Over twelve years ago, University of Michigan undergraduate Rachael Tanner asked herself a simple question: Why doesn’t U-M provide substantive opportunities for students to engage with Detroit?  Her urban studies professor, Stephen Ward, was intrigued by her motivation and encouraged her to write up her ideas for her final class project.

James Macmillen, assistant professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning and a postdoctoral fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows, is the featured speaker in this Detroit School Series talk.

Marc Norman, associate professor of practice in urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, is an internationally recognized expert on policy and finance for affordable housing and community development.

When Craig Wilkins looked out into the audience during his team’s presentation at the Detroit Institute of Arts on Wednesday, he was happy to see many of his University of…

Talk about a winning team: A group of Wayne State University students were the grand-prize winners of two prizes in the Student Design Summit, a competition to find the “voices of young people” on a once-in-a-lifetime project to design a plaza that connects the Detroit Institute of Arts and its neighboring Midtown cultural institutions.

Among the many things that years of teaching elementary school students has taught Cesar Reyes, is that kids sit too much during school and should move more.

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.

Akoaki, a design studio in Detroit, has been working with the Oakland Avenue Urban Farm for nearly four years to develop a vision and “guiding plan” to make it self-sufficient and sustainable.

University of Michigan researchers studied three Detroit neighborhoods — Grandmont Rosedale, East English Village and MorningSide. They found that those under the leadership of a community development corporation, along with volunteer efforts, weathered the city’s housing crisis better than the rest.