Tuesday in Mooseville – Be A Dreamchaser 12/31/19

December 31, 2019 DoReMI Featured Posts, It Takes a Village 5

One Detroit Center. (Detroit, MI)
Pete Saunders (@petesaunders3 on Twitter) is one of my favorite bloggers; he writes a small blog, The Corner Side Yard, which generally focuses on urban planning-related issues. On Twitter, he describes himself as “Urban Planner. Editor/publisher, The Corner Side Yard. #Rustbelt lover. Detroit born/raised, Hoosier trained and Windy City polished.” I stumbled across his blog when I was reading and writing about Thomas Sugrue’s The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit (a book I strongly and wholeheartedly recommend to anyone with an interest in history, race in America, urban planning, and/or cities). In his most recent blog post, Saunders discusses what he sees as the new narrative coming out of Detroit after years of catastrophes like the Kwame Kilpatrick administration, the Great Recession, and the city’s bankruptcy. He identifies rebranding, resilience, and redemption as the key narrative elements coming out of Detroit and discusses how they differ from the usual messaging employed by urban areas.

Rather than the standard “we have all the amenities you love!” that most cities try to promote, touting urban sameness rather than distinctiveness or authenticity, the message coming out of Detroit is, “we’re still here! We made it and we’re stronger for it!” (Detroit: Rebranding, Resilience and Redemption)

Throughout his post, Saunders has sprinkled videos which illustrate his point, and as I watched the videos, it occurred to me that while the post was about the rebound of Detroit, it could just as easily be a message of hope for 2020. So I include the videos for your viewing, whether as cheerleading for a city I love or as a reminder that while we have miles to go before we sleep, together we have the resilience to start the work of redemption.

2011 classic; I guarantee that I wasn’t the only one that cried when this commercial first aired.

A love song for The D, from the late Allee Willis (lyrics provided on YouTube page)

Amazon didn’t come, but this remains our testimony. We are dreamchasers.

Nothing stops Detroit; Detroit hustles harder.

I have a job interview this morning, but I’ll try to check in later in the afternoon…

About DoReMI 165 Articles
Now a Michigander, by way of Ohio, Illinois, Scotland, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania. Gardener. Sewer. Democrat. Resister.

5 Comments

  1. {{{DoReMI}}} – Holding the Good Thought for the interview. & for Detroit for that matter. ????????????

    • Thank you! The interview went well, but I will always say that; one-on-one interviews just don’t faze me in the least. Whether I’m what they want is quite another matter, of course. I’ve discovered that my subconscious will noodle away at the memories of the interview, processing the nuances and micro-expressions that I’m not currently conscious of, and in a few days, my brain will provide me with a more realistic assessment of how I did from the interviewer’s perspective. The next step, if I’m one of the finalists, will be a phone interview with a corporate administrator in a week to 10 days. The damn holiday is messing up interview scheduling. (Note: it’s only a damn holiday because I’m not working and want to be; if I were employed, it would be the welcome holiday!)

      It is, however, the first (and hopefully, last) time I have ever cried during an interview.

      • Uh…”interview went well” and “cried during an interview” do not compute. Still Holding the Good Thought. For whatever outcome you ultimately wish.

        & I hear ya on holidays – they’re only holidays if you want the break. Otherwise they’re immaterial at best and inconvenient at worst. And if autopays go in but the banks are closed so you can’t make sure there’s enough money to cover them…inconvenient is a very polite way of describing one of those worsts.

        • LOL, yeah, I guess an explanation would help. This job is at a nursing home/dementia/memory care facility, so I asked if administrators were encouraged or discouraged from interacting with the elders (the job I applied for is internal administration — HR and payroll type stuff — so it’s conceivable that there would be real separation from the residents). The interviewer told me that actually they look for interaction; each employee is assigned 3-5 residents with whom they are asked to spend some time with each week. It may only be five minutes, but they want the elders to have the social interaction, and they want employees to remember who they work for and why they have their job. Anyway, when she told me that, I just started leaking. And couldn’t stop. My mom had early-onset Alzheimer’s; she was diagnosed at 53 and died at 58. So it’s a huge thing with me that elders are treated with respect and dignity, and it just hit me hard for some reason. It was a good thing, but the emotion overwhelmed me. I had no idea I would have that kind of reaction, and worse, I had no idea I wouldn’t be able to stop. About the only good thing was that it was leaking rather than full-on ugly crying…so there’s that?

          • Well, if they’re looking for somebody competent who also cares…you’ve got it. (& yeah, leaking is better than full-on crying – doesn’t leave you with as much of a headache for one thing. As for the interview it shows caring without making the interviewers seriously uncomfortable.) And I can understand considering your mom and all. (Mine went at 58 too but her’s was incorrectly-diagnosed-until-too-late-to-treat liver disease.) Sounds like a good place to work – and a good place to live if you’re in those circumstances.

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