During a recent conference in Detroit–the annual convening of NEWHAB/Energy Efficiency for All, a growing network of urban and environmental activists dedicated to creating energy-efficient affordable housing–I went on a tour that revealed new dimensions of this area’s ongoing struggle with racism and poverty. The highlight was our group’s visit to Avalon Village, in Highland Park, a city within Detroit, just a few miles from where Brewster-Douglass once stood. At first glance, you might say that it’s nothing much: a street with empty lots and rundown houses. But the “village” is a vision that started with one person and has become a collective grassroots effort; it’s an entrepreneurial start-up, not a government project. the person is Mama Shu (Shamayim Harris), a former school administrator in one of the nation’s poorest cities who, as she tells it. had a vision of what could become of a street she glimpsed on the way to work.

She bought the house on the corner for $3,000 and started to fix it up. She partnered with a nonprofit in the city, Soulardarity, that erected a solar street light next door; the area’s streetlights had been removed because the city didn’t pay its utility bills. With donations–cash, in-kind help–she began to buy lots at $300-500 apiece and a few of the houses. She turned the lot next door into a park for her infant son, killed by a car. She is turning the house next to that into a “homework house” for the neighborhood children–a safe place to meet, work, eat, and do school work. A Kickstarter campaign raised $243,000 in 30 days. She brought in a metal shipping container and turned it into a neat, well-decorated small shop–filled with incense, candles, and other goods for sale by women in the area. She and her allies have been at this for years.

When Mama Shu takes us on a walking tour of the neighborhood, more of the vision unfolds. Here will be a wellness center. There will be a park. This house will be torn down, that one will be fixed up. She points out a basket of flowers on a stand along the street. It covers the base of a removed streetlight–a small touch to bring beauty and caring where ugly loss occurred.

Yes, it’s a feel-good story. She’s been in People and on Ellen. On some days I might discount it as being at such a small scale and taking so long to get results–a drop in the bucket, hardly a “system change” effort. But two things captured me, beyond Mama Shu’s infectious can-do attitude and the tasty lunch she served us in her son’s park.

First, large changes almost always start with small changes, and small changes start with self-drive, the will to make a change. Self-drive in a person or a community can be suppressed and extinguished. But here it was, alive and well.

Second, Mama Shu’s vision for Avalon Village is quite different from the vision that built Brewster-Douglass. She wants a place that runs on renewable energy and is highly efficient in its use of energy and water, a place that is green, not just built up, and taps nature’s healthfulness, a place that is resilient, much like she has been. This vision–at the heart of what NEWHAB is about–is taking hold in cities around the world, especially the affluent cities and gentrified neighborhoods. Avalon Village says, in its small way, that this is a vision for everyone.

Mama Shu photo: Eclection Media

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