[Start of Tape 1]
Kevin Hawthorne All right. This is Kevin Hawthorne with the Detroit Historical Museum interviewing for oral history on climate change. And today I'm here with.
Joanne Coutts Joanne Coutts.
Kevin Hawthorne And could you please spell your name for the record?
Joanne Coutts J o a n n e last name C o u t t s
Kevin Hawthorne Thank you. And, do you live in the city of Detroit?
Joanne Coutts Yes.
Kevin Hawthorne In which area?
Joanne Coutts Dexter. Lynwood.
Kevin Hawthorne Dexter. Lynwood. And how long have you lived in that neighborhood?
Joanne Coutts I have owned my house there since 2014. And I've lived there full time since 2020.
Kevin Hawthorne And have you lived in any other neighborhoods in the city?
Joanne Coutts No.
Kevin Hawthorne This is your first time, right?
Joanne Coutts Yeah.
Kevin Hawthorne And do you work in the city?
Joanne Coutts No.
Kevin Hawthorne What do you work? Technically, then? Madison Heights,.
Kevin Hawthorne Madison heights. Yeah. All right. Excellent. And what career are you in?
Joanne Coutts Ooh, that's a super interesting question. I make money as a sales associate in the plumbing department at lowe's, but I'm actually a cartographer.
Kevin Hawthorne You're a what?
Joanne Coutts Cartographer.
Kevin Hawthorne Cartographer. All right. And so I've just been wanting to talk to. We're talking to a lot of Detroit residents of, about the effects of climate change in first one, just in the past few years, how have you felt that climate change has affected your neighborhood?
Joanne Coutts We definitely have, increased flooding and, we have been very lucky. We haven't had. Power outages in the same way that other neighborhoods have. But our street, floods in two locations every time it rains. And it's definitely. My energy bills have gone up in the winter. And it's gotten hotter in the summer. Yeah. Which, yeah, is noticeable with the lack of trees.
Kevin Hawthorne And have there been any like, besides just, you're increasing bill, I have you said you have you not had to deal with any of the more adverse effects like flooding personally?
Joanne Coutts No, we're very lucky, I think, in where we're located in relationship to the water table and, creek, the buried creeks and the buried marshes and, the river, that certainly I know people in my neighborhood. We get dampness in our basem*nts, but we don't get flooding like Jefferson Chalmers or some other neighborhoods do.
Kevin Hawthorne All right. Do you know, are you aware if there's any green projects going on in your neighborhood, if there's people trying to implement more green stuff?
Joanne Coutts Do you mean the city or the residents?
Kevin Hawthorne The residents?
Joanne Coutts The residents. There's a farm, like maybe 3 or 4 blocks away. Which does CSA, and, they have, like, chickens and seasonal fruit and vegetables and stuff like that. But no, we don't have a very active block club. We don't have like in my immediate- immediate neighborhood .
Kevin Hawthorne So it's like an urban farm.
Joanne Coutts Yeah.
Kevin Hawthorne Do you know the name of it?
Kevin Hawthorne Food field.
Kevin Hawthorne Food field?
Joanne Coutts Yeah.
Joanne Coutts Okay, excellent. And so you said when you asked for the green infrastructure, you said the city or the residents. So and with the residents, you say you don't see much. Do you see more with the city?
Joanne Coutts Not really. They just started putting Dexter Avenue on a diet. But. No.
Kevin Hawthorne Yeah. So how do you feel the local government has responded to these climate change issues?
Joanne Coutts I think it depends where you live.
Kevin Hawthorne What do you mean by that?
Joanne Coutts So I think in some neighborhoods, that there's various projects happening, like the Greenway and the solar panels, which have enormous issues of their own. But I think that the city generally has responded to climate change in a way that suits its economic development goals rather than is actually engaged in any meaningful ways of ameliorating the effects of climate change for the residents.
Kevin Hawthorne All right. So you don't feel like they've done enough to. Do you think it's only their economic prospects, you say?
Joanne Coutts Yeah. So I think the projects that the city engages in are not based in a climate change or climate change amelioration or, support for residents Paradigm. I think they're, oriented around a money making. Economic development paradigm and that they're not actually climate projects. They're greenwashing of the economic development goals of the Ilitchs and the Gilberts and the Duncans and their whoever else is making money up the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy members. Yeah.
Kevin Hawthorne All right. And how are you personally invested, with, climate change, like activism?
