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Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs and policies are being developed and implemented across the country. CVE is being criticized by various community leaders and members due to its inherent criminalizing nature as it is currently put into place by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). By exploring the various meanings of community in a multicultural community, various processes and practices can come to be analyzed as ways to prevent violent extremism without oversight from the DOJ and the DHS. Metro Detroit is a multicultural community that experiences statistically low levels of radicalization of community members who legitimize violent extremism. Even such cases can be delegitimized when considering the circumstances in which they exist. When examining the community cohesion that exists in Metro Detroit through various organizations, especially interfaith organizations, it becomes apparent that there is a strong attempt to create a cohesive community. The argument is not that community cohesion automatically leads to the absence of violent extremism, but that community cohesion builds relationships and practices so that potential causes for violent extremism can be addressed, lessened or diminished. It is suggested that the support of strengthening community cohesion in terms of CVE be dismantled from the DHS and the DOJ. Restructuring would best be supported as a joint effort between the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, all of which are better equipped to deal with the causes of violent extremism. / Master of Arts / Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) programs have recently been piloted in the United States in Boston, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. Beyond that, federal funding is given to various non-profits or organizations across the country that aim to create a stronger community in order to decrease the level or threat of radicalization. Speculation regarding the role of the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security and their involvement in CVE stems from the fact that their presence, specifically the Federal Bureau of Investigation, automatically criminalizes a marginalized or vulnerable community. Community leaders across the country are growing more concerned with how CVE programs and policy is are being implemented. Engaging communities and providing them with the necessary resources as a joint effort through the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development without the securitized branding of CVE would be a more efficient way to deal with issues related to violent extremism. Community cohesion and practices to build such cohesion can prevent potential extremism by reducing marginalization and encouraging communication between different communities. The argument here is not that community cohesion automatically leads to reduced extremism, but that community cohesion builds relationships and practices so that potential drivers for extremism can be mitigated. By using Metro Detroit as a case study it becomes apparent that a high level of community cohesion and social cohesion play an integral role in leading to a lack of violent extremism in a multicultural community.

Detroit continues to stand out as emblematic of failing urban economies, infrastructure, density, and form. But its spatially dominant urban relationships also provide the opportunity required to transform unsustainable, expanding megalopolises. Taking lead from the recently established Detroit Works Project, De-Center transforms existing urban conditions to propose a network of urban islands that respond to the extreme conditions created through modern planning. It demands that architecture and urbanism act as a single project.

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Thesis (M. Arch. D.U.)--University of Notre Dame, 2006. / Thesis directed by Norman Crowe for the School of Architecture. "April 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 96-99).

This thesis examines the pre-design documentation from the renovation of three historic theaters located in Detroit, Michigan. Two theaters hired architectural firms to produce a pre-design document. The third theater utilized a design-build approach to renovation. Interviews were conducted to review the approach and final outcomes. It became evident through the analysis of the documentation and interviews that it was beneficial in the renovation of a historic theater to have a comprehensive predesign process that identifies: the nature of the pre-design document, the nature of the client, the nature of the pre-design team, and the scope of work and time available. It also became apparent that the organizational approach that would apply to most any document for a heritage building should follow the Problem Seeking format of: Form, Function, Time and Economy. Utilizing this format for a pre-design record should yield a document that is concise, comprehensive and flexible.

La communauté francophone du Sud-Ouest ontarien, qui remonte à la fondation de la colonie du Détroit par Cadillac en 1701, s'avère d'un intérêt particulier pour les enquêteurs, et ce dans plusieurs domaines. Non seulement constitue-t-elle le plus ancien peuplement francophone permanent à l'ouest de Montréal, mais elle fut longtemps isolée des autres régions du Canada français. Qui plus est, sa population s'établit à deux époques distinctes, dans des contextes de peuplement complètement différents: un premier groupe, composé de marchands, de militaires, de voyageurs et d'agriculteurs, s'établit le long de la rivière Détroit au 18e siècle; plus de cent ans plus tard, un deuxième groupe d'agriculteurs québécois vint occuper les terres plus à l'est, au bord du lac Sainte-Claire. Malgré leurs différentes origines et certains traits culturels distinctifs propres à chacune de ces populations, la plupart des chercheurs ont traité les francophones du Sud-ouest comme un groupe homogène, l'identifiant sans aucune nuance à la grande communauté franco-ontarienne, elle- même considérée comme une simple extension du Québec. Le but de cette étude était d'abord d'établir que la communauté francophone du Détroit est effectivement composée de deux groupes culturellement distincts. La démarche suivie consiste en l'analyse de deux corpus recueillis dans la région depuis 1989: d'abord, un lexique de plus de 3000 archaïsmes et régionalismes employés par les habitants des deux zones de peuplement, et aussi un répertoire d'environ 2000 chansons traditionnelles françaises, également distribuées chez les deux populations. La distribution géographique des éléments de ces deux corpus sur l'ensemble du terrain révèle que chacun des groupes garde effectivement d'importantes particularités régionales et que celles-ci sont reliées de près aux contextes socio-culturels présents à leurs époques de peuplement respectives. De cette façon, les facteurs historiques et géographiques sont réintroduits dans le discours identitaire des Franco-Ontariens. De plus, la comparaison des chansons avec des répertoires recueillis ailleurs en Amérique française remet en question plusieurs acquis concernant la chanson traditionnelle au Canada français. Enfin, l'étude éclaire les liens entre la tradition orale, la langue qui véhicule son expression et le contexte historique à l'époque de son implantation dans une région. / Québec Université Laval, Bibliothèque 2014

