Detroit (Mosquito-like, bothersome ideas)

Detroit, not much creativity round these parts

Type-cast city choked by cars and strangled by avenues of desert where one can die of thirst and carbon monoxide

Your population is silly

Clutching Bibles with eyes closed

“I’m Black so I’ll dress like this, walk like this, talk like this”

“I’m White so I’ll dress like this, walk like this, speak like this”

“I’m Mexican so I’ll dress like this, walk like this, and talk like this”

“I’m Middle Eastern so I’ll dress like this, walk like this, and behave like this”

But they all pray to thee, oh mighty Chrysler, oh omnipotent Ford, oh all-knowing GMC

Is there anybody cool in this whole town?

Does everyone belong to this battalion or the other?

You’ve been scarred, Detroit

Your west side crumbles, but your east side doesn’t care La, la, la, la, la, they go

You give me a heavy heart, city, and remind me that indeed, nothing is forever

It may be the right sun but not the right setting


Most of the abandoned buildings are in areas where the poor lives.
Being poor is a state of mind. We make ourselves poor.
"The system," (or, if you are uncomfortable with that term, the interplay of different institutions, businesses, and organizations), may be designed (or it may coincidentally function) in such a way that some people will end up with few material possessions, but just because we have a small income does not mean that we are poor.
We become poor when our creativity is blocked, when our vision is blurred, when we give up our right to live our lives as human beings can and should live. Once we become poor we begin to dislike ourselves, and a series of destructive behaviors pin us down.

The project I had in mind would be out of synchronization with the nature of the city and its inhabitants. It was to take place among people like this, in an area where creativity and initiative have been sucked out, where there is hardly a community; in fact they are only neighborhoods, places where people live because they can’t live anywhere else. There is hardly any kind or organization in these places, excluding churches, of course, but the power of churches seems to be very limited. The ravishing of neighborhoods goes on in spite of them.

These are places where McDonald's, Burger King, KFC, Taco Bell, the local chain Coney Island, (of which there is one that opens 24 hours a day, 7 days a week around where I’m staying), do extremely well, and leave on their wake bloated bodies, like overfed ticks, that thank their cars for their mobility.

These neighborhoods are made up of people who are workers, or were workers, and the simplicity of that lifestyle shows. There aren’t any small parks where one can go and sit for a while to temporarily take a breather. I’m thinking of Berlin now as a counterpart. These neighborhoods were made to be navigated by car, and the few parks in this big city are places where people can go once in a while, after driving for some miles. Every lifestyle that did not support the working routine was done away with. The lack of trees in the city is terrifying.

At night people in these neighborhoods lock themselves in their houses. There is very little to do at night there anyway, and groups of restless teenagers roam about, and cars with loud music to do the same.
The art of living is practiced differently here. Where I stay, the TV is on almost constantly. In places like these, certain ideas are persistent, and one has to be prepared to constantly ward them off. The idea that one has to have a car, and that to go anywhere one has to drive, is one of them. The idea that one's income determines one's worth is another, the idea that one has to have a job to have self respect, the idea that one has to be rich and famous, that one should dress in a certain way, that one should build only in a certain way, and have a certain amount of furniture, are only a few examples.

.