Why I’ll Say I’m From Detroit
Reprinted from The Detroit Free Press
By Bradford Frost, F11
September 24, 2009
Perhaps my wife and I are just a myth – college-educated young professionals who chose Detroit for the opportunities it offers and an authenticity unlike any place the world over. But now, as I start graduate school this month in Boston, I intend to tell people, “I grew up in New England, but I’m from Detroit.”
I wonder, though, whether Detroit will reciprocate. Or will I be only the latest defector, outcast, sell-out?
Detroiters have high standards. The “I’m from Detroit” badge often seems like the hardest to earn and the easiest to lose.
But I’m sticking to it. Not merely for the street cred, but because I feel a deeper sense of identity here than ever before. After four years, Detroit runs through me as much as any place.
I didn’t move here expecting much. But what drove me here is exactly what drives most people away: opportunity.
I chose Detroit in 2005 for the opportunity to work at United Way, and I chose to stay and buy a home with my wife (also an out-of-towner).
During a Leadership Detroit event last year pertaining to young professionals and the perceived lack of opportunity here, a woman asked me: “My son is a musician starting out in New York. What do you suggest I tell him to encourage him to move to Detroit?”
“I’d tell him: At least here he can get on stage.”
In my view, that’s the essence. Call it the urban frontier if you want, but it’s true. This is a place to get made; to build; to get on stage – early. It is, simply in my view, the city’s biggest asset.
Opportunity is the world’s strongest currency: it’s why I chose Detroit. We weren’t supposed to come here, don’t have any roots here. But we chose this place. Chose this city. Embraced it fully and fell in love.
Now, I’m not blind, and I know times are tough, but we suffer by degrees for our emphasis on what ails us over what can catalyze us forward.
As my wife and I depart our beautiful Detroit home for graduate school, we are filled with fond memories and deep gratitude for this city. We don’t know now whether we’ll come back, and I wonder if people here sincerely believe we would. Trust me, we would.
Detroit, you say you want people like us – that young talented people are the foundation for a brighter future. But your tone belies you.
Detroit is one of the most welcoming places – the Midwestern ethos run deep, the people are happy to see you and have you – but it is, sadly, one of the least inviting. Whether it’s fear, anxiety or the painful past – or all the above and then some – Detroit seems content with its rather abrasive invitation, reserved only for those who “go all in.”
Should that really be so? Is our story possible for others? Can Detroit be strong enough, secure enough in its identity, to become an inviting place?
No doubt bigotry, hate and racism have plagued this city and hurt its people in ways I can only imagine, but the world is different now. Opportunity trumps, and for Detroit to revive, it must find ways to pass that message on to young people and recent college graduates both near and far.
I’m from Detroit.
As of this month, will Detroiters agree?
• Bradford Frost, 28, worked at United Way for Southeastern Michigan for four years and is now studying at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.