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Running Head: Greening and Grassroots in Detroit

The Importance of Engagement with Detroit Residents Concerning

Green Infrastructure

Paris Freeman, Sociology/Psychology Candidate, 2017

Tom Makled, B.A. in Urban and Regional Studies, 2015

Paul Draus, PhD

Professor of Sociology

Department of Behavioral Sciences

The University of Michigan-Dearborn

Acknowledgement

Thank you Dr. Paul Draus and Tom Makled for

your time and invaluable assistance.

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Introduction

As a non-traditional sociology student, I am extremely interested in the plight of

neighborhoods in the Detroit area. I was born and raised in Detroit and remember a time when

Detroit neighborhoods were both vibrant and safe. After the many civil, political and

bureaucratic transitions in the city since the 1960s, I’ve witnessed the fall and decline of Detroit,

especially its manufacturing industry and surrounding neighborhoods that depended on these

industries to sustain its communities. My own neighborhood where I was raised is now

horrifying to me. To see it today, you would never imagine how beautiful and how diverse that

neighborhood once was.

Now that downtown Detroit is experiencing a rapid comeback, one might reasonably ask,

“Why are the surrounding neighborhoods still looking as if a nuclear bomb hit them?” What can

be done to restore these communities as well? Taking a class in urban sociology gave me a

vocabulary of social theories that helped made sense of it. We were exposed to a wide range of

situations that helped explain vacancy, urban initiatives and activism through ethnographic trips

to urban neighborhoods. Though intriguing to my fellow classmates, the physical appearance of

Detroit was no new phenomenon to me. However, the concepts from class helped me to better

understand social inequity, disengagement and what happened through the decades to these

urban neighborhoods on a deeper level - the mass exodus to suburbia, the influx of drugs and

greedy politicians that left once lively neighborhoods ravished and torn.

Background

Detroit in its heyday as an industrial and automotive capital was saturated with

businesses of every kind to support its industry. Neighborhoods, at the time, represented vast,

diverse ethnic populations that lived and worked together within communities. After the decline

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of the auto industry, decay of post-industrial middle towns took over the nation. A mass exodus

into suburban life with expectations of a new promised land was afforded to many, but for the

majority of Americans of African descent, housing discrimination (www.naacpldf.org/files/our-

work/Detroit Housing Discrimination.pdf) kept them bound within the city limits perpetuating

Detroit’s ethnic population as predominately African American. Empty and abandoned

companies, warehouses and industrial sites were left to decay with little or no resources given to

these neighborhoods to clean up contamination and blight. Decades later, organizations such as

The Greening of Detroit (TGOD) have begun to identify and clean-up sites in urban

neighborhoods where ground contamination may not even be evident to the neighborhood.

Some of these spaces that residents walk through, cross over and mingle on daily.

Understanding how the neighborhood views these spaces and learning about the history

connected to them is vital in understanding the importance of these spaces to the community.

Efforts to engage the community may be seen as first steps to greater initiatives or in identifying

resources that may help restore these historic neighborhoods.

The industrial areas of Southwest Detroit and Northeast Detroit were used as case studies

for this paper, which provides qualitative data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork and

focus groups to promote community engagement and environmental justice (Figure 1). Time

and again through this research and in talking with the community historians, we heard these

resounding statements, “Why don’t we know more about what we can do to help our own

communities” and “Why weren’t we informed?” Engagement may be defined as communication

practices that promote both social equality and community cohesiveness between the residents

and any outside agency. The ability to do so, as seen in this research, has given us the

opportunity to potentially alleviate historic fear and suspicion by informing residents about

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greening plans, infrastructure and timelines while also providing valuable feedback to those

agencies. Agencies can then continue remediation projects that protect citizens from known and

unknown post- industrial contamination sites while creating plans for future green spaces that

benefit the community.

See Figure 1 - Here

Like many other Rust Belt cities, Detroit has numerous contaminated or brownfield sites

that are a legacy of its industrial past. Some of these sites are well known, and others are only

identified by soil tests long after the site has been abandoned or utilized for other purposes such

as housing or schools. Dendroremediation is the planting of trees to eliminate toxic substances

in the soil over time left by these businesses that were once located in various area of Detroit.

