a stagnant economy, but leaves no room for malaise.”
https://www.guernicamag.com/abigail-sindzinski-a-nation-called-to-action/
Mapping Marginality
The radical geographer explores the hidden, unmapped stories of his neighborhood in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The Forgetting Tree
What kind of person walks over the bones of slaves? / What kind of person is a slave to bones?
Literary Archaeology
Muriel Rukeyser’s lost novel and the recovery of work by women writers
Bill McKibben: Obama Versus Physics
Why climate change won’t wait for the president.
https://www.guernicamag.com/bill-mckibben-obama-versus-physics/
Joel Kovel and Quincy Saul: Apocalypse and Revelation Are the Same Word
The founders of Ecosocialist Horizons discuss climate change, the collapse of capitalism, and building a new world in the shell of the old.
https://www.guernicamag.com/joel-kovel-and-quincy-saul-apocalypse-and-revelation-are-the-same-word/
Escape to Alcatraz
Notes on prison tourism.
John Patrick Leary: Against Civility
Concerns over declining ‘civility’ in politics distract us from the meaningful disagreements that we need to have.
https://www.guernicamag.com/john-patrick-leary-against-civility/
Nick Turse: America’s Nation-Building
The United States is in the midst of a tremendous building spree, but it isn’t happening in America.
https://www.guernicamag.com/nick-turse-americas-nation-building/
High Art, Low Blues
Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and former White Stripe Jack White on what’s killing the humanity of performances, how the wrong teacher can “really mess you up,” and the power of the blues.
Scarecrow
Everything that can be done to a man / was done to him.
Linda Sarsour: Surveillance and the City
The director of the Arab Association of New York talks with Meaghan Winter about mosque monitoring, civil liberties, and kids asking ‘why do they hate us?’
https://www.guernicamag.com/linda-sarsour-surveillance-and-the-city/
Sean Stewart: Notes from the Underground
Writer and former radical bookstore owner Sean Stewart talks about his new book on the underground press that was so vital to ’60s counterculture.
The Art of Rap
Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap explores hip hop’s past but skims over important questions about its present.
The Storytellers of Empire
Captivated by an image of an atom bomb falling on Japan, Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie asks American writers why “Your soldiers will come to our lands, but your novelists won’t.”
My Favorite Commercial of 2011
It’s a good thing when advertising makes you feel a little bit stupid.
Symptoms of the Bush-Obama Presidency: The Saved and the Sacked
On January 21, 2009, Barack Obama promised to return America to “the high moral ground.” Two and a half years later, we’re still waiting.
Off the Grid
A photographer and former Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana observes the beauty of the dark and the politics of electricity. (With video.)
John Patrick Leary: Can’t Forget the People of the Motor City
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“The global media and many visiting photographers see Detroit as an abandoned and dead city…What is constantly absent from these soulless images are the people.” |
The Straight Dope
David Simon would be happy to find out that The Wire was hyperbolic and ridiculous, and that the “American Century” is still to come. But he’s not betting on it.
Tom Engelhardt: The Worst That Could Happen
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“And so, for decades, that part of my childhood remained the dark but largely forgotten underside of the golden 1950s. I never thought I’d want it back, but with six nuclear plants threatening to melt down in Fukushima, Japan, I find that I do.” |
Crossing Erez
During 2005, while our author lived in East Jerusalem and worked in Ramallah and the Gaza Strip, he moved through at least four checkpoints every day. This is what that was like.
