If they'd read your blog for even two minutes, they would've realized you're on their side. They're probably just used to people beating them down.
You're doing incredible work, creating something completely unique and profound with regularity and consistency. Thank you.
Wonderful. I'll keep reading and you keep on doing what you do. I have been following for a while, and I do find beauty and hope here.
I love reading your blog. Whether about the city or your kids. Your pictures take me somewhere entirely else.
I live in NW Ohio in a smallish city that has had quite a few drugs and people migrate here in the last 10-15 yrs. It is interesting to see where these people are coming from.
I love what you do. I don't know how to say it better than that.
-beck: former Detroit suburbanite, mom of two little urchins, photographer, and interested party.
I have actually pulled up the real estate listings in Detroit because of you - but of course, when I mention this to friends and family, they say, "Detroit?????" And I say, "I know, I know, but there's this BLOG..." I tell everyone I know about your writing of this city on the edge of - well, something. Please don't stop writing about it all.
Thanks for the honesty.
It is hard to write about something so many people, including myself, feel so passionately about. As far as the 1 million carpetbaggers, yes, residents are needed, but people are, & should be, on the lookout for gentrification to the extreme. Not that it seems to be on the horizon in the short term. Well, except for casinos.
I've come to the conclusion that the thing that makes it hard for me to condemn about the nature taking over, the relentless lack of maintenance, is that at least the decomposition that you are documenting is definitely authentic. It isn't contrived or manufactured. I think that is what so many people love about Detroit & want to protect. It is authentic. I know I miss that.
So, yeah, The honesty of the post + the authenticy of the subjects= some clarity in my mind I'd been looking for.
Delurking to tell you how much I enjoy all of it -- perhaps I'm unique in having grown up in a now run downtown (one that I'm not going to return to), now living in another run down town, and raising a kid -- your writing and pictures resonate and I get excited every time I see a new post. If I were hipper, I'd say ignore the haters... but I'm too preppy yuppy for that. So just keep doing what is best for you and your adorable family.
I appreciate your candor, and the fact that you don't limit yourself on your blog--it is your life write about--kids and Detroit and whatever else happens to make its way in. Its been an inspiration to see you grow as a father and as someone who works to find meaning through integration of SAHfatherness with his own likes and interests. Your kids and you are better off for it. And so is Detroit. I grew up in GR and must admit, never went to Detroit other than "that mall". Chicago was always the city of choice. And I'm an art teacher--I've never even seen the Rivera murals!
Good god, don't stop writing about Detroit. You're documenting something that never hits the evening news, or NPR, and you're doing it in a compassionate, hopeful way. Otherwise, those of us still stuck in yuppie-land will never know what's going on out there. Don't stop!
Another little voice in the worldwide wilderness saying keep on with your writing whether it is about your beautiful children (yes, we do like reading about them) or the city you call home. My children are almost grown and I live in the suburbs of Portland, Oregon, so we have nothing in common, but your talent for putting thoughts and emotions into words is what keeps me coming back.
I love the stuff you write about - the city as it crumbles. And there is definitely a beauty about this world we construct around ourselves returning to the earth (or maybe the earth reclaiming itself). It has made me appreciate the abandoned buildings in my own town - when before they were nothing more than an eyesore before.
Honestly, what drew me to follow your blog is the stories about your experiences with parenting, and Wood's breastfeeding escapades. Because that is what I was currently facing and was looking for people who had gone through it and to laugh at the shared experiences and whatnot. Even though I don't know you guys.
So, I think you are doing things right. Write what you want and shut your ears to the criticisms. You can't make everyone happy.
I've missed hearing about your kids. Whatever you do, just don't stop writing. Your blog is one of the most beautiful, honest ones I've ever read.
i love reading this blog. it makes me feel happy and hopeful. hopeful that love and lust lives among all ruins. the ruins of people, of builings, of relationships, of everything. that there is glitter left under the dust. it just takes a trained eye to spot it. and i'm thinking your blog may help folks realize that.
your words are so precious. your images are extraordinary.
we all know what detroit looks like. we drive through it. it's on the news. it wasnt sweet juniper that gave detroit a negative image. no. that existed long ago. you are bringing light to that darkness. i'm sorry that close-minded people try to shatter dreams.
you will always have critics and you will always have fans. and you will always have yourself. you can't please everyone.
good luck with your transition. and thank you for sharing.
i wish those people knew how many times i have actually considered moving to detroit in a moment of excitement based on something you have portrayed on this blog. i think what you show isn't always pretty or clean but realistic and complicated and best of all - interesting.
thank you for continuing to write and i love that you plan to incorporate more stories of the youngins 
as an outsider, i love your perspective of life in detroit. although my vantage point, as well as industry in general, is much different in alabama, i see striking similarities across this state and the nation, as a whole. without brave, well-spoken advocates like you, no american city stands a chance in these difficult times.
keep up the good work!
I've been reading for several months from Vermont, where in my first job at of school I work as a reporter at a small town newspaper. You may not a reporter, but you've inspired me to do better work, tell better stories and find the Miss Pickens in my neck of the woods. What's more, I now tenderly care for Detroit — a city I've only visited in stops at the airport on cross-country treks — because of your writing about that city. You're doing a fantastic job.
(And I for one can't wait to hear more about the kids!)
I started reading before 'the move,' but I kept reading because of it. The story I've never been able to get out of my mind - the one I think of whenever I see a vacant, neglected lot in the poorer parts of my city - is of the man who started a community garden in the middle of his fading neighborhood. So, for me, this blog isn't about abandoned buildings.
It's funny to hear people maligning you... by reading your words this Canadian girl has fallen in love with the reality of the city you live in. The images are haunting and beautiful, the stories (both good and bad) inspiring. The naysayers look at your home only through rose coloured glasses. I prefer the beauty in your reality.
Keep writing and taking pictures and we'll keep coming back. Whether it's about the complications of Detroit or your lovely family, I love reading what you write.
I can't tell you how many times I've tried to drag my husband 5 hours north to explore Detroit for a couple of days before we move back west...I've only got a few weeks left and time is running out (because once we're out of driving distance, "weekend jaunt to the Rust Belt" sounds even weirder). I don't think he gets it. Hardly anyone does when I tell them Detroit is a beautiful, fascinating city. But it is.
It's so funny to me that you have this criticism when if these people would READ your blog, read the comments and take some time they would realize that you are showing the human side of the city - not the grim statistics you get in the news reels. As someone who lived just south of you in Toledo, OH I have to say that this blog not only brought me to Detroit several times, but encouraged me to explore more of my own town, And yes, I lived in that city – near downtown in what some called a blighted neighborhood but what was really the best place I have ever lived. Now that I’m in yet another rust-belt city (Cleveland) I continue to explore the unseen/undocumented areas of town – much to the gasps of others.
What you give your readers is the real Detroit – not the skewed image the news channels provide nor the glossy brochure pictures of the convention bureaus and community brochures. You show the heart of the city – the trees growing from unimaginable waste and tragedy. You tell the story of Miss Pickens who is holding fast to her home. The community gardens, the amazing markets, the art projects and neighborhood projects. Your Detroit is much more inviting and interesting because it is authentic.
All that said – as another rust-belt urban-dwelling parent I welcome new stories of parenting as they are always an inspiration!
I think anyone who reads this blog knows that your intention is not to malign the city, but to find beauty in the ruins (as you say). That is why I keep coming back, and I think many people identify with that kind of complicated, problematic, multi-layered relationship to a city--it is the same way I feel about my own city, and it makes for very interesting writing.
If you're being criticized, then you're doing something right, I like to believe.
I have always enjoyed reading about your kids. But your more recent writing, about Detroit, the buildings, the schools, all of it has been very inspiring to me (for lack of a less-saccharine word).
I have often thought that I would like to do something for Houston similar to what you have done for Detroit. Shown a different side than what people outside of the city see in the general media. I don't see how someone can read your blog and not come away with greater appreciation and fondness for Detroit. Maybe fondness is the wrong word. But it is positive, whatever the feeling is. You moved the blog outside of the domestic world into the external world. And you wrote some important things.
If you write, we will read. Don't let a few people who don't get it mess with your head.
I think you are going to get a lot of responses to this one. And I think we are all saying the same thing. You nailed it on the head with your response at the meeting. This is your story, whether you are talking about a jungle in PR or an abandoned zoo or your children or a new dog. We are all reading because we have connected to something you have shared at some point, and most of us keep coming back because you are an excellent writer with interesting things to say. I'm sorry your foray into the public was an uncomfortable, discouraging experience. Communities, online or physical, are diverse. So keep up the dialogue. We are all listening.
The fact of the matter is that the world is changing, morphing into something else. It hit home when you wrote about The Hole in Cincinnati. I live in KY and we visit there a lot. Then this weekend, I was driving in Lexington and discovered an entire neighborhood that has been fenced off, boarded up and left to rot. It's not just Detroit.
You are documenting the merger of two worlds. You are putting the lens against the end of an era and the beginning of another. And yes, your kids are a huge part of that, so are the gardens and Mrs. Pickens. They are the good parts. There are also the scrappers, the abandoned zoo, the criminal neglect in the schools. They are the bad parts. I think you are more fair and balanced than you realize.
If anything, to this lone KY girl, you are good PR for Detroit. A city that seemed as foreign as Dubai to me, until I "met" you and yours.
I was at that panel discussion in Ann Arbor - I am not one to be embarrassed for people typically, but I was for that woman. Knee-jerk reactions and opinion forming will never help us make this city bright again. Keep up the good work.
When I read your Detroit posts and look at your pictures, I see potential, creativity, motivation, innovation. I find it strange that a community activist would look at the same pictures and see negative reporting... Even in pictures of rotting school supplies, you can still find something positive if you look for it.
Keep the Detroit posts coming (please!). I think most SJ readers appreciate them just as much as the posts about your kiddos.
I love hearing about (and seeing) your city- I've never found you to be negative. And I have one of your photos hanging on my wall- a constant conversation point when people come over. People are fascinated by it.
I don't want you to stop what you've been doing- you have me- in Idaho- enthralled with your city.
But I also love to hear about your children So I can't say I'd be sad to hear more about them- but I don't want you to stop doing what I see as something so positive. You clearly have a passion for your city.
