The Only Inexhaustible Resource

Just a (very) few gems among many from today's events:

-  A bus tour of downtown Detroit and its environs, beginning at Belle Isle Park (an Olmsted park in the Detroit River), ending at the hulking mass of the Russell Industrial Center (an immense Albert Kahn factory from 1927, covering 2.2 million sf, being reborn as a workshop to 150 artists, craftspeople, and small-scale entrepreneurs), and covering several fascinating zones in between.

At the midpoint of the tour, the bus stopped at the Heidelberg Project, a semi-abandoned residential block that artist and resident Tyree Guyton has transformed over the last 20 years into one huge canvas.

The photos don't really do justice--to walk along Heidelberg Street and observe its myriad components up close makes a very strong case for the transformational potential of cities, the richness of the urban fabric, and the significance of the public realm. Heidelberg is but one person's reimagination of what Detroit--what Gov. Jennifer Granholm, also in attendance today, called the "poster child for urban reinvention"--could be.

- Pier Giorgio di Cicco, poet laureate for the City of Toronto, mentioned later in the day that creative energy is, in fact, the "only inexhaustible resource we have," which bears repeating here. A creative city, he said, is "a city of loyalty, of affection for itself." It is incumbent upon artists, designers and entrepreneurs, to "bring the delight of invention into the public realm," because "the public realm is the barometer of a healthy city."

-  John Howkins shared a brilliantly simple formula for a critical approach to urban regeneration:

* Enjoy the city (sense it);

* Know the city (map it);

* Use the city (exploit it);

* Maintain the city (sustain it).

Provocatively, Howkins also discussed the pitfalls of identifying sustainability, however nebulously defined, as a goal for urban regeneration. Can something as dynamic and ever-changing as a city be well-served with static, "sustainable" definitions and solutions? Would it not be more appropriate and engaging for them to be unsustainable, fleeting, spontaneous?

More tomorrow...

Comments

[mr]

cool to see the form of a city become easily messed right up. too bad it doesn't look very pleasing or have anything interesting to say. but still, i suppose, it is a statement in itself.

i shudder to think how my neighbourhood would change in some apocalyptic event.

[Chris]

I'm not sure the artist is really aiming for "pleasing" per se...most of what's there is materials culled from the abandoned surroundings. Maybe provocative is a more useful word.

I disagree that there's nothing interesting being said though. How does one make something from nothing? What's left when everything is taken away?

[Nia E. McGowan]

Umm I need help on my science homework and the question is; Compare renewable and inexhaustible resources. Well it's not acually a question it's a sentence. My homework is due today and I need help! I'm only in third grade. Can you help me?