Mapping Detroit: Land, Community, and Shaping a City

Great Lakes Books Series

by June Manning Thomas (Contributor), Monica Ponce de Leon (Foreword), Henco Bekkering (Editor)

One of Detroit's most defining modern characteristics-and most pressing dilemmas-is its huge amount of neglected and vacant land. In Mapping Detroit: Land, Community, and Shaping a City, editors June Manning Thomas and Henco Bekkering use chapters based on a variety of maps to shed light on how Detroit moved from frontier fort to thriving industrial metropolis to today's high-vacancy city. With contributors ranging from a map archivist and a historian to architects, urban designers, and urban planners, Mapping Detroit brings a unique perspective to the historical causes, contemporary effects, and potential future of Detroit's transformed landscape.

To show how Detroit arrived in its present condition, contributors in part 1, Evolving Detroit: Past to Present, trace the city's beginnings as an agricultural, military, and trade outpost and map both its depopulation and attempts at redevelopment. In part 2, Portions of the City, contributors delve into particular land-related systems and neighborhood characteristics that encouraged modern social and economic changes. Part 2 continues by offering case studies of two city neighborhoods-the Brightmoor area and Southwest Detroit-that are struggling to adapt to changing landscapes. In part 3, Understanding Contemporary Space and Potential, contributors consider both the city's ecological assets and its sociological fragmentation to add dimension to the current understanding of its emptiness. The volume's epilogue offers a synopsis of the major points of the 2012 Detroit Future City report, the city's own strategic blueprint for future land use.

Mapping Detroit explores not only what happens when a large city loses its main industrial purpose and a major portion of its population but also what future might result from such upheaval. Containing some of the leading voices on Detroit's history and future, Mapping Detroit will be informative reading for anyone interested in urban studies, geography, and recent American history.

Genres: History, Geography

252 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2015

About the author

Dr. June Manning Thomas is Centennial Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. Professor Thomas is author or editor of numerous books and other publications. Her husband, Dr. Richard W. Thomas, is Professor Emeritus of History at Michigan State University.

Reviews

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has beautiful and insightful maps, but understanding the accompanying jargon definitely benefits from some prior familiarity with urban studies. Now that this text is a few years old, I would love to see an update to the epilogue and more specific analysis and/or criticism of the “Detroit Future City” framework. It is expansive and impressive, especially the imagined green infrastructure and mixed “innovative” use spaces, but without careful consideration of the socio-political history of the city and region, I wonder how some of these revisions could inadvertently exacerbate long-entrenched patterns of inequality.

[Nate · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a collection of academic essays than a book, also woefully lacking in large and detailed maps

[Laura]

I loved the project here but this is not a book for amateurs. Lots of technical arguments by this group of urban planners that were a bit jargon-y, and just generally over my head. Maybe with more focus and determination I could have powered through, but this is not summer reading. It is a gorgeous book though - Wayne State Press is the publisher and did not skimp on number of images or the quality of the printing. That it was published as a coffee table book speaks to how important these prints are. This format allows for larger images, but is an incredibly awkward format in which to read scholarly articles with footnotes. Fun to flip through but I didn't get too far with the text.