http://americancity.org/magazine/article/city-strivers/
The magazine we put together during my internship at Next American City this summer is out! This is the primary section I worked on, on top of sidebars and editing.
In both New Orleans and Detroit, the ways and icons of the past are cherished. The men and women on these pages are determined to get their cities focused on the future. Next American City is recognizing them as burgeoning urban leaders who are taking innovative, forward-thinking approaches to making their cities better. Refusing to accept that progress should be entrusted exclusively to the rich and powerful, they are standing with their communities to reform antiquated public systems, clean up neglected land and inject creativity into governance. Some contribute as employees of established organizations; others volunteer their time. Their diverse efforts are already inspiring fellow citizens. When future generations look for icons to celebrate, odds are these people will make the cut.
New Orleans
Kids Rethink New Orleans: Rallying Students to Fix Failing Schools
Even before Hurricane Katrina, 63 percent of public schools in New Orleans were deemed “academically unacceptable” by state officials. In 2006, as the city struggled to rebuild both its schools and its educational system, Jane Wholey decided to give youth a voice in the planning process. She and a small group of community activists and artists founded Kids Rethink New Orleans, a six-week summer program for 20 middle school students. In what Wholey calls a “real exercise in democracy,” the students came up with a list of recommended changes, presented them in a public press conference and spent the rest of the year encouraging the school board to implement their wish list.
The Rethinkers’ recommendations include involving students in school safety solutions, serving fresh and local foods, and letting students evaluate teachers. They travel to conferences and compete in national competitions. “I thought the experience was so profound that it was something to pursue,” Wholey says of her continued commitment. Now the students work to “demand dignity” by addressing issues such as facilities in disrepair, harsh school security and teachers who do not like to teach.
Today 115 kids citywide participate in Rethink through informal groups started last fall. Collectively, the Rethinkers have begun drafting longer-term goals: Envisioning an environmentally and socially conscious future, the group has asked, “What would it look like if the schools in New Orleans really drew a line in the sand and said, ‘We will not be part of a culture that will create another oil spill?’” If they continue on their current course, the Rethinkers just might answer that question. — Christine Fisher
Detroit
Broken City Lab: Positive Protest
“It’s easy to want to leave a place like Windsor,” admits Justin Langlois, founder and research director of Broken City Lab, a group trying to change that mentality. Founded in 2008, Broken City Lab is an art and research collaborative whose eight members critique, reimagine and inspire Windsor, Ontario — across the river from Detroit — through creative events, interventions and installations.
The idea grew out of a conversation about protest that Langlois had with partner Danielle Sabelli. “I was concerned that protest wasn’t still a workable model for change,” Langlois says. “We try to agitate, disrupt and generally rethink what critical and positive action can look like in a place like Windsor,” says Langlois, who at 26 is the oldest of the group.
One recent initiative, the Storefront Residencies for Social Innovation, invited artists, writers, designers, restaurateurs, musicians and architects to do projects of their choice inside a vacant storefront to demonstrate how vibrant the downtown could be. A “Save the City” campaign used a parade, postcards with images of things worth saving and a social mapping project of places in need to figure out “how to save the city and why we should bother at all,” Langlois says. The project generated a list of 100 ideas — from lying about the city to faraway friends to writing a pen pal in Detroit. Outreach to Detroit was fostered in another undertaking that projected phrases such as “We’re in this together,” “Want to be friends?” and “We’ve missed you” across the river to the neighboring city.
Looking ahead, Broken City Lab wants to create and expand partnerships, or as Langlois puts it, “find other ways to extend what our collective practice looks like with the right people around the table.” They hope their model for change will make it difficult to want to leave a place like Windsor. — C.F.
New Orleans
Jenga Mwendo: Home to Help
In July 2005 Jenga Mwendo, a successful animator based in New York, purchased a house in her hometown of New Orleans, intending to manage it from afar. After Katrina, she moved to the home, in the devastated Lower Ninth Ward, with a loftier goal than simply rebuilding her property: She set out to rebuild her neighborhood, too. “While it was fun, it’s not what my legacy was,” she says of her former career.
On Mwendo’s block today only her house and one other are occupied. They stand amid vacant lots that suffer from neglect, uncontrolled plant growth and vice — a neighbor recently found a loaded handgun in one of them. Once Mwendo finished restoring her home, she turned to restoring the neighborhood. Parkway Partners suggested she start by cleaning up an overgrown park, so she organized a garden committee and transformed the park into an open-air community center. “Urban agriculture just sort of started becoming my thing,” she says. In April of last year she and her neighbors converted an empty lot into a second community garden. This past June Mwendo led the launch of Operation Block by Block. Now Mwendo partners with Hands On New Orleans to host weekly block maintenance and beautification groups.
Mwendo hopes her work will send the unspoken message that the area is “someplace that is cared for; someplace that is livable; someplace that is fit for humans.”
“I feel like there is this pessimistic attitude in the Lower Ninth Ward — granted, it’s justifiable,” she says, adding that she wants to “do something about the way the neighborhood is, but also something about that attitude.” With the help of Hands On New Orleans, more than 300 volunteers helped build furniture at one of Mwendo’s community gardens. Mwendo’s efforts, and her legacy, seem to be expanding daily. “Nobody is going to be inspired by inaction,” she says. — C.F.
