“This was about keeping hope alive – the past is not who we are.” “This event allowed us to see successful strategies (from other cities) that can translate to our own community.” “I feel confident our community can change and…
“This was about keeping hope alive – the past is not who we are.”
“This event allowed us to see successful strategies (from other cities) that can translate to our own community.”
“I feel confident our community can change and make strength in diversity a reality.”
These were just a few out of 180 positive comments from over 200+ audience members at the Reimagining the Region: Building a New Detroit Metropolis forum, centered around Andrea Torrice’s documentary series The New Metropolis, hosted at the Emagine Royal Oak Theater on September 15. "Detroit has been deteriorating for over 40 years because of disinvestment," said Ponsella Hardaway, Executive Director of Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength (MOSES), one of the sponsors of the event. "The suburbs had been secure, but over the last 15 years they’ve been experiencing the same decline as the urban core. There's also been a lot of competition between municipalities. I hope this event starts to break down the barriers so that all communities, suburban and urban, can cooperate rather then compete. But the question is: how do we cooperate? This event gives community leaders the opportunity to come together and discuss how to do this."
Award-winning filmmaker Andrea Torrice launched the evening dialogue with some clips from her recent documentary, The New Metropolis, which highlights issues facing America's first suburbs to examine U.S. land use and transportation policy. "The film series is called The New Metropolis because old policies which separated cities and suburbs are no longer in our economic self-interest," said Torrice. "We need a new vision for our regions in the future."
Stephen Henderson, an editor for the Detroit Free Press and host of Detroit Public Television's American Black Journal moderated a panel discussion and dialogue with the audience, which was filmed and streamed live by Detroit Public TV. (Watch the event via streaming video on The New Metropolis website here.) "Detroit is the home of the original idea of the suburbs. The highway system here, which is more complex and over-developed than any place in the country, made it possible since the 1950s for people to leave the city. So, we have more decaying infrastructure, especially in the inner-ring suburbs because they’re older," said Henderson.
Conan Smith, Executive Director of the Michigan Suburbs Alliance, which also co-sponsored the event, said, "Suburban communities were created to drive segregation in the '40s, '50s, and '60s. These films (The New Metropolis) speak about strategies to overcome important stuff for us. Overcoming segregation to realize its promise, as seen in The New Metropolis framework – that is the hope of this experience."
The forum was co-sponsored by Detroit Public Television, Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength (MOSES), Michigan Suburbs Alliance, Michigan Department of Civil Rights, Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion, Model D Media, Working Films, and Torrice Productions.
108 evaluations were collected from the audience, when asked if they believed the Forum highlighted critical issues facing Detroit and the surrounding region, 99 said they agreed or strongly agreed. 101 said they thought the films highlighted stories that will be use in developing strategies in Detroit. 83 audience members said they are feeling more positive about finding new strategies to work together.
The sponsors and organizers are now putting into action many of the suggestions for follow up by the audience, including opportunities for future screenings hosted by partnerships of local organizations as well as a listserv that will allow us to stay connected to the attendees – 160+ of whom shared their contact information. Nineteen different organizations immediately committed to hosting additional screenings, from churches and synagogues to inner city youth groups to district libraries to Eastern Michigan University.
This event was part of The New Metropolis civic engagement dialogue series taking place across the country on revitalizing America’s older communities and is made possible through the support of the Ford and Surdna Foundations. Working Films co-organized two strategy summits for this Detroit event, bringing together local community stakeholders to secure their input and commitment. Robert West, Working Films’ co-founder and Executive Director, said, “This forum was a model of how to use a documentary series as a catalyst for authentic change. Community stakeholders were involved with our planning process six months prior to this event, and stayed focused on local challenges and concrete outcomes.
One comment from an audience member seemed to sum up the extraordinarily positive energy at the conclusion of the event: collaboration, unity, community.
A key component of the Land of Opportunity documentary project is the production and distribution of interactive web-based videos designed to engage and educate viewers on core urban issues of affordable housing, urban redevelopment/planning, (im)migration and economic displacement. We are building an open-source interactive web player for our video content that provides access to an ever-expanding content-rich environment that amplifies and contextualizes the storylines and issues we explore. The goal is to create a multi-dimensional story space that will increase engagement and inspire action. The interactive nature of these webisodes will allow users to relate the stories of post-Katrina New Orleans to what is happening in their own backyards. We have partnered with the prestigious Mozilla Foundation’s WebMadeMovies initiative to create the Land of Opportunity interactive web player.
As they watch a video, users will be presented with "triggers" that appear during key moments. These triggers will enable users to access additional content drawn from a curated “knowledge-base” organized by the filmmakers in conjunction with educational, community and data partners. This additional content will feature video, audio, data, stills, articles, maps, diagrams, scholarly essays, online action campaigns and so forth. While watching the webisodes, users will also be prompted to provide information about themselves (i.e. zip code, age-range, income range etc.) and will then access targeted data that relates the themes and issues in the video content to what’s happening in their own towns and cities (i.e. number of blighted homes in their neighborhood, immigrants rights campaigns in their community, urban planning initiatives in their city etc). In addition, the triggers will allow users to see the latest news and what people are saying in real time about the issues on Google, Facebook and Twitter, etc. Eventually users will also be able to record and upload their own content and triggers. This interface creates a holistic viewing experience that transcends the current limitations of viewing video on the web. It also furthers our goal of inspiring dialogue and analysis that connects the dots between the interrelated core urban issues presented in Land of Opportunity. For students and researchers, the player will be akin to having a dynamic streaming bibliography—video and text can now be used in tandem, rather than as separate resources. All our additional content will be created and organized in collaboration with community, educational and data partners to maximize engagement and impact around our core urban issues.
Chicken & Egg Pictures’ Mother Wit Human Rights Fund is now