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary C. Kingery-Page / Our water bodies have functioned as a critical transportation network, moving people, raw materials, products and goods across countries and continents. Starting as hubs of shipping, trade, and commerce, water bodies were the center of social and economic life of early cities. Technological advances in freight transport spelled the eventual demise of urban ports. This transformation has left vast swathes of vacant, urban waterfront property under-used, neglected, and disconnected from cities that once thrived along the water. This under-utilized land is now seen as a resource for revitalizing urban cores. Cities are looking to reclaim their once prosperous waterfronts (Fisher et al. 2004). Detroit’s riverfront has long been plagued by industry and pollution. For the past 25 years, Detroit has been striving to turn its dilapidated shoreline into a thriving public asset. Today, three and a half miles of the Detroit RiverWalk stretching from Joe Louis Arena east to Gabriel Richard Park have been completed and is open to the public (Brown 2007). Designs are currently being developed to extend the RiverWalk west to Ambassador Bridge, but no studies are planned for the east end toward Water Works Park and beyond(Brown 2007). The existing eastern terminus of Detroit’s RiverWalk does not allow access to the riverfront from neighborhoods that lie to the north and east. Residents have expressed growing interest in extending the RiverWalk and greenway connections to promote use (The Villages Community Development Corporation 2010). How can the Detroit RiverWalk be configured to extend eastward in order to connect neighborhoods and communities to the waterfront, provide amenities in waterfront parks, and create pedestrian greenway linkages? The Detroit riverfront will be accessible to surrounding neighborhoods with the east extension of the RiverWalk, redesign of waterfront parks, and greenway linkages which connect communities with the waterfront and amenities. Humans have a natural attraction to water; therefore “the public increasingly desires and expects access to the water’s edge” (Brown 2007). Pedestrian access is fundamental, particularly linking outlying areas to the water’s edge (Marshall 2001). The RiverWalk extension consists of research of waterfront theory, greenway practices, and the existing riverfront. Critical theory principles and contextual information will be extruded and organized into key components: Extend, Connect, and Provide. These components will outline the analysis, programming, and design phases in order to create a coherent master plan. Detroit can be a precedent for greenway and waterfront development in residential neighborhoods. The Detroit riverfront can be transformed into a public amenity for residents and visitors to benefit, enjoy, and appreciate the power of our fundamental resource: water.

I am from Dearborn, Michigan, home to one of the largest populations of Arab immigrants in the United States. This mixing of cultures, of peoples, of identities has informed my writing in many ways. Narrative themes of immigration, exile and isolation inspire my writing and my thesis represents chapters from my first novel, tracing the Arab American immigration experience from 1914 until 1967; and, my second novel, set in Detroit, continues this narrative through the perspectives of two characters, drawing on the post 9-11 Arab American community and experience. The poet Hayan Charara has spoken of “the absence of a ‘personal history’ of the Middle East. . . for those whose families were among the first waves of Arabs to immigrate to the United States.” As an Arab American writer, my fiction attempts to create threads of memory, of family, of stories, that connect us back to a similar space.

In the face of economic, demographic, and infrastructural decline, Detroit, Michigan has become a destination for tourists interested in viewing the city's iconic ruins. Using data collected through participant observation, interviews, and document analysis, this thesis examines these emerging practices of ruin tourism in order to understand how such tourism operates, how it is related to representations of the city in popular media, and how it contributes to economic redevelopment in Detroit. Situated in literature about ruination and liminality, tourism geography, and critical urban geography, the study contributes to understandings of urban redevelopment in the post-industrial United States.