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The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit

Andrew Herscher 2012 Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license
Open Access Open Access
Intense attention has been paid to Detroit as a site of urban crisis. This crisis, however, has not only yielded the massive devaluation of real estate that has so often been noted; it has also yielded an explosive production of seemingly valueless urban property that has facilitated the imagination and practice of alternative urbanisms. The first sustained study of Detroit's alternative urban cultures, The Unreal Estate Guide to Detroit initiates a new focus on Detroit as a site not only of urban crisis but also of urban possibility.

 

The Guide documents art and curatorial practices, community and guerilla gardens, urban farming and forestry, cultural platforms, living archives, evangelical missions, temporary public spaces, intentional communities, furtive monuments, outsider architecture, and other work made possible by the ready availability of urban space in Detroit. The Guide poses these spaces as "unreal estate": urban territory that has slipped through the free- market economy and entered other regimes of value, other contexts of meaning, and other systems of use. The appropriation of this territory in Detroit, the Guide suggests, offers new perspectives on what a city is and can be, especially in a time of urban crisis.

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ISBN(s)
  • 978-0-472-03521-2 (paper)
  • 978-0-472-90028-2 (open access)
Subject
  • Michigan and the Great Lakes:Art and Culture
  • Art:Architecture
  • American Studies
  • Urban Studies
  • Class Studies
  • Cultural Studies
Citable Link
  • Table of Contents

  • Stats

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • Epigraph
  • Contents
  • The Detroit Unreal Estate Agency: A Preface
  • Unreal Estate: An Introduction
  • Unprofessional Practices
    • Ruin Harvest
      • Detroit Demolition Disneyland
      • FireBreak
      • Salvaged Landscape
    • Food Infill
      • Earthworks Urban Farm
      • D-Town Farm
      • Georgia Street Community Garden
      • Brightmoor Farmway
      • Peaches and Greens
      • Field of Our Dreams
    • Municipal Therapy
      • Motor City Blight Busters
      • Greening of Detroit
      • Hope District
      • Navin Field Grounds Crew
      • Detroit Mower Gang
    • Furtive Inhabitation
      • Detroit Blues
      • Hookie Monsters
      • Urban Yoga Lab
      • Seed Detroit
  • Unwarranted Techniques
    • Feral Research
      • Detroit Geographical Expedition
      • Pink Pony Express
    • Waste Curation
      • Tree of Heaven Woodshop
      • Architectural Salvage Warehouse
      • Friends of Gorgeous Berries
    • Public Secrecy
      • Hygienic Dress League
      • Secret Pizza Party
      • Trtl
    • Radical Hospitality
      • Boggs Center
      • Catherine Ferguson Academy
      • Block Clubbing
  • Unsanctioned Collectives
    • Temporary Communities
      • Dally in the Alley
      • Theatre Bizarre
      • Detroit Guerrilla Queer Bar
      • John's Carpet House
      • Tashmoo Biergarten
    • Do-It-Yourself-Then-Together
      • UFO Factory
      • Yes Farm
    • Micropolitanism
      • Farnsworth Street
      • Fourth Street
      • Trumbullplex
    • Urban Toeholds
      • Center for Creative eXchange
      • Filter Detroit
      • Ego Circus
  • Unsolicited Constructions
    • Accidental Architecture
      • Michigan Building Parking Garage
      • Peacemakers International
      • Blotting
    • Extreme Housework
      • Detroit Industrial Gallery
      • Full Scale Design Lab
      • Power House
    • Scavenged Space
      • Alley Culture
      • Grafikjam Alleys
      • The Lot
      • Submerge
      • Contemporary Art Institute of Detroit
    • Patrimony of the Unlost
      • Hamtramck Disneyland
      • Car Wash Café
      • African Bead Museum
      • Heidelberg Project
  • Glossary
  • References
  • Acknowledgments
  • Image Credits
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