I write this 2012 review just days before the winter solstice, a day important to me personally because it is also the day that I was born, here in Detroit, in 1969. Maybe it is the nature of the season to be more reflective, but for this column I’m inclined to write more directly from my lived experience. The winter solstice, Dec. 21, has also been blasted into popular culture due to the date being the end ...

As the climate crisis worsens and more people and places in the world are devastated by hurricanes, droughts and other weather catastrophes, we need more discussion on the role that disaster can play in bringing about social transformation. ...

For some, Detroit is becoming an urban oasis for a healthy lifestyle shift, creating a change in the neighborhoods of Detroit. This change comes slowly for some, more rapidly for others and many are not sure what to think of it. As a lifelong Detroiter, I’ve witnessed a lot of changes, some I hope to never see repeated, such as the disrespect of citizens by city leadership, abuse of power, and economic ineq ...

The ongoing struggle in Egypt between President. Morsi and protesters is about power. But it also challenges us to think about the principles that 21st century revolutions and constitutions need to include. ...

By Kami Pothukuchi, Ph. D. In the recent elections, Proposition 37, the campaign to label genetically modified food in California, was defeated. A coalition of pesticide and junk food manufacturers poured more than $45.6 million on ads that blanketed the state’s airwaves. The top three funders — Monsanto, Du Pont and Dow Chemical — alone spent almost double the $8.7 million that advocates of Prop 37 raised. ...

This week, in Doha, Qatar, on the Persian Gulf, delegates to COP18, the U.N. Framework on Climate Change, are discussing the urgent need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions if we and our planet are to survive. ...

Detroit and its residents are at crossroads regarding our city’s greatest resource: Land. Some view the large amount of underutilized land owned by the city of Detroit as a burden on the city and a hole in tax revenue stream. But there are many who see this land as an opportunity for the city to direct future development according to the needs of our residents, and keep land in the public trust that could h ...

After a couple of years of Hantz Farms’ President Mike Score proposing a meeting between myself and John Hantz and discussion on the terms of such a meeting, early this year, I agreed to meet with Mr. Hantz, if Kathryn Underwood were present. Kathryn is the City Council’s representative on the Detroit Food Policy Council and a planner with the City Planning Commission. She has led the urban ag workgroup tha ...

During the week after President Obama’s historic re-election, Wayne State University’s Urbanology: Art as Activism class visited Grace Lee Boggs at the Boggs Center. Our class, taught by Zimmerman and offered in the Department of Art and Art History, has been using Grace’s book “The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the 21st Century” in lieu of a standard textbook. We have conscientiously g ...

This is the latest in a series of columns discussing the Environmental Justice Principles drafted and adopted by delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held Oct. 24-27, 1991. ...