Detroit
Dan Carmody and EMC: Making More Than a Market
For 120 years Detroiters have made a Saturday ritual of going to the Eastern Market, on the northeastern edge of downtown. Before the sun comes up, the market comes alive with the clamor of more than 250 local vendors who sell food and specialty goods to nearly 40,000 people. These vendors complement 80 permanent retailers and restaurants, and make the 43-acre market one of the nation’s best public spaces. In the midst of these festivities, one can often find Dan Carmody, the Eastern Market Corporation’s (EMC) president, greeting vendors, buying groceries and embodying the market’s spirit.
Carmody joined the EMC in November 2007. Earlier that year the city of Detroit had relinquished control of the market, ending decades of substandard management. Before coming to the EMC, Carmody led a downtown improvement district in Rock Island, Ill., transforming a sleepy downtown into a mixed-use neighborhood with thriving business and arts communities. He did similar work in Fort Wayne, Ind., before being lured to Detroit. “During the search process, I came to visit on a Saturday and fell in love with the market,” he says. Carmody saw the market as an opportunity “to learn lessons about how to connect cities to food.”
Under his leadership Eastern Market has emerged as a regional hub for food, health and urban sustainability. The EMC has developed and implemented strategies for modernizing the market (so far achieving more than $10 million in capital improvements). In addition to increasing the amount of organic and local foods for sale, EMC works with nonprofits to bring fresh food to low-income neighborhoods and has increased food stamp usage. In adjacent neighborhoods it is also developing new “metropolitan farms” aimed at closing the gap between local food production and consumption. In the future Carmody plans to continue to grow the market’s effect on the city while maintaining its historic role as a center of authentic Detroit. — Heidi Reijm
New Orleans
504ward: Retaining New Talent
One silver lining amid the clouds of hurricanes Katrina and Rita was that the storms reversed New Orleans’ brain drain. Young, educated professionals used to flee the city in search of work opportunities; after the storms, droves of young talent arrived. “People came with a sense of purpose, wanting to help rebuild a great American city,” says Jessica White of 504ward, the group spearheading a movement to retain new arrivals for the long term.
In late 2007 venture philanthropist Leslie Jacobs realized that, while her generation was busy restoring New Orleans, her children’s generation would be responsible for bringing the city to the next level. Jacobs initiated 504ward to connect young people with one another, with employers and with incentives to stay in and continue improving the city. White, a New Orleans native and part of this younger generation, says, “For some reason our generation feels when you need a new job you have to move or go to grad school. If you’re a young person, you might not realize there are jobs here. But there are amazing jobs here.”
White and the team at 504ward send semiweekly emails to the 4,200 registered members to highlight both career and social opportunities. Through 504connect, the group partners young professionals one-on-one with established business or political leaders who offer guidance and share opportunities, which in the past have included job placements, board positions and volunteer experiences. As its target demographic evolves, 504ward stays creative, establishing events like dinners at the homes of seasoned professionals and contests and conferences for entrepreneurs.
“Now, we’re not just getting ambulance chasers. We are getting people who really want to be in New Orleans,” White says. “It’s a place where you really can make a difference, and you can do it here as a 20-year-old, where in most places it would take until your 40s.” — C.F.
Detroit
The Detroit Declaration: “We Are the People Who Believe in Cities”
Last year 20 Detroit residents began meeting to talk about making their city a better place for residents, natives and newcomers alike. “The perception [of Detroit] has been that most people have given up, and are just keeping the lights on,” explains participant Claire Nelson. These individuals, however, decided to proclaim their love for the city and created the Detroit Declaration, a broad, unifying vision
for its future.
[The declaration] has the ability to offer hope and inspiration, to promote unity, especially between the suburbs and the city, and leverage that strength to address larger issues.”
Launched in January of this year, the declaration outlines 12 principles that guide a far-reaching agenda for Detroit’s rebirth. The principles champion diversity, cooperation and celebration of the city’s cultural history, while setting a path toward long-term economic prosperity, sustainability and civic engagement. “The declaration has the ability to offer hope and inspiration, to promote unity, especially between the suburbs and the city, and leverage that strength to address larger issues,” says co-author Khalilah Burt Gaston. Former state representative and drafter Steve Tobocman adds that the declaration “created a platform for moving forward.”
The drafters expected a few hundred people to sign on. Instead a few thousand people, from all walks of life, attached their names to the pledge. To keep the momentum going, the authors organized the quickly growing group to support political candidates committed to acting on the declaration’s principles. Events with those candidates have drawn hundreds of Detroiters ready for a new kind
of political engagement.
The movement has also included people who live in Detroit’s suburbs. As co-author Sandra Yu explains, “People outside of Detroit can help pressure their own leaders to act more regionally.” Declaration signer and former Detroit city councilwoman Sheila Cockrel hopes the declaration will create the kind of enthusiasm that the city needs for lasting change. “It’s a truly grassroots, consensus-based movement of people claiming the city as everyone’s city.” — H.R.