Community Partner: The Greening of Detroit

The Greening of Detroit (TGOD) is a local non-profit that helps individuals as well as

communities to plant trees, start community gardens and provides tools for cleanups and other

resources. In 2013, they began a pilot dendroremediation project funded by the United States

Department of Agriculture, with intention of evaluating the effectiveness of different varieties of

tress in removing contaminants from soil. They initiated this research project because of

experiences they had in different Detroit neighborhoods where residents objected to the

dendroremediation efforts or questioned their value relative to other potential land uses. In this

project, faculty and students from the University of Michigan-Dearborn (our research team)

collaboratively worked to effectively engage each community by providing information through

focus groups and forums.

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In this paper, sociological research methods are used to examine the thoughts and

feelings of residents concerning the changes that have taken place in their neighborhoods and

their fears, hopes and expectations for the future. In both case study neighborhoods, we

conducted a focus group with residents concerning environmental degradation by industry and

local remediation efforts. This paper describes the process of conducting this research, explores

the implications of these initial research findings, and presents ideas for how to better engage a

community before the start or introduction of future greening initiatives in urban neighborhoods.

Research Setting:

There were two dendroremediation sites where TGOD was most interested in

understanding community perspectives. One located in Southwest Detroit known as the Leonard

Street site, and the second was in northeast Detroit known as the East McNichols site.

Leonard Street Site

The Leonard site is located near a functioning oil refinery (Marathon Petroleum

Corporation) in a heavily industrialized area where a former elementary school was identified as

having contaminated ground. However, the site was used as a social setting in that community

for years, even after the school was demolished and removed in 1991. It was renamed

Bridgeview Park in 1994, with efforts to clean it up and recommit the space back to the

community for public use. However, the space was later identified as having contaminated soil

and secured the parameters with a chain link fence.

East McNichols Street Site

The E. McNichols site was once the home of the Roman Cleanser Company (Roman

Cleanser Company. The Italian Tribune, 24 July 2009. Web. 24 July 24 2009 -6 Aug. 2009) that

produced bleach and other chemical solvents. In this community, you can still see a shadow of

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infrastructure of this business that once supported the community. This space was also identified

has having contaminated soil and trees were planted as a dendroremediation effort to soak up the

contaminants.

In both places, the grounds were tested for toxic contamination. When the grounds tested

positive, plans were made for dendroremediation. While this may have been a great step in the

right direction in eliminating ground contamination, members of each community had very little

information concerning the intent and purpose of these greening initiatives. The beginning of

this research project started in the Fall of 2014 when TGOD initiated a conversation with the

University of Michigan – Dearborn following hostility from members of the Leonard Street

community during efforts to secure and plant trees during May of 2014.

Why? Because many members of the community had no idea what was going on, and

some were suspicious of TGOD’s motives. Workers from TGOD came into the neighborhood

wearing protective white biohazard suits and began digging in the former park site, causing

much concern and suspicion. This resulted in some very public confrontations that frankly

surprised TGOD. One community resident was quoted in a local news article as stating, "This is

unconscionable against humanity, I say you're doing this only because we're black people. You

would never go into Ferndale and do this. You would never go into Southfield and do this, go

into a Birmingham playground and just start digging and treating people like guinea pigs"

(Associated Press 2014). As a result of the initial conversation with TGOD, sociologist Dr. Paul

Draus developed a proposal to investigate community responses to green infrastructure and

dendroremediation efforts in Detroit, with the intent of informing residents of TGOD’s future

efforts. The proposal received a small amount of funding from the American Sociological

Association’s Community Action Research Initiative in April of 2015.

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In September of 2015, the research team of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, headed

by Draus and various staff from TGOD began to actively engage the community through random

public solicitations to participate in a focus group about each project in detail. It was at this time

that I joined the effort, following my participation in Draus’ urban sociology class in Summer

2015, and I quickly assumed a leadership role. Professor Draus and I engaged in direct

recruitment of potential participants in the Leonard St. and E. McNichols areas. Follow-up

phone interviews were made to interested participants, culminating with a focus group of people

living in the immediate community. The objective was to learn about the direct impact of how

the dendroremediation was affecting the community and level of acceptance by the community.

