Professor Lisa M. Fine has published a new book, Downriver Detroit: The Working Class, the Environment, and the Bonds of Place.
In this powerful contribution to labor and environmental history, Dr. Fine explores how Downriver Detroit communities have long fought to protect their environment—the air, land, and water central to their lives to create humane and habitable places to live, work, and play. Members of the working class in this region forged a bond to this place that was expressed in many ways. Through grassroots organizing, labor activism, and partnerships with state agencies, working-class residents worked to clean up the waterways, preserve wetlands, oppose the building of a nuclear power plant, resist the challenges of deindustrialization to sustain their communities. Bringing together labor and environmental perspectives, Downriver Detroit challenges assumptions about working-class environmentalism and affirms people’s right to protect the places they call home.
Downriver Detroit: The Working Class, the Environment, and the Bonds of Place is available from the University of Illinois Press.
RECENT PUBLICITY FOR DOWNRIVER DETROIT:
- WDET: https://wdet.org/2026/06/02/new-book-explores-how-working-class-shaped-downriver/
- Michigan Advance: https://michiganadvance.com/2026/07/13/michigan-state-professor-explores-downrivers-history-of-working-class-environmental-activism/
- Great Lakes Echo: https://greatlakesecho.org/2026/07/12/how-downriver-detroits-working-communities-fought-for-their-regions-environment/
- Yahoo News: https://www.yahoo.com/news/science/articles/michigan-state-professor-explores-downriver-080005007.html
- News From The States: https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/michigan-state-professor-explores-downrivers-history-working-class-environmental-activism
- Macomb Daily: https://www.macombdaily.com/2026/07/18/msu-professor-explores-downrivers-history-of-working-class-environmental-activism/
- News-Herald: https://www.thenewsherald.com/2026/07/18/msu-professor-explores-downrivers-history-of-working-class-environmental-activism/
- Spartan Newsroom: https://news.jrn.msu.edu/2026/07/how-downriver-detroits-working-communities-fought-for-their-regions-environment/
- Reuther Library (Wayne State University): https://reutherlib.blubrry.net/2026/08/06/downriver-detroit-the-working-class-the-environment-and-the-bonds-of-place/
- Middle West US: https://middlewest.us/resistance-and-resilience-in-downriver-detroit/