RSVP#13: After the Crisis
Macomb County, U.S.A - February 2009 – with Abitare and NAI
Macomb County, one of the suburban counties surrounding Detroit, is currently undergoing a process similar to the economic devastation that the Motor City has been experiencing over the last 40 years. Tax foreclosures, social fragmentation, budget crisis at every level of government, the fragility of the auto industry and a dearth of leadership have intersected to create a growing state of emergency. The current real estate crisis is hitting homeowners in Macomb County hard.
In the USA and beyond there is a desperate need to reframe the issues at stake in a creative and sustainable way. Which truths are becoming evident? Are we seeing the end of natural order of Suburbia?
VOLUME 9 ‘Suburbia After the Crisis’ proposed a three-way approach: 1. redefine urgency, 2. organize communality and 3. create monumental gravity
ARCHIS in cooperation with Abitare and the Netherlands Architecture Institute organize an RSVP event in Macomb County from 20 – 22 February 2009 focused on finding pragmatic answers on how we can move from crisis to project. More concretely, by making an inventory of the effects of the crisis we will develop a series of intervention proposals, based on the reality of Macomb County.
Issues to look at will be: How to impose history in a place that has largely functioned a-historically to redefine urgency? How to transform the role of political decision making towards more visionary planning? How to re-assess the concepts of home and homeownership and their relationship to taxes and citizenship in Macomb County?
Practical outcomes could be: a media campaign on values of homeownership, history, mobility, etc.; a redevelopment plan for a neighborhood with foreclosed homes; DIY Kit for Homeowners.
SIGN UP NOW AT: rsvp@archis.org
