It is funny how a single space can be symbolic. Detroit, to me, is one of such spaces. Let’s face it, as much love as I have for the city, it has issues. I mean, I have faith in the quest to redevelop it, but if you look at the city as a whole, it is more-or-less dirty, vacant, and a mere ghost town of what it was in the 1950s. Regardless, the significance of this city to me is monumental. My family roots are here, and without this city I wouldn’t be alive today to write this blog. My great-great-grandpa lived here, my father lived here, my parents met and fell in love here, and now this city is my place of work and play. The family values I have grown up on have been established here and much of my future dreams are rooted on these city streets.

            I think another thing that attracts me to Detroit is it’s unique culture. First off, a lot of people are scared of Detroit, often overreacting, something that seems to make Detroit seem more and more like “my city”. Despite the “mean streets”, there are a lot of good-hearted and unique people, people so unique I would have trouble finding such people in New York City. Detroit also offers a unique variety of vintage shopping, bars, and music that are second to none. Detroit rock has a special place in my heart. If I lived anywhere else I would thirst for the local music scene that I have been a part of here. Through all the good experiences (and the bad, for that matter) I’ve had and all the influential people I have met, just stepping foot on “Detroit soil” fills me with excitement. When I spend a lot of time away for the city, I get a borderline sense of nostalgia. Even just driving on the infamous Eight Mile Rd. gives me an anxious feeling, letting my nerve system know that I am truly in a “special space”. At times I can take myself there without even physically being there, just through the use of my imagination. Detroit is more than just a place; it is a state of mind.

-Mark Suchyta 

When we think of moving to the big city, do we think of our life’s problems are going to be changed forever? Well, we would have to go back in time and ask people who lived during the Great Migration era what thier experiences were. From our history books we can see that people in the south needed jobs and wanted to get out of the north. Soon enough they packed up all their belongs and moved to the city. Henry Ford needed workers to work at certain work stations along the assembly line, so in order to do it in the most efficent way, he hired labors and they were trained in a short period of time. There was only one thing wrong. Workers from the south we used to beging their daily tasks in time with the season, time of day, or weather. Ford wasn’t too happy when workers did not show up for work on time so they were often fired, and because people were looking for jobs, he could hire workers at the snap of his fingers. There were alot of distractins the southerners faced coming to the big city, so the company owners had to create some level of restriction. But for thoes who could not make it to work on time were cut from their positions. Who would not want a job back then that payed 5 dollars a day and an easy on at that.  

The city and the country are basically the opposite in terms of its spacial aspects. The city is a place where everything is close together and transoirtation was more acessesable. On the other hand, the country is a place where there is much more open space. There are a lot more fields, farms, cropping lands, and forest type areas. When we look in buying a house, do we buy a place where we have more privacy and are more free to express ourselves, or do we use the industrialized materials as excuses to keep busy?

Space is an interesting subject that can be compared and contrasted in ways. Miles apart, family and friends will always be in your heart. I thought that was an interesting saying that dealt with this subject in its own unique way.

Aaron Smith

Space within the city and space within rural areas are virtually contrastin in all possible ways.  However, the country and the city and its suberbs have an intertwining relationship  with each other.

The city is commonly defined as confined, compacted, and crowded.  Those three words are a pretty good desription.  Large and congesting buildings, busy walkways, especially in the epicenter areas, and much noise and activity all add to the city atmosphere.  “Space”, so to speak is often rare and precious in cities like Tokyo and New York.  There are however cities like Detroit, where the post-industrial, enonomic turmoil setting leaves much space available in the form of abandoned and burned out buildings and forgotten and negleted areas of the city.  So although space in a city can be for the most part generalized, it varies from city to city.

The country is, of course, the polar opposite.  Sparce buildings, much open land, homes distances apart pretty much describe any rural setting.  Very few corportion if any occupy rural areas and farming is the typical, and most obvious, career. Space here is plentiful; save for government interference.

The Suburbs.  Perhaps the most difficult area to completley define.  Not quite the city, but not quite the country.  A suburb is generally defined as any area directly outside the city limits, where the residents and businesses still relate and comute to their respective city for variious reasons.  Suburbs are usually wealthier than their city.  It is meant to have the qualities of the city and be in an area directly near while at the same time having the peaceful qualities of the country life.  However, yet again Detroit has shown the complete opposite with its suburb Warren which is depressed in a similar manner as its mother city.  Space here is harder to grasp and is not always concrete due to the fact that as stated before, not all suburbs fit the general desription.  Some can have as little space as the city, while some can be very spacious.  The highways connecting suburbs and cities also show a sort of correleation as to how a city and suburb relate; although a highway will not generally change its “size” so to speak.

