Lawn’s Lesson

The people I know say bad things about lawns. They know about monoculture and monotony and suburbs. They defend the dandelion and they weep for the weed and dream blindly of how better times used to be. But when I was ripping up grass in my back yard to make room for a garden, I […]

The Policy Path of Detroit’s Destruction

As published in Riverwise magazine How state policy legalized the destruction of Detroit. Detroit is a city with so much to lose and so little to spare. Popular narratives which attempt to describe Detroit’s struggles resort to abstract reasoning, such as the ‘invisible hand of market forces’. Other times, corporate submission to global market trends […]

Hamtramck Water Woes

Also published in the Hamtramck Review One thing that unites all Hamtramck residents is our distress over our water bills. Bills seem to get higher and higher every year, even as we confront challenges to the quality of our water. This year, Hamtramck has simultaneously shifted toward automated water meter while reducing our ability to […]

Election Day

I woke up at 6am. Very tired. I had gone to be at 2 or maybe 3 while Molly, Evan and an affable neighbor sat at the dining room table stickering and cutting papers like elves and manipulating spreadsheets. One of the elves left me a present at the bottom of the stairs- it was […]

Wire Nuts

I think of my dad as an accidental feminist. He has five daughters, so he didn’t have much of a choice. With that gender distribution, it was inevitable that he would witness his female progeny carry out multiple acts of intelligence and feats of competency. Practicality alone led him to avoid “traditional” paths wherein each […]

Check-Save-Buy

Previously published in the Free Press with minor unapproved edits. Original below: It started with a Facebook post “77-year old women needs help immediately!” The woman was a renter of a tax foreclosed home, and a stream of well-meaning friends offered their advice about what she should do. There was fear that she would face eviction, […]

Beneath The Steam

Originally published in Hour Detroit An iconic image of winter in Detroit is the columns of smoke spewing from sidewalks. Steaming streets are part of the landscape, but few know the answers that lie beneath this mystery in plain sight. Below our sidewalks, there’s a vast infrastructure that includes electricity, water, sewer, and fiber optics. […]