My dad grew up in Nicaragua in his teenage years, then immigrated to the United States.

I still remember, at the age of 12, learning that segregation had been permitted only a couple of decades before I was born and that a woman's right to vote was not even a century old. But it was great Americans who stood up, some dying for the cause, to make our country better.

Detroit can become a national model for urban revitalization, but to do so, it must break free from past development models.

Old models of development simply seek to lure business with substantial tax breaks and then hope (and pray) that economic benefits will trickle down to residents. It has not worked for our city in the past, and it will not work for the future city that we all hope want to see.