Public Interest Design
FITZGERALD : GEOGRAPHY
OF A REVOLUTION
Campus and Context Research
Group Members:
Lola Boughner, Annika Koppeser, Julia Archer, Manuela Hanna, Soren Outland
OVERVIEW
author, date, audience
ORGANIZATION
Reader 1
Reader 2
Reader 3
Reader 4
Reader 5
FOREWORD: 2011
DGEI - Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute.
Founded by Bunge and Gwendolyn Warren, a young black woman from the Fitzgerald neighbourhood.
Was about providing free college extension courses to inner city residents.
Facilitating research in the community, by the community, for the community.
Providing urban planning tools that residents could experiment with and see what worked.
That the experiments should come from within and not be imposed upon the community from the outside.
Bunge thought that geography was becoming focused more on books and within libraries than on the world outside, and that
this was turning geographers into a “caricature” of themselves.
Becomes less focused on what is really there and a whole picture of geography, “If the ghetto burns down we will not know it
because it does not show on ”Symap”.
Research should not be a specialized activity for the elite, but should be carried out by the collective in the best interest of
everyone.
“Geography does not belong to geographers alone,”
FOREWORD
Skeleton map is a map meant to show the facts, a life map is meant to capture “the life of the times”
The skeleton map provides a basis for the life map
There was a question of whether one square mile of a neighbourhood could really be representative of the historic
geography of America as a whole, but America has a “startling homogeneous culture”
The study attempts to learn big things from a little region instead of following a geographic tradition of little things
from a little region
A sign in Nottingham Hill region of London, “Remember Detroit”
Locations are relative, not unique
SECTION 2: INTRODUCTION
Slums and the “slum system” are what really drive fear into urban America, not the people who live in them
CHAPTER 3
Reader 5
Fitzgerald is introduced not just as a neighborhood, but as a political and spatial battleground defined by race, housing, and
power.
Bunge emphasizes geography as lived experience, arguing that maps and data must reflect how people actually move, live, and
suffer.
Housing patterns in Fitzgerald were actively produced through policy, real estate practices, and informal racial enforcement.
Black residents’ presence is framed as a “problem” by institutions, while structural racism itself remains unnamed.
Schools, streets, and housing are shown as connected systems rather than separate urban issues.
Bunge critiques traditional academic geography for being detached, abstract, and complicit in inequality.
The chapter establishes the need for community-based research and positions residents as knowledge producers.
Fitzgerald is presented as an example of Detroit’s broader racial and economic struggles.
This chapter sets up the book’s core argument: spatial injustice is not accidental but designed and maintained.
CHAPTER 4
Reader 1
Where Races Meet
White residents framed Black integration as an “invasion,” erasing Black families’ long history in Fitzgerald.
Reverend David Mitcham’s move exposed racism masked as concerns over property values; the issue was race, not housing.
Limited white allyship was enough to weaken organized resistance and reveal false claims of total opposition.
The Lamar family faced severe harassment, showing racism persisted regardless of class, education, or legality.
Police actions unintentionally reinforced racist protests.
Children integrated more easily than adults, highlighting generational differences.
Bunge argues racism is cultural, not numerical, rejecting “racial ratio” theories.
Fitzgerald’s success came from strong community organization, especially the Community Council, not racial control.
Integration worked best when residents focused on shared needs and collective action.
CHAPTER 8
Reader 1
Plans
Beauty in neighborhoods is social and spiritual, not just physical; people need a role in shaping their space to feel connected.
Planning fails when residents are excluded, even if designs are technically “good.”
Klugel argues environments should adapt to people, not force people to adapt.
Everyday acts of personalization show people want control over their surroundings.
Fitzgerald’s diversity and institutional isolation (like the university) create social distance.
The Community Council bridges gaps but faces criticism from all sides.
Flexible, people-centered planning works better than rigid long-term designs.
Racism, uneven zoning, expressways, and urban renewal contributed to blight and displacement.
Public transit and infrastructure reflect class and racial inequality.
Children are ignored in planning, leaving unsafe streets as play spaces.
Projects like the Lollo Tot Lot show community-led design can succeed.
Real regeneration requires ongoing care, flexibility, and shared ownership—not slum conditions masked as integration.
CHAPTER 5
Reader 2
Integration
Integration is inevitable; Detroit is moving this way as are most cities in America and across the world.