Robert Reich: The Real News on Jobs
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Conservative economists have it wrong. The underlying problem isn’t that so many Americans have priced themselves out of the global/high-tech labor market. It’s that they’re getting a smaller and smaller share of the pie. |
Jason Mark: How to Create a Sustainable Economy That Makes Daily Life Better
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For too long, environmentalists have been viewed as self-righteous killjoys demanding that everyone overhaul their wasteful habits. It is time to change that. |
Greta Christina: Why It’s Not a ‘Safe Bet’ to Believe In God
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Pascal’s Wager, which says it’s better to believe in God just in case, is one of the most common arguments in favor of religion—too bad it’s illogical and trivializes both faith and reality. |
Andrew J. Bacevich: Cow Most Sacred: Why Military Spending Remains Untouchable
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The essential facts remain: U.S. military outlays today equal that of every other nation on the planet combined, a situation without precedent in modern history. |
Beacon Broadside: Sargent Shriver and the Birth of the Peace Corps
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Fifty years ago, then-President Kennedy handed his brother-in-law Sargent Shriver an unwanted project called the Peace Corp. Shriver took the gift, and made it one of the most popular and endearing trademarks of that administration. |
Tom Engelhardt: In the Crosshairs, Tuscon-Kabul
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Six are dead in Tucson, and the country is outraged. Sixteen are killed in Kabul, and there’s nary a thought for the deceased. Tom Engelhardt discusses how Americans are quick to protect their own, but care little for Afghan innocents. |
On the Commons: The Great Lakes Are a Commons
A diverse group of activists from both sides of the Canadian-U.S. border declares the Great Lakes a common endowment.
Michigan: A Love Story
The girl is from the state where people use their hands to show where they live.
Tom Engelhardt: The National Security State Cops a Feel: Taking Off the Gloves (and Then Everything Else)
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As long as Americans don’t grasp the connections between our war state and our “safety,” things will only get worse |
Guernica Celebrates 6!
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Join Guernica for an evening filled with food, drinks, music, readings, auctions, celebrities, honorees, and more fun than should be allowed at a benefit. |
Jay Walljasper: Bikes Take Over Downtown Portland
Borrowing an idea from Colombia, Portland opens its streets to non-motorized traffic on Sunday celebrations.
Rebecca Bates: Q&A with Tim Hetherington, Co-Director of Restrepo
In response to Nick Turse’s critique of his recent war documentary Restrepo, Hetherington fires back: “I think his opinion of what needs to be said about the war has clouded his viewing of the film.”
Jay Walljasper: In Tough Times, Parks are a Smart Investment
In St. Louis, Detroit, and Houston, new parks foster economic opportunities and prove that investing in public space is a boost on local budgets.
Andrew J. Bacevich: The Unmaking of a Company Man: An Education Begun in the Shadow of the Brandenburg Gate
Bacevich, a former military officer, discusses the moment twenty years ago when he realized orthodoxy is a sham and how the education of that epiphany forced him to reexamine the rules of Washington.
Jay Walljasper: Not So Wonderful Life?
The good guy prevented Bedford Falls from becoming Pottersville in the movie. But what would happen in today’s economy?
Stephan Salisbury: Stage-Managing the War on Terror: Ensnaring Terrorists Demands Creativity
Informers have by now become our first line of defense in our battles with the evildoers. How expansive will the stage become for informers and their government directors now working the theater of the Great Recession?
Stephan Salisbury: Citizen Alioune: How Not to Deal with Muslims in America
The Senegalese Muslim vendor who first spotted the smoking SUV in Times Square and alerted police is no hero.
Jonathan M. Metzl: In Medical Records, a Story of the Racialization of Schizophrenia
What are the connections between mental health and sociopolitical injustice?
Third Degree Burns
It’s not navel-gazing MFA graduates who are killing literary fiction, says Jay Nicorvo. It’s blockbuster-hungry book editors and their habit of anticipating anticipations. A response to Ted Genoways in Mother Jones.
Labor Pains
With 15 million men and women unemployed, our writer argues that the first step to fixing the job crisis is reimagining what Americans should be working on in the first place
Andy Kroll: Ponzi Nation: How Get-Rich-Quick Crime Came to Define an Era
Welcome to America, sucker.
Worse than Cannibals
America’s most famous whistleblower on his willingness to go to jail, the pervasiveness of presidential lying, and why war is prolonged.