Author(s): Diana Anda
In de-industrializing regions where years of financial austerity have weakened the collective institutions of social protec¬tion, what does it mean for a community to be resilient? While we refer to Detroit as a post-industrial city, residents in Southwest Detroit experience a very different reality as they live in close contact with a high concentration of heavily pollutant industries and large-scale infrastructures. Despite this reality, Southwest Detroit remains one of Detroit’s most stable, economically dynamic, and diverse communities. Over the years, a dense ecosystem of local organizations, many of them led and sustained primarily by women, have taken the space as service providers in the absence of government support. This investigation aims to learn from the organizing tactics, outreach, and areas of focus of these groups as critical actors in local governance. How can we, urban designers, work with Environmental Justice Communities of Concern (EJCOC) to advance urban resiliency through existing care networks and mutual help while advocating for more public resources and design agencies? Through theories of care, the goal is to investigate new ways of focusing on the shift from capital profitability to care of community users. Due to this complexity of circumstances in Southwest Detroit, the people have taken a bottom-up approach in attempts to relieve and mitigate the harm that has been done by the current lack of infrastructure – forcing the support to come from within the people. Rather than advocating resiliency as forced community action, this inves-tigation aims to learn from existing networks and reimagine a set of discrete interventions that properly support community building. Working to respond to the existing fragmentation, this study ultimately aims to operate at the confluence of environmental justice, feminist theories, and theories of care.
Volume Editors
ISBN
978-1-944214-49-4