Urban Revitalization through Art, Community, and Ecology: The Heidelberg Project

Abstract

Once known as the Motor City, Detroit is now rusted over with 90,000 vacant parcels and a 22% unemployment rate. Decline of manufacturing jobs, combined with a complex history of racism and discrimination, led to unprecedented population collapse and abandonment. The 2010 census revealed the dramatic exodus from Detroit was even greater than predicted: just over 713,000 residents remain, down from nearly 2 million in 1950. Leftover stretches of vacant land, totaling more than 40 square miles, pose an enormous physical and psychological challenge to residents and city officials forced to manage with what remains. Despite the challenges of vacant land, disenfranchisement, and economic hardship, many still see beauty in what’s left of the city. Twenty-five years ago, Detroit-native Tyree Guyton created the Heidelberg Project, a two-block long environmental artscape on the city’s eastside. The artwork became a beacon for his neighborhood and others like it, defiantly resisting the destruction wrought by neglect and disinvestment. The research and design presented in this document expands the scope of the Heidelberg Project into a long-term vision for neighborhood redevelopment called the Heidelberg Cultural Village. This project lays the groundwork for the Cultural Village, a model for art-based neighborhood redevelopment in Detroit and other post-industrial cities. The work is presented in four chapters: Christian Runge examines how the Heidelberg Cultural Village can be integrated with emerging ecological and cultural land uses specific to a post urban Detroit. Fai Foen’s work focuses on an alternative economic model that invests in the local economy and builds on existing human capacity to support sustainable redevelopment in Rustbelt communities. Sarah Alward explores how an art-based urban farm can allow for a diverse range of contributions from community members, creating an inclusive space to grow fresh, healthy food that has the potential to increase neighborhood investment and involvement. Finally, Dana Petit illustrates how a healing garden can respond to the social, psychological, and physical health issues stemming from the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood’s experience with abandonment and poverty. Together, these design interventions are intended to serve as an incubator for physical, economic, and cultural sustainability and the center of community life for the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood.