Building “Solution City”
 The Potential for Green Innovation in Detroit

In this time of widespread national economic crisis, Detroit is often reduced to a kind of symbol, representing the most dramatic example of industrial collapse and its human and environmental consequences.  Considered less often is the aftermath of this collapse.  While there is a great deal of pain, there is also great potential for learning and experimentation with alternative economic models and environmental practices.  This is one reason for holding the June 2010 United States Social Forum in Detroit, where necessity demands drastic change.  The social forum will provide a space for discussion and visualization of these alternatives, but it will also help to create immediate improvements in the circumstances of Detroiters.

Forum organizers have thus given Detroit a new name: “Solution City.”  The forum process, a five-day convergence of an expected 20,000 activists, will facilitate some of these solutions in coordination with local grassroots groups.  There are plans to transport hundreds of bikes to Detroit, to continue the work that has already begun in the city of reclaiming vacant plots for community gardens, and to purchase buildings for community use.

Another vital aspect of the forum process, however, is the strengthening of communities involved in similar struggles.  The Eastern Michigan Environmental Action Coalition (EMEAC). is an anchor organization of the forum’s local organizing committee, and already involved in building coalitions among those communities facing environmental racism.  Several of EMEAC’s current campaigns seek legislative redress to specific problems.  To reduce pollution from diesel engines, EMEAC is calling for the city of Detroit to pass an anti-idling ordinance for diesel vehicles and to equip city diesel vehicles with filters that reduce emissions.  For broader, multi-causal issues like environmental racism in Detroit, however, EMEAC emphasizes the importance of a more holistic view of the problem.

Rocio Valerio, the Air Quality Coordinator of EMEAC and a member of the forum’s Immigration Committee, is working to connect the environmental degradation and immigration patterns that both stem from the effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement.  She and other organizers emphasize the importance of supporting “black-brown

alliances,” particularly in areas such as south Detroit, where freeway, factory, and diesel pollution are worst and where the African-American, Latino and Arab communities are physically divided by the river.  “It’s not enough to carry a campaign that will just change policy and preserve the environment,” she explains.  “It’s about changing the culture and providing opportunities.”

The next major step in the organizing process is a Peoples’ Movement Assembly in Detroit on March 13.  This process is open to everyone and will provide a space for alliancebuilding through the articulation and synthesis of different communities’ needs and political positions.  “We really need to come together to figure out solutions,” says Diana Seales, EMEAC’s executive director, “not only for a new environment and a new relationship to nature, but also what a post-industrial economy looks like that benefits the community and benefits people’s health.”