During a late night conversation about two Facebook pages that were created over the last few days, Whole Foods Isnt Worth 4.2 Million in Incentives and I am Happy Whole Foods is coming to Detroit because I am not insane, I said something that happened to stick with me. What was this realization?
People don't want to live in a city, they want to live in a shopping mall.
"Where Detroit needs to go" has been framed by the question of what corporately-owned companies should be opening branches inside city limits, as if the main problem that the city faces is where the brave suburban pioneers will shop for goods. You see, people aren't interested in whether there's schools, firefighters, or police. They don't want to think about the social and racial ramifications of the choices that are being made. What they do want is what has become the "American Dream," easy access to shiny baubles of status. If you look at modern city planning, whether in a suburban or urban area, the goal of designing around a public use space like a park or town square has been forsaken to focus the area on a major shopping center or strip mall. When you ask people about the area they live in, more often than not, the first facts they will give you are what stores are nearby, not a rundown of the neighborhood itself. The problem with this kind of mindset is that it divorces the human aspect from our area of residence. We go about believing that if there are stores, there will be jobs for everyone, and the general standard of living will gradually become higher. In the past this was true, but this country is a very different place now. Corporately-owned businesses, having no stake in the community they operate in, don't provide anything but sub-standard wages and the destruction of the locally-owned businesses.
When we look at how Detroit got into the situation it now faces, our reliance on the continued good fortune of three major corporations plays a large part in our fall. Yet, knowing what we know about the fallibility of our corporate sponsors, the choices we are making revolve around what multi-national we shall pledge loyalty to instead. At its deepest level, the future of Detroit revolves around the people who live here and have lived here. The assumption that bringing elitist retail locations to the Midtown area is the beginning of a revival ignores the fact that without a complete overhaul of the services that people rely on, we are just continuing full speed down the same path we have been on for years. The discussion on Whole Foods, City Lofts, and what else should move here reminds me of the hype that surrounded the building of the Compuware building years ago. The same things were said then are being said now, but it doesn't seem like people remember that a Hard Rock Cafe and Ben And Jerry's Ice Cream were the saviors of the moment then. Obviously, people aren't looking deep enough into this problem to really find a fix. Throwing stores that people can't afford to shop in at this city clearly sends the message, "You had your chance, now it's our turn." It reeks of neo-colonial racism, as if an area without high-end retail is somehow uncivilized and unlivable for the masses, as well as the racist sentiment, "obviously they can't handle responsibility or it wouldn't be like that, so they need us."
What bothers me is the large number of people who are willing to stand behind that.
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