Joanne Coutts So I work with MEJC on the Dismantle DTE campaign, which is a campaign to, to sort of build public power with the goal of. Taking public ownership of the energy utility of the electric utility. I work on a personal project, mapping the buried waterways under the city of Detroit with the goal of encouraging people, to learn about the way that water moves through the city, to orient ourselves to the city from the perspective of water rather than of concrete, and to honor the resilience of the plants and animals and to care for water even when we can't see it.
Kevin Hawthorne How long have you been doing this?
Joanne Coutts Since 2021.
Kevin Hawthorne 2021? And, what are the so you say the, MEJC is the main one?
Kevin Hawthorne Yeah, the MEJC is the just is the sort of organized one and the dismantle DTE campaign.
Kevin Hawthorne And what are like the main, issues you have with DTE? I know, we all live in Detroit. We all hear complaints about DTE. But just for the record, like, what are the ones that you notice you most people are talking about in the main, issues you have.
Joanne Coutts The power outages, the, downed power lines and long response times, the, constant rate hikes with no improvement to the infrastructure. I mean, it's incredible that a company can ask for a rate hike last year, get it, and then come back six months later asking for another one with no appreciable improvement in service.
Kevin Hawthorne No. Absolutely agree. And. So you say, cartography is, you're helping with, like, mapping the, like, waterways of Detroit.
Joanne Coutts Yeah. So that's a personal project. I, I counter cartographer, which I could talk about forever, but let's not, because that's not what this is about. So basically, the idea is to make maps that, are about relationships, between people and land and animals and plants rather than about. Necessarily just getting you from A to B in the fastest way possible.
Kevin Hawthorne Yeah. And do you think that's something that a lot of people who live in the city might not be aware of?
Joanne Coutts I think it's something that people there's definitely an increasing interest in maps, historical maps and current maps and how we make maps. And I think it's, something that's pretty accessible for people. And people enjoy, all kinds of different people enjoy colorful, interesting, engaging, maps. And it can be, freely accessible to people via the internet.
Kevin Hawthorne And what other. so cartography and working with MEJC Is there any personal, things you're doing to try and combat climate change? Like have you looked into getting solar panels for your house or.
Joanne Coutts I did at one point looking to. It was years ago I looked into getting solar panels for my house and did not. I wish I had done it years ago when they it was still wet before the, energy companies started making it as hard as possible for people to put solar panels on their houses. But no, aside from, like, the sort of regular reducing water usage, you know, recycling. I don't have any, my, I guess my main thing about personal thing is reducing what I use and reusing what I can. I think that while people should do what they can to reduce that, this is not something that my personal recycling is going to solve, right?
Kevin Hawthorne Yeah. With talking with Andrew last time and with a couple other climate change activists, it seems like a running thread has been, that like, well, we should do it we what we can. There's also we need to hold people accountable In a higher position of power.
Joanne Coutts yeah, yeah. And I think one place that. Just I have to I have to say this about the green ways because I get really mad about them. I think one place that we can hold the city accountable, this is project is still ongoing. The greenways project is still ongoing. And, it's sort of masquerading as a green infrastructure environmental project. But fundamentally it's just a bunch of concrete. It's it's concrete. And then it's mowed grass, which might as well be concrete. And it has no relationship to the, culture of the city in terms of the graffiti and the art that people have put up on the on the walls, around the train tracks, and no relationship to the indigenous plants and animals and the way that they have resisted in various parts of the city.
Kevin Hawthorne How would you improve if you were to improve the greenways project? What would you do?
Kevin Hawthorne I would reduce the bike lanes to a reasonable width for bikes. I mean, they don't need it, doesn't need the concrete lanes, don't need to be the width of a two lane or three lane highway or street. I would, respect the ways that the land has. And the particularly the plants have, have resisted. And when I'm putting in the greenways, I would build them around the way that the plan and build the bike path are wet around the way that the plants have resisted, rather than chopping them all down and uprooting them and digging them all out and then putting in grass. I would, use them as an opportunity to teach people about the, native names of plants and the native uses of plants rather than, just sort of, sort of standard play areas, you know, with like a slide and more concrete, and pagodas and stuff like that. I would, incorporate again, same way with the plants. I would think about how you can include the art that exists on the walls of the city, rather than whitewashing over it and then paying out of town people to come and paint murals or painting, or even paying local people to paint murals that, sort of city sanctioned rather than indigenous to the way to the way that the people of Detroit want to.
