HeyJaredThe Commons: All About Us
Do Great City neighborhoods, diversity, infrastructure and ecology offer a roadmap for America as a whole?
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 7
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- Sep 27, 2026
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- Jul 4, 2026
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People Sleeping in Factories (opens the original)
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I’m trying to move into a loft this Fall. I’m looking for an open floorplan big enough to house a workshop for my writing and consulting projects, and that pretty much leads me to a loft - which pretty much keeps me in an older part of the city because that’s where these kinds of spaces exist. My tour of new housing in Detroit last year (here) gave me a lot of compassion for families, as the overwhelming majority of the exciting wave of new renovations and construction in D
Arboretum Detroit: A Vision of the After-Life (opens the original)
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I’m still thinking about this idea of next acts highlighted in my last blog about the lovingly redeveloped Catholic parish in an emptying Detroit neighborhood. Some of this is my own need for a next act, but I think as well that Americans as a whole are coming to terms with the country’s stubborn refusal to respond to our needs - certainly part of my own angst about aging. Many of us see the social and political crises at hand, but there is a spiritual crisis as well, and it begs for a wholly ne
Broken Things Getting Second Chances (opens the original)
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How many people have ascended those monumental church steps with a heavy weight on their heart. They lost their job when the plant closed, or their health from decades of grinding hard-work, or their security in the swirl of vacating homes and buildings that’s been a fact of life for generations in most American industrial centers. Or they were burying their dead like we buried Grandma from Annunciation Church when I was 22 years old. The need for comfort drew our weary legs up those stairs that
Roadside Memorials: Our Heart on Our Sleeve (opens the original)
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Some days, the litter underfoot crunches like fallen leaves. I take so many steps on my walks, propelled up the raised edges of sidewalk flags and through the dust of obliterated concrete, oblivious to the insidious weeds reaching for my ankles. I slice through vacant lots with just a glance at the uneven earthy mounds in them. The emptiness of older neighborhoods means that the dignity of the purpose for which they were built is in plain view, and erosion from the decades since they were vacate
Civic Education at the Civic Theatre (opens the original)
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Where do you hang out? Where do teens congregate, moms and dads enjoy a night out, older people put their feet up? A Fortune report says more of the places where we’ve traditionally hung out are disappearing due to unaffordability. Growing up, I worked at the old Civic Theater on Detroit’s far eastside. I went to our parish church every Sunday, including its socials, and to the Chandler Park Branch library probably once a month. I took long me
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