Detroit’s buried creeks, hidden by urban development, pose flooding risks to neighborhoods.
Since moving to Detroit in 2020, Joanne Coutts has explored subterranean Detroit on her bike, using century-old U.S. Geological Survey maps to trace the paths of creeks that now run deep underground.
Coutts embarked on this project, she says, to “navigate the city from the perspective of water rather than of concrete.”
While cars and freeways dominate Detroit’s transportation system today, this has not always been the case. Like many large cities, Detroit was built alongside waterways that were used as vital means of transportation by indigenous peoples for centuries before its founding.
Urban development and industrialization led to Detroit’s wetlands being filled in and creeks, no longer needed for crop irrigation, being buried and turned into sewers. Today, over 80% of the waterways visible on city maps from 1905 have disappeared from view.