Don't change a thing. Your blog is so raw, so honest, so true... if they don't know how to view it that's their loss. We who follow you need this honesty.
i just stumbled upon your blog a week ago. it was only 4 years ago that me, my wife and children were living in detroit, fighting the good fight that those activists fight, and in many ways seeing things as you see them.
oddly enough, i left detroit to become a lawyer. now i'm debt-ridden and miserable. my intention was to return to detroit and find new ways to fight for the city. it just doesn't seem possible now.
i appreciate your perspective, both in your writing and photography. anything that sheds some light on detroit is helpful. i always think of it as a city that suffers in silence.
One of the first things I had to say to you after I began to read this blog was my experience of flushing pheasants out of an overgrown vacant lot down by the Ambassador Bridge. I always think fondly of that as the day I discovered the hidden side of Detroit. That little spark of beauty amid the rubble.
Clearly the person who berated you has never spent any quality time on this blog.
This post brought me to tears. I moved back to rural South Carolina one year ago after a few years in Scotland. It was a similar "what were you thinking?" move. I took a job with the Berkeley County school system -- where we literally have high schools housed in former tobacco warehouses; windowless, leaking, rat-holes -- and spent the first nine months working myself ragged trying to make a difference. I started big: grants, new computers, field trips... now I am fighting tooth and nail to keep my classroom budget above 300 dollars (it used to be 2500).
I too am in a rut. The blackest of snits. I return to your sight every day because, to me, it is so full of the best kind of hope.
My husband is training to run nuclear submarines for the Navy. We don't have children yet, but the light in his eyes when he describes the processes at work in the reactor, how it could be harnessed for civilian life, and how devoted he is to that end is a wellspring of hope for me.
All of this is to say a hearty YES to what you are doing. Thank you for sharing.
Please keep doing what you do. Your blog shows a side of Detroit that is rarely seen in public media -- one of beauty, grace, history and humanity. I look forward to each post.
Jim, don't let those folks drive all over your garden. It's hard not to write in anticipation of an audience's expectations, but all any audience can ask of a writer is that he be honest with himself. And I've never ever seen your writing be dishonest, whether it happens to be about buildings or about babies. Anyone who can't see the value in that isn't seeing the forest for the trees growing from old piles of books.
You've been in a rut? I wish I could write like this OUT of a rut!
I'm happy reading whatever you write (and Wood, too...I'm enjoying her projects and writing at WoodCraft), so, you know, do what you want. I'll keep coming back.
As someone who grew up and still lives just outside of Washington, DC I can tell you that Detroit has always been talked about as a third rate city just full of crime and drugs. I honestly believed that until a year ago when I stumbled across this blog. You've shown that the city is not just crime and drugs that there are people who actually care about it and each other. Reading your stories, about your kids and the city, makes me want to move there. 2, 5, 10 years ago I would have been one of those "Detroit??!!??" people but I think about relocating there all the time. Please keep writing about it and encouraging others to do the same.
Jim,
I'm a life-long Detroiter and say please keep on keeping on!
I've often wished that more people could see the same beauty in this city that you manage to convey on a daily basis, and can't help but hope that it'll be people like you who'll help turn this place around one day at a time.
btw, my fiancee and I have planned our entire June wedding within the city limits with the added incentive of showing our out-of-town family and friends (and even some of those from Michigan) why we love living here so much!
Whatever you write about, kids, urban decay, or plagiarism, I'll read it.
One suggestion I have is to write a bit more about the people in detroit. You keep emphasizing the loneliness, the emptiness, the prairie qualities. But then you talk about how Detroit is "full of beautiful people surviving among the ruins." Why not feature these beautiful people more often?
My favorite post ever was about the Community Garden (the Time Magazine post). You talk about hope but (possibly out of embarrassment or shyness?) you often skip over describing or photographing the people who make you hopeful.
Of course, if all you write about is Gram and Juniper and Wood, I won't complain.
I live in Dayton. It's no Detroit, but our little corner of the city has seen better days. I live with a lot of pressure from family and friends to leave the city and go live in the suburbs. I like it here and your blog keeps me inspired.
"A city full of beautiful people surviving among the ruins. Strangers who come here to read with care and concern in their hearts. A seed that germinates in words never before read."
I just wanted to let you know that seed has definitely taken hold in my heart. I'm a curator-in-training (doing grad school work at the moment) and have been inspired -through your blog and other encounters- to put together an exhibition showing artistic vision in abandoned cities.
I'm not quite there yet, but the pot of ideas keeps simmering on the back burner.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not out to get a golden star. I just want to help spread the word that there are ways in which one can creatively enrich one's community, and that there is no lost city. That is what I have learned from you.
Jim,
I love reading what you write about the city. I have had many conversations with people in which I try to explain our reasons for staying in Detroit, and raising our daughter here. People don't understand, especially, I find, people of our parent's generation. I think because their vision of Detroit is all riots and scandal, none of the glory that our grandparents can remember.
I read my husband the part of the post about the "activist". He asked if it was Monica Conyers. Ha.
You had Juniper about the same time (give or take a month) I had my son. And though your take on parenting is what roped me in, your amazing writing is the only reason I keep reading it. You are the only blog I read from that era of my life anymore. And I think that it says that I have evolved but that you have evolved as well.
You could always do two blogs. One, not updated nearly as frequently, about Detroit (and maybe get some collaborators who live there, too?), and one solely for you and Wood about your kids and your parenting experience. It would take the pressure off, as your take on the state of Detroit is an amazing undertaking but one that, at times, must be overwhelming.
Either way, I look forward to reading whatever you write.
Thanks for the past four-plus years, Dutch.
Every time I hear someone say something about why the car companies deserve what they get, or shouldn't be bailed out, I reference your line about people driving their prius to the farmers market for goat cheese and bragging about buying local. (paraphrasing here) And then I send them to your blog so they can learn more about Detroit.
On the other hand, I found you when some co-worker-mommies and I were googling crying it out and we found hilarious Dr. Sears v Dr. Weissbluth war. So bring on the kid stories!
I came to the blog via dooce and your post/column/article on taking your daughter to the men's room had me crying I was laughing so hard. No one wants to read boring things about other people's children. We do, however, appreciate a great vingette relayed through a wonderful story-teller. Thanks,
Just because you point out negative aspects of your city doesn't mean you are bad for Detroit or that there aren't a lot of poeple interested in what you have to say. You have to tell the stories inside you, whatever they are, and work through the ruts by enjoying your family and your diverse and lovely community. You are part of what makes it lovely.
I've been following your family since you lived in SF. I'm always impressed with the how positively you portray things that in many peoples' eyes are not. Thank you for sharing your stories and for sharing your hope!
I can only speak to how your depiction of Detroit has impacted my view of the city. And basically it is this: before I read your website, I barely knew Detroit existed. Your blog, the pictures you take and the stories you tell open up a corner of Detroit to me. Sure it's not the whole story. But to know that there is a city in our country so broken as Detroit and yet so full of life and real people...it's not a bad thing. If anything, it has made me want to learn more about the city and made me care more about it and its people.
Anyway, I hope those activists come read your blog. Then they'll see. You love your city and its people and your photos and stories reflect that.
i spend hours reading your entries, over and over.
your writing is compelling, and your pictures are inspiring. the first time i saw your photo of that old tudor duplex in detroit, i sat at my computer and cried.
your blog is by far one of my favourites- i wouldn't change a thing.
I am one of those people who has no connection to Detroit or the rust belt, but I keep returning to your blog because it is so interesting and so well written and for that reason alone you should continue to do exactly what you want to do. It is art, it is meaningful and it should not be censored by anyone. Also, I'm an optimist and I know there will be a happy beginning for Detroit again one day.
My husband is a police officer, and while the subjects are very different, I too find it difficult to be understood when I write about his job, as you write about Detroit. There is honor, and there is also disappointment. There is beauty, and ugliness. You're painting a clear, authentic portrait, and the attention that has been generated by your blog is, more than anything, a testament to your genuineness. Most people don't like being confronted by reality, because it's many faceted and complex.
That said, your kids seem to be amazing little humans, and I'd be happy to read about them more.
Jim, I've been reading your blog since I somehow stumbled on one of your links for a kid's toy (I think it was that big plastic dog Juniper desperately wanted). I checked in every now and then even though I didn't have kids. Since you've started writing about your city in all its beauty and ugliness I have been hooked. I am 8 months pregnant now and my husband even tried to make me take a break from your site because I would cry every time at both the beauty and the ugliness. He thought it couldn't be good for the baby. He could tell I was reading it just by of the expression on my face. I couldn't help myself. You are an inspiring writer/photographer and I hope you publish a book someday chronicling the fall and rise again of Detroit. Don't give up!
I love your blog, whether you are writing about Detroit or your family. Remember - if everyone likes you then you must be doing something wrong. Stay true to yourself. THAT is why so many of us read what you have say.
Oh, but this little building certainly cares what it looks like. You can tell Miss Pickens that I think her house is lovely.
It's funny you should post this blog entry today... Just this morning there was a headline about Detroit on the MSN homepage and I copied the link into a blank email page and started an email to you... I was going to ask you your opinion about the article. Of course, now it's lunchtimee and the article and the headline are totally MIA from my brain, but what I DO remember is that when I read about "your" Detroit, I see a beautiful city experiencing tragedies of epic proportions. I bought one of your book depository photos - you have a way of showing us the beauty behind the deterioration, the positive behind the negative, while making us aware of what's going on in your city.
It makes me look around with open eyes.
Those angry activists should really have read your blog - you DON'T only blog about the negatives. I probably would never have thought about Detroit being a "beautiful city," even in the midst of its current situation, had it not been for you. You're a powerful writer.
I, for one, will read whatever you write, and examine whatever you photograph, but please just don't stop writing!
Looking forward to more parenting stories, parenting you're doing in Detroit, thank you very much!!!
I loved reading your blog when you were in SF writing about Juniper day care and first words, and I love still love it now. I've learned so much about a part of my country that I never would have known otherwise. I was just thinking the other day that I do miss hearing what is going on with the kids! I can't wait to hear!
Please don't stop writing. Your view of Detroit is haunting and beautiful. My husband and I moved to Michigan from Buffalo, NY (another "third rate city", ha), but recently left the Detroit area for Indiana due to a job transfer. I supose I've always rooted for the underdog, the misunderstood and the underappreciated. Perhaps that's why I love reading your stories. Perhaps that's why I love Detroit.
Like a previous commentor posted, "Don't let them drive on your garden!".
do these people that berated you realize that if you only show the good parts, no one will believe there's anything wrong with detroit or anywhere else? if you don't SHOW the bad parts, the rest of us won't know there's anything that needs fixing.