Since that time, we have hosted two successful focus groups (one from each site) to assist with

bridging the gap between the community and TGOD.

Recruitment:

We used a five-block radius (north, south, east and west of each site) as a rough target

area to randomly talk with people in the community about the dendroremediation sites. Our

target number of participants per focus group was 10-12 participants. Some of the questions

asked were:

1. Are you familiar with this site and why the trees have been planted?

2. How do you feel about the trees being planted?

3. Has the trees planted caused any problems as far as you know?

4. Did you know that the ground was identified as being contaminated?

5. How do you feel about that?

Potential participants were informed that we were having an informational focus group to give

further information and to listen to the community’s concerns/needs in their neighborhood. They

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were asked if they would like to attend, and they were also told that they would be compensated

for their time ($20) as an incentive for participation, and that light refreshments would be served

as well.

Follow-up:

As we walked the neighborhoods and met with residents, we also gathered phone

numbers and asked if it would be ok to call and follow-up. Though many said “yes”, the actual

follow-up was the most tedious part of the focus group process. If potential participants could

not identify your phone number, they may not answer their phones or phones may be

disconnected causing you to lose a potential participant. To help alleviate disconnect between

the caller and the potential participant, I normally tried to call later that evening or the next day

to reiterate the focus group and for them to identify my phone number if I needed to call them

again. This gave us an idea of how many I had ready to participate or if we needed to solicit

others. If numbers were initially low, I asked participants to bring a friend from the

neighborhood who may be interested.

Preparation:

In advance of the focus group, there was a good deal of preparation that had to be done.

First, I needed to confirm or solicit a site for focus group, preferably within the neighborhood so

that people don’t have to travel very far, as some may have limited mobility. Secondly, we

needed to prepare administrative paperwork including informed consent forms, sign-in sheets,

and so on. Supplies such as pens, paper, and a flip pad needed to be gathered and brought to the

site. On the day of the focus group, food also had to be purchased and carried to the site, along

with the audio-recording equipment and the monetary incentives for participation ($20 per

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respondent). For all of these reasons, having a research team was very useful. Each member of

the team could be responsible for some portion of the preparation.

Conducting Focus Groups:

The focus groups consisted of invited participants living in the neighborhood of the case

study sites. Participation was confidential; participants remained anonymous, using only their

first name, nicknames or alias’ to identify themselves in the audio taped session. Recordings of

the sessions were transcribed verbatim by a remote transcription service. Facilitators consisted of

members from the University of Michigan – Dearborn research team (first, second and third

authors) who explained the reason for the focus group and data gathering. Representatives from

TGOD answered specific questions about methods, timelines and future implications regarding

the dendroremediation within the neighborhoods. The focus group protocol included questions

covering the range of areas, from the history of the neighborhood, its meaningful spaces and

places, to its current environmental challenges. Only at the end of the groups were participants

asked directly about their knowledge and understanding of the actual dendo-remediation sites.

This was done in order to allow for an open-ended exploration of the issues most pressing in the

residents’ minds, as well as their hopes for the neighborhood’s future, before focusing on the

specific sites of most concern to TGOD.

Findings:

We found that residents were still very much concerned about every aspect of their

neighborhood and that the importance of engagement helped residents to understand why certain

social and or important spaces needed to be dendroremediated for the betterment of the

community. Previous to any such engagement efforts both sites were up in arms about two

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issues; contamination and the fact that they did not know about it and interruption of their social

space or neighborhood amenity.

Because the facilitators maintained an open-ended approach during the focus groups,

residents had the opportunity to talk about what was important to them. At both sites, the

recorded history and memories of their experiences became the overall prevailing factor. As

reiterated in the introduction and at both case study sites, residents shared similar experiences

about their memories of living in their Detroit neighborhoods as being safe and surrounded by

community orientated people and resources. These residents have never given up on their

neighborhoods and have a deep desire to work for change. Assuming that no one cares because

of physical disorder further solidifies the need for engagement with residents to promote

cohesiveness with TGOD and other outside initiatives because residents from both sites still

consider their community their most precious commodity. The following are the responses from

some of the participants during these focus groups

Some Leonard St. (LS) respondents naturally focused on the negative effects of the industrial

activity that characterized the area:

