Detroit's Climate Crisis — and How to Build a Resilient Future Everywhere (4)

I was having this conversation with my sister because that's what sisters do, talk about manufacturing and infrastructure investment.

This is my sister, I have two of them.

So she lives in Washington, DC.

Eight inches of rain, in her opinion, was just not enough rain to create that much flooding.

And she kind of didn't believe me that Detroit was at risk for climate impacts.

And I explained to her that Detroit is not different from other cities in its process for making municipal investment decisions.

Municipal investment decisions are made for primarily two ways: new development and crisis repair.

Detroit is not unique.

What makes Detroit unique is it has 100-year-old gray infrastructure supporting 139 square miles of Detroit.

We can no longer only make decisions for crisis. We don't have that luxury.

We have to make decisions differently to improve the quality of life for Detroiters

and improve the quality of the neighborhoods that we're all living in for the future.

Finally, we have to begin to invest in neighborhoods so that they are free from blight and deterioration.