Please don't ever stop writing about whatever you want to write about. Your pieces about your children make me smile and I've passed along many a link to your entries about the current state of affairs in Detroit and America.
Keep up your good work, it's inspiring, eye opening and lovely to read.
Ohhhhh, I bet I know the name of the activist group. You are kind to call people like that "good people"--I find them to be fools with a breathtaking sense of entitlement, although they mean well. Many of them are on the City Council.
That said:
Getting to know your family (and the people we have met through you) brings me real, genuine hope for the city I have lived in for more than 25 years now. Your intelligence, energy and ability to see a better way that doesn't involve casinos and stadia some magical rehabilitation of Cobo are some of the only glimmers of hope for me over the last year and a half, that maybe we didn't make the world's stupidest bet by deciding to stay here and raise our children here. You love this place in a way it needs, badly -- I get the sense that you want to understand and to memorialize with the writing you do, not just rubberneck.
I've been more discouraged about living here recently than I think I ever have been, and yet knowing that there are families like yours who choose to make their homes here makes me want to stick around and be a part of the change as well. With such an avalanche of bad news and horrible leadership ALL THE TIME, I am hard up for optimism. You guys give me some. Thanks.
My husband is from Detroit. And we have a young son Juniper's age. I read your blog for a lot of reasons, but lately I've been learning so much about my husband's hometown. My in-laws all live in the suburbs now and whenever we head to Michigan to visit, we stay in the suburbs. We've been together almost 8 years and I have never even SEEN downtown Detroit in all our trips there.
Bravo to you and your lovely family for doing your own small part to inject some good into the city. To raise your children away from cookie cutter suburbia and overwhelming consumerism. I don't think "noble" is too big a word here and I hope you continue documenting your journey.
By the way, we live in Cincinnati...stop by the next time you're in town.
I spent a few years in Toledo, which gave me my first few brushes with Detroit, but I feel like I understand it more now that I have been living here in Baltimore for seven years, a city that shares so much with Detroit.
Your work reminds me of "The Wire," and I mean that in the best possible way. David Simon always says that people who think he's trying to tear Baltimore down in his work completely misunderstand him-- he's writing a love letter to Baltimore, and I think you are writing one to Detroit.
I agree with several other commenters... if they took a moment to read your blog, they would not have such harsh words. And without fail, you attempt to take action on injustices or at least tell the whole story behind an area/topic/issue without passing judgment.
A picture does tell a thousand words, but the depth and perspective in your blog is worth millions of words.
Thank you for what you do, and please don't let a few people detract from what you are doing. Telling your story as part of an urban revival.
Your writing, no matter the subject, is beautiful. And if these activists spent even just a few minutes clicking around on your blog, they would see how heart-breakingly beautiful your Detroit is. Don't let them get you down.
Your blog is one gigantic love letter. To Detroit. To your kids. To the dog. To each other. To the joy of making something yourself. To falling off the beaten path and finding one made of rainbows and unicorns.
I'm sorry they didn't get that.
I can't believe you, of all people, would be so easily influenced by small group of people. You seem to revel on the less-traveled road you've chosen.
Detroit is a major part of your life. You moved your family, and a good chunk of your identity, to live there. You didn't move there for a job, but for how the city spoke to you. How can you NOT write about it? I would love to hear more about your kids, but keep writing about the city!
hi folks. thank you for all the kind words (and I hope you didn't think I was fishing for them!) I really just wanted to explain where I am in this whole process.
I appreciated what these activist folks said to me, because I think always important to try to understand where those who disagree with you are coming from, and try to learn from that. I don't mean trying to please them, but respecting their experience and reflecting on the meaning behind what I am doing.
But don't be alarmed: I am not announcing some kind of shift or change in what I'm doing. I'm just going to write more about daily life if possible.
One point that I saw in the comments is the possibility of including more stories about people. That's something I thought I was kind of obliquely addressing in the post, but I'll try to make my thoughts on that more clear:
It's easy to take pictures of an abandoned house or a building full of leftover belongings. There is no one there to question you, no one whose permission needs to be gained before releasing the shutter. It's also easier just tell your own story (stories of "exploration" or reflection on what you see) than it is to tell someone else's story. I often fear doing the latter because it seems to be a type of exploitation (both in photos and words) that I'm still trying to get comfortable with. I have purposely left out other peoples' stories and photos on my website because it made me uncomfortable to put them out there for public consumption.
So we'll see what happens. Thanks again for all these comments.
Thanks, Jim. I too came to your blog by way of Dooce. While I was initially intrigued by your stories as a male primary caregiver, I have come to love the days you post about your new hometown. I look forward to continuing to read about both.
I for one applaud the shift back to the family focus, it's what first attracted and got me hooked on your writing.
While I do enjoy the Detroit story, I have been recently thinking that its a shame the family have taken a back seat (with the rare exception of the PR trip)
The way you write about Detroit makes me fall in love with the city. Anyone who took the time to read what you're writing would understand that the city is special to you.
as someone who has been reading your blog for years, i know that you tell a positive story. and you tell it beautifully. you talk about things that affect and interest you: your family, your environment. not everyone sees eye to eye. everyone has a different story, everyone has a different point of view, everyone has different objectives. your readers will always be back for more of sweet-juniper blog stories, be what they may.
You are such a talented writer and your photos always inspire me, no matter the subject. Activist tend to see the world in terms of black and white. This space seems way more interesting and complicated (in the best possible way) than that.
Clearly I'm not the first one to comment with the same point of view, but I still feel obligated to subject you to my thoughts.
I can't recall how I originally came across your blog, but what first drew me to your writing were your hilarious takes on parenting. I was pregnant at the time and was fascinated by others' stories with kids.
I have my own little gremlin now and I'm experiencing my own stories - both as a parent, and as an individual who is also a parent. I think that's why I like your blog so much. You clearly have a connection to parenting your two kids and that's what brought me to your blog, but you also have come to organically incorporate and share your own interests, which I think is great. I seem to struggle every now and then to make sure I'm keeping my own identity and I love how you balance both. In any event, your life sounds very interesting, but your style of writing and your photographs bring me back.
Speaking of which - I'd love to be able to purchase some photos for my office. Weren't you selling them at one point through Etsy?
One last comment - I lost my IPod on a flight to Houston recently - but I feel confident that the new owner of my recently purchased 16MB Touch should enjoy listening to your spot on Q with Jian Ghomeshi as much as I did.
I'm sure you read the Detroitblog--if you don't, do. He also writes for the Metro Times and just does an amazing job of telling people's stories that you're not going to read anywhere else.
On a completely separate note, I was sadly reading the Pulitzer nominations today (specifically in relation to how financially expensive and time consuming it is to write stories exposing public corruption-the journalists also do up to a year or more of research at at time...and yet papers are dying and laying off staff) and thinking how great it would be if someone wrote a "Don't Let Them Die" post about newspapers the way you did about the manufacturing industry. Then I was all, hey, maybe I should write it but I'm too busy at work and I think you'd do it way more justice. Just a thought.
PS: my father recently retired from 40 years in mentals manufacturing. He was an inventor and has dozens of patents to his name and owns most of the world's patents for aluminimum alloys. I sent him your post and he agreed with a lot of it (though not all).
METALS manufacturing. Sorry yo, they don't manufacture mentals except in my household.
Don't stop writing it! Living one street outside of Detroit I have an appreciation not only for the photos and commentary you post, but also for the family you're raising. As a metro-detroit mom it's awesome to read about what other parents are dealing with LOCALLY. I read a ton of blogs, but yours is the only one in this area... and if you start pulling punches now (detroit, family, ANY subject matter!) I know at least this reader will be sadly disappointed. It truly is a special city (and region) that goes so far beyond the stereotypes (the scary ones like murder capital of the world, or the pleasant ones like "midwest") Thanks for giving us an insight into your experiences here, as that's the best that one person can do!
Keep on keeping on.
Fight the power.
Use cliches sparingly.
I find your blog fabulous! I love the stories of the children, your travels and especially the stories of you city. I find great beauty and passion in the photos and in the tales of creating them. It has to be documented because change will come eventually and with it the end of some of these buildings.
Not sure how I came across your blog to begin with, but I'm glad I did. I married a guy from the Detroit area who has a good deal of love for his place of origin... I'm finally going to visit after 8 years of knowing each other, and thanks to your blog, I'm excited about the trip!
Your blog is one of the few that I read on a regular basis. I admire your courage in venturing into struggling neighborhoods, abandoned buildings, and vacant Detroit wilderness.
You are doing a great service to the city and the people that criticised you at the meeting, even though they don't know it. I, too, grew up in Western Michigan, with my mom; my dad lives in Troy. He grew up in Detroit and Grosse Pointe, and tells me stories of what Detroit once was. Your blog helps me to see what it is now.
I also teach American Government, Ethics, and Law. Detroit is an unfortunate example of what happens when all three break down, but as you show your readers, it is also a testament to hopefulness - whether in the form of people who start community gardens, or when the earth reclaims her land. You have helped convince me, more than anything I've read, that Detroit is beautiful, in its own peculiar way. Please keep exploring (safely) and writing.
If it wasn't for your pictures and posts, I wouldn't have known about the Detroit community, and the work that is being done and that needs to be done. I hope you will continue to write them. Social media, whatever connotation it has for those well-meaning activists you've met, keeps the rest of us honest.
you did a great job of saying what your blog is about or what you are trying to do in this post, which can't be easy. amazing post. i would say you are one of my favorite bloggers--whatever you write about. i knew nothing about detroit until reading you and like the others have considered a trip because of your perspective. keep it up.
I've been reading your blog for a few months now. I love your stories about Detroit. I have been wanting to go and visit the city. The picture you paint of this city shows its humanity, its beauty and yes, its decline. It is never without hope. I love the posts about your children and the adventures you have with them in Detroit. I have two children of the same age, so I can relate to your stories. Don't be discouraged. Let your blog take you where you want to go. You've been doing a lot of good for Detroit and for all of us parents out there, trying to raise our children in this world of ours. And this world includes fallen down houses, trees growing out of books and abandoned zoos. Thank you for your posts!
That desire to show only the positive is like those people on craigslist who list a "gorgeous, vintage armchair" and you click on it, and it's some frumpy, floral, overstuffed chair with a skirt. They were trying to rope you in with the description, but don't they realize that people will soon see past that once they click on the ad? Every relationship - between people, between a person and a place - is better when they are honest about the positives and negatives.
