Detroit in 21 Hours

 Detroit

Where the Party At?

 Geographers ask three questions: Where is it? Why is it there? So what? 

Followers of this blog know that I apply these questions to all kinds of things in both the human and natural realm. Today. write simply to share a "Where?" question with very little insight about the "Why?" or the implications -- at least so far.

The hedonistic scene above is from a short video on BBC, representing decades of escalation in the party atmosphere of the Spanish island of Ibiza. I found it after hearing The Nightclub that Changed Ibiza, which was today's 4:50 am (Boston time) segment of Witness History. 

I think that this story got my attention because the place transitioned from a hedonistic counterculture to a place reserved for the extremely wealthy.

Since neither the audio nor the video include a map, I add one here. It does begin to address the "Why?" question. Ibiza is part of Spain, but far enough from the mainland to have served as a refuge in the Franco dictatorship. It is surrounded by water and by definition has the Mediterranean climate that is so good for relaxation: mild winters and low-humidity summers. The map also reveals that the island is part of the Balearic archipelago, which features several other party destinations.

Burn Pits of Iraq

On NPR's Morning Edition, journalist Leila Fadel interviewed anthropologist Kali Rubaii of Purdue University about her research into the ongoing health problems experience both by U.S. veterans and Iraqi civilians, because of the unregulated burning of mixed waste during the wars there.

In the 1970s and 1980s, newly emerging environmental laws were widely ignored on military bases in the United States. This changed at some point in the 1990s, personnel were retrained, and those bases began to come into compliance. The case of Iraq, however, highlights the long-term damage done by war.

Children in Mosul, from Professor Rubaii's 2020 article
Birth Defects and the Toxic Legacy of War in Iraq

This is a particularly difficult example that illustrates the severe damage done by long-term exposure to toxic chemicals. It is as if we either learned nothing from Love Canal or chose to ignore what we did learn.

City Champions

As I prepare a full slate of classes for the fall semester, I enjoy planning the weekly activities of Discovering Brockton, a First-Year Seminar I offer to students in the Commonwealth Honors program at Bridgewater State University. 

Class chat in Brockton City Hall. Photo: Brian Benson, BSU

In 2019, we were fortunate to have Brian Benson of our university publicity office join us for a day. His article City Champions remains the best summary of what we try to do in the class. 

For two semesters during the pandemic, I offered this class fully online. I was grateful that so many collaborators in the region helped me to have meaningful video class sessions in which they shared various facets of the community. Videoconferencing, however, did not provide the kinds of insights that arise from driving or walking around a place with a geographer. 

For that, I created a series of Windshield and Sidewalk Surveys, with the help of my artist son who happened to be visiting for a few weeks as the 2020 semester was about to begin. See the playlists Windshield Surveys, Sidewalk Surveys 1, and Sidewalk Surveys 2 to join some of the fun.

Lagniappe

Championing the City of Champions (2012)

Geographic Lens on New Bedford (2017)

Brockton Honors (2020)

Monterrey COIL Project: Livable Cities (2022)

And more news about the Department of Geography.

Students tour City Hall in 2007, the second time 
I offered this course. See my Geography of Brockton 
web page, which I can no longer update.

Wall Street Over Haiti

 In The Ransom, NYT outlines nearly two centuries of interventions by France and the United States that -- combined with the collusion of internal elites -- have perpetuated debt and disarray in Haiti. Even coffee is implicated.

US Military in Haiti, 1920 Image: NYT

Detroit Museum Visit

I have been teaching Detroit: Arts City for several years, without having ever been to the city. Some people are surprised, because a lot of my teaching is about places I have been. Finally getting back to Chicago and Wisconsin for family visits last week, 

I was glad when my spouse suggested a stop in Detroit. We saw as much as we could manage in just 21 hours, mostly in two of the city's many museums: Detroit Institute of Arts and Detroit Historical Museum. The former is a global treasure -- the fact that bureaucrats seriously considered selling off its contents as a "rescue" plan is what got me interested in the study of the city in the first place. My son wrote a most excellent paper arguing against this deeply flawed and ignorant plan.

These are two institutions that tell a lot of stories, so my snapshots hardly do either of them justice. Still, for those who have never been, I hope that the slides below from our quick visit will inspire an appreciation for some facets of this remarkable city and its cultural treasures. 

Please click the right arrows to advance slides, and click the ... three dots below each image to expand the captions. Apologies that Flickr "updates" do not make this a bit more user-friendly. You can also go directly to the Flickr album if that works better for you or you want to look at a single image more carefully.

I look forward to sharing these with my honors colloquium students in the fall.

Rosa Parks, Detroiter

Rosa Parks is one of the most famous participants in the Great Migration, but most people who know her name do not know that she migrated! This included me until very recently, when I learned about her experiences in Detroit, where she spent a bit more than half of her life. 

Icon of civil disobedience: justice sometimes
requires breaking unjust laws.

Despite the success of her role reducing racial discrimination in Alabama by challenging segregation on buses in 1955 -- perhaps even because of that success -- she was unable to find work there and was forced to escape, first to Virginia and then to Detroit, Michigan. There she worked for U.S. Rep. John Conyers for many years. 

After retirement, she was assaulted in her own apartment and forced to move. Little Caesars Pizza mogul Mike Ilich privately paid her rent for many subsequent years, though this arrangement seems to have ended during her final years.

The logo I have seen in 2-D throughout
the USA is 3-D throughout Detroit,
even in the Detroit Historical Museum.

Water Deep Dive (The Takeaway)

I usually find The Takeaway from WNYC to be compelling radio. Even in the context of the general excellence of the program, the broadcast I am listening to on WGBH 89.7 is so exceptional,  that even as I listen, I am preparing this post as part of making the broadcast required listening for most of my classes.

Deep Dive: Water as a Human Right

Even if you are not in one of those courses, I strongly encourage you to listen to Water, a single episode in the program's Deep Dive series. As the title suggests, the scope of this episode is ambitious; one might even say daunting.

In just 48 minutes, journalists Melissa Harris-Perry, Dorian Warren and an impressive array of guests connect water insecurity in the United States to human concerns ranging from physical and mental health to racial inequality and political stability.

Their conversation stretches from Chicago and Detroit to the Navajo Nation and to the world beyond. The program ends with a serious of important questions about how we use water, from the global level to the level of individual households.

Lagniappe

Only one of the guests is identified as a geographer, but a geographic perspective is woven throughout the conversations. It is, in fact, a good example of political ecology, the theoretical outlook that has informed my approach to environmental geography since my doctoral studies. 

Coffee Cups without the Coffee

Note: This entry is cross-posted on my new blog, Doctor Potato Head.

Many people know that my #CoffeeMaven priorities are more about the farmers than the coffee itself (though I love the coffee itself!). I use the tag #ThankTheFarmers on many of the words and images I share; this little story is an example of gratitude that extends to all kinds of farmers – not just the beloved cafeteros in my life.

Two of those farmers are Ron and Connie of Maribett Farm, with whom we have many kinds of connections, agricultural and otherwise. While helping us with some permaculture projects in our back yard, they recently left this gift on our back porch. They even sent the photos, since we were not home at the time.

The plant is Colocasia esculenta. It immediately reminded me of a plant I know as elephant ear, but I thought I was mistaken because this plant is pretty small, and the elephant ear I have seen in Nicaragua has individual leaves almost as big as I am. 

A quick internet search confirmed my original hunch, and browsing my Flickr albums of Nicaragua travels brought me to the comparison I was thinking of.

I think our farmer friends chose this plant because of the name used by the vendor: Coffee Cups. Even if they did not intend this, it was the first thing I noticed! This was the first time I had seen or heard that name. The gift is a great example of how my friends have helped me to develop my #CoffeeMaven identity – that of a completist who endeavors to learn about all possible aspects of coffee. 

The notes from the Proven Winners company mentions that the plant is toxic to both pets and humans, even though the Latin name of the species indicates that it is edible. In fact, Colocasia esculenta is a leading food crop throughout the tropics. The top is known as elephant ear, but the bottom is known as taro (malanga in Spanish), a root that is readily edible and resembles a potato.

It is, in fact, one of several tubers in the lineup of potato-esque roots from which the popular snack Terra Chips are made.

Lagniappe: Thirsty Plant

Long before I saw – and ate – this plant in Nicaragua, I had learned that it can be a problematic invasive plant, at least in one setting. When we took a glass-bottom boat tour of San Marcos Springs in Texas, we learned that hydrologists had calculated how much the Edwards Aquifer was losing through the evapotranspiration from the enormous leaves of plants that surrounded the spring-fed waterways along the escarpment. I do not remember the number, of course, but they were making comparisons to the water demand of a small city.

Unfettered Rockets

 

Famous environmental radical Richard
Nixon signing the National Environmental
Policy Act (NEPA) on January 1, 1970.

President Nixon was no radical, of course, but he did sign a number of common-sense environmental laws that have provided for improved protection of land, water, and public health for the past half-century.

One of these is the National Environmental Policy Act, which created the Environment Protection Agency and instituted the requirement that any large project involving the Federal government would require an assessment of its potential environmental, economic, and health impacts. What would be more inappropriate, after all, than for one arm of the Federal government to damage an environment that other Federal agencies were endeavoring to protect? 

This is all on my mind as I read about the Federal Aviation Administration green-lighting the latest ego trip of a certain billionaire with extra-planetary ambitions. The New York Times headline tells us that SpaceX Wins Environmental Approval for Launch of Mars Rocket, but one must read the article itself to realize how errant that decision is and how many aspects of the project merit review. It will push people out of their homes and disrupt access to a nearby beach on a frequent basis. 

Even a cursory glance at the map of the area in question -- where SpaceX already has some facilities -- shows that it is in an extremely sensitive coastal location, surrounded by fragile barrier islands, wildlife management areas, and a rare kind of estuary. 

Having lived in the region -- and having taught environmental geography about a mile from the site -- I can think of several more aspects of this location that warrant review. Brownsville is in the Lower Rio Grande Valley -- the delta of the Rio Grande -- which is superlative in several relevant ways.

The four-county area is overwhelmingly Hispanic and low-income, suggesting two ways in which local power may not be exercised fully and fairly in this complex process. Moreover, this region is the area in which the seasonal flyways of many protected migratory birds converge. In fact, the majority of the birds found anywhere in the United States are found at least seasonally in this region. Certainly the potential interactions between these birds and rocket launches is worthy of study. 

It could be that a thorough NEPA review would still allow for this project to go forward; we will not know unless the Biden Administration does its job and insists on it. Even if the project is approved, however, the thorough review required by Nixon's pen would almost certainly lead to useful modifications of the project.

Lagniappe: Local Voice

It is gratifying to see our old friend Jim Chapman mentioned in the article -- the entire region would probably be a parking lot by now if it were not for him and other brave activists in the Valley.