Alejandro Ponce

11/28/16
Honors 1000: The City
Most people have been to the city at least once either to buy something, find something
entertaining to do or see the local landmarks, but do we really ever take a look at what makes our
local city unique? For HON 1000 we take a look at what makes up Detroit and what the whole
world can take away from the struggle of Detroit. First you must consider that Detroit is a
practical city for the most part (meaning that the city is made for the purpose of being functional
rather than planned just to be ascetical pleasing) and that the struggles it faces now are
challenges that all cities have faced in a lesser extent. Therefore, how the people of Detroit face
these issues and whether they succeed or fail are important to everyone that lives in the cities
around the world. The citys issues range from racial tension between the city dweller and people
in the suburbs to crime that runs rampant through the city. Thus, this course was made to get
students at Wayne State thinking how they can affect the city of Detroit. Honors 1000: The City
improved my way of seeing the city of Detroit by showing me the true nature of the city from its
design to its uses and the problem that came about during its history.
The course is made up of two major parts the lecture/ assignments and the passport
events around the city. The lecture and assignments give the basis of the planning and meaning
of any city; the planned beautiful city in France to the practical cities in the United States are
major examples used during the course to examine the meaning of the construction of cities. The
lecture and assignments also help develop a way of seeing the city depending on the person and
the era. Your way of seeing maybe different from another person depending on differences in
race, socioeconomic class or experiences. The two likewise examine how the city affect current
issues the city faces from tensions between races to economic problem plaguing the city. The city
helped to explain how these issues came about due to the construction of different sectors like
the creation of racial tension in the city via building different sectors of the city for whites and
minorities. However, the course also took the student to a more hands on encounter with Detroit
via the passport events. The most impactful for me was the trip to Eastern Market. At the market,
we were shown the clear differences between this image of the past and the present day. The way
items were sold, buying items and the atmosphere itself were different for the usually

supermarket process. We were left to examine why do we support supermarket more than market
similar to the Eastern Market? The question came to deciding between being the designer people
looking exclusively at the future or keep the past with us; the supermarket being the designer
way and Eastern Market would be the past kept in the future. The consequences being the
designer people seem to be blind to the failures of the past to learn from and that the past may
keep us from progressing further into the future. Altogether, the course was full of questions that
are examined, but left to the students interpretation on whether the agree with the conscious or
that their viewpoint maybe better.
Honors 1000: The city showed that Detroit is a city with many different ways of seeing
depending on your position and that its structures hold clues to finding out how the city has
affected the present day. In conclusion, this knowledge will help this generation save Detroit
which will become an example for everyone on how a city in ruin can become a city reborn.