[End of Tape 1]
[Start of Tape 2]
Kevin Hawthorne All right, so, we're resuming the interview. If you could, be talking about the how you would improve the greenways once again.
Joanne Coutts Okay. Yeah, I can talk about how I can improve the greenways again. So my plan for including the greenways, first of all, would be to, honor the resilience of the plants that have resisted, and to build the bike lanes around the way that the plants have resisted, rather than bulldozing the plants and digging them out and replacing them with grass, which fundamentally might as well be concrete. I would narrow the bike lanes down to a reasonable length that, like enough. I like two bikes rather than 2 or 3 cars, and they don't need to be as wide as a 2 or 3 lane street. I would honor, the artistic culture of the city by, including and building the bike lanes around the way that people have, used graffiti and, to, share their expression of the city, on the walls of the, around the, particularly around the train tracks. Rather than whitewashing those and bringing in artists to create sort of city sanctioned, politically correct, murals, and I would. Use this space as a way to educate folks about the indigenous names of plants, about, uses of plants, and generally just not have them be. So they're so generic. They're really generic. They could be in DC or Baltimore or New York or San Francisco. Really thinking about how they can reflect the culture and the land and the plants and the animals and the people of Detroit. Not just be sort of anywhere, as will USA.
Kevin Hawthorne Make this a distinctively Detroit thing, is what you would prefer?
Joanne Coutts Yes, yes, I think that's the honoring the indigenous culture of the city is really important.
Kevin Hawthorne Do you think there has been a push to just make Detroit more of a standard city rather than, just try to embrace what it is?
Joanne Coutts Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I think someone, somewhere came up with a blueprint for what is the sort of economic data points that the city needs to hit. You need to have X number of miles of bike lanes. You need to have X number of, coffee shops. You need to have X amount of green space. And it needs to look like this. And you know, the that blueprint has sort of been disseminated amongst gentrifying cities and they're all replicating it.
Kevin Hawthorne Do you think, the fight against climate change and the fight against gentrification are intertwined?
Joanne Coutts Oh, absolutely. Yes, yes.
Kevin Hawthorne And, earlier you were mentioning, like, having artists do murals. How important do you think having, like, artists do things for climate change? Do you think that's important?
Joanne Coutts Yeah. I mean, I think artists have a role in every part of activism because it's a, it's an entry point for people. It's something that people enjoy getting involved in, something anyone can participate in. And it's, you know, it's a much more accessible way to spread the message than to produce sort of endless pages of reports and articles.
Kevin Hawthorne Are there any particular artists that you've noticed that you would like to highlight?
Joanne Coutts Not the top of my head.
Kevin Hawthorne That's okay. No. Off the top of your head. Sometimes when you get asked that, you like, oh, no, I'm in, like, you know, five minutes later, you'll be like, I just remembered everyone.
Joanne Coutts Absolutely. Yeah.
Kevin Hawthorne Which is totally fine. All right, well, is there anything I haven't brought up that you would, like to discuss on?
Joanne Coutts Oh, we were talking about. Oh, you were talking about what I would do in my neighborhood in Dexter. Yes. Yeah. So I guess one thing I would say is, I don't know a particular artist, but one place that I've seen a lot of art, is swords into plowshares, that they have a lot of art that is, you know, activist around climate change and can engage folks around climate change and peace and, and, things like that. But my Dexter neighborhood. Wow, that was a weird segue. But anyway, my Dexter neighborhood, what would I do? Or what if I could get if I could, like, get my block club together? We have so currently. Along, Dexter. You know, Dexter was really impacted by the rebellion. And in 67. And so the commercial corridor has never come back, essentially. So there's a lot of, vacant blocks where buildings have been taken down. And there's a lot of vacant storefronts. And what they've done most recently, apparently, there was a community meeting about it, but I never heard about it, which is course par for the course with Detroit. Right. You hear about the plans that have been approved magically by somebody in your community, without ever knowing that there was actually even a conversation about the plans being had in the first place. But anyway, so apparently that was a community meeting where it was agreed by somebody that they were going to, do sort of pop up container stores and that we are getting the street scaping, the same sort of street scaping that Livernois has, you know, with, sort of cut outs, and the bike lane. And of course, the this this has nothing to do with bike safety. It has everything to do with reducing, trying to reduce traffic and trying to reduce donuts and stuff like that. So it's really got nothing to do with bikes or green infrastructure. It has to do with what they call putting the road on a diet. But anyway, so this is what's happening in, on Dexter right now. But I think I know there's got to be. Again, I wasn't prepared, but I feel like the the spaces along the side of the street that, and currently not filled, they're not empty. Right. There's, like, grasses and there's probably animals living there. But there has to be some way to, allow that land to come back and to resist in the way that it wants to resist, but also to make it, attractive for the for the residents, educational, engaging. and not- yeah. That's not just like making it concrete and putting in a playground or something. That's. It's got. It's got to be there, right? It just requires more than people, than just me coming together to to think about it and engage with it in a way that is, honoring the resilience of the land rather than rejecting it. Yeah.
