DIY Detroit: Making Do in a City without Services

(Paperback)

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Description

For ten years James Robertson walked the twenty-one-mile round-trip from his Detroit home to his factory job; when his story went viral, it brought him an outpouring of attention and support. But what of Robertson s Detroit neighbors, likewise stuck in a blighted city without services as basic as a bus line What they re left with, after decades of

Reviews

"Kimberley Kinders DIY Detroit is a clever, beautifully written account of everyday life in the wake of conventional market collapse and decades of austerity. It describes the ways that Detroiters have adapted, often defensively, always informally, sometimes illegally, to life without conventional markets and routine municipal services."Jason Hackworth, author of Neoliberal City

"The book moves easily between personal and neighborhood stories, and big-picture reflections. The thinking is of high quality and the prose is readable rather than academic."Planning Magazine

"Geographic, ethnographic, and often narratively compelling."Consumption Markets & Culture

"HIghly readable."CHOICE

"DIY Detroit is filled with these simultaneously inspiring and heartbreaking tales of perseverance and innovation. Worthwhile."Reason.com

"DIY Detroit is frankly the Detroit book I have been waiting for. It adds a much-needed perspective to the literatures on urban decay and collective self-provisioning activities."H-Net Reviews

"Ultimately, Kinder has produced a timely and detailed account of how residents are getting by amidst disinvestment. Her ability to bring her characters and neighborhoods alive by elucidating otherwise unremarkable moments and encounters is impressive. DIY Detroit is an eminently accessible text, stemming, in part, from Kinders skill at crafting crisp sentences and her choice to leave citations to the endnotes."Antipode

"An engaging and informative read, which also makes a compelling argument for the value of qualitative urban research."Housing Studies

"DIY Detroit is a beautifully written book. Kinders account provides important insights into ongoing debates over the future of the so-called comparative gesture in a more geographically pluralistic urban geography." AAG Review of Books

Author Bio

Kimberley Kinder is assistant professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan. She is the author of The Politics of Urban Water: Changing Waterscapes in Amsterdam.