I started reading your blog because a friend who read it for the parenting stories recommended it. I grew up in Detroit (just six blocks from the State Fairgrounds)and had a great childhood. There were fires and gunshots and carjackings before they were called carjackings, but my family was close and open to the neighborhood. We went mushroom and golf-ball hunting in Palmer Woods and visited the State Fair multiple times over the summer, when we weren't sitting on the porch, enjoying the bats flying above. I appreciate your stories about city, about your family, and your perceptions of those things. They make me yearn and mourn for a city I haven't known in 25 years.
Your writing is remarkable, and yours is the only blog I wait to read until I can focus all my attention on it. Thank you for your writing, no matter what you write about.
Thanks for your honesty Jim! I know all the common blogger wisdom says "pick a focus and stick with it," which makes sense in a world where parent bloggers are a dime a dozen. But in my inexperienced opinion, that doesn't apply to you.
Good writers write because they have no other choice - the thoughts and ideas needle them night and day until they put them into words. Whatever you are passionate about at that moment - parenting, Detroit, the family vacation - is fascinating because your words make us passionate about it too. (That said, I am still dying to hear more about how you deal with two kids!)
And if it's any consolation, I think the fact that you're so worried about exploiting people on this blog shows you are capable of avoiding that. I often wonder out loud to my mom if writing publicly about my kids is a bad idea and she always responds, "Now that you're a parent, don't you wish I had kept a blog about raising you, even if it included the not so pretty things? You are giving your children an incredible gift down the road."
Granted, I only write for a handful of people, but you get the idea.
I was led to your site when you wrote for dooce.com and have read it ever since. Sometimes your photos and stories of a city that is crumbling are hard to see. But, they have shown me the subtle beauty of the process. Ten years ago, our good friends moved to Denver one day after the Columbine shootings. I always felt that their loving, positive and spiritual souls were "sent" there to heal a community. Perhaps that is why you and your sweet family are in Detroit now? Your contribution and insight are bring attention where it is most needed. Let the recovery begin with you.
Wood once showed her project of making Gram's pants out of old suits. She created something unique, useful and delicately crafted out of materials that others would have dismissed as old, tired and unfashionable.
Can you think of a better metaphor for a city that is going to recreate itself?
Keep writing, photographing, noticing and telling stories. I'll keep coming back to your site.
I enjoy reading about Detroit. I enjoy reading about your kids. I even have duplicated a few of the Woodcraft projects. So in my view, it all works!
i can't imagine anyone who has read more than a handful of your blog posts doubting your love of detriot for even a minute.
you are a booster, clearly, and (i think) if anything, attract attention to parts of the city that need it, rather than sweeping them under the rug.
and, clearly you have made more than a few of your readers take a moment to consider a move to detroit.
carpetbaggers come to extract wealth and leave. they are scrappers. a carpetbagger you are not.
keep up the good work.
Please keep writing, Jim. You say you've been in a rut and frankly, I see no evidence of it. I have no connection to Detroit save the words you spin and the pictures you snap, no bridge to the broken city but this particular blog. All the same, if that bridge were broken -- if the words stopped coming, and there were no more pictures -- I can't begin to imagine the sense of loss I'd feel. You tell Detroit's story from a unique perspective; you share shamelessly. Please don't stop. I want to know more about the city. I want to know more about you, and yours, and how you all fit together. If anything, you've shown me that a single individual has the power to signal the impetus for change: from rotting schoolbooks and desolate lots spring messages of hope and progress, all documented here. I always look forward to reading, and I know I always will.
Best,
Ash
Your photography and commentary do a great service to your city. I'm surprised those activists couldn't see the way your blog acts as both a squeaky wheel and an inspiration for change.
As for the parenting stuff, that's why I found you in the first place. I will continue to read this blog daily, regardless of subject matter. Your humor and your insight are what keep me coming back.
Thanks for your perspective.
I'm one of those people you speak of, someone who has no connection to Detroit whatsoever.
But I love your blog and wanted to add my voice to the many others suggesting that you shouldn't stop or change what you're doing.
Tell the story of Detroit as you see it.
I've never seen your stories as carpetbagging, they've always effused a strong sense of hope.
(And, by the way, I think you are in many ways a reporter. You're providing insights into an interesting topic using first-hand experience and from speaking to others in your community. This is not your job, but you're doing a very good job of it nonetheless.)
I mostly go to your page to read about 1)your kids 2)Detroit .
that's about it. so write write write! (you're so good at it!)
I was scared like hell you were going to say you were quitting writing your blog. I was very relieved to see that you are not.
I have always gotten a hopeful vibe about Detroit from your writing, especially because, as you said, you uprooted your family to move there intentionally. I doubt anyone would move their children to a city without hope unless they absolutely had to.
I am so glad you write about Detroit on this blog. I grew up in Beverly Hills and now I live in Ann Arbor, but all I want to do is be in Detroit. I drove in for the Craft Revival at the Magic Stick on Saturday, and one of the vendors said, "I'm so glad you were able to make it down." And I felt bummed, because I want to belong in Detroit. I don't want to seem like I just drove down from Birmingham. Not like Ann Arbor's that different.
Something about your blog gives me hope, though, that I could belong in Detroit. Thanks for writing what and how you do.
I think that people have different definitions of what counts as positive reporting - for the activists you mention it would probably be that there shall only be sweetness and light with no hint of dirt or despair or sadness. But their vision is only half the picture, and while it might be momentarily satisfying, like cotton candy, it's not ultimately going to give anyone a true picture of the city or much to think about. I knew nothing about Detroit before I started reading your blog a year or so ago, and while I initially came for the parenting stories, your photos and posts about a decaying and yet hopeful city have really stayed with me. So yes I'm always glad to read about the kids, but I also want to hear about the city, look at the photos of houses, and try and understand how something so seemingly forever as a large North American city can begin to crumble and decay and how people can fight against it.
Keep on writing what you feel, I have loved the posts about the books and the city as much as I have the posts about the kids.
Life is not always about the kids even if they are part of the experience of it. Keep it up, all of it...none of it, the fact you and your family have shared so much is amazing and my family thanks you.
I've been gone from Detroit for more than 20 years and have mourned from afar its continued demise. With your blog I feel I've discovered somebody who's taken up an interest in a long-lost loved one, taking care of her, not letting her be alone, being kind to her. It really strikes an emotional chord inside and I'm truly grateful for your work. Thank you.
I'm also glad to hear this isn't the last of the Detroit-based posts. They've opened my eyes to plenty in this city- like the term 'zombies' referring to the wandering people who swarm around the Neighborhood Services on MLK and 3rd. They used to not have a name for me. But 'zombies' is perfect. They wander like the zombies from thriller. Every day. All day. My friends and I use zombies regularly.
I'm not raising anything in this city- let alone KIDS- but I can begin to imagine how much this environment would affect that process. It is not a safe place, not a place known for having good schools. And in a lot of ways there is an overwhelming sense of futility from people who live here. Certainly more than in most places. There's lots of starting something and not finishing it. Big hopes but no follow through. It builds in people the same way blight does in a neighborhood.
And as real as these generalizations are in many cases, they ABSOLUTELY not true across the board. This place also happens to have a collection of the most passionate and talented individuals I've met anywhere. And I've lived in Chicago, Portland and Philly. Traveled abroad as well. Authentic and proud they are in Detroit. It's the kindest city I've ever met.
So that's the balance. No, it's not lawn-scaped suburbia. Nor is it SF or Chicago or NY with hip young couples having babies everywhere. It's a place that is on the one hand such a challenge to raise children and on the other will help them see something change from the ground up. The posts you write about your kids growing up have to get across the environment they're living in. Because everything in Detroit- even a radio-flyer walk- takes some consideration and planning.
Keep the posts up- they're a delight!
By all means, please write about your children. But do not stop writing about Detroit. Please write about your children AND Detroit - life in the city with kids, how they respond to some of the blight and beauty. There is room for both on this blog, I am sure.
My city (Baltimore) gets knocked around quite a bit, too. I've seen this city change tremendously in the 16 years that I've been here (most of it in the last 5 years). It would be easy to focus on only the good or only the bad, but neither alone tells the story of my city. I know that you will tell the story of Detroit, your story of Detroit. And I plan to be here to read it.
I think those people are hurt. They are hurt and so it's hard for them to see that a person could find a tree going out of a book sad and beautiful.
I think it is hard for them to see that you have to show the pain and difficulty to fully appreciate what they are doing for the city. They go together.
After you've been misunderstood and misaligned and misunderstood some more I think you start to get tetchy. I suspect that is what is going on here with them.
Maybe it's too hard but I bet a million dollars if you kept at it and kept talking to them and listening to them something interesting with happen--for you and them. Eventually. Maybe not right away.
And I'll bet they have interesting stories.
Although I don't blame you if you don't. I couldn't. For some reason I think you could. Also, I guess I don't blame them if they won't either. Probably a lot of eroded trust there for them.
I started my website to talk about my kid and for some reason I never talk about my kid--it's not like she's not interesting. I guess it is because I want to hear what other people think about other topics--the kid topic--you can learn stuff from people but it's not as open.
I think you have created a space for discussion and dialogue and your blog--it is sort of an exchange with the world. Not just commenting but because you are out in the world--you are reflecting on a wide sphere of things. It's very different in that way from many of these.
When you're like me, and you are that person whom everyone (yes everyone) thought would grow up and live as a writer (but doesn't, in fact, can barely keep a blog running), there are certain writers whose artistry and skill bring me to my knees. You are that writer for me.
I walk around with your posts in my head for weeks. Some, have never left: like the tandem posts written about Juniper's and Gram's births; the first time you ventured into the abandoned school; your chapter from "Things I Learned From My Father."
The images and words are both from an authentic voice with an authentic point of view. I treasure them both (I have two prints of yours hanging on my living room wall). I like going on this journey with you through parenthood, pregnancies, births, short vacations, long ones, ancestral homes, and abandoned projects. (I even loved seeing your weekly stash of Eastern Market produce.)
So, keep coming to the page and telling the stories you want to tell. But if you find some time to tell us more about Gram, I'd love it. He's been with us over a year and I feel like all I know about him is his birth story and his Terminator vision.