Kevin Hawthorne And there has, I have noticed a big push for more bike lanes and stuff like that as a way to kind of because as Detroit, you know, is the Motor City and has always had a very like- unlike a lot of other cities, there's not really a public transit system. There is, you it is a car culture in the city. What do you think, of like, as a good way to kind of encourage maybe like, biking without like, you know, as you as you said, you seem like, dissatisfied with the way that it's being implemented.
Joanne Coutts Yeah. I think the bike thing is interesting because it's been used by various people for various, I think, different objectives. One of which is is gentrification. One and bringing like as a way to, for developers to market to a more affluent consumer base. It's been used by bike activists. Bike activists are not- have been part of this right? They've used bike racks, you know, bike lanes, as a sort of as a tool of gentrification as well. I think Detroit has a bike culture, right? As a slow roll and, people riding around with the big fat tires and the and the boom boxes. Right. So how can we embrace the bike culture that Detroit has rather than bringing in this sort of, you know, cookie cutter, artificial bike culture that we think it should have? And I don't actually think that biking is necessarily is a practical way for people to get to work. Right. I mean, you've got to arrive looking a certain way with a certain amount of stuff. And the weather is not always conducive to to doing that. So I think maybe there's maybe not just not so much bike culture, but looking at different ways of implementing car culture. There was sort of various attempts at car sharing, which was sort of again monopolized by the sort of San Francisco Silicon Valley kind of, moneymaking culture. But there may be a way to implement some sort of a car sharing culture that's, that is not based in capitalism. How to set up a bus system that doesn't go in straight lines? Why the busses have to go in straight lines? I have no idea why busses have to go in straight lines. They have the little, little minivans that go around and pick up people from their houses. For people who need, medical assistance. Right? Or people who can't get around, why can't that function for regular people? I don't understand why busses have to go in straight lines.
Kevin Hawthorne And there's also been, trying to make the Q line go more than just, up and down Woodward.
Joanne Coutts Yeah, I mean, the Q line. I'm like, yeah, let's not get started on the Q line. Right. And the colossal, waste of money that that was. Yeah. I again, it's a straight line thing. I think that this idea, this thing about straight lines is the issue with public transit that need to get over the idea that busses can only be busses can be smaller, more nimble. If you go to Mexico, there's like 20 different kinds of public transit. In Mexico City, there's the chicken busses, there's little hiaces there's straight line regular busses, there's a metro system. You know, it's it's not. We need to embrace more ways of people, getting around on vehicle transport rather than just their personal cars and straight line busses and trams. All right.
Kevin Hawthorne Well, I think this has been an excellent interview. I'm just going to close up with a few questions. What would you say to someone who is concerned about climate change and believes it's an issue, and they want to try and do more?
Joanne Coutts Oh, hang in there, love. Like the. Yeah. You're not alone. I think the thing that gives me hope. I'm 51. Wasn't was supposed to tell you that. But anyway, is like how I feel like. Yeah, like the generations coming up behind me are so much more. There's so many fewer climate deniers. Like, it's just so much more of a thing on people's radar. And people are relating climate issues to racial justice issues and energy issues and accessibility issues. So I feel pretty hopeful about future generations, even if not so much about my own.
Kevin Hawthorne All right. And on that topic, what would you say to someone who is a climate change denier still?
Joanne Coutts Oh, I wish I knew. That's like the million dollar question is that we all want to know what to say to somebody who's a climate change denier, to try and convince them otherwise. And, yeah, I. I don't know, I could just say I feel sorry for them. Love.
Kevin Hawthorne Very, very fair. All right. Thank you so much for your time today, Joe. It'll.
