slow down and stay awhile as the world speeds up
thanks for visiting, camelpolitan is on indefinite hiatus
camelpolitan is an independent webzine about skyview stomping grounds in cities.
A source of fresh, alternative perspectives
on social environment development in cities,
for anyone who is fascinated with the social life of all urban spaces.
NOT EVERYONE CAN BECOME A GREAT DESIGNER,
BUT A GREAT DESIGNER CAN COME FROM ANYWHERE
Guided by the mantra of inclusivity, camelpolitan is devoted
to promoting an eclectic array of players and projects
that reflect the diversity and zeitgeist of today's citymaking.
Zingy has wandered off somewhere in the world and gotten lost.
He was last seen stomping on Christo's Floating Piers in Italy.
Check back soon for his return.
WALKING
ON ISEO WATER
90 second BEAT
MOTOR CITY'S NEW ENGINE
DETROIT February 2016
part 1 of 2
Plans for a Detroit renaissance started news flashing years ago at the peak of the recession. Nobody outside Detroit could believe it. Then, the city declared bankruptcy, and the flame of opportunity for reinvention was ignited.
Today, signs of redevelopment abound. You can’t walk a block without seeing scaffolding outside a historical neo-classical or art deco building or a Caterpillar at work. Density is growing. Open air sitting rooms with street views and tidy, treelined sidewalks paving the way between community anchors are brimming with life.
The green backing Motor City’s transformation comes primarily from four major investors and donors: Dan Gilbert in Real Estate; Roger Penske in Transportation; Mike Ilitch in Sports and Entertainment; Kresge Foundation in Arts and Culture. They want to see people and companies return downtown after white flight drove masses to outlying suburbs during the 60’s and 70’s.
With impassioned vision for making this the city of the future, high-profile Dan Gilbert might be considered the Walt Disney of a theme city and Downtown Detroit a Disneyland for nextgen urbanites. A masterplanner sowing the seeds for a new generation of Detroiter and new roots in tech. Major league marketing genius is at play here.
Opportunity Detroit, the big downtown picture depicts a vibrant public realm, rich with parks and plazas, a state-of-the-art streetcar system called M-1 Rail, and affordable, modern residential lofts and office spaces – attractions intended to draw tech entrepreneurs and anyone seeking vibrant, sociable, art-filled, high quality living on the low. Build things that the young, restless, ambitious want, and the young, restless, ambitious will come.
The model appears effective, especially at the intersection of Woodward Avenue (aka M-1) and One Campus Martius, which overlooks Campus Martius Park onward toward the revitalized Detroit Riverfront. Known as “Detroit’s Gathering Place,” the redesigned 148 year-old Campus Martius Park is outfitted with vogue amenities – sandy beach, taco and beer/wine bar, community benches and tables, white noise water feature, and brisk cafe. A multifunctional park, as well as a transitional crossroads at the junction of six major pedestrian intersections, it bustles with diverse users, morning to night.
Properties of planning and architecture from an urban designer’s dream 21st century Monopoly board extend several blocks beyond this radial core.
Trendy businesses line Library Street, across Detroit Public Library and Park: Library Street Collective, a modern art gallery; Vicente’s Cuban Cuisine; Citizen Yoga; 7 Greens, a farm to fork, made-to-order salad bar; Nojo Kicks, a luxury sneakers shop; Cadillac Center PeopleMover Station. All the makings of a cool neighborhood pocket.
There’s The Belt, a public alley decorated with respectable grit, featuring graffiti art by celebrated bad boys like Shepard Fairey – strategically located outside Dan Gilbert’s Bedrock Real Estate offices. Ponyride, a community work-live-play incubator. Bon Bon Bon, an artisan chocolate boutique founded by Alexandra Clark, ranked in Forbes’ “30 Under 30” List. Historic Greektown. Comerica Park. Red Wings Detroit Events Center under construction. "Coming Soon" is everywhere.
Creative locally-owned businesses are booming downtown. No big name national clothing chains yet, except for a couple shops by local fashion hero, John Varvatos. No supermarkets yet either, although Whole Foods is an eight-minute drive up Woodward.
A more exciting option for produce, provisions, and some local fashion a short jaunt away is Eastern Market, another equally inspired yet different type of green economy. Homegrown, organic, and low-profile, this historic packing district represents a nourishing and socially equitable approach toward reviving Detroit, focused more on food than tech. With community service as the main objective, it is less intent on culling new genesis and more driven to sustaining legacy and heritage. A different kind of farming.
Opportunity? How often does a city get the chance to invent its future and preserve its past at the same time?
| read part 2 of 2 below |
 |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |
90 second BEAT
MOTOR CITY'S KITCHEN
DETROIT May 2016
part 2 of 2
If the kitchen is the heart of the home, then Eastern Market is the community counter.
1.4 miles by foot from downtown Campus Martius Park, the poster child of 21st Century civic space, Eastern Market is a small world apart with a quieter buzz. Both stomping grounds are at the centerpiece of different farm projects; one is cultivating tech, the other is cultivating food production. One is where you might go to lose yourself among strangers; the other is where you might go to find yourself among friends. Together, they provide experiential variety for the social animal in us.
“Nourishing Detroit for 125 Years,” the non-profit Eastern Market Corporation (EMC) recently released a 10-year plan for growing, nurturing, and uniting a diverse community through food processing and distribution. Since 1891, it has been a meat and produce packing district. Today, many surviving original buildings are being converted to house food-related businesses and multifamily residences. You can work, eat, and sleep in former slaughterhouses.
