In Detroit many people see the only signs of recovery as coming from themselves. As city government retreats and as cuts bite deep, some of those left in the city have not waited for help. Take the case of Mark Covington. He was born and raised in Detroit and still lives only a few meters from the house where he grew up in one of the city’s toughest neighborhoods. Laid off from his job as an environmental engineer, Covington found himself with nothing to do. So he set about cleaning up his long-suffering Georgia Street neighborhood.
He cleared the rubble where a bakery had once stood and planted a garden. He grew broccoli, strawberries, garlic and other vegetables. Soon he had planted two other gardens on other ruined lots. He invited his neighbors to pick the crops for free, to help put food on their plates. Friends then built an outdoor screen of white-painted boards to show local children a movie each Saturday night and keep them off the streets. He helped organize local patrols so that abandoned homes would not be burnt down. He did all this for free. All the while he still looked desperately for a job and found nothing.
Yet Georgia Street improved. Local youths, practiced in vandalism and the destruction of abandoned buildings, have not touched his gardens. People flock to the movie nights, harvest dinners and street parties Covington holds. Inspired, he scraped together enough cash to buy a derelict shop and an abandoned house opposite his first garden. He wants to reopen the shop and turn the house into a community center for children. To do it, he needs a grant. Or a cheap bank loan. Or a job. But for people like Covington the grants have dried up, the banks are not lending, and no one is hiring. There is no help for him.
It is hard not to compare Covington’s struggle for cash to the vast bailout of the country’s financial industry. “We just can’t get a loan to help us out. The banks are not lending,” he said. On an unseasonable warm day last week, he stood in his urban garden, tending his crops, and gazed wistfully at the abandoned buildings that he now owns but cannot yet turn into something good for his neighborhood. He does not seem bitter. But he does wonder why it seems so easy in modern America for those who already have a lot to get much more, while those who have least are forgotten.
“It makes me wonder how they do it. And where is that money coming from?” he asked.
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