Oh, I tell people about your blog all the time. About how good it is to read about Detroit from your perspective, what great stories you tell about your family and the city you live in. I work in a little town outside Ann Arbor, a place where people like to move to live "in the country" and drive to Detroit to work. To people out here, Detroit is no-man's land, a place they're glad to leave behind.
But I like to talk about Sweet Juniper anyway, because I think people should care about Detroit, no matter how much they enjoy living "in the country." You can't have the country without the city, right?
And then the other night one of my friends started telling a group of us about an interview she heard on The Story. And I perked up and said, "that's Sweet Juniper."
"Yeah?" she said. "Wow! He was really good. It was a great interview."
Write whatever you want, I'll read it (and recommend it). But if it helps for awhile to pull back and focus through the lens of your life as a dad, go for it.
Everything is Going to Be Alright.
Jim,
Just want to echo these comments - you are an amazing writer telling amazing stories from a unique perspective. I love your blog and enjoy stories about your kids and stories about Detroit. I hope that you continue writing about both.
Also, your photos are gorgeous.
I look forward to your future projects.
I live in Belgium and I love reading about your life in Detroit, kids, movie nights in community garden projects, abandoned school records, crazy old kids' books, everything. And the bushwacking adventure cause I am a hiker & have a toddler myself.
I am taking an intensive Dutch class with people from all over the world. I love learning about other cultures. Recenty we each had to give a presentation on our country. In the 15 minutes allotted, we could choose to do a 5th grade style report on our major exports and borders (bleh) or something more interesting. I liked it best when people shared what was dearest to them. I think that's what you do here & I hear the hope & a call to action loudest of all, much louder than if you tried to put everything in. It is impossible to share an entire country, or even a city, in 15 minute increments, which is about the max time someone spends reading a blog. You do good things. Keep it up, sweet j. carpetbagger.
i've been reading your blog for years now. i can't even remember how it was that i found you, but i'm so pleased that i did.
your content has changed a little, sure. but whatever you chose to write about, i'd find interesting because of the unique perspective you offer and the emotive way that you write and the beautiful images you share.
thanks
x
I don't feel you're being "negative" at all. Honest writing includes more than one side of things, and you've done that: Along with your photos of ruins and decay, you've written about Eastern Market, The Heidelberg Project and community gardens. I've enjoyed all of these stories, as well as the ones about your kids and family life. I'll keep stopping by to see what you have to offer!
Your blog has made/helped me give up preconceived ideas and has given me a different view of a city I never gave much thought to, other that to accept the prejudice-based view Americans and Europeans have floating around in their society. Thank you. Through your eyes, I see hope in a dire situation, and humanity in small, heart-driven projects. You have made me feel good about my fellow man, and at the same time afraid of the depths humans can go to. Not easy to swallow, but reality often enough isn't. I appreciate your individual, personalized view of America, one place, from one perspective, individual and for all to read. After all, that is all you can offer, nobody ever sees everything; my/your reality is never the same as anyone elses, since my/your perpective is unique and formed by my/your life and experience.
I simply enjoy what you have to offer.
I always look forward to your blog and photos, actually particularly your photos, which is why I have bought and framed some and display them happily on my walls.
I don't have as much time to look at it with two smallies about the same ages as yours, but always look forward to it and have recommended it to quite a few people.
I'd love to see you just keep on doing what you are doing. I can honestly say it's a pleasure to read and I love to see what's happening in and around Detroit and the various places you visit. It's obvious you enjoy it too, perhaps just a bit more so in the past, and hopefully even more so again in the future.
I've been reading your blog for three years now and I believe the focus of a blog changes with the passion of a person. You have found another passion outside of your family and it is tugging at many. Even if you were to write more about your family again, there are always critics. People who have opinions and ones who will always state them. And the tree picture (gasp) is so meaningful in so many ways. Even a doorknob can see that.
You are doing good. And that is all that matters.
Best post yet! Keep writing, thinking, and loving- your aim is true. PS Happy Earth Day.
I'll keep reading as long as you keep writing... whether it be about your children or your city. Your unique outlook, your words and your photos inspire me to be a more positive force to my own family and community.
Stay up, Dutch. And stay up, Detroit.
I love Sweet Juniper and have been reading for years. I don't understand how anyone could say that a parent of two small children who chose to live in Detroit could possibly be trying to bring the place down. I have learned a lot about Detroit reading your posts. It's fascinating, quite frankly, and the attention you are giving the city can't be bad. I've never heard you say anything about feeling unsafe (other than when around some wild dogs) and that is pretty amazing considering the fact you travel all over the city. Keep doing what you're doing. As a parent of two kids who are almost the same ages as yours, I like to hear about how your kids are growing, but I like the other stuff just as much.
I, too, love this blog and have only just found it. It not only features some of the most beautiful pieces of writing that I have found on the internet but photos that are paired perfectly to the writing. I find myself wanting to jump onto a plane to Detroit to see these places myself! I have never felt that way before. Please don't let the native activist types get you down. They need your blog, even if they would never admit it, and people like me (with no connection to Detroit) need it to.
I live in Baltimore and encounter very similar activists. Our (recently indicted) mayor is one -- touting a reduction in homicide levels from otherworldly to merely horrific.
I see so many similarities between Detroit and Baltimore. Crime. Drug. Difficult race relations. Declining population. Instead of a one-industry town, we had a couple -- canning, breweries and bottling, longshoremen and steel. All are gone now. And with them, the jobs.
We even have the architecture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cra...57615484324172/
It's funny that you express concern for your "tendency to allow buildings, blocks and books to become proxies for people" because, when I read your blog, all I think about is people. It is your remarkable ability to capture humanity in the post-industrial landscape that rivets me to your blog, week after week. Sometimes I feel blind fury that we, for the most part, stand back and let it all be okay; sometimes I feel utter despair at systems that have failed those most reliant upon them; sometimes I am overcome with hope and admiration for the people you depict in these stories - whether these stories are manifested in images of buildings, books or old photographs scattered on the floor.
I think there is a reflexivity inherent in focusing on the architecture of a city - the shrines to modernity and its underlying ideology which are being folded back into nature. I see your images, and I am reminded of the contradictions in social policies where we continue to attempt to find technological solutions to social inequalities. Your Brewster Project photos are a great example of this - how our blind faith in efficiency, rationality and technology renders buildings like that a reality - a reality that builds abysmal worlds for people, and ultimately fails them. When a blog comes along that helps us see what doesn't work, and why it doesn't work, then it is hopeful, because it makes people think differently. There needs to be a better way.
You're an inspired narrator of both real Detroit life and parenting. Even when you think you're not writing about parenting, you are; you inspire me with your community awareness (activism?), and your involvement of your kids in all you do. You inspire me to scrap the canned gymboree classes and children's events bleached of reality, and instead go to more museums, thrift shops, co-ops, gardens, local markets, farms, and neighborhoods. You're feeding my increasing need to pierce our kids' protective bubble in favor of real life lessons--"back to basics" at its finest. Thank you for vocalizing your standard of intelligent, thoughtful, gritty, educated parenting.
Don't let the critics shake you. Your stories of Detroit illuminate and humanize the problems. Seeing the city through your adventures with the kids cuts through the politics and allows your readers a fresh view. Without you (and the kids.. and people like Miss Pickens) many of us would never see the beauty beneath the decay.
Keep writing, I'll keep reading.
Best,
Faithful Reader
I've been lurking (is that the term?) for about a year now, and I, too, have been tempted to move to Detroit (or at least visit) simply from reading your blog. You've got a way of creating hope in a reader and exposing the beauty of a city that most people seem terrified of while still keeping your writing entrancing and lovely (and sad and realistic and interesting and a host of other positive things). I think your blog rocks, and so do you and your family. Thank you for all of the beauty you put out here.
Jim,
Another person chiming in to say that I hope you write about whatever you want to write about: the kids, Wendell, scrappers, city government corruption (as a Chicagoan, I can really appreciate your stories!), the old family homestead (whatever happened with that, BTW?).
I do want to say that of all your stories, the apple foraging one is my absolute favorite. It moved me tremendously for some reason.
As a former Michigander from a small town ravaged by poverty and a mass exodus of younger generations I enjoy seeing the moments of beauty and the humanity you bring to Detroit.
As a mom of two small children I love hearing about your expereineces in parenting.
I have been reading your blog for about a year now and was thrilled to hear you on "The Story" on NPR. You bring a much needed view to the world about what happens when consumerism reaches a peak and has no where to go but down - a view I think will be all too real in many areas of the world very soon.
I'm glad to read this: "I'm not going to let those critics affect me (trust me: I am even more certain in my convictions now that they have been publicly challenged)."
Keep writing, whether it's about the city, the schools, the buildings, the homes, the people or your kids and I'll keep reading. You are a gifted writer and communicator and I'm glad that you carpetbagged into the city, this city.
If those people had ever stopped by to read your words they would know...
You paint the most amazing pictures in my mind through your writing. You and your wife are by far the most human concious people I have ever encountered. I can't exactly explain that statement either...lol...but any one who reads you will know what I am trying to say. I love how you are raising your children. You are teaching them about the simple things and about the human condition. It's really neat to be a witness and to know.
Keep writing, keep taking pictures and please keep sharing your stories with us.
I echo all of the sentiments in the previous 100+ comments. The only thing I can add is that I really want to thank you for writing about Detroit. My father (who is not doing very well these days) grew up in Lansing but went to Detroit a lot as a teen and college student. I relay your stories and things I have learned about Detroit in our daily conversations. I am now finding out a lot more about my dad and his youth as a result. This has become priceless to me. So, again, thank you and keep writing...about anything. I'll always read.
No, no, no and no. Please do not stop writing about Detroit. It needs you now. You're emerging as a voice for the city as it moves through this time of transition (though it seems Detroit's been in transition for a looong time). You've attracted attention of some major media outlets. Like it or not you've become a diarist in the first degree - you point of view, yes - and your entries are simultaneously stark, prescient, reminiscent of my past, candidly portrayed without rancor but with, I think, fondness. Love, even.
I come for all of it. The cityscape portraits, notes on the people, the Eastern Market foray (and the photos...surely you've got some of those coming?), your midcentury modern sensibility, and your SAHD point of view.
You write so well. Don't step off. I love the website.
Your blog makes me want to move to Detroit and help save it. The activists of which you speak? Are blinded by their own opinions on direction and PR and hiding the truth, thinking THAT is what your beloved city needs.
