Questions from first month in Detroit - part 1

December

Yikes, it's been a long November! This semester's wrapping up, though. One more and I'll be a real bona fide Urban Planner, just waiting for someone to employ my skillful self.

This thing is happening in Ann Arbor where people are starting to realize that homeless folks live here! And that it's really cold in Michigan. And that one underresourced warming center can't take care of them all.

It is BLOWING their MINDS.


Reading live tweets of the A2 council meetings always makes me angry in a really unproductive way, so I try not to read them. Besides, it's like being nerdy but not being nerdy enough to actually be out there and be cool and live tweet things myself. Well, I learned about investment analysis all day and now I have two kittens sleeping on top of me, so I'm not going anywhere.

Turning artists into beggars (ft. Aladdin)

Gwyddion Storm is an enterprising guy I used to chat with while walking past Borders. You can read the Ann Arbor News story about his "professional beggar"days from back in 2011. After a while he switched from panhandling to selling jewelry made of beautiful stones wrapped in copper wire.

I got this one a while ago for my mom

But apparently somebody has complained about him selling his stuff. Must have been some regulation-obsessed cat lady/dude, since Gwyddion doesn't bother anybody and is very careful to not obstruct foot traffic.

Xenophobia and Liberty Plaza

I've said this before, but the A2 city council meeting last night, well-documented by the politically active twitter denizens of the city, has brought it to my attention yet again.

There's nothing wrong with wanting a park to be safe. I enjoy safety. I'm actually a bit of a worry-wort, so I try to avoid scary situations. And of course, a city government has a responsibility to keep its public spaces high-quality and secure.

It's the way the conversation about Liberty Plaza goes that gets my goat. As reported by the Ann Arbor News, it's a place where "homeless people congregate." Oh, God forbid that homeless people exist in Ann Arbor,