Detroit Bikes is bringing jobs and transit options to Detroiters. Advocates and riders want the state or city to make them more affordable.
Jena Brooker
Jena Brooker is BridgeDetroit's environmental reporter, covering food and agriculture, pollution and climate change. She has held three fellowships: a ProPublica fellowship, where she led an investigative project on heavy industry in Detroit neighborhoods; a Data Fellowship at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, where she produced award-winning coverage of Detroit's automotive industry and environmental racism; and a Science-Health-Environment Reporting Fellowship through CASW, AHCJ and SEJ. Her work has also earned the Michigan Press Association public service award three years in a row and recognition as Young Journalist of the Year in 2023. Before joining BridgeDetroit, she covered environmental issues across the Midwest as a Reporting Fellow for Grist.
Jena holds a bachelor's degree in environmental studies from the University of Michigan, and her work has appeared in The Guardian, Mother Jones, Salon, Slate, Grist, Next City, Chalkbeat and Planet Detroit.
Posted inCivic and Community Information
A Detroit foundation is checking itself on racial equity
In its first “racial equity audit,” the Skillman Foundation found it has directed little of its investments toward assets owned by people of color.
Posted inTransportation
Here’s who MDOT seated to advise on I-375 project in Detroit
The 24-member group was assembled without a formal selection process to advise on the project fraught with tension over its racist origins
Posted inHealth and Welfare
Detroit’s 2022 food access gains and losses
BridgeDetroit reporter Jena Brooker gives a recap on efforts to diversify the city’s dining scene, grocery store shortages and investments in Detroit’s locally grown produce.
Posted inPolitical and Public Policy Information
Getting to know the first Black woman on Michigan’s Supreme Court
Kyra Harris Bolden was tapped by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as the first Black woman to rule on Michigan’s Supreme Court.
Posted inArts & Culture
Iraqi poet in metro Detroit pens novel on ISIS captives
Author Dunya Mikhail appeared in Detroit’s New Center this month to read from “The Bird Tattoo,” her new book about the multi-decade journey of a woman sold into sex slavery.
Posted inCivic and Community Information
City shuts down concrete crushing proposal for Core City
The city’s building department received 100 emails opposing a permit being sought to crush concrete on Lawton and more than 1,000 residents signed on to a petition against it.
Posted inEnvironment
Core City organizes opposition to concrete crushing plant
Detroiters in Core City don’t want a concrete crushing plant as their neighbor.
Posted inEnvironment
State finalizes enforcement plan for Stellantis over air quality violations
The company must install pollution controls by June 2023 and has dropped one of its environmental projects.
Posted inEnvironment
Expensive fixes backup Detroit’s flood prevention program
About half of the homeowners enrolled in the first phase of the Basement Backup Protection Program have flood controls, Detroit wants more federal dollars to move it along.