The idea of integration tends to spark anger and dismay.
Integration demands equality irrespective of differences such as race.
The author deems three obstacles in the path of accepting integration: economic, biological, and cultural.
Money causes racism and continues to be a driving force.
Whites use the resulting poverty of slave labour theft to uphold the myth of racial inferiority.
White rationale looks to blame the black family structure for their social distress, instead of unemployment, slum lords, and
discrimination.
“Middle class values cannot survive in a slum. You’ve got to make it anyway you can. You’re trapped. It’s economic, not racial.”
In America, the operational assumption is that diversity is a threat, but heterogeneous communities produce innovation, team
work, and balance.
“The liberation of black pride tends to liberation of all others.”
CHAPTER 9
Reader 2
Institutions
Fitzgerald’s “greatest hopes and deepest disappointments” have been its neighbouring institutions of the University of Detroit Mercy and Marygrove College
The institutions both support integration in the neighbourhood and feel it is important to navigate justly
The schools have histories of helping out, Marygrove with performances for the Fitzgerald School Children and Detroit Mercy through its architecture school
Though Bunge believes the colleges need to recruit move students directly from the community, as they fail to foster a real “town-gown” alliance
Gradually the gates of both institutions have been closing; Fitzgerald students used to be able to cross Marygrove’s campus to get to the bus stop and are now less tolerated, and there are instances of
Marygrove seeking to change zoning regulations and standards to allow boarding housing in the neighbourhood
Similar can be said about the University of Detroit Mercy, which thinks that contact with the neighbourhood would only encourage kids to loot it, and refuses to allow faculty members to engage with the
community in fear of a “Judas-like betrayal”
UDM developed a coordinating body for Detroit’s community councils called Community Action Neighbours Northwest (CANN)
This organization had serious “gerrymandering” issues at first in which it designed its outlines to only include white middle-class Catholics as invited to participate, though made efforts to broaden later
Many businesses in the Fitzgerald area refuse to keep up high standards because their owners don’t live in the neighbourhood itself
The 1967 riot had an impact on Fitzgerald; while the damage was not extreme, there was heavy looting
The resulting “militant” atmosphere of the area was different for storeowners, with some reacting brashly and ultimately moving out and others choosing to remain but staying bitter
The community’s real estate industry is discriminatory as well, refusing to show white people homes in already integrated neighbourhoods
To combat the realtor’s block-busting, the Fitzgerald council established non-profit housing service as an anti-block-busting tactic
“Self-determination in proportion to the number of people, not square miles, is the key to community strength.
White power structure is not located in Fitzgerald but has interests there; an example is the alleged relocation of the John C Lodge freeway to be constructed through the neighbourhood instead of around due
to the interests of a department store that wanted direct access to its new site, which displaced thousands of people
The churches have been the “steadiest rock” of institutions in the community, consistently pushing to build a vigorously integrated community despite taking beatings in income and attendance for their efforts
Though in some ways the churches are divisive, as consciously or unconsciously everyone wants to convert the other to their way of thinking
CHAPTER 6
Races Separate
Fitzgerald is presented as a rare, racially mixed, middle-class
Black neighbourhood, but one under constant pressure from
surrounding segregation.
Although Detroit appears integrated at a citywide scale, daily life
is becoming more segregated, especially in schools, housing
blocks, and youth social spaces.
Black residents in Fitzgerald experience more racial separation in
Detroit than they did in the rural South, especially compared to
earlier generations.
Schools in and around Fitzgerald are racially imbalanced,
reinforcing separation even when neighbourhoods appear mixed.
Reader 3
Decisions affecting Black youth (recreation programs, dances) are
often made by older white residents and institutions, especially
through the Fitzgerald Community Council, the Church, and Civic
leadership
Racial tension is heightened by the presence of white extremist
groups, such as a fascist organization operating west of
Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald is geographically vulnerable, being located near areas
where white resistance to integration is strongest, and is seen as
a potential target for racial violence.
Separation is no longer just racial, but institutional and spatial,
embedded in who controls land, schools, and decision-making
spaces.
CHAPTER 7
Slums Move Closer
Detroit is described as a city structured by expanding concentric
rings consisting of the Central business district, Slum ring, Nearslum, Middle-class, Suburbs, and Farmland/wilderness.