The low-rise buildings and small scale of this historic district make it the kind of less-is-more neighborhood for easy walking, talking, and playing that is textbook Jane Jacobs. The goal is to preserve its authenticity and heritage, while slowly transitioning into a LIFT neighborhood, with 1,000 high-quality, mixed-income residential units.
Dequindre Cut Greenway Trail, an old Grand Trunk Railroad line which ribbons the eastern boundary of the neighborhood, provides 1.35 miles of below-grade, recreational walking-biking connectivity between Detroit Riverfront and Eastern Market. Industrial lofts, food packing and processing plants, and the Detroit Market Garden – a pilot program by The Greening of Detroit that shortens the distance between farm and market and harvests crops to sell in Eastern Market sheds – line the trail. A landscape architect’s dream.
A major force behind EMC is Dan Carmody, hired as president in 2006 to manage and promote food access and food systems in Detroit. A humble, soft-spoken man, he embodies the understated, organic nature of this project. With plans to develop the district into a regional food production hub, he’s a unique developer who looks good in many hats – manager, preservationist, ambassador, accelerator, mentor. You could say the natural resources were already on site for him, but in the hands of someone with a less socially responsible, less sensitive approach toward development, Eastern Market could become another gentrification project that displaces the working class people who made it what it is. Instead, his work gives back to those people.
Dan cares about increasing entry-level jobs and solving unemployment for people with lower skills. Breeding food startups instead of just trendy lofts and boutiques. Not only providing healthy nourishment for a former food and job desert, but empowering people to become entrepreneurs in a vertically-integrated food production chain, from growing to packing to distributing to cooking to serving.
EMC has partnered with FoodLab Detroit to create shared food kitchens, which serve as minority-owned business incubators. At the time of our visit, there were 3 kitchens, on the way to 5 total; 11 people were licensed to use these kitchens; 18 startup food businesses had been generated.
Walking around Eastern Market with him, you immediately sense the trust and esteem he has earned from the community. He gets the kind of smiles from everyone he passes that acknowledge him as a friend and mutual partner in longterm goals. He doesn’t just talk community engagement, he walks it. He is the change we want to see in the world.
After enjoying a free Tuesday yoga class and picking up some fruits, organic body lotion, and a yoga tank top at the market, camelpolitan asked Cynda D’Hondt, owner of Breathe in Detroit, the best walking route to downtown. She hesitated and tentatively mapped out a path, saying that even though it’s only a mile away, no one thinks of walking there – people are still on driving autopilot.
“However,” she added, “Anyone you pass will say hi and give you a smile because they will be surprised to see someone else on the sidewalk.”
At that point, Joy Van Bael, the yoga teacher, who overheard our conversation, said, “I’m headed in the opposite direction, but I’d be happy to drive you anywhere you want to go.”
As land grazers, camelpolitan politely declined the ride and took the walk, touched by the kind of folks that make Detroit so special.
 |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |
 |
more BEATS
From urban engineering to corporate blogs, romancing the future with visions of smart cities, living buildings, streets with self-driving cars, and streets with no cars is as popular a cultural phenomenon as downloading apps that will micromanage our time and energy to a nanosecond.
When futurism is the norm, thriving vestiges of the past can be surprising and refreshing.
The future city is low volume.
Tokyo is gradually recovering from the Lost Decade. Although Ginza, Harajuku, and Akihabara bustle with streetlife and head-turning photo ops, the look and pace have barely changed in 25 years.
neon angels: shedding light on noble LA
Los Angeles — the legendary city of 1940‘s films and romans noirs. Haunted by a late centennial reputation for sprawl, pollution, and blight, the City of Angels is now shedding its dark and unsustainable past for a sunnier future with multimodal transportation, high density housing, mixed use neighborhoods, and a congenial public realm.
Do we need another article on what Millennials want and how companies and cities can attract them? Must we generalize, categorize, and shelve?
In the spirit of universality, maybe we should start paying attention to the similarities instead of the differences between multiple generations.
searching for Andy Goldsworthy
Let’s get lost. Away from it all. Among the cypress, eucalyptus, and pines of the Presidio. And look for Andy Goldsworthy sculptures that are as balanced in the woods as they are counterbalanced.
power to the people has arrived... through landscapes powered by the people
Sustainable urban architecture goes beyond landscaping in an integrated planning project led by the people. Peek at the future of designing cities for social change.
Where’s an urbanista to find exciting social landscapes in suburbia?
Increasingly, many ways of meeting much of the criteria that make a suburban experience “urban” can be found, of all places, in the repackaging of the shopping mall... into a town center.
Cities of the future have resilient infrastructure, resource-efficient buildings, and sophisticated mobility, but do they have classic neon?
Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz: the cloverleaf of open space and free expression
Thanks to the National Park Service, Alcatraz offers us a unique place to explore, stroll, and escape to. Between September 27, 2014 and April 26, 2015, we get the bonus of an extraordinary art exhibit for the standard admission of a r/t boat ride. “@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz,” a site-specific art installation on the famed prison-turned-park reminds us not only the value of parks and art, but the importance of freedom to create and enjoy both.
On a recent Atlanta trip, a source suggested that camelpolitan check out a development 45 minutes outside the city. It was described as a sustainable community still somewhat under the radar. We were intrigued and excited to go.