But the truth will always be more insightful. You cannot cover an entire lansdscape with bandaids as you have made well aware on your blog -- and beautifully, poetically.
Keep on, Mr. JDG. What you are doing is magical. Detroit is clearly your muse. And you do her well by exploring her nooks and crannies, revealing them to us like sparklers.
Write about what moves you to record, study, teach, and fuck the PO-lice.
Jim, I tripped over your site ages ago and it was one of the first blogs that I began to follow in earnest.
I feel like there are many parallels in our lives - you and I are the same age, our children are the same ages, and I work from home too. You inspire me to find the humor and beauty in the every day incidents and environment around me.
I always feel hopeful after reading your Detroit posts - even the ones that are distressingly sad. I know that you say you are not an activist - but your very willingness to immerse yourself and your family into your community and share your story will inspire (activate) people to see the ways (big and small) they can do the same.
Finding beauty within the ruin = hope.
I also love your stories of life with the kids (and Wood's crafts - I wish I could sew - scratch that, I wish I had time to sew). I still chuckle over the mental image of spit-up epaulettes and the churning washing machine of shity diapers.
Love it. Don't stop.
One hundred and twenty-odd comments later and I suspect these questions may not be seen in the the company of so many others. My husband and I are in the process of moving our family back to Kansas City from the Southwest, back to extended families and the environs where we were children. Our home city has fared better than Detroit, but there are areas that have suffered. It is something of a dream of mine to plant ourselves in one of these old neighborhoods where the 80 and 100-year-old houses wait for someone to fill them with the noise and routine of life being lived. Our daughter is three. The public school district in Kansas City is so mismanaged that it lost it's accreditation and has yet to regain it. Violent crime is a real part of the fabric of some of these neighborhoods. What does a family do in the face of these challenges? What does your family do for Juney's education? What if private school isn't an option? What do you do to give her unstructured outside play, free from hovering adults? Are there simply some places that used to be, but are no longer, good places for children? This is not snark. We are asking ourselves the same questions as we look for a neighborhood and home, weighing the answers against our desire to make our efforts count for something.
I came for the amazing Juniper photos & stories, and I've stayed because you're a fascinating writer. After all these years, I truly care about your family, and you've let a Mississippi girl see what a place like Detroit is like. I am still astounded at the emotional topography of the place, and wouldn't believe it was true except for what you've shared. But yes, please, I'd love to hear more about the kids.
If I could convince my husband, Detroit would only need 499,995 more carpet baggers.
Please don't stop doing what you do. Yours is a lone voice standing up for Detroit among the contempt the rest of the country/world holds for her. We need you to show them the beauty of this neglected place.
(bad math that can't be blamed on a DPS education)- 999,995 more!
Please. Don't. Stop. I have learned so much from your blog. You are a born writer and a natural teacher.
How can they not see the love that you are sharing?
I have been checking your site periodically to see if you had any comments on the ongoing story by NPR about Detroit. I enjoyed reading your take on the auto industry and I forwarded the article to friends and family who said "let them die".
While there may be people who disagree with your take on Detroit, please remember that there are people who agree with you and look forward to your stories.
I love reading and viewing every portion of your website. I think with every photo you post of the shambles of Detroit, I acutally see it more in my own city now. Before I would just drive by - another run down building or neighborhood. Another thing after reading your site is that I have noticed that there is beauty and history there. People once were there, buzzed around and lived lives.
I think your website does expose rundown areas but I also think you show its potential, its character and show how there is hope for change. You also bring attention to it when so many others like me are willing to just drive by and ignore it.
I love it when you talk about your kids too, so thats good to me too. I also like the Woodcraft section. Keep up the good work!
Kristine - Kansas
I live in Ann Arbor. I'm a photographer. I love your site. I recommend it to everyone I know and some people I don't. It portrays an amazing portrait of an amazing place. To pretend that that place doesn't have problems--that those areas don't exist--that those people don't exist--is exactly the problem those activists should be trying to fight.
When you asked for volunteers to remove sensitive records from abandoned buildings, I thought about responding--but then I thought about my graduate work and how much I wanted to be something other than a graduate student some day. I've regretted it many times since then. Are you still looking for folks to help? Would you mind if I brought a camera?
There is not much I can add after all these comments, just one little thing.
I cannot understand the activists'concern about how you represent Detroit to the world. I am from and live in a small Eastern European country and as such, I had learnt little more about this city than its industrial importance. Since I discovered your site, I've been amazed to find out what beauty it holds, what spirit it holds; your blog has prompted me to read up on its history and watch youtube videos of old Detroit. I truly hope I get to see it one day.
I actually got linked to here from what you would call a right wing website. I enjoyed the article I read (the stiched picture survey of a street). I also enjoyed this article, until I got described as an ideologue. Brilliant. Seeing good in something evidently makes me mentally stunted. No wonder they called you a carpetbagger.
Dittos.
(Ack, did I just channel a Rush Limbaugh listener?)
This might get lost in the shuffle, but I keep meaning to e-mail you about how much your blog for the last year or so has improved/enhanced my enjoyment of the current novel on my nightstand, "Middlesex". (Read it if you haven't yet!) Just as your blog made my enjoyment of "The Zookeeper's Wife" all the richer, you're doing it again now. PLEASE keep on keeping on, because whether you realize it or not, you're weaving yourself into the fabric of the literature of our age. You're becoming part of the zeitgeist for those of us who read you. Imagine that - and you just thought you were writing about your kids and wife and dog and neighborhoods!
Your stories and photos are incredible, touching, poignant, beautiful...and whether they are about your wife, children and dog or about the survival of Detroit and the strength of those who remain there, I'll continue to come here and to pass your stories along to others.
Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim.
Be patient and tough; some day this pain will be useful to you. -Ovid
I just read this quote in such an entirely different context (http:mydementedmom.wordpress.com) but it's fitting. The attention you are getting is just going to bring out more critics. So what!!!
All you are doing is giving us a peephole into your soul and how you see/feel/experience Detroit. And BTW I never got tired of your adventures in Mr. Mom world. I'll read...you write. Deal?
I love your blog - don't change a thing. I have an award for you over at my place - stop by.
The city I live in in a small-scale version of places like Detroit and Baltimore and I love it so much it makes me teary sometimes. I come here because you capture some of what it's like to care desperately about a place that is down, but trying its damnedest not to be out. There is something deeply to be loved about a place like this, a place with a battered but beautiful heart. We, too, get these do-gooder types who are here because we are a PROJECT, but who never engage fully with the place beyond a sort of white liberal do-gooder way, but who just don't get it.
Please keep writing; for every angry do-gooder, there are many, like us, who get what you mean.
I've been reading your blog for a couple of years and if anything, you make Detroit humane! You portray it as quirky and interesting and striving. Keep going!
I was going to say just what Alyce said. Every new blog entry is a love letter to someone or something. I find hope and humor here, even in the darkest entries about decay and waste. You keep on keepin' on.
I don't even know what to say. You are one of Detroit's champions and it is too bad they can't see it.
Please never stop doing what you do here. I have learned and cared more about things and people and animals from reading your blog than I have my ENTIRE (almost) 50 years on the planet. You and your family are AWESOME! It's the whole package and I LOVE IT.
I've read your blog for about 2 months and I will keep reading. I live far from the rust belt, and really have no ties. I read because I appreciate your heartfelt and honest portrayal of detroit. Your entries stay with me for days and sometimes haunt me. I thank you for that, and hope you continue writing about those things that move you, whether it's your hipster kids, your neighbors, or the terrifying Nixon-era books.
I love all your posts, Jim.
I don't have kids, but your posts on parenting always touch me. I've never been to Detroit and don't know anyone from there, but your posts on the city have opened my eyes to a side of my country I never knew could exist and I am captivated by every one.
Keep doing what you're doing. You do it well and I admire you.
get out of that rut man! Don't listen to the haters. Your adventures are totally ispirational to me. The urban prairie is something I hope to see this fall, as we are planning our vacation in your area. I always imagine you in a cape, pushing a stroller, with a bjorn on and a camera on your shoulder. This thought makes me smile.
keep on keep'n on- that bitch was just jealous that she can't blog
I'm not originally from Detroit but I moved here and fell in love with the city. Your blog inspires, it opens eyes, and it carries the emotions of a real person, a real family. Don't stop. Sweet Juniper is encouraging, a constant reminder that there are others sharing the same experiences as I am.
Thank you for sharing with us.
Wait, this is an internet discussion about Detroit? Where are the racists hiding behind anonymity? Where are the allusions to third world countries and comments about "just nuking the place"? What are all these articulate compliments for the work you are doing to share the complicated beauty of your city with people all over the world?
[sarcasm] Right, you're doing a terrible disservice to Detroit. It's just awful how you're portraying it! [/sarcasm].
I've more than once been moved to tears by a post here. Keep up the good work, because it's obviously not just about Detroit.
I love your writing and photos and keep coming back again and again because of the contrast between despair and hope in both. I think moving back to Michigan and Detroit in particular is an act of activism - one that I haven't managed to carry out yet. That said, there are moments I've cringed a little when viewing a few of your images (ie. remnants of weaves in streets or abandoned public housing) because I think the African-Americans who are bearing the brunt of our economic decline might view these images very differently than most of us privileged and yuppified white folks (including myself) who pass by here. For that reason I haven't passed them on to people I know working for change in Detroit, because it felt like insult to injury. I think there is a deep and justified need to maintain dignity in the face of so much hardship. Your images of the school books point out how tragically the system is failing, and unfortunately the public usually points the finger at black leadership in Detroit (when justified and not), rather than the real culprits who have abandoned the city and its people. I think that pain is what the activist was responding to when viewing your images. I think it's a legitimate critique. The writing that accompanies your images makes your standpoint as a concerned, involved resident clear, but when the images are viewed on their own, without that deeper critical analysis, the images might be viewed as more fodder for blaming the victim by some. All that said, I think bringing people back into some of the images is the right path. I have the same difficulty with my photography (which is not at your level) and know it's something I need to work at.
Keep doing what you're doing. Your realistic yet hopeful perspective is truly one of the things that keeps me living and teaching here.
Don't let the haters get to you. The rest of us derive SO much pleasure from everything posted here. My only frustration with your site is when you disallow comments 
I grew up in Kalamazoo (in the '50's), and my maternal cousins and grandparents lived in Detroit. Kzo was boring as shit, and I LIVED for my annual summer train trips to spend weeks with my cousins and grandparents over there.
