Detroit has endured a rapid rise in size and power in the 20th century and a world-renowned fall in the 21st, influenced by the auto industries and manufacturing in Southeast Michigan. During the height of the Great Recession, more than half of the Detroit residential lots lay vacant, but now, for the first time since it was founded in 1701, the City of Detroit is fundamentally a clean slate for redevelopment, modernization, and rebirth.
Jarmila Senkyrikova, an environmental enthusiast and an avid member of Detroit’s urban farming movement, purchased a previously condemned home located in downtown Metro Detroit. Senkyrikova had lived in Detroit for nearly 10 years in a gated community but desired a home of her own. During the house-hunting process, she found that all readily livable housing presented astronomical price tags for subpar living spaces.