This TED Talk features journalist and screenwriter Drew Philp, recorded live at TED NYC 2017.

In 2009, I bought a house in Detroit for $500.

Had no windows, no plumbing, no electricity, and it was filled with trash.

The first floor held nearly 10,000 pounds garbage and that included the better part of a Dodge caravan cut into chunks with the reciprocating

saw. I lived nearly two years without heat, woke up out of a dead sleep multiple times to gunshots,

was attacked by a pack of wild dogs and ripped my kitchen cabinets from an abandoned school

as they were actively tearing that school down.

This, of course, is the Detroit that you hear about.

You make no mistake, it's real.

But there's another Detroit, too. Another Detroit that's more hopeful, more innovative, and may

just provide some of the answers to cities struggling to reinvent themselves everywhere.

These answers, however, do not necessarily adhere to conventional wisdom about good development.

I think Detroit's real strength boils down to two words.

Radical neighborliness.

And I wasn't able to see it myself until I lived there.

About a decade ago, I moved to Detroit with no friends, no job, and no money.

At a time, it seemed like everyone else was moving out.

Between 2000 and 2010, 25% of the city's population left.

This included about half of the elementary age children.

This was after six decades of decline. A city built for

almost two million was down to less than 800,000. What you usually don't hear is that people

didn't go very far. The population of the Detroit metro area itself has largely remained steady

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