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The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook
9780998904139
Regular price $20.00 Sale price $15.00 Save 25%Part of Belt's Neighborhood Guidebook Series, The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook is an exploration of the Motor City's hidden corners told by the people who live and work there.
It seems like everybody in Detroit thinks they know the city's neighborhoods, but because there are so many, their characteristics often become muddled and the stories that define them are often lost. Edited by Aaron Foley, the author of How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass, The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook is a genuinely felt, wide-ranging collection that gives unique perspective on a city that many people think they have figured out. A homegrown portrait about the lesser-known parts of the city, it showcases the voices and people who make up:
- Cass Corridor
- West Village
- Minock Park
- Warrendale
- Hamtramck
- and almost every other spot in the city.
With short essays and poems by Zoe Villegas, Drew Philip, Hakeem Weatherspoon, Marsha Music, Ian Thibodeau, and dozens of others.
In this guidebook, Detroiters will recognize their hometown and the stories it tells, while readers from outside Detroit will get an insiders' look at an oft-misunderstood American city.
Red State Blues
9781948742061
Regular price $20.00 Sale price $15.00 Save 25%Much was made of the 2016 electoral flip when traditionally Democratic states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Ohio tipped the presidency to Donald Trump. Countless think pieces explored this newfound exotic constituency of blue voters who suddenly swung red. But what about those in the Midwest who remain true blue?
Red State Blues speaks to the lived experience of progressives, activists, and ordinary Democrats who are pushing back against simplistic narratives of the Midwest as "Trump Country"--a narrative that has erased the region's rich history of grassroots, progressive politics. They've been living there all along, and as the essays in this collection demonstrate, they're not leaving anytime soon.
Edited by Martha Bayne (Rust Belt Chicago, The Chicago Neighborhood Guidebook), the collection includes work from:
- Sarah Kendzior, author of The View from Flyover Country
- Kenyon College president Sean Decatur
- Pittsburgh city councilman Dan Gilman
- Phil Christman, and many more.
A nuanced look at the true complexity of a region that has always refused to submit to stereotypes about it.
How to Live in Detroit Without Being a Jackass
9781948742313
Regular price $20.00 Sale price $15.00 Save 25%In one of Curbed: Detroit's Top 11 Books about Detroit, Aaron Foley, editor of The Detroit Neighborhood Guidebook, offers the definitive inside look at one of America's most talked-about and least understood cities.
With a wry sense of humor, Foley, a native Detroiter, walks you through the most difficult questions about the Motor City, offering seven simple rules for making it there. Perfect for coastal transplants, wary suburbanites, unwitting gentrifiers, or start-up disruptors, this recently updated guidebook offers advice on everything from the glories of Vernors ginger ale to how to rehab a house to how to not sound like an uninformed racist. In twenty short chapters, Foley walks you through:
- How Detroiters do business
- The unofficial guide to enjoying Faygo
- How to be gay in Detroit
- How to raise a Detroit kid
- How to party in Detroit.
Both hilarious and insightful, this no-frills look at Motown is written for those who live there but also, as Vanity Fair put it, "for anyone participating in contemporary global urbanization who would like to avoid behaving like a subjugating dick."
Rust Belt Chicago
9780997774375
Regular price $20.00 Sale price $15.00 Save 25%A part of Belt's City Anthology Series. "A lively grab bag of essays, fiction and poetry that reads at times like a who's who of contemporary Chicago writers/residents."--The Chicago Tribune
Chicago is a city built on meat, railroads, and steel, on opportunity and exploitation. But its identity has long involved so much more than manufacturing. Today, the city continues to lure new residents from around the world, and from across a region rocked by recession and deindustrialization.
The problems that plague the region don't disappear once you pass the Indiana border, though. In fact, they're often amplified. And Chicago is a complicated city because of that, defined by movement that's the anchor of the Midwest, but bound to its neighbors by a shared ecosystem and economy.
Rust Belt Chicago collects essays, fiction, and poetry from more than fifty writers who speak directly to the concerns the city shares with the region at large, and the elements that set it apart. With contributions from writers like Aleksandar Hemon, Kathleen Rooney, and Zoe Zolbrod, and here you'll find stories about:
- Buying Bread on Devon Street
- The Cantinas of Pilsen
- Bike commutes through the North Side
- Adventures on the El.
Writing with affection, frustration, anger, and joy, the writers in this collection capture all the harmony and dissonance that define one cacophonous place.
A wide-ranging insider's look at one of the world's most iconic cities.
How to Be Normal: Essays
9781953368294
Regular price $17.95 Sale price $13.46 Save 25%Grand Rapids Grassroots
9780998018829
Regular price $20.00 Sale price $15.00 Save 25%Part of Belt's City Anthology Series.
While Grand Rapids, Michigan is known for large-scale events like ArtPrize; major businesses like Meijer, Steelcase, and Amway; and the philanthropic and political contributions of its wealthiest residents, there are hundreds--if not thousands--of grassroots activists working day-in and day-out to make Grand Rapids what it is. This collection seeks to raise the voices of those individuals and grassroots groups. The editors have joined forces to compile articles, poetry, and personal narratives about and by the grassroots activists of Grand Rapids. Edited by Ashley E. Nickels and Dani Vilella, in this collection, readers will find first-hand stories about:
- The lasting effects of discrimination in the city's Southeast community
- Disability advocacy and food justice
- Traversing the city on moped
- The furniture workers strike of 1911.
A complex portrait of an American city in transition and the tireless work of activists to make it a wonderful, just place to live.