So grateful to have spent the last few days in Detroit meeting with neighborhood groups and witnessing the incredible work being done here. The dedication that Detroiters have to their city is inspiring, and I feel lucky to be able to learn from so many smart, driven folks. Something that was emphasized across a few of the organizations was the need for us as planners to be hypercritical of not only the fraught past of our profession, but of how our practice is so limited by the very systems we’re beholden to as civil servants. I’ve learned this in my own way--slowly, abstractly, and in different contexts over the years--that the laws governing our cities were manufactured in a different time and place, and must be challenged and changed alongside our design processes if we have any chance of making the type of ambitious change we all so desperately want. I’m thrilled to see the same skepticism and understanding in my peers, who are all trying to figure out how to make physical space better, reparative, equitable. The more I learn, the more I understand how complicated and difficult and exhausting our collective work is going to be. But I also know that the education I’m getting as a planner is so different (and better) than what I would’ve gotten even a decade or two ago (before anti-sprawl/anti-renewal activism became so mainstream) and I’m ready to give the system a run for its money. -Meagan Gibeson
