Different futures for different neighborhoods: The sustainability fix in Detroit

Abstract

Growth elites use cultural workers (artists, clergy, intellectuals) to rebrand old industrial cities as ecological delights that bring the market, society, and nature into harmony. Cultural workers’ vision of transforming the industrial city into a green commons has deep historical roots and enduring appeal. The market appropriation of this utopian vision is at once a revalorization technique and a conflict suppression maneuver. Merging theorization of practice, black urban politics, and the sustainability fix, this study frames the volatile relation of growth elites and cultural workers in Detroit as sustainability was made to mean resource enclosures. Cultural workers used their ties across cities and countries to fight the fix. There is a conflict between economic and cultural capital to control the spirit of capitalism and its relations with society and nature.