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Rebuilding an Abandoned Home and an American City
by Drew Philp
Part social history, part brash generational statement, part comeback story, A $500 House in Detroit is an intimate account of the tentative revival of an American city - home by home and person by person - and a glimpse at a new way forward for generations to come.
Drew Philp, an idealistic college student from a working-class Michigan family, withdraws from the comforts of life on a university campus in search of a place to live where he can make a difference. He sets his sights on Detroit, the failed metropolis of abandoned buildings, widespread poverty, and rampant crime - a complicated source of national fascination, often stereotyped and little understood. Arriving with no job, no friends, and no money, Philp is naïvely determined to fix the huge, broken city with his own hands and on his own terms. A year later, he saves up and buys a ramshackle house for five hundred dollars in the east side neighborhood known as Poletown and moves in.
Philp gets what he pays for. The roomy Queen Anne he now owns has been abandoned for a decade and is little more than a clapboard shell on a crumbling brick foundation, filled with heaping piles of trash (including most of a chopped-up minivan), and missing windows, heat, water, electricity, and a functional roof. The landscape of the surrounding neighborhood resembles an urban prairie: overgrown fields dotted with houses that haven't been demolished or burned to the ground - some of them well-maintained by Detroiters who have chosen to remain in the city, but many, like the Queen Anne, left vacant and in complete disrepair.
Based on a BuzzFeed essay that resonated with millions of readers, A $500 House in Detroit is Philp's raw and earnest account of rebuilding everything but the frame of his house, nail by nail and room by room. It's also the story of a young man finding his footing in the city, the country, and his own generation. As he assimilates into the community of Detroiters around him, Philp guides readers through the city's vibrant history and engages in urgent conversations about gentrification, racial tensions, and class warfare.
We witness his concept of Detroit shift, expand, and evolve as his plan to save the city gives way to a life forged from political meaning, personal connection, and collective purpose.
"Starred Review. [A] deeply felt, sharply observed personal quest ... A standout in the Detroit rehab genre." - Kirkus
"The book shines when he sticks to the "radical neighborliness" of ordinary people in desperate circumstances." - Publishers Weekly
"Highly recommended for general readers interested in the history and resurgence of Detroit and other U.S. cities." - Library Journal
"Lots of young bohemian types are fascinated by Detroit - land of the fabled $500 house! - but few take the plunge as headily as Drew Philp did ... Philp writes about his experience with sensitivity, humility and humor, and his voice is a necessary addition to the literature of the Motor City." - Mark Binelli, author of Detroit City is the Place to Be
"Downright eloquent and deeply moving ... He captures the city in all of its horrors and hopes, contradictions and blind faith." - Frank Viviano, eight-time Pulitzer Prize-nominee, and National Geographic writer since 2001
This information about A $500 House in Detroit was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Drew Philp's work has been published both nationally and internationally and has appeared in publications, including BuzzFeed, The Detroit Free Press, Metrotimes, Corp! Magazine, the Bakersfield Californian, and the Michigan Daily. He lives in Detroit with his dog, Gratiot.
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