T. Whitmore

Space is very important to me and especially what I call home. When I graduated out of high school I got accepted to Michigan State University. At the end of august all of the freshmen had to move into their dorms that they were assigned to. I already knew that I was going to have two other people in my dorm area. So I expected the dorm to be a nice size. Little did I know when I arrive on campus to move in my dorm that is was so small. The dorm was the size of my bedroom at home no exaggeration. I was mad because there was no type of space to move around. It was just crowed because it was three of us all in this tiny room. The dorm had three desks, twin bunk beds with an additional twin bed added to the room, two medium size dressers, and one open closet space. And we had community showers which we had to walk down the hall to get to. Literally it was almost the size of a jail cell. That dorm area was terrible and I knew that I wasn’t staying in that dorm for a full semester. I was mad so that I left and went back home with in a week. I return to my house which only I and my brothers stayed in. I have more privacy at home and my own spacious room with a queen size bed. And the bathroom is right across the hall from my room. In my room I have my own desk area, entertainment set with my TV and radio on it, and my own closet space. It felt good to be at home were it is more comfortable and relaxing to be at. So space is important thing me and probably to a lot of people. I like to have room to move in and privacy. Being condemned affects your attitude towards people. When there is more space and more room to be free it makes your life a whole lot easier. Space is a key thing to have in your home. James Morrow

There is a lot more to a space than just its physical characteristics. Every space portrays a mood, whether it’s a mood set off by the physical properties of the space, or a mood triggered by memories that an individual is reminded of when he or she enters the space. When someone manages to feel an emotional connection with a space, that space becomes special to the person. One of these spaces to me was a place called GS360. GS360 was an ex-wedding hall converted into a gritty all ages rock venue. It was located on Nine Mile Rd. at Schoenherr Rd. in Warren, between an old elementary school and an abandoned auto garage. If it were not for the makeshift sign, the place would have been impossible to find. The exterior was grisly, but the inside was another story.
Upon first entering the building, there was a lobby with lime-green painted walls. There was a small table by the door where everyone would pay to get in, usually $5-7, a very reasonable price for a great rock show. Anyways, there was a huge guy at the door every night named “Thick Nick”. He was an intimidating and sarcastic guy, so sarcastic you could never tell if the guy was serious or not. Then in the corner of the room there was a counter where show-goers could buy snacks, beverages, t-shirts, and CD’s of local Detroit bands. Behind the counter was Aaron, an old high school friend of mine who lived down the street from the venue. Now and then you would see Kevin and Chris there, the owners. They were 2 tattooed-up big mid-thirty-year-old hardasses, but everyone loved them. Their jokes and easy-going attitudes made you feel at home despite the building being in desperate need of repairs.
Leaving the lobby, there was a long hallway that lead to the “theater”, for lack of a better word. The room where the bands performed was very simple: a big white barren room with a small elevated stage. Despite the simplicity, one the owners, Chris, dropped a lot of money purchasing a state-of-the-art sound system and many stage lights, helping to create stage shows on a professional level. When local heavyweights such as the Weakend and Opus Podunk (R.I.P.) played, that place felt like the Fillmore with its artsy lighting and the 300 people jammed into a 250 person capacity room. One thing was for certain, I always felt at home at GS360. The venue managed to bring such a variety of people together every week for all sorts of musical events. Now and then I would even accompany my metal-head friend to a hardcore show. I hate metal and I still had a riot at those shows. GS360 was a way for me to escape the frustrations of life and just let myself go. I loved that space.
GS360 closed in early July 2007 due to financial problems. The venue business is a tough one since it is hard to make money on the weekdays. Some efforts have been made by local musicians and music fans to raise funds to reopen the place, but its future still remains undetermined.

