Waterfront Porch: Reclaiming Detroit's Industrial Waterfront as a Gathering Place for All (Greenstone Books) - Softcover

"Hartig has long been a champion of the Detroit River as an American Heritage River and an International Wildlife Refuge, showing how people and nature can co-exist in this industrial heartland. In this book, he chronicles the story of the Detroit waterfront from its demise and abandonment to its current revitalization as a 'front porch' for the people of Detroit. It is an inspiring story of rejuvenating one of Detroit's crown jewels--its setting on the Detroit River--with lessons for other urban cities."
--ROBERT E. GRESE, Director, Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum, and Theodore Roosevelt Chair of Ecosystem Management, University of Michigan

Detroit was the epicenter of the fur trade era, an unparalleled leader of shipbuilding for one hundred years, the Silicon Valley of the industrial age, and the unquestioned leader of the arsenal of democracy. This unique history depicts Detroit as a city of innovation, resilience, and leadership in responding to change, and examines the current sustainability paradigm shift to which Detroit is responding, pivoting as the city has done in the past to redefine itself and lead the nation and world down a more sustainable path. This book details the building of a new waterfront porch alongside the Detroit River called the Detroit RiverWalk to help revitalize the city and region and promote sustainability practices. It is a story of one of the largest, by scale, urban waterfront redevelopment projects in the United States, and gives hope and proves that Detroit and its metropolitan region have a bright future.