LS Respondent 1: [This neighborhood] is shown as being one of the highest polluted

areas in the country. Marathon [Petroleum Corporation] is basically responsible for it. No

compensation for the people. Just slowly killing us. High level of semi tractors and

trailers run up and down Fort Street, I-75, the bridge. They keep the roads in a total

disarray at all times, headed to Canada, whatever. This is one of the most traveled areas

by semi trucks and trailers. No compensation for us. We just tear up our car, riding over

these, uh, raggedy roads all day. Always have and always will. Nothing. We get nothing

in return. We just have to suffer and deal with it. Gas prices go up. How come diesel fuel

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isn't out the roof? Truckers are the ones tearing up the roads. Why don't you pass the cost

over to them?

But participants also commented on the strong social assets of the community, calling on both

individual and collective memory. She described taking her mother to a beautiful restaurant way

out in the suburbs for her birthday dinner, but then asked, “Where’s ours?”

LS Respondent 2: I was born and raised out here, born in Sumby Hospital that's now gone

in, uh, River Rouge. Uh, lived out here all my life. My mom's still living out here. She's

on Bassett. 92 years old. We just celebrated her birthday last week Thursday, had a good

time. We had to go way out to the suburbs. There's nothing in the neighborhood.

Beautiful venue, but where's ours? Why did we have to leave? Cuz there's nothing here.

So, um, yeah. I love this area. I absolutely love it. There's no place like southwest Detroit.

No place. I don't care what they got going on, you know. This place out here was and is,

for me, it's my life. It's my roots. It's everything to me. Everything.

At the outset of their focus group, the East McNichols (EM) street respondents were

asked to provide just a few words that described the neighborhood, as they saw it. Here are the

answers they offered, which cover the same range of emotions as the response above, from

despair and disappointment to hope and pride:

EM Respondent 1: May. I would like to tell the truth-truth to you. That’s the dumping

ground. So it dis- it don’t look like it used to look. And I raised each and one of my kids

from over there, so it-it looked wonderful at the time. Right now it’s like a dump. That’s

my opinion.

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EM Respondent 2: In one word, I would say my life, because I live there, and I believe

that if I’m not careful, then I could lose my life, and I love everyone around there, so I

wanna make the best of it. That’s why I say my life.

EM Respondent 3: I’d say it’s-it’s like a struggling neighborhood, cuz it’s—struggling to

get better, and we doin’ certain things in our neighborhood, as neighbors, to get together

and plant gardens and beautify it. And you know everybody get along, so it’s struggling

to get to where it need to be.

EM Respondent 4: It’s home. It’s home.

EM Respondent 5: It’s my roots. It’s my roots.

Concerning the dendroremediation/Roman Bleach site, the participants expressed a variety of

viewpoints. Some stated that they wished that TGOD had not planted cottonwoods on the site,

and others questioned the designation of the site as contaminated, because it had previously been

tested and found to be safe for residents to use.

In fact, one of the residents had developed her own plan for the re-use of the site,

involving wind-systems, walking trails, and open space that she felt would have opened up the

area for development while also providing a place for children to play. She spoke last and

offered a statement that summarized much of what the others had said:

EM Respondent 6: All the parts of what everyone said is uh—it’s uh uh like a puzzle

piece. It’s like a puzzle piece. What we had was community, organization, cooperation.

Everyone looked out for each other. That was then. Today, like we said, we can see the

changes. There are families struggling. We have situations that cause struggles in our

neighborhood today, but we still laugh. We still love. We still live. We still have

something in our future to look forward to. The anchorage of those that were there, we’re

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still trying to uphold. Some are doing better than others, where they can acquire more

land or get the lot next to ‘em, and some of ‘em have prospered, where they could do that

prior to the fall in all the housing crush and everything. So we still have some anchors in

our community. We still have some old businesses that have been there. We still have

some anchors there. We do have new churches: some larger, some smaller. Some come,

some go. But a thing our area really does not have is a place for our youth to play.

