http://www.dukeengagedetroit.org/detroit-news/dukes-nick-prys-on-detroit

Though it may require swallowing our pride, sometimes coming home is the best feeling in the world.  Just ask LeBron James about his return to Cleveland. As a native of Cleveland’s suburbs myself, I’ve forgiven LeBron’s mistakes and embraced his homecoming - truly a homecoming for the ages. Speaking about coming home, the beauty of home is that it is unique to every person. For me, it means a collection of little things, including hearing the sound of my mother cooking dinner and and the laughter of my little sister. For LeBron, it may mean hearing the supportive chants of millions of basketball fans.

Like LeBron, Nick Prys also knows about staying true to his home. A 2014 Duke graduate and native Detroiter, Nick Prys submitted a winning video for Challenge Detroit – a yearlong program that enables participants to tackle some of the city’s toughest challenges, from restoring abandoned buildings to improving the public school system. Along with some friends, he’s working on a startup called Clove, a grocery vending service that will cut out supermarkets as the middleman and improve food consumption efficiency. 

When I revisited the Detroit News link, I realized that this was the same Nick that I had met last Friday at a local entrepreneurial mixer at TechTown. Rocking a plaid shirt and cleanly cropped facial hair, Nick spoke to me with a slow, measured voice about his experiences growing up in the city. He told me about how he had taken his friends to see the abandoned Packard Plant, and how he’d be willing to take me there before I leave. He’s one of those rare individuals that I could be real with from the start.

In the video, Nick Prys explains his deep roots to Detroit and why he's willing to stay and work in his hometown after graduation. His video reminds me of the line in the song Pompeii by Bastille, which goes, "Oh, where do we begin? The rumble or our sins?" In other words, what should changemakers focus on to revitalize Detroit-  the physical ruins of abandoned structures, or the systemic corruption and failed policies of the last five decades? Beautiful montages of the city, featuring highlights such as Downtown street art and the vibrant restaurants of Greektown and Corktown, are spliced with shots of Nick riding his bike through barren lots and storefronts. Set to a nostalgic rock ballad, he almost convinces me to stay in Detroit. Almost. 

Similar to the LeBron Situation, I both applaud his loyalty and wonder why he would choose to stay in Detroit. Just one glance at current media coverage can repel the bravest tourists from traversing the treacherous paths of Gratiot Street and 8 Mile Road – the same 8 Mile of Eminem/Slim Shady/Marshall Mathers infamy. And as Nick mentions himself, why would people choose to live in Detroit, a city that provokes pity and apathy rather than awe, over LA, New York, or Boston? Sure, there is innovation and creative energy. Sure, there’s hope and a collective sense of ownership among the city’s people. Whether we see this energy and community drive sustainable change is entirely another question. 

The first time I watched Nick Prys’ video (shout out to Kiran for sharing it with us), I was inspired. The second time, I did a slow clap in my head. The third time, I felt a mixture of disbelief and respect. When I watched the video a fourth time a few minutes ago, my response was more measured and critical – Nick made a video of the highlights of the city, like how Facebook shows the highlights of our lives, while it brushes past some of the city’s more serious issues – broken infrastructure, blight, poverty, and violent crime, to name a few. 

Detroit, from its heyday in the 1950s to its present state, can be summarized with this line from Pompeii: "Many days fell away with nothing to show, and the walls kept tumbling down in the city that we love." As more and more people fled to city for the outlying suburbs, Detroit became a vestige of its former self. So as Bastille later sings, and I echo, "How am I going to be an optimist about this?" Nick largely relies on emotion rather than reason to make his points, which may be an effective way to make an inspiring video, but not enough to persuade policymakers and dangerous in the long run. For every Edison District and Cass Creative Corridor, there are dozens of broken houses, broken homes, and homes being broken into. Such problems cannot not fixed by only young entrepreneurs, and require support from local government and the black majority population. 

Will Detroit remain in the ashes or will it soar like the legend of the phoenix? Every end has a beginning, and only time will tell if Detroit gets lucky. So as I travel to the Packard Plant with Nick later this week, I’ll have to remind myself that he considers all of Detroit, including its forgotten rubble, to be part of his home, and that is a beautiful thing indeed.

By: Ying Qi 


Gentrification, Hipsterfication, and Yuppies Renaissance

Just drive northward down Gratiot Avenue through the sprawling metropolis, and you’ll see what I am talking about.

Let’s start from Compuware’s corporate garage just steps away from the heart of downtown Detroit. You’ll pass through several high rises (most of which either owned by, or leased out to Mr. Gilbert and his Quicken Empire), numerous high-end restaurants and bars, a handful of young professionals chugging their morning Starbucks on their way to work, and an ominous gray citadel – the Wayne County Jail project – now locked in limbo after years of political incompetence and hundreds of millions of dollars wasted. 

Let’s keep driving. The buildings will gradually grow lower and lower, and you’ll notice there are fewer people on the streets. And of the people on the streets, significantly more of them are black. Let’s cross the Chrysler Freeway and continue north.

Numerous old storefronts dot the now relatively empty sidewalks. Many of them are well maintained but are no longer in business. Then, some liquor stores, some auto repair shops, some barbershops. Just around the corner, you’ll see some back-to-nature blocks that used to be residential lots but are now demolished by the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force.

Red light. You’ll hear someone blasting Trick Trick’s “Welcome 2 Detroit” from his beaten up car stereo, windows rolled down. Wait, what happened to the high rises, vibrant urban landscape, and young professionals?

You don’t have to live in Detroit to realize the unevenness of Detroit’s sprawling metropolis. Nowadays, there is so much buzz around Detroit’s urban revitalization. Bustling coffee shops, bakeries, boutiques are opening their doors in the Midtown area; high-end technology startups and international corporations are moving their offices into Dan Gilbert’s newly renovated office spaces, attracting thousands of young millennials into what used to be desolate streets and empty skyscrapers. These young professionals – commonly known as hipsters – are bringing with them an unprecedented sense of energy and creativity, stirring up Detroit with innovative solutions while helping to strengthen the city’s tax base, which will in turn support essential services such as police, fire stations, and façade improvements.

But we cannot conclude here.  As Ashley Woods reminds us, Detroit doesn’t need hipsters to survive, it needs it black people. I cannot agree more with her point, because the success of any city rests on improving its public infrastructure – such as public school systems and public transportation – that will raise its working class population. With a population that is 83% African American, most of whom live in Detroit’s neighborhoods, trickle-down urbanization will not work.

However, the heart of the conversation should not be a debate about whether or not gentrification is occurring, or reducing individuals by labeling them as this and that, but be about how we can collaboratively work together to address the complexity of the problem we all face as residents of this city. We need to dive deeper to find the solution. I am not saying it is not important to recognize our differences and the exclusiveness of Detroit’s reinvention, but I want to shift the weight of the conversation towards a discussion of how we can use these differences to our advantage, because in the heart of all differences we experience is an undisputable commonality: we share this space because we have an unwavering faith in the city we live in.

Let’s imagine: what if the Detroit City Government, Detroit Public School Systems, top real estate firms, and nonprofit institutions collaborated together to renovate abandoned city schools into office spaces for local businesses? What if technology firms collaborated with nonprofits, community development corporations, and small businesses to map out key locations for commercial development across the City of Detroit to facilitate new businesses moving into Detroit?

So, let’s direct our energy into brainstorming ways we can work together instead of focusing on the things that separate us apart.