The Food Desert: at Harbortown Market with Nadja

"I religiously go to [Eastern Market] every Saturday."

Why Midtown is Better Than Royal Oak: A Tale of Two Starbucks

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*Encounters at two Starbucks - one in Detroit, one in Royal Oak -  provoked an epiphany about gathering places, demographics and how the interplay between these factors influence how people behave toward each other. 

But before we get into that, if you're on a Mac,  for the love of god, please change your monitor's color space to sRBG. Trust me. Its the right thing to do.  If you're not sure how to do it, go here

Part One: A Distinguished Gentleman

Researchers at MIT recently proved that not even time can escape the gravitational pull of a Xbox 360. So, when I need to pull free from the productivity-killing siren song of Grand Theft Auto IV, I bike to a nearby Starbucks in Midtown Detroit.

What I like most about this Starbucks is the way it serves as a nexus for people from all walks of life: med school students; other photographers meeting with perspective clients; city council members; and the occasional disheveled, quaintly aromatic stranded traveler who just needs 37 cents to ride the Night Train home.

Living in Detroit with Detroit Lives!

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Chief among my many personal failings is an inability to return phone, text, and email messages within a time framed deemed "socially acceptible." Its not necessarily because I don't want to communicate with the people who are trying to communicate with me. Its just that I'm often in private negotiation with my thoughts. My thoughts are are jealous succubi. They demand my exclusive attention for indefinite stretches of time. Even still, I do my best to escape their surly gravity and return an orphaned email every now and again.

I received one such email from the gentleman pictured above, Philip Lauri.  He intimated that he enjoyed what I was doing with The People of Detroit, wanted to feature it on the website for his social branding organization Detroit Lives!, and he suggested we meet to discuss doing something collaboratively.

Chinelo

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I have an odd hobby.  I'm fascinated by the relationship between geography and phenotype. I'm amazed that you can reliably predict someone's national ancestry just by looking at them.

In pursuit of my hobby, I've aggregated thousands of hours of National Geographic,  6 o'clock news, PBS, and Discovery channel footage into a tidy mental database of phenotypes and their corresponding national origins. This database undergirds my odd hobby and it also compels me to ask people who look like they are from distant lands to explain what distant land they are from exactly.

Journaturalist

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jour·nat·u·ra·list (jur-nāch'ər-ə-lĭst), noun

1. A portmanteau word formed from "journal" and "naturalist" commonly used to describe a young woman who grew up in South America, lives in Detroit, works as a journalist and has a strong affinity for nature (exemplified by the ability and willingness to milk goats and weed urban gardens with a machete).

see also: Minehaha Forman.

[View the weekdaily blog and meet more of: The People of Detroit ]