This HuffPost post, written by Detroit Revitalization Fellow Bradford Frost, has been circulating around facebook / the blogosphere in the past few days. Let me start by saying Frost's playbook of focusing on fundamentals (i.e. city services), building community, and standing up to solve challenges is on point, and in my opinion more or less correct*. I'd continue by saying that Bradford seems like a cool dude and I think it'd be super fun to grab a beer with him and others who hold his viewpoint and discuss, especially because it's clear that he's passionate and has a well informed perspective.

And now, to something more critical (sorry, I always feel a little bit guilty about laying it on thickly).

You'll notice, perhaps, that Frost's post is framed (notice the use of the word "you") to speak directly to city leaders. It's a call to action of the political and cultural players in the city asking them to do something, and live up to their responsibilities as civic leaders. This is reasonable, but I think it's the wrong frame.

What I think is more appropriate, accurate, effective, and important is to point the finger squarely back at ourselves. Solving these problems is not the express responsibility of the city and it's leaders (Moreover, I think trying to "fix the problem" is the wrong way of thinking about our situation...it's about shaping, not fixing, but more to come on that later). We are the city and we are it's leaders. To punt on our responsibilities as citizens, and downplay our own agency as members of this community is a miss. I think it'll lead to worse outcomes, and it's an inaccurate (and destructive) narrative to communicate to people who are yearning to be part of solutions to community problems. I also think we need to affirm the fact that we have agency instead of throwing our hands up, mailing in our agency, and expecting "the city" to solve all our problems.

It's actually quite the opposite in Detroit. Because our institutions are weak and distributed, citizens have an uncommon amount of latitude (and I'd say responsibility  to create something remarkable and impactful. For a city our size, the amount of opportunity for entrepreneurship and intrapraneurship we have is unprecedented. We have a lot of influence as citizens in Detroit. We need to believe it, and embrace the civic responsibility that comes with it, not rebuke our "leaders" and sit on our hands.

Absolutely, city leaders have an important, and powerful role to play in reinventing Detroit - but it won't happen because of that small group of people alone. It will happen because of all of us, city leaders included - we all have a role to play. We need more people shouting this from the tops of every skyscraper in the city, exclaiming that we all have agency to improve this city and that we need to participate to make it happen.

We and the city are one in the same, the city is not our leaders alone. Yes, leadership matters (at least for now) but we all have something to bring to the table and we all have to bring that to the table to make this city work, in my opinion.

That's the most important role of leaders, creating narratives and opportunities which unlock the potential and agency of Detroit's citizens to live out what they bring to the table - large or small.

I agree with Frost's impassioned plea:

As unsexy as it is, the tone and substance of the work ahead must show our grit and determination to achieve these three aims. We must channel all of our energy on these tasks to meaningfully reset Detroit's lurching and fitful progress so it may meaningfully emerge into a city built for growth, prosperity and an inclusive future.

I just think relegating this work to the realm of "city leaders" is impractical, inaccurate, and dangerous. Let's do this. To borrow from the University of Michigan Men's Basketball Team: "We [all] on."

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*That being said, it's one thing to identify the issues as fundamentals, building community, and standing up to solve challenges. It's another thing to have ideas on how to actually do those things. If I was probing Frost in person, that's what I would lead with. That'd actually be a good future post...talking about how to actually do that stuff.