My carpentry students will be very interested in this one. Definitely purchasing it for our collection.

$500 House in Detroit can be preachy/(super) self righteous at times and Philp doesn't quite acknowledge the privilege of having his background for the task he's chosen (he's busy reflecting on his general white privilege over that of his mostly black neighbors) but is not a bad read about Detroit and its 'revival'.

I lived and worked in metro Detroit for a number of years, so the memoir of a young guy moving to the city and fixing up a house was interesting just because I know the landscape. I was also drawn to the book because I've had some long conversations with people who are or have renovated historical homes in Detroit. It's a tough thing to do, and it's very different than HGTV makes home renovation appear.

Besides the subject matter making me a little leery, I was leery about trying a memoir: memoirs depend so much on the voice of the author and if I feel like he/she is leaving out lots of stuff. And I was also leery about a book that sounded like a good book or blog pitch (young guy rehabs a house he bought for $500 without foundation money). And I have to say, for the first quarter of the book, the self-righteousness was a bit much. But Drew grows up during the course of the book. And the story kept moving along because it followed his house renovation. The ending was the livable house, you know.

I liked this book, and I liked the people Philp met and befriended over the multiple years he's been in Detroit. It's a book that brings up lots of issues to discuss, and I don't think that's the case for memoirs that I would call more gimmicky than this one.

I almost gave up on a $500 House in Detroit, but I'm glad I didn't. It's not perfect, but somewhere in the middle it had me fully engaged and by the end I was even a bit teary. Drew Philp moved to Detroit when he was 23 years old. He had very little money, was a few credits shy of a degree from the University of Michigan, and had the idea that he wanted to fix up an old house in Detroit. At first, Philp's book seemed a bit aimless and a bit too self-aggrandizing. But as I got into it, I really started to appreciate Philp as a person, and I also loved that his book covered far more than his personal story. He weaves in some older Detroit history, a vivid portrait of the economics and politics of Detroit over the last 10 years, great anecdotes about how he forged his way into the community, thoughtful musings about urban revival and strong views about racial and economic inequality. By the end, Drew had me paying attention to some of my own preconceptions. Living in Toronto, over the last few years, Detroit is viewed as a new must go to destination -- young hip urban dwellers have transformed the city into a place with great food and art. Philp's book brings a sobering counterpoint to that portrait. Much of the renewal has been at the expense of poor black families who continue to lose their houses due to unpaid taxes and who continue to have crappy schools and services. There is nuance to Philp's view of Detroit, but the underlying point is that there's no heroism in benefitting from other people's misery. Real efforts have to be made to be part of a community, and to finding ways to truly bridge economic and racial divide. There is idealism to Philp's vision, but it strikes me that it's not just the idealism of youth but the idealism that comes from rolling up his sleeves -- over and over again -- to work on his house and become part of his community. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

A grand book about grassroots organizing from the ground up, by living the solution rather than endlessly discussing it. As urban pioneers in New Orleans's Treme neighborhood, many of the stories rang absolutely true. I found myself reading excerpts out loud to my husband as I found many parallels to our lives.
I'm glad to see that the author is continuing his writing and I look forward to following his and his house's story.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30753799-a-500-house-in-detroit" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="A $500 House in Detroit: Rebuilding an Abandoned Home and an American City" src="https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1488107389m/30753799.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30753799-a-500-house-in-detroit">A $500 House in Detroit: Rebuilding an Abandoned Home and an American City</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15401882.Drew_Philp">Drew Philp</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1941465433">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
I myself just live 3.5 miles north of the 8 mile Road division line of Detroit and the suburbs, just off of Gratiot, the name the author have to his adopted dog. My grandparents and great aunts and uncles all lived in the "city" at one time and slowly moved out. <br />Since that time a lot has gone down, and many people moved out. <br />Drew, the author, after graduating college, decided he wanted to move to the city from a comfortable life in the suburbs, in search for a more authentic life. He buys a huge abandoned Queen Anne at an auction for $500, which is really only a shell of a house.<br />This is a memoir of his work, all his difficulties, and also the friendships and relationships he has made in the process. I actually learned quite a bit I didn't know about Detroit's history. <br /><br />Thank you to NetGalley, Simon and Schuster, and Drew Philp for the early eBook!
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/12851291-karen">View all my reviews</a>

3.5 Stars.

The title, A $500 HOUSE IN DETROIT drew me in as I lived the first 25 years of my life in a suburb of Detroit, and still have many relatives who reside there. Over the last several decades, I've heard stories about the suspicious fires, needless destruction and, of course, the city's ultimate downfall and bankruptcy that author Drew Philp addresses here.

This work of non-fiction centers around Drew himself as a young naive man with a big heart, a lot of backbone and very limited funds who purchases an old dilapidated (but cool) Queen Anne style house at auction for $500. As he describes his trials and tribulations in bringing it back to its former glory, we meet Drew's family members and several of his new neighbors who help get him through many freezing cold Michigan nights without heat and scary moments living alone when unwanted visitors come to call.

We also meet Drew's new pal Gratiot the rescue puppy (named after a well known street), and hear scary stories about the world's largest toxic incinerator, but most of all we learn how one man bonds with a small community called Poltown and just down right wants to make a difference.

I would love to know more about the birdhouses made with vintage date nails from the 1960's, see a photo of the Queen Anne at completion, and am hopeful many more young people will follow in Drew's footsteps to bring back to life a deserted city.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I did not finish this book as I did not engage with this story at all.

I wanted to read Drew Philp's book A $500 House in Detroit because he, like so many other young people, have returned to the city to make it home, to help establish a new city, a better city. Like the young man at my hair salon who bought a house in Brightmoor , who, starting from scratch, is making a new kind of house for a new generation.

