Here's an interesting movement at work. Some of you may have seen Julian Temple's Requiem for Detroit, an excellent piece of documentary journalism broadcast on the BBC over the weekend. If not, you can catch it on iPlayer for a while here.

Interestingly, the end of the film, (spoiler alert!) picks up the sorry story of Detroit in a contemporary and surprisingly hopeful light by interviewing some of the city's residents involved in a quasi-socialist movement which could be called "urban agriculturism". There was the suggestion, for example, that long-abandoned stretches of Detroit's once affluent suburbs could be levelled and turned into steadily profitable farmland controlled by individual communities rather than crop-cultivating conglomerates. The idea represents a growing interest in localised, community-centric rehabilitation in this part of the states, where laid-off workers and poverty-stricken Americans are beginning to question their former dependence on corporate businesses that once underpinned social well-being and integration.

The history of Detroit reveals a city more or less built on commercial enterprise and supergrowth, but tarnished by race divisions and extraordinarily high crime and illiteracy rates. These problems were precipitated both by the questionable ways in which the 'big three' automobile manufacturers conducted their business in the city, and also by the startling transience of the wealth they amassed there. (Some parallels and explanations of this situation - not specific to Detroit, but relevant to business internationally - are thoughtfully laid out in Robert Reich's book, Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy and Everyday Life while continued anger at the car industry is available at Autoextremist.com)

The backlash has taken some time to find its niche, but ever since the beginning of the street riots and uproar there have been voices in Detroit calling for Americans to reject what is seen as the oppressive control of corporations on their lives and make a break for change.

Characteristically, this began in earnest in the 1960s. James Boggs (now deceased) and Grace Lee Boggs (94 and more active than ever) have helped to inspire and stimulate the evolution of community leadership in the US, but enthusiasm for their ideas was at first a direct response to of Detroit's unfortunate demise.

The movement, which encourages participants to be as self-sufficient as possible and enjoy a life of nurture with the help of nature, is in many ways an inversion of what the 'American Dream' has become, but is arguably closer to the original promise of American pioneers who picked up the colonial pieces after the war of independence.

The website for the James and Grace Lee Boggs centre gives a good sense of the initiatives involved in this self-styled "{r}evolution" - evidence of which may be seen at the 'Breath of Hope, Detroit' portal which explains in more detail how hip-hop culture, gardening and politico-economic disillusionment have come together to encourage change in a long-stagnant blemish on the American urban landscape.

The movement has serious political and economic implications and could be construed by some as a kind of anti-American dissent. One contributor to the site, Rich Feldman, writes in a manifesto, "By the 1980s the American Dream had already turned into a nightmare in Detroit. Our experience then is now the national reality." And ominously adds, "What we need to recognise is that there will be no recovery. [...] The view of what's behind and what's ahead is vivid. Community or chaos. Middle class economic dreams are over. Achieving security and quality of life based upon our relationships and our commitment to creating community is our mission."

It's a movement which ultimately rejects traditional (national) democratic structures and re-packages aspects of socialism with an environmentally-conscious twist. How successful Boggs and her fellow 'evolutionaries' will be remains to be seen, but the following interview gives you a good insight to her position on the matter and how compatriots are making their voices heard.