Fitzgerald’s position changes over time from:
1890s: farmland,
1930s: affluent suburb
1960s: stable middle-class neighbourhood
Currently, Fitzgerald now sits between the suburbs and the
slums, making it a frontline zone.
Slums are moving closer due to:
Rising downtown land values
Rent pressures
Transportation needs
Transportation (bus fares, travel time) directly shapes who can live
where: Poor residents must live closer to downtown, and middleclass residents are pushed outward.
Reader 3
Major institutions near Fitzgerald increase demand and tension
University of Detroit & Marygrove College
These institutions cannot relocate and represent massive financial investments.
They will always be “saved”, but possibly at the expense of surrounding
residents
Bunge argues the key question will Fitzgerald be saved by saving the
neighbourhood, or by destroying it through urban renewal?
Traditional urban renewal:
Buys land from poor residents at reduced prices
Clears neighbourhoods to protect institutions
Ultimately benefits wealthier, often white populations
Fitzgerald is framed as the ideal place to resist slum expansion through:
Stable housing stock
Active community organizations
Strategic location next to powerful institution
If Fitzgerald can stop slum encroachment, it could model resistance for all of Detroit.
CHAPTER 10
Education
The chapters on education document how Fitzgerald schools became physically
overcrowded, socially alienating, and structurally unequal as the neighborhood
rapidly changed racially and economically.
As the neighborhood changed racially and over time, the schools got more
crowded and less supportive.
Classrooms were overflowing and lunchrooms were packed to the point of being
unsafe.
Teachers were burned out and constantly leaving which was clearly tied to
disinvestment housing policy and how the city decided to spend money.
When kids are packed into spaces with no room to move and no dignity it is
almost inevitable that conflict happens.
Decisions about expressways zoning and tax policy directly shaped school
conditions.
Reader 4
CHAPTER 10
Reader 4
Education
This made me realize how much schools
in Fitzgerald were treated less like
places for kids and more like systems
that just had to “handle” people.
This is showing how fences were placed
to control spaces and that the city was
not designed with children in mind.
Were schools even designed to help
kids grow and feel comfortable or were
they trying to be more like prisons or
factories?
“Is the school a prison? Or perhaps a pre-factory assembly line, mechanically
turning out factory fodder like sausages?” (Bugne 189).
CHAPTER 11
Reader 4
Youth Fight Back
“You can chase children out of your
backyard, but you can't chase them out of
your heart or out of your future. The future
is their dream. We grown-ups merely weave
the fabric of their dream and place it in safe
deposit for them,” (Bugne 203).
The Wisconsin-Marygrove Block Club
CHAPTER 11
Reader 4
Youth Fight Back
What stood out to me was how the youth stood up against these conditions.
Protests, walkouts, and disruptions were recognized as logical reactions in
response to spatial injustice.
When schools become overcrowded and unfair the body reacts so the
reading talks about this as a kind of biological response.
You can only contain people for so long before something breaks.
Their actions forced visibility onto systems that normalize harm towards
them.
PTA organizing became one of the only ways the community could fight
back.
Took steps to create a youth center that would put decision-making powers
in the hands of the teenagers, and would also be a place where teenagers
can find out who they are and be heard.
“After two years of study and ferocious debate
about a youth center in Fitzgerald, the
Council's Recreation Committee decided to
hold a series of dances, and to consider these
a first step toward a youth center. A meeting
was held for the teens, and they elected their
officers;” (Bugne 213).
CHAPTER 12
Reader 5
Defeat/Victory
Bunge points out that defeat and victory can happen at the same time, which shows how social change is often uneven.
Even when there were wins at the institutional level, people living in Fitzgerald often didn’t see real improvements in their daily
lives.
The community’s own knowledge and activism led to important discoveries, even when political and academic recognition was
limited.
The Detroit Geographical Expedition & Institute challenged traditional academic power by centering Black youth and residents
as researchers.
Universities benefited from the work while maintaining control over credit, resources, and legitimacy.
Fitzgerald residents experienced burnout as structural conditions remained largely unchanged despite intense effort.
Bunge critiques reform efforts that prioritize visibility and symbolism over structural redistribution.
The chapter shows how activism can take a real emotional toll, especially when progress is slow or can be undone.
“Victory” is located in the creation of radical knowledge, solidarity, and political awareness rather than policy outcomes alone.