Though everyone who participated in the E. McNichols group made important

contributions to the understanding of this neighborhood and the relationship to the

dendroremediation project, we were extremely interested in continuing a conversation with this

particular participant because of the work she had been doing in the community. As indicated in

my introduction, the socio-spatial perspective (Gottdiener and Hutchison, 2014) and the concept

of public characters (Jacobs 1961, Duneier 2000) both helped me to interpret what I was seeing

and hearing and to place it in a larger context. I was challenged to identify these theories with

the understanding that if you take the time to ask, the neighborhood residents will tell you what

they want and what they need to bring back the life in their communities. While others see only

physical disorder, the heart and soul of these communities is still alive and well.

Participant 6 later provided us with a time to talk with her in detail about her fight for

change and the labor of love in obtaining information, seeking resources and even creating

blueprints of ideas to reconstruct the physical landscape of her community. We asked her to talk

more about her plans and she said the following:

EM Participant 6: I was like, “Man, this spot (E.McNichols/Roman Bleach site) would

make the greatest garden.” That would build this— neighborhood up and bring us

together, and I just started visionin’, so when I got home in ’05, and I just kept lookin’ at

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the number of different gardens— that the Greening (TGOD) were doing and I said, “I’m

goin’ to participate in they program. I was goin’ to classes everything, and then I started

in their program. And through their program, you have to develop— It’s called garden

resource program and the garden resource program, they take you through a number of

different—classes to help you develop—different ideas, teach you how to start it— how

you get your community active and engaged in it—help you with resources—as far as the

transplants and what you would plant, how you would plant it—marketing—If you

wanted to have a market, (farmer’s market) to get healthier—restore some of—the things

that—of our youth that we don’t have anymore—a wind system, bike trail, the fresh food.

We’d have horseshoes, gazebos. I would like to have soccer for the kids. We need that.

That’s somethin’ that we—used to play kickball, stickball—But for right in your own

neighborhood, I think this would be an enhancement.

Each of these responses helps to reveal the complex reality of these urban communities. In each

case, the physical appearance of the neighborhood, as viewed by an outsider, seems to indicate

abandonment and neglect. However, this belies the strong emotional attachments that people

have with particular places, as well as their hopes and plans for the future of those places.

Discussion and Conclusion

Over the years, many Detroit residents moved away because of unsafe conditions, loss of

community resources or to seek opportunities elsewhere, but many could not make the great

escape because of socio-economic reasons. Others are just “die-hards” who refuse to give up

their memories, their history or their place. I’d like to work with communities and begin to take

steps that encourage residents to invest their own labor back into the community. Whether it is

developing green spaces, art spaces, or cleaning up playgrounds, citizens more than ever want a

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chance to renew these urban spaces. By recognizing this complex relationship to place and

approaching residents on their own terms, both acknowledging their fears and their aspirations,

we believe that future green space projects may be better understood and accepted.

While I am concerned about other numerous issues regarding gentrification by the “New

Detroiters”, I am encouraged that I can participate in the first steps of change through

engagement. As a result of learning about social theories such as socio-spatial perspective

(Gottdiener and Hutchison, 2014) and public characters (Jacobs 1961, Duneier 2000), I am able

apply these concepts in our project with the understanding that if you take the time to ask, the

neighborhood will tell you what they want and what they need to bring back the life. When we

utilize these concepts, we are able to explain to others that the heart and soul of a community is

still alive, despite the physical appearance of disorder.

Works Cited

Associated Press. 2014. Detroit residents rally against tree planting in

contaminated park. May 23. Accessed 8/10/2016 at

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2014/05/detroit_residents_rally_agains.html

http://www.naacpldf.org/files/our-work/Detroit Housing Discrimination.pdf

Gottdiener, M. and Hutchison, R. 2010. The New Urban Sociology, 4th edition. Boulder, CO:

Westview Press.

Duneier, M., Hasan, H., and Carter, C. 2000. Sidewalk. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Draus, P. and Howard, C. (1999), Spying on an eyesore: Space, place, and urban decay, in Ray

Hutchison(ed.) Constructions of Urban Space (Research in Urban Sociology, Volume

5) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.59 - 79

Jacobs, J. 1961. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Random House.

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Figure 1.