Sometimes you get a job. And sometimes — if you’re lucky and outgoing and patient, but mostly lucky — a job gets you. That’s how I felt six years ago when, amidst grave demographic and economic un...

On the eve of the biggest day in the 15-year history of Summer in the City, a day before my thrice-annual haircut, 72 hours prior to starting with the fourth cohort of Repair the World Fellows (th...

Centuries of institutionalized racism contributed to the successive shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile by white policemen. It will take decades of work — work, not just the passing o...

To my knowledge, Temple Emanu-El in Oak Park and its sister schools do not have commencement speakers upon whom they bestow honorary pre-kindergarten degrees.But if they did, I’d like to think...

Here are three premises and seven invitations for your consideration:Negative energy swirls around and separates us. It is not clear to me whether it is a function of contemporary politics, ...

These are the stories of two cornerstones of civilization — deli and coffee — and two stand-up guys toiling to make our lives just a little more civilized.Stuart Litt, Deli Man Stuart knows c...

It’s a new day in Israel — a remarkable, daily occurrence. It’s 3:30 in the morning back here in Michigan and I’m up, feeling the gravitational pull with a twist of Daylight Savings Time. My heart...

An organizing principle of my life is the power of volunteerism to turn people’s values into value: Everyday people can transcend the transactional nature of daily life in order to repair the worl...

To my old friends in South Florida:Boychick Ben here. Writing to say “Thank you!” and “See you soon!” (And, no, it’s not just you — people use a lot more exclamation points than they used to. ...

Year, 1925: “It is unfortunate that Uncle Sam has to be made to look like a jackass before the civilized world by reason of the antics of the Secretary of State who evidently is on the side of Admiral...

As Detroiters go, Aaron Foley and I are basically the same, except that he is black and gay and grew up in Detroit and lives in Detroit. Other than that, our philosophies on the city — what he wri...

Five years ago, my world and the world around me were in disrepair. Against a backdrop of crashing home values, fleeing talent, teetering automakers, racketeering officials and foreboding census f...

When I met with Aviva Kempner, decorated documentarian and Cass Tech graduate, she kept making alternating references to Julius and Julian. We were seated outside at the Maple Theater and Kitchen, en...

I don’t run Summer in the City. Neil, Michael and I were 20 when we founded the organization and — like combat, missionary work and boy bands; it has elements of all three — Summer in the City is ...

Lately, I find myself talking less about why I don’t live in certain places — Detroit, Bloomfield Hills, New York, Oz — and more about why I do live in Huntington Woods.We’ve called “The Woods” ho...

With the philosophical posture of a too-tired-to-sleep kindergartener, my son Judah asked me the other night, “What places aren’t there anymore?” Tempted as I was to share my first reaction — “Dis...

To better get to know the man as he lived — beyond the obits, eulogies, shouts and murmurs — Al Taubman and I spent the day after his funeral together.9 a.m., my kitchen. For $3.99, I’m downlo...

Even though I’ve never taken to yoga (the practice, not the pants; I love the pants), I have learned to notice when the light within someone else honors the light within me. Here are three people ...

If 2015 is the future (so sayeth Back to the Future II), then the present and the years ahead seem like they will be governed by one thing (not apes) more than anything else: choice. I’m not the ...

Oct. 30 will mark 50 years since Jimmy Prentis Morris and three other boys were driving home from a University of Michigan Football game when they were struck by a train at an unguarded railroad c...