-Mark Suchyta

After analyzing the State Hall building, I thought it’d be interesting to analyze the houses that I’ve lived in throughout my life in the same way. Throughout the 19 and a ½ years of my life, I have moved a total of 5 times. I clearly remember two of the five times, while the other three I remember slightly from looking at old pictures. The only thing I remember about the first three houses that I lived in is that they were apartments that had a kitchen, balcony, two rooms, one bathroom, a living room, and a dining room. The fourth house was a townhouse, so it had much more space than the apartment. The town house was interesting in that it had three floors and had no basement. There was a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom, a dining room and a big living room on the first floor. On the second floor were two closets in the hallway, one for the washer and dryer and another one just for clothes. There was also a master bedroom and another room that my brother and I shared. On the third floor was another closet that had a secret door that led to a little attic area. Also, there was an office that my dad used as his work area, where there was a desk with a computer and all his medical books. Now, for the room that my brother and I shared, it was average size. At first there used to be a bunk bed and a baby crib and a dresser and all our little toys, like the little play kitchen, desk and slide, and there was also a closet filled with all our clothes and toys. On the walls were posters of the alphabet, numbers and shapes. Nothing else was special about them, the normal white painted walls. When my brother outgrew his crib, it got taken out and was replaced by one of the bunk beds. No more space was added or removed. It stayed exactly the same. At the time, since we were both kids, we didn’t really have to worry so much about our “own” space. Then we moved into our house that we live in now, which is a three-story four bedroom house with a finished basement. There is a dining room, living room, family room, a kitchen with an eating area, office, and a bathroom on the first floor. In the basement there is a room, a huge living area, a kitchen, a bathroom, two closets and an office. On the third floor there are four rooms, and two bathrooms. My room is very spacious. It has a queen bed, a dresser, tables, big jewelry box, a pink rug on the floor, a closet and next to it a big window. My room is painted a nice shade of red and there is a poster of Justin Timberlake above my big jewelry box. Now that I am older it has become much harder to keep my room clean because I get so busy and lazy to always clean it, but I like having my own room. In comparing all the houses that I’ve lived in, I would have to choose the one that I live in now as being the best because I have my own room and I like having more privacy.

-Sarah Kazem

I think that the country and the city are two completely different areas. Before I moved to the United States, I lived in Baghdad, Iraq. Every 2 years or so my parents would to take me to where they grew up, a little city up north called Mousel. I loved it there, it was very quite and beautiful. People would wake up at 7 a.m. and go to work which was basically faming. My grandparent’s house was one of the biggest houses there. It was a two story house; it had 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. 4 of their rooms looked over a huge land that they owned. Everything was so green especially in the summer. The air was very fresh because there were no factories and barely any cars. In Mousel Houses were actually very close to each other and so were the people. People used to gather in a different house everyday and just talk, play cards and have dinner together. Everybody had a phone but they never really used it because everything was so close. Everybody knew each other. They knew who lived in each house and who owned each land. It was like one big family (this is why Chaldeans are all somehow related). Baghdad and Mousel are very different. Baghdad is just like a city here and Mousel is like the country. I currently live in West Bloomfield (just moved from Troy) the city is a much louder place than the country. Also the air is more polluted. Troy and West Bloomfield are very crowded areas. It takes me about an hour to get to school in the morning because of traffic (it takes about 15 minutes without traffic).

I also think that the people’s attitudes are very different if they live in the country. In Mousel, people were usually very calm and did not get upset very easily. On the other hand in the city there is a lot of road rage, for example, and it is scary. I think that the environment affects the people very much; it could be the weather, the area, or the people that are around you. Even though I really liked Mousel I don’t think I would ever want to live there. The country is a place you go to visit and relax for maybe a week but that is about it. Even thought the country might have a fresher air and is less crowded, I can not imagine living in it forever. The city is where I belong

R.M.

Religion is clearly a huge part of the movie that we were watching in class. I believe that religion was so prevalent in the movie because religion was a great part of the life of a black person during the time that the movie was made. During this time, people of the black race did not have much other than their individual and unique talents, and they had each other. They usually would get together for church or religious purposes. I think it is because religion was such a large substantial part of black life and the movie involved all black people, it would have been inaccurate not to put religion into the movie. Also religion was just a part of the plot of the movie. I was learning about the id, ego, and the superego in psychology sometime this week or last week I think. It is very interesting to me that we watched that movie because it corresponds to what I learned about the id, ego, superego. The devil is the representation of the id. The id is the part of one’s personality that is present at birth and is completely unconscious and it makes a person want to do what will satisfy a person’s desires at the particular moment. The angel is a representation of the superego. The superego is basically the moral center of personality. It desires to do what is the right thing at all times according to the rules, customs, and expectations of society. The poor person in the middle that has to ration choose is a representation f the ego. The ego develops out of the need to deal with realty which is that here are two extremes o deal with. The was magnificently portrayed throughout the movie through the use of religion. LaTasha Moss

