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Lean, Mean and Green: The next Detroit, in a documentary on DPTV
Don’t rebuild. Instead, rethink, urge filmmaker Carrie LeZotte and author John Gallagher. And if you want to see what can result when that happens in challenged cities like Detroit, tune in to our Detroit Journalism Cooperative partner DPTV at 9 p.m. to see the documentary film, “Lean, Mean and Green.” It offers a glimpse of Detroit’s freshest, forward-looking projects and some in other cities that maybe can help drive some ideas here.
LeZotte, like many of us, took inspiration from Detroit Free Press writer Gallagher’s recent works: “Reimagining Detroit: Opportunities for Redefining an American City” and “Revolution Detroit: Strategies for Urban Reinvention.” Indeed, the pair are among the top books I recommend to people who say they want to understand Detroit. In a city where the past, of course, is prologue, Gallagher both respects the history of the city and its people and looks forward. He asks AND answers questions about what new history could be written.
While doing so, he visits urban farms, business incubators, specialty museums, public art projects, outdoor recreation centers and other creative public, private and community ventures. LeZotte is there with a camera, and what results is an energetic, inspiration, people-focused story about what’s possible here in Detroit.
Some people say these cities are finished. … Other people disagree.
Tune in to see if you agree.
-By WDET’s Sandra Svoboda
@WDETSandra and nextchapter@wdet.org
in Blight, Detroit Public TV, DJC, Neighborhoods, WDET -
DPTV’s Christy McDonald talks bankruptcy on PBS NewsHour
News of the deals reached between pensioners and the city last week drew national attention, including from PBS. Detroit Public Television’s Christy McDonald appeared on NewsHour to discuss how the deal came about and its terms. McDonald is the host of the weekly MiWeek public affair program on DPTV, our Detroit Journalism Cooperative partner.
Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr had been publicly discussing cuts of up to 34 percent to pension payments. So when the agreements were announced that included 4.5 percent reductions for non-uniform groups and zero cuts for police and fire, many were surprised.
McDonald broke down the process on the program.
You don’t come to the table first with your best deal. You have to start the negotiation. And those negotiations have been coming fast and furious ever since the city put its first plan of adjustment on the table about a month or so ago, which really is the road map of how Detroit is going to get itself out of bankruptcy.
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CONGRATULATIONS to Stephen Henderson! Pulitzer win for commentary
Stephen Henderson, moments after learning of his win. Photo courtesy Nancy Kaffer, Detroit Free Press
For his columns about Detroit’s financial crisis, Detroit Free Press Editorial Page Editor Stephen Henderson took the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for commentary today. His columns, the judges wrote, were “written with passion and a stirring sense of place, sparing no one in their critique.” Henderson is a Detroit native.
Here is the collection of his columns entered in the storied journalism competition.
Henderson also is a host of “MiWeek” and “American Black Journal,” both weekly programs on Detroit Public Television, a partner in the Detroit Journalism Cooperative. He has worked as a reporter, editorial writer and editor at the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago Tribune, the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader and the Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau, where he covered the U.S. Supreme Court from 2003-2007.