The riots of '67 broke my heart. Along with the heart of Detroit.
I've been a Houstonian for 35 years now, but I still have such strong connections to and love for Detroit. Your writing about it and your living there gives me great hope for the future of that once grand city.
Hi there Sweet Juniper,
I just found out about your blog. Complete coincidence… just followed a series of links.
Your images are probably the most touching I've ever seen.
I'd say I'm semi-speechless… I can't really describe how I feel after looking at dozens of your Detroit pictures.
You must really be an amazing person to be able to capture both in images and in words such amazing things.
Keep it up.
Keep right up.
"I happen to believe that this blog tells a positive story."
I agree!!! I was born and bred in a suburb of Detroit. We moved away just last year for work.....ecomomy too a downturn....lost the job....still have a house for sale in Michigan. I'm very eager and anxious to move back to my roots, just as soon as I find new work.
And I often think how fun it would be to follow your around on little adventures through Detroit. Your "story" of Detroit is very inspiring to me.
Failing rustbelt city? Your kids? No man, I just come here for the Mr. T coloring books. Keep it up, please. You're a stranger to me, but for some reason I keep coming back to read your words. Whether it be through a lens or a keyboard, you have a talent for capturing an image and the emotion that goes along with it.
Thanks for being so thoughtful about everything you write. I read a bunch of blogs (far too many, probably) and while I enjoy them for all different reasons, I especially love Sweet Juniper because it's different than almost anything on the web. I've learned more about Detroit, urban planning, and the rise and fall of American civilization here than I ever thought I would want to know. But I want even more. I've also laughed harder at and been touched more deeply by your parenting observations than those of almost anyone else I've read.
When people ask me why blogs are interesting, and how the medium is being used for good and intelligent ends, and who is writing something unique that might not get to its audience any other way, I point them straight here.
I admire that you left San Francisco in search of something more, and sought out "America's most maligned city." I think it's wonderful that you've made the effort to see and experience the good things about Detroit. I also think it's great that you have the stamina and patience to try to make things better there.
Miss Pickens sounds awesome.
Keep doing what you are doing. Don't change a thing.
I am a gay man and don't have children, so I'm somewhat surprised to find myself reading your blog regularly. I really appreciate your perspective on life in Detroit. As a Michigan native and current resident of Ferndale, I get so tired of the typical voices here in metro Detroit. Yours is different. You acknowledge the sadness but don't wallow in it -- nor do you resort to the negative or cynical. I feel a current of hope in everything you write and that's what keeps me coming back.
i find it so very interesting to learn more about your experiences in detroit. you have a way with words and images that inspires me - mostly in being able to see the quality and beauty of things beneath the surface.
i lived in Cleveland for a while - which has many similarities to detroit (different industry but, same results). there were urban pioneers there too and that was what attracted me to living there originally. eventually i have returned to chicago, where things are pretty and tied up in big bows in some areas but, in other areas the city is challenged. that's when your blog and others like you help me to see beyond the deteriorated fabric. thank you.
your blog is unique and one i always return to. don't stop it, whether it's about the cute little ones or your thoughts and portrait of your city. for someone not related to the u.s. you have made detroit about people and beauty showing its face in the strangest of places.
I suspect that woman's animosity was derived from envy. She's been doing a lot of work, you take beatiful, metaphorically powerful photographs, and you get a lot of attention. And she's just pissed about it. Eh.
As everyone else has said, we're here to read WHATEVER you write. I've been inspired by your family's story for years now.
It can be really hard to keep your perspective when you are going it alone and making it up as you go along.
But I think you are doing it exactly right. Feeling your way through the murk and grace of life with honesty and thoughtfulness is all anyone can do. Trying to communicate as best you can is an elemental human need. There is honor in telling true stories.
Keep up the great work. I for one am grateful for what you do and look forward to Sweet Juniper posts far into the future. Dare I say, I'd also love to see a book.
I am not feeling very articulate and this is something I've said before, but it bears repeating that I love your blog and you are an inspiration to me.
Your blog has helped my family come closer together. When my brother and I were little, we moved from Detroit to Indiana because our parents got jobs at Purdue University. The move has been hard on all of us--Detroit has become a romantic construct for us, a reminder of family life before we started to drift apart here. Your honest, humorous, and inspiring reports of life in Detroit provide solace for us, and that has brought us closer. Thank you.
Great blog, arrivde here through Nancy Nall's blog.
I too live in a Mies building (in Chicago) and find it an amazing place to be. My husband teaches at IIT, in Crown Hall so it's pretty much all Mies 24/7.
Love your photos of your kids and your life in the city. Just good writing all around. Keep it up.
After hearing your story on NPR last week, I'm hooked on your blog and inspired by your photos. I've lived in the Detroit area all of my life and it's so good to see someone share the beauty and heartbreak of the city. My mother grew up in Detroit and we sat for an hour last night looking at your photos, places she spent her youth, now in ruins, and she was glad your images were there for people to see. Don't let anyone discourage you from the work you're doing.
I've always considered your 'Detroit' writing to be something akin to a poignant love letter to an old girlfriend. Your pictures are haunting and beautiful, tragic and proud at the same time. I'm sorry that some citizens saw it otherwise, but I believe many, many others recognize what you are doing and the need to do it. Documenting America for all its good and bad could be uncomfortable for some who might prefer our secrets to remain so. Ultimately, the inherent value in calling attention to the forgotten cities across the US may not be seen in our lifetimes, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Activism can be achieved in many ways. Keep up the wonderful work.
I really enjoy your stories of life in Detroit. It's so facinating to read about the abandonded buildings, leveled neighborhoods, old empty zoos, all of it. Even your kids. I think blogging is one of the best ways for people to connect and learn more about life outside their little worlds. Please keep posting about Detroit in all its beauty and sadness. You tell a good story, and I for one will keep coming back for more. Thanks!
I know I'm late to the party here, but I really dig your photography and posts about Detroit. You do a lot of research and it shows in your posts. And your love for the city always shines through.
Delurking to tell you that finding your blog has made me care about Detroit—a city I never once thought about and now hope to visit. Growing up in a dying city in upstate NY makes me nostalgic for these post-hayday cities.
Please keep doing what you do. Your writing is beautiful and wonderful and sometimes makes me get all teary for no real reason. Like right now.
I just got a chance to read this...the whole business really speaks to the power of images, doesn't it. There is so much that is beautiful and heartbreaking in this city, and what I so appreciate about your writing and visual storytelling is that you show how complicated it is. I teach English, and the more I do it, the more I realize that that's the message I want students to get--that most everything is complicated. They are so used to thinking in black-and-white terms, but the nuances and subtleties that require careful thinking are where the truth is, somewhere. Detroit is the perfect illustration, I believe.
I also wanted to tell you that my dissertation was, in part, about choosing places to live. There is something powerful and important about making a place your home, rather than inheriting a feeling of belonging across the generations. Transplanting, done properly, can be as genuine as straight-up rootedness.
But that's my hobbyhorse. Thank you for your thoughtful writing...I'll keep coming back, whatever you choose to write about.
Please, please, please, please keep writing about Detroit! It's what I come here for. Detroit, beautiful, sad, wounded, defiant, determined Detroit needs its story told. And I have never seen anyone better at telling it than you are. Don't take taht away from me, from your other loyal readers, and from the loyal readers who haven't found you yet. And your photos of Detroit - they tell stories the way great paintings do. Please don't stop sharing them with us.
Thank you for attending and sharing your experience with the nonprofits- in the big scheme, I think that is our purpose; to be of service where and when we can.
Your gift....minus your voice, your experience, your eyes....hmmm. Not sure I'd come back for that. Jim, fluffed and sterilized, ah, yeah, nope. Geez, you always give due to both sides.
There's a little Detroit in all of us. Every town, village, burg of any size whatsoever I have lived in has some section where things go wrong. Stuff ebbs and flows and then just ebbs almost inexplicably for years. It seems Detroit is displaying the end of that progression in a few more visible ways than most places.
I'm just saying that to tell you that reading this blog of yours opens my eyes to what my own town is "really" like.
And as a parent of two small kids married to a lawyer, I can put myself in the "identifies with" box on all the posts you've done so far. So just use the flack you get to drive you more.
Your blog is one of only a handful I keep up with because of your honesty and wit!
I have loved reading everything you blog about, whether it's your kids, veg or Detroit so don't stop!
I live in a seaside town in England but still relate to lots of your stories (I'm also secretly obsessed with your Nixon Era kids books and the new craft slot....) I do have a nearly three year old son so would love to hear more about how you are getting on raising yours!
Stay positive!
Zoe x
I'm also one of your big fans. You write with great compassion and wit. Even though I'm a middle-age grandma in the West, I still enjoy reading about your impressions of a city I've never been to, and how you are raising your children. Keep up the good work!
Jim, just wanted to add to the chorus here and thank you for taking the time to write this blog. I too feel it comes from a place of hope. I've really enjoyed watching (reading?) the evolution of young parents moving to Detroit and falling in love with a city full of heatbreak. I look forward to seeing where life takes you from here.
Just wanted to say your blog makes me want to be a better person.
(I'm going for the kind of compliment Jack Nickolson gave Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets. Hope it did the job.)
I used to read a ton of blogs but found it to be too much. I trimmed my list of "must read" blogs and I wanted you to know that yours DID NOT get pruned. I can't imagine my online reading without Sweet Juniper! I shudder at the thought. Thanks for doing what you do and sharing it with us.
Jim, you probably know about this already... NPR did a series on Detroit this week. Maybe they were inspired by your articles?
http://www.npr.org/templates/
sto...oryId=103414502
http://www.npr.org/templates/
sto...oryId=103321042
You must know that her hair will never be right, but you have to convince her that it doesn't matter.
Those people clearly haven't read your blog, because you talk enough about the good things to show us why you care, and you shine a light on the bad things to help drive them away. No one should fault you for that.
I say you talk about the kids as much as anything else, because this blog is supposed to be about things that matter to you all, and this obviously is a big part of your life.
Keep on keepin' on!
I'm so glad you write what you write. Detroit needs people like you and your family.
You both are among the handful of people I know of who graduated from such an amazing law school and rather than pursuing money, instead pursue what? honesty? selflessness? the betterment of others? I don't want to blow your head way out of proportion, but what you do and write about, well, it's nice. thank you.