Throughout my life I’ve found myself in alot of different kinds of environments. I was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and lived there for 9 years before I moved to the States with my mom. I lived in a very old city, along with old museums, buildings, churches, flats ( like a 13 story appartment that you dont pay rent for, instead its a “house” as I may explain later.) The city I lived in was very known for its history. There were historical spots everywhere you went. Compared to the United States-its nothing that anyone that has lived in this country could handle since its so different and most people would only travel to St. Petersburg to go sightseeing but not be comfortbable with its living arrangements. I know a few people that took a trip to my home town(ironically its not a town, and has no characteristics of town) and said it would be hard for them to adjust if they were to say leave their old life behind, with their white picket fence house and a huge back yard, plus the garage. They said that city life in the States is easier to go by then to live the city life in a country they know almost nothing about. From what I remember St. Petersburg wasnt a big fan of cars, public transportation was the way to go. A lot of little adjustments such as public transportation (subways and buses and trolleys are they way to go) have a lot to do with space. Being able to walk around right in the city, you notice how much space is conserved when there are no cookie cutter houses everywhere. The way that the flats are built, in sections, all around the city, there would be no use for a 3 bedroom house. The theory is that because so many people live in cities, the only way to provide enough space for everyone is to build tall buildings so there would be more space on the ground. There would be tall 10 to 17 story buildings that resemble appartments that you would see down here in Detroit. Each family had its own flat. The flats would have several rooms, a kitchen, a dining room, and a bathroom- with the toilet and the shower/bathtub in seperate rooms. Alot of time there would be too much space for two people ( this is a description of my old flat) so my mom rented out one of the rooms to someone else and that was awkward enough. When you walk into the flat there is a hallway that leads to the main dining room. There is a lock on the room similar to what you would find on your front door. Inside the dining room you would see several doors to the other rooms. If you were to go down to the kitchen or the bathroom you would have to walk out of your “living space” and go down the hallway and then make a left to go to the kitchen. It seems big, but it really is not. Each side of the bedrooms also had a balcony that overlooked the other buildings and the schools. You could see alot from the 9th floor and its a strange experience moving out of the city to a “house”. I was so used to living in that building, taking the elevator down everyday and having to walk to the bus stop and then to the subway to get around ANYWHERE, it really struck me hard when I had to move into a house. My mom and I were so used to our old living arangements that we didnt know what to do with the 4 bedroom house with a huge finished basement. It was just too much space. It was too much to clean, so most of the time several rooms were just locked.That was about 6 years ago, before my mom and I moved into our own appartment. I miss living in the city, I miss walking around till 3am and watching the bridges open up and fold to the side so a boat could get through. It was really something to see. There were just so many differences that I will never find in the U.S. ever again. New York and Chicago will never compare to that lifestyle.

Marsha K.

    Since the exercise with State Hall and spaces, I have been thinking a lot about other places, mainly the dorms, mainly Towers Residential Suites; where I’m living now.

I dont know if its actually more space or if im just used to being crammed into a small place with another person but it seems like i do have a little more space than last year in South Hall. But thats not the point. I’ve keeping an eye out in Towers and have noticed many new things about it. First off the floor all alternate between floors, mostly between blue and an off white color…i dont know why but it does. But what i really want to talk about are the rooms. They all have windows that are huge but only open like 6 inches. I think i know why…to prevent suicides…i know sounds outrageous but makes sense ( Bio Exam went wrong, broke up with your gf/bf, homesick, roommate smells lol). Then theres the bed (pretty much my best friend since coming to college) really long and my sheets have a hard time staying on and when its lofted (does wonders for making space) theres hardly anyway to make the bed; which makes me angry because then i look like a slob. But moving to the good stuff… HOW MUCH IT FEELS LIKE A JAIL CELL!!! We are thrown into a small cubicle of a place with one window and just enough space for our stuff. We can harldy fit our guests into our room let alone have space for the handicapped (which i dont really know if they have special rooms for them or not, but the handicapped doors have been broken since we have moved in) I’m just kiddin though, i know that Wayne State tried their best to fit as many kids into the same building comfortably but im complaining anyways. Sorry to have made you read about me complaining about where i live.

-Al Hang