It's a social support net that has kept Detroit going through multiple generations of poverty, and multiple generations of unemployment. I know the formal number is 39.8% in poverty, but I would argue that number is much higher because you have so many people disenfranchised and uncounted. The circumstance leads to people seeking alternative solutions.

Journalist Valerie Vande Panne explores the time banks and informal economies of post-crash Detroit - as a means of survival in a shrinking city stripped of social services, and an alternative way of organizing neighbors and communities to provide mutual aid and support.

Valerie wrote the article Detroit’s Underground Economy: Where Capitalism Fails, Alternatives Take Root? for In These Times.