I know it is incredibly presumptuous of me to assume that I can write a blog for and about a city of which I have never lived. I know that I will probably receive a lot of criticism from the real residents of Detroit when they find out. Not to make an excuse, but I have gotten close(ish). When I was young, I lived in the suburbs and I did my undergraduate in architecture at the University of Michigan. After graduating, I got as close as Madison Heights, before deciding that I was going to leave the state altogether for New York. Leaving, however, has brought me closer to the city than I have ever been before. My graduate studies have (somewhat unwillingly) thrust me into a dialog with the "shrinking city" of Detroit, and looking at the city as an outsider has opened my eyes to its infinite potential. So there you have it: I'm a inauthentic Detroit ex-patriot living in Syracuse, NY (for now)... but hopefully you can put all that behind you, just pretend I never said a thing.
This is me, and a very small elephant.