Philp came from a rural area of Michigan, from generations of people who worked with their hands. He attended University of Michigan but was repulsed by the values and life style of wealth. He wanted something different, more authentic. Instead of taking a high salary job he wanted to find a life with meaning. He moved to Detroit and worked sanding floors, a 'token white' for an African American company, becoming their public face when selling in the suburbs.

When Philp bought his Poletown house at auction for $500 it was an empty shell--well, empty but for piles of human waste and the sawed off front end of a car. Philp worked all day and restored his house all night. When he moved in he had no heat; it was a brutal winter without even hot water. It nearly broke his spirit and his health.

When we saw 'gentrification' in Philly, when people were moving in and restoring grand old homes, or factories being put to new use as housing, the city was not as far gone as Detroit. It seems like this is something new--Neighborhoods literally turned into 'urban prairie' with a few houses here and there, cut off from city services and protection. And kids like a twenty-three-year-old Philp deciding to move in and start from scratch.

And that 'scratch' includes community. Philp's heart-warming stories of acceptance and integration into the existing community is enviable. For few of us in the 'burbs know our neighbors anymore. The block parties of my youth and the mothers all looking out for the kids are things of the past.

Philp's book was eye opening on so many levels, including his history of Detroit's fall, the politics of corruption, the inequity that began long ago with 'urban renewal', and the value system of consumerism and business profit is well presented.

I communicated with Philp and he graciously answered some questions I posed.

Nancy: Few people have the will to live an authentic life based on values that are in tension with social expectations. I was wondering if you would talk about that.

Philp: I think much of my generation wants to live authentically, and in fact, I think it's the defining trait of the millennials. What I don't think we understand yet is how to do so. I was lucky. I had a background where I learned how to build physical things from an early age, and stumbled upon a community that could help encourage and transform those skills. For me, living an authentic life meant building a house. For others it's likely different.

But the underlying principle is we're looking to build a better world, one free from all kinds of coercion, that recognizes the interconnection of all different kinds of people and issues. You can see inklings of experiments like this in movements such as Occupy Wall Street and the camps at Standing Rock--they've been maligned for not having a dedicated plan, but I think that isn't the point. The point is to build community, a real one, and a new world, a better one. The kids at Occupy were doing it right there in the park, in practice, rather than begging a wealthy, disconnected politician to do it for them. I'm trying to do the same with my house and community.

Nancy: You have the rare ability to see beyond the surface: you don't just see a product, you see how it was manufactured and the implications on human lives and the environment. Where did this awareness come from?

Philp: I think I was pushed by circumstances. I've watched my countrymen and women die in wars nearly my entire life, at least one of which was built on lies. I've seen, in Detroit and elsewhere, people starving and homeless in "the greatest country on earth." I've taught in prisons where there is little to no rehabilitation going on, and the privatization of incarceration, the making money from locking people in cages. I've seen eight, just eight now, men owning half as much wealth as 50 percent of the world...the list goes on.

I feel I've been lied to very deeply, by my government, by society, by culture, and I've seen it with my own eyes, and had to begin looking for my own answers. They've led me to a startling place. From the clothing on our bodies to the pipes running through our homes, much of our comfort has been built on the near slavery of workers in the global South and environmental degradation the world over.

Nancy: I appreciated the sense of community that you describe in Detroit. Few communities behave like family any more. Can this be patterned in other communities?

Philp: I would argue that community is always important, we can just temporarily mask that need with longing for perceived safety and consumer culture, for example. There's a lot of ennui happening in the supposedly wonderful suburbs and McMansions. People aren't as happy as they pretend to be. In Detroit we're not all that special in finding community--we've just faced the problems longer than anyone else, and by virtue of time, have had longer to find the answers.

As to participation in community, I think it's what my generation is looking for above all else. Fulfillment comes from authentic life, which comes through community. Many of us have grown up in faceless suburbs, divorced from any meaningful culture, sense of belonging, and are very, very lonely. People have been moving back to cities to find a sense not only of selves but their history and connection to others. If the US continues down this road of fascism and cruelty, we're going to see an explosion of it.

Nancy: Everyone is rooting for Detroit to be the come-back kid but I know too many neighborhoods do not enjoy benefits from the growth of trendy restaurants or boutiques. Do you think that Detroit's past is it's future, with areas attracting suburbanites for play vs. areas of neglect and poverty?

Philp: I think that is what the grassroots in Detroit is fighting against. As I mention in the book, the only real failure Detroit can undergo in moving forward is not trying anything new. We have an amazing opportunity to become, as strange as it sounds, the city of the future. The grassroots in Detroit is attempting to solve global problems on the local level-- i.e., climate change, which we won't be getting too much help from the current federal administration--and paradoxically, Detroit has solutions to offer. Hopefully we can stave off the big money and current thinking in our own city to give them as a gift to the rest of the world.

Philp is one of those rare people who rise above status quo conventions to see a higher moral order, another vision of a better city. It gives one hope that America's future will be influenced by ideals that will lead to a better America.

Read the article that became a sensation and led to this book:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/drewphilp/why-i-bought-a-house-in-detroit-for-500?utm_term=.ejR4n797J#.cewKzMQM0

"As we rebuild this ashen city, we're deciding on an epic scale what we value as Americans in the 21st century. The American Dream is alive in Detroit, even if it flickers." Drew Philp

I revived a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Thank you to NetGalley for an e-arc of this title in exchange for an honest review. I've never lived in Detroit, and honestly, hadn't heard good things about it. Reading this book opened my eyes, and it was wonderful to see a new generation coming into the city, building it up, taking a chance and making it their own. This book was enlightening, inspiring and my hat is off to Drew Philp.