DICHOTOMY 10: INVITATION OUT OF EXILE
This is the culmination of a four year quest for self respect, four years of searching for one quality a people must possess to call their “Home” a “City” and a “City” a “Home.” Without this quality a person lives in nothing more than a collection of steel, stone, sweat, and despair. To deny a city of its destiny and existence is to deny the presence of real people; people who laugh, cry, rejoice just as you. There is not a faceless mass but rather a mass of living beings, an unquantifiable collection of life. A minute line drawn of ink should not be allowed to define or repress life-yet it has. Do not think about what you read but rather act on what you read. Each article represents the joy of diversity, and the quiet pleasures of existence. So please: I ask you to read this and irrationalize, question the norm, pierce the vales of ignorance and ponder a greater future. This is dedicated to a city.
Contributors
Robert G. Leisey: THE AMERICAN EHTOS AND URBAN EMIGRATION
Bruno Leon: CITY IN THE MIST
Stephen Vogel: THE SUBURBANIZATION OF DETROIT
Robert Arens: LEXLCON
Jerzey Staniszkis: THE DETROIT RIVER
Daniel L. Faoro: THE ARCHITECTURE PROFESSION: SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Rochelle Martin: TRAVELOGUE
Clyde Wilson: ROBOCOP MEETS THE GREEN HORNET
My great and beautiful Detroit is a metropolis, as the ancient Greeks viewed it, the mother city of a state or colony. The area within the paper boundary, the soul, that suburbs mere children. My Detroit, as in our own beings, finds its purpose in the expression of inner composure: an embodiment of its people and I as one of its believers. My city is a fabric woven of almost incomprehensible diversity of cultures, histories, and emotions. This is what makes it beautiful, but I am still quite ashamed of my city. I am ashamed of my city’s emotional construction. I do realize we try to strive for greatness in everything we do externally. Yet, internally as a city, as unified binded people, we exist in chaotic turmoil, wallowing in blame, hoping to find solutions. Our present existence is a summation of reactions. It is time to stop reacting and start acting (personal responsibility - not blame). I believe Detroit can be harmonious once more, but it is time to ask ourselves what it means to be a city, a great city.