A $500 House in Detroit

A $500 House in Detroit
Author: Drew Philp
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2017-04-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 147679801X

A young college grad buys a house in Detroit for $500 and attempts to restore it—and his new neighborhood—to its original glory in this “deeply felt, sharply observed personal quest to create meaning and community out of the fallen…A standout” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Drew Philp, an idealistic college student from a working-class Michigan family, decides to live where he can make a difference. He sets his sights on Detroit, the failed metropolis of abandoned buildings, widespread poverty, and rampant crime. Arriving with no job, no friends, and no money, Philp buys a ramshackle house for five hundred dollars in the east side neighborhood known as Poletown. The roomy Queen Anne he now owns is little more than a clapboard shell on a crumbling brick foundation, missing windows, heat, water, electricity, and a functional roof. A $500 House in Detroit is Philp’s raw and earnest account of rebuilding everything but the frame of his house, nail by nail and room by room. “Philp is a great storyteller…[and his] engrossing” (Booklist) tale is also of a young man finding his footing in the city, the country, and his own generation. We witness his concept of Detroit shift, expand, and evolve as his plan to save the city gives way to a life forged from political meaning, personal connection, and collective purpose. As he assimilates into the community of Detroiters around him, Philp guides readers through the city’s vibrant history and engages in urgent conversations about gentrification, racial tensions, and class warfare. Part social history, part brash generational statement, part comeback story, A $500 House in Detroit “shines [in its depiction of] the ‘radical neighborliness’ of ordinary people in desperate circumstances” (Publishers Weekly). This is an unforgettable, intimate account of the tentative revival of an American city and a glimpse at a new way forward for generations to come.

Lost in Michigan

Lost in Michigan
Author: Mike Sonnenberg
Publisher: Huron Photo
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2017-10-15
Genre: Curiosities and wonders
ISBN: 9780999433201

Based on the popular Lost In Michigan website that was featured in the Detroit Free Press, It contains locations throughout Michigan, and tells their interesting story. There are over 50 stories and locations that you will find fascinating.

A New Home, Who'll Follow? Or, Glimpses of Western Life

A New Home, Who'll Follow? Or, Glimpses of Western Life
Author: Caroline Matilda Kirkland
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Total Pages: 280
Release: 1990
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780813515427

"A New Home is a vivid contribution to a new king of narrative developed during the antebellum period, ethnographic fiction. Kirkland highlights the importance and the drama of local practices and everyday life in Montacute. She traces the way two groups of settlers slowly adjust to each other--the old hands and the newcomers from the East. Dramatizing differences of class and culture, she also shows how the groups finally form a genuine community and a new diverse culture. Kirkland also gives ethnographic fiction an original twist: she satirizes the provincialism and the rigidity of both groups of settlers."--Publisher's description from paperback back cover.

Spectacular Homes of Michigan

Spectacular Homes of Michigan
Author: Brian G. Carabet
Publisher: Gibbs Smith
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2006
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9781933415161

This impressive showcase of the top interior designers in Michigan features Greater Detroit, Grand Rapids, and the upscale communities along the Great Lakes' shores.

Demolition Means Progress

Demolition Means Progress
Author: Andrew R. Highsmith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2016-12-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 022641955X

Flint, Michigan, is widely seen as Detroit s Detroit: the perfect embodiment of a ruined industrial economy and a shattered American dream. In this deeply researched book, Andrew Highsmith gives us the first full-scale history of Flint, showing that the Vehicle City has always seen demolition as a tool of progress. During the 1930s, officials hoped to renew the city by remaking its public schools into racially segregated community centers. After the war, federal officials and developers sought to strengthen the region by building subdivisions in Flint s segregated suburbs, while GM executives and municipal officials demolished urban factories and rebuilt them outside the city. City leaders later launched a plan to replace black neighborhoods with a freeway and new factories. Each of these campaigns, Highsmith argues, yielded an ever more impoverished city and a more racially divided metropolis. By intertwining histories of racial segregation, mass suburbanization, and industrial decline, Highsmith gives us a deeply unsettling look at urban-industrial America."