Hundreds come out to help beautify Detroit's Brightmoor neigbborhood (Royal Oak: 2013, houses)

[Tekkie]

More than 300 volunteers, many wearing neon T-shirts, spent Saturday planting wildflowers and cleaning up a section of the Brightmoor area of Detroit as part of the Blight Elimination — 100 Houses Event, organized by the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries and Mitch Albom Charities with the Blight Authority.

Hundreds come out to help beautify Detroit's Brightmoor neigbborhood | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

[Retroit]

White suburbanites...we're so bad.

[Tekkie]

Originally Posted by Retroit

White suburbanites...we're so bad.

I have never implied or stated that. I'm a white suburbanite myself. Born in Royal Oak, raised in Ferndale and Madison Heights. The city needs the white suburbanites (and all suburbanites for that matter) to contribute to its resurgence.

I know you think I'm someone else. Who was it you implied I was in the other thread? detroitlove was it? But that's not the case. I'm just a young, white suburbanite who moved back here a few months ago and I'm excited about the potential this region has to be great (for once in my lifetime). Definitely not a cheerleader here, just trying to be optimistic for a change.

[zthatzmanz28]

Great to see the residents of Detroit turn out in force!!

[detwahDJ]

Originally Posted by Tekkie

I have never implied or stated that. I'm a white suburbanite myself. Born in Royal Oak, raised in Ferndale and Madison Heights. The city needs the white suburbanites (and all suburbanites for that matter) to contribute to its resurgence.

I know you think I'm someone else. Who was it you implied I was in the other thread? detroitlove was it? But that's not the case. I'm just a young, white suburbanite who moved back here a few months ago and I'm excited about the potential this region has to be great (for once in my lifetime). Definitely not a cheerleader here, just trying to be optimistic for a change.

You don't have the appropriate level of bitterness.
The bashers don't see this as a phase, lull, readjustment, temporary chapter in Detroit's history. They prefer to see it as Detroit's demise, a permanent situation, a ghost town, thus validating their disdain for the city and its residents.
In pursuit of that validation they love to tag progressive and constructive views as empty "cheerleading".
It's great that many suburbanites have the progressive view that we are a local and regional "community" and not disconnected entities - just need to get everybody on board imo.

[fmax]

Now we'll get to see if Detroiters are.... ambitious enough to keep it clean, this time.

[Retroit]

Originally Posted by Tekkie

I have never implied or stated that. I'm a white suburbanite myself. Born in Royal Oak, raised in Ferndale and Madison Heights. The city needs the white suburbanites (and all suburbanites for that matter) to contribute to its resurgence.

I know you think I'm someone else. Who was it you implied I was in the other thread? detroitlove was it? But that's not the case. I'm just a young, white suburbanite who moved back here a few months ago and I'm excited about the potential this region has to be great (for once in my lifetime). Definitely not a cheerleader here, just trying to be optimistic for a change.

Sorry for not being clear enough that I was being sarcastic and that my comments were not directed at you, but merely a commentary on the subject of the article. White suburbanites are criticized by many black Detroiter leaders/experts as being the root cause of all that is wrong with Detroit, but whenever there are these clean-up events, notice who always shows up in disproportionately high numbers?

And there is nothing wrong about being a cheerleader for Detroit. It's just a matter of what side of Detroit you are being a cheerleader for: 1. the side that is all inclusive and welcomes help and valid criticism from outsiders or 2. the side that blindly believes there is no need to improve the status quo in Detroit and any attempt to do so is an attempt by racist outsiders to put down and take over the city. Again, this accusation is not directed at you but the broader subject.

And my comments about detroitlove on the other thread were not directed at you but at another poster who unwarrantly attacked - in a detroitlove sort of way - a valid comment about Whole Foods that was clearly not intended as a negative criticism of Detroit. It's that overreactive defensiveness against that turns people off.

[Cliffie]

It's way past time that Brightmoor saw a little spiffing up.