You gotta write about what lights you up, one way or the other. Inspiration, horror, anger, humor. I come here because - as you've said - you choose to be interested. So much of what you wrote about SF was really funny - but really cynical and unimpressed. The way you wrote about Juniper, in contrast, was (and is) fully engaged. And you write about Detroit the same way. And that's the point. As far as I can tell, being alive is about being plugged-in. About using your skills, and improving them; about going places and looking at things that challenge the categories and concepts that you've established; about recognizing your limitations and drumming up the courage - and inspiration - to push through them. And, finally, about seeking and giving to a community that appreciates and supports you. I love that your comments aren't a long series of props; seems to me that feature is for discussion and questioning, not just another adoring fan-note. But, I'm happy to put my pat on the back in with everyone else's this time:
Do your thing, man. We're watching.
I just went from a Cormac McCarthy novel to your blog--two things I dearly enjoy. This McCarthy quote seems pertinent:
"All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes."
I'll look forward to seeing more of your kids... hope you all enjoy the ensuing springtime.
You don't show ugliness, what you do is find beauty in things that most find at best worthy of scorn, and at worst ugly. This is a very important thing you are doing, and I wouldn't be dissuaded by those who don't see the value of what you do.
Ultimately, your art is like all art, intended for those who find value in it. Even if it is just one person (which it clearly isn't!).
Thanks, Dan
As I was reading along, I started to worry that this was going to be one of those goodbye posts that I hate so much, but, thankfully, you're sticking around. Yours is a voice that I look forward to hearing, and that's often a rare thing.
I read your blog because it looks to me something like the future of my city, Glasgow in Scotland. I've been to Detroit (in 2002), didn't get to see much, but was shocked by how it compared to many other American cities I've visited. It's good to see a realistic way of envisaging a future in the ruins that await many of the great industrial cities of the world. And to see someone trying to do the right thing amongst the chaos (like trying to right the wrong of all those kids' psychological assessments lying on the floor).
I was really upset by this post though: http://www.sweetjuniperphoto.com...s-
corridor.html The way you talked about some of the poorest, most destitute and abused among us was callous and abusive in itself. There may be something of the privileged dude in you that the people who take you to task are seeing (because they are sensitive to it in a way many of the readers of this blog may not be): it slipped out a bit there. To be honest, after reading most of your blog and then reading that, I wondered momentarily if a hacker had got in and inserted that post to make you look bad, it just didn't read like you.
I don't want to stop reading and forwarding your blog, because it is unique in its perspective, thought-provoking and inspiring. But I can't show a blog that has a post like that in it to my friends. They would think I had lost my mind.
Just wanted to say thank you from one Detroit transplant to another. I, too, love this city so fiercely that it hurts. I see the beauty although many others (including my family) do not and I thank you for helping and perpetrating that beauty. Beauty is not pure, there will always be some ugly within it and I believe those who can not only acknowledge that fact but embrace it are the true diamonds in the rough. This city needs more people like you - please do not stop telling your Detroit story. Greatness prevails and Detroit is the phoenix and we ARE rising again.
Thank you from Detroit.
What I find most fascinating in your writing is the intersection of urban dwelling and parenting, parenting in an urban - post industrial landscape with the unique challenges and oppourtunities that affords.
I'm in a similar position, though we live at the edge of an incredibly trendy area of our Detroit-esque city (Hamilton, Ontario, also known as Steeltown - and "the armpit of Canada" - where the steel factories that provide the materials to the auto giants are dying away and leaving shock and devastation in their wake, not to mention a deeply scarred landscape...). Where many young professionals and creatives run off to Toronto or to the hundreds of kms of bedroom cities around the mega city, we stayed here in stinky Hamilton to be part of the vibrant community struggling here.
Love you writing Dutch and am inspired by your particular passions.
I really cannot even remember how I stubbled upon your blog... but I am a resident of the D - as kid rock says "made, paid and laid" in the D.
Please don't let the politics stop you in your documenting...even being here all my life, you are doing things I've never done and showing me things I haven't seen.
Keep doing what your doin and hopefully this will all just be a bad dream one day...
rock on!
Jim, I've been a faithful reader of yours for a few years now. I read your blog because you are an excellent writer. Period. I live in a small town on Vancouver Island, Canada and am about as far away from knowing what it must be like to live in urban Detroit as I could be.
What keeps me coming back to S.J. is your gift as raconteur. (God I hope that's spelled right!) Some of my favourite posts are the 'stories' pulled from your past. The series of your life in Ireland, that beautiful post of travelling to Greece with Wood, the Hallowe'en story about the haunted house. Most of all I love how you value your children and know that spending time with them is the most important gift you could give them. Your photography always holds me in thrall, and I often call my husband over to the computer to look at them. Keep writing, keep questioning, keep recording the images, keep storytelling. I'll be watching and reading.
I started reading your blog years ago for the parenting angle. Now I read it for the urban angle. You've taught me to find beauty and inspiration in new places.
Too strange - I've just skimmed through the rest of the comments before adding this, and had just about distilled in my head what I wanted to say - only to see that momdotcom had pretty much summed up my thoughts.
I happened on your blog 2 or 3 years ago via someone else's, and avidly devoured the entire archive during 'quiet' moments in work. Since then we've moved from a city in UK up to Dumfries in Scotland - and identify so much with you in many respects of now following a path you want with your family (we have 2 kids, the eldest a little younger than Juniper and the youngest a little older than Gram - so I love hearing about your two so much).
I just love reading anything you write! (Although, I have to say, I miss Wood's writing a lot too!). My husband laughs at me when I call you my internet friends. But I'm just fascinated by living on a different continent yet feeling on the same wavelength. I only wish I wrote a blog that was worthy of inviting you to read. Maybe one day.
Anyway, waffle over - just wanted to say that I love reading your blog - I suspect that however you focus your writing, I'll still be reading.
Thanks.
And PS - a great big thanks as I found Kate at sweet | salty through you - more awesome writing
re: story under photo Hooker in a hurry.
This made me laugh so hard!!! Awesome writing, I can just imagine you with your kids in the back seat. I will put this in my long term "I need a smile, so I'll remember this story" vault!
ps - regarding your recent critism - don't let the bastards get you down. Just keep doing what you're doing.
Late commenter here, but I wanted to tell you how you've impacted my vision. We live in an area of Sacramento that I would have never lived in before. It's pretty ghetto, but through your blog, I've realized that there can be beauty amongst the ashes. There are so many foreclosed homes in our neighborhood and that number is only going to grow. But the way that you see Detroit has taught me that all cities can be viewed the way you see your city. I live here, it's my city and I should do something about it. I can't complain about the ugliness of the ghetto or the boarded up windows if I'm not doing my own part cleaning it up. That's what you've taught me. So please keep it up. I take inspiration from your words.
I don't have time to read through 198 comments, and I am sure what I am about to say has been said already many times, but I want to add my voice to support you:
It is a pleasure to read ALL your writing, whether it be about your family, your neighbourhood, or your city (or, heck, another country).
Don't apologise, and don't stop writing.
Like many say in the comments above, you have a complex and insightful view of your city and community. I, too, have thought of moving to Detroit because your blog exists. When I get discouraged by modern life I think of your words and pictures. Keep at it.
I used to live in Detroit. I now live in Oakland - I've been in the bay area for over ten years now and I still can't wait to go home. No one ever understands what I love about that city - when I read your blog - I find someone who understands. I also find someone who is helping to make it better. You make me miss it even more than I already did, but you also make me see there is still good going on there and that there are still people who love that great city. I'll be home someday - it's nice to know that I'll be with people who understand.
Thanks for what you've done on this site. I wouldn't know what has happened to Detroit without you. I wouldn't have the same context for the news about the auto industry, and I now think about the possibilities for cities differently because of your images and writing.
Hi,
I'm wondering how's life for you and your family in Detroit? How's the "racism" and crime? Have you had break-ins, or any of the difficulties that go along with a decaying city? You seem to be a true fronteersman.
I'll keep on reading whatever you choose to write. Don't let the bastards get you down!
Keep Detroit alive and humming with your aesthetic response to the changes in your community. You have a great eye and your social commentary is top notch too!
Keep on keepin' on! Viva Detroit!
You mean I shouldn't keep shoving the photos of my grandchildren under strangers' noses? Really, where's the fun in that?
Hey-don't let the (well-intentioned) turkeys get you down. A friend of mine, a fairly well-known writer in this area, wrote a piece about the decay in her neighborhood, as well as a suicide the next block over due to a foreclosure. You would have thought she'd written that Soddom and Gamorrah were installed at City Hall for all the ruckus. A few of believe the same as you: if you don't see things that way, then start a blog and write what you do see. The world's a big enough place for everyone to have their say.
Not that you're going to read down to this billionth comment on your blog, but it's been fun to read all the other comments.
Keep going. I, and a lot of other readers, like what you do. (I even had a student use your blog as a source for her Urban Renewal research paper, sending her the link to one of your pieces.) So see? You're educational, too!
Enjoy the lilacs--we don't grow them as well here in Socal as you Midwesterners do.
I love your blog. You've made me want to move to Detroit more than once (I lived there when I was 2 and don't remember it much). I think you are doing a world of good for that community by documenting its transient state. You demonstrate your love by showing up and loving it for what it is. Which, like parenting, is how you nurture anything well.
I love your blog! All aspects of it. Don't let those losers get you down.
And I can't wait to see Miss Pickens! Tell her we don't care if her hair is perfect.
So sad for those activists. Very charitable of you to see their good despite their ugly behavior.
I love your blog. New-ish to Michigan, I've been planning to move from Ann Arbor to Detroit for about a year. It's really happening now - in June. The deal is sealed.
But throughout the year whenever I would get cold feet, I came here to reconnect with that feeling - that tremulous beauty of persistence in the face of lost hope, the kind of dignity-against-the-odds poetry that really get me goin' - that I know intimately from living in New Orleans, and I know awaits me in Detroit. You channel it so well and so eloquently. Thanks for the poignant reminders of why I want to make my home there. You've helped me in my journey to come back 'home,' so to speak.
dutch for mayor
talk about a much maligned city: this morning I heard someone write in to the BBC World News report and in attempt to woo tourists back to Mexico they described the country's "swine flu"-related dangers as paling in comparison to say the dangers of "walking around Detroit at 3 a.m."
Unbelievable the way people discuss Detroit who have never been here. I thank you again for taking the time to show the many different sides of the city you come into contact with while exploring your new adopted home.
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