To understand Detroit’s transformation over the past decade, some say you need to visit the city in person to witness the vast changes. That message and enthusiasm for how young leaders can have a long-term impact on the city came through loud and clear at the Detroit Impact Conference.

June Manning Thomas is Centennial Professor of Urban Planning and Regional Development at University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning today, but in the early 1990s her niece was living next to an overgrown lot in Detroit. That vacant plot got her thinking and asking questions: How had that land gone undeveloped for so long? Who had failed her niece and other black Detroiters?

Kimberly Dowdell, a lecturer at U-M’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, decided to become an architect at a young age in an effort to repair Detroit’s disinvested building stock. Her firm, Century Partners, redevelops single-family homes in Detroit with an eye toward stabilizing and revitalizing residential neighborhoods.

Informal urbanism – generally characterized by unregulated or Illegal economic and social interaction driven by marginalized populations – has long been seen as a distinguishing feature of day-to-day life in burgeoning cities in the global South.

In an effort to preserve other Detroiters’ memories and neighborhoods, Dowdell — a Detroit Native — is a partner at Century Partners, a Detroit-based real estate development firm that aims to revitalize city neighborhoods while connecting residents to investment opportunities.