Two Detroits

How to Lose a Neighborhood examines how neighborhoods are shaped intentionally, through deliberate policy, power, and development decisions. What often appears as market outcome or neighborhood decline is, in reality, the result of choices made, repeated, and rewarded over time.

Written by Brinda Devine, a Detroit-based real estate developer with more than 30 years of experience working inside the systems that shape cities, the book draws on practice rather than theory. It traces how land use policy, financing structures, development incentives, and institutional risk tolerance influence who owns property, who builds wealth, and who is displaced.

Using Detroit as its primary case study—and reflecting patterns present in similarly situated cities—the book documents how disinvestment, selective reinvestment, and ownership transfer accumulate at the neighborhood level. These outcomes are intentional. They emerge from systems that extract value from some neighborhoods to benefit others, eroding neighborhood economic growth, investment, and stability.

Neighborhood decline is expected when policy, power, and money dictate decisions.How to Lose a Neighborhood examines how neighborhoods are shaped intentionally, through deliberate policy, power, and development decisions. What often appears as market outcome or urban decline is, in reality, the result of choices made, repeated, and rewarded over time.

Brinda Devine

Founded by Brinda Devine, P8 Real Estate Solutions is the Detroit-based firm through which she has spent more than 30 years working in asset management, commercial real estate development, corporate real estate leasing, and the acquisition and disposition of real estate assets. That experience, combined with firsthand work developing Kornr Store—a small-scale neighborhood café and market—informs How to Lose a Neighborhood, grounding the book in real-world development practices.

Upcoming Events

Join us for lively book launches and more.

Book Launch

Celebrate the release of 'How to Lose a Neighborhood" with the author, Brinda Devine

Contact / Speaker Request/ Press Inquiry/ Bulk Order Request

Address

6224 16th Street, Detroit, MI 48208

Contacts

Ph: 248-219-6685
Email: bdevine@howtoloseaneighborhood.com