In this episode of The Common Wealth, a podcast about community development and economic justice in Detroit and other urban communities, University of Michigan Law Professor Dana Thompson is in conversation with community leader and activist Malik Yakini. Malik Yakini is an urban farmer, guitarist, Black food sovereignty activist, institution builder, and a founder and former Executive Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Sovereignty Network (DBCFSN) organization. The two discuss the meaning of Black food sovereignty, food security, food apartheid, food deserts, and cooperative economics. Professor Thompson, who is the founding director of the Zell Entrepreneurship Clinic as well as the director of the Community Enterprise Clinic also discusses with Mr. Yakini, the Detroit Food Commons project and the Detroit People’s Food Coop. The Detroit Food Commons project is a $23 Million, 2 story, 31,000 square feet community development project spearheaded and co-developed by DBCFSN. The project’s anchor tenant is the Detroit People’s Food Coop which is a Black-led, community-owned grocery store cooperative. It also includes a banquet-hall rental space, commercial kitchens for rent to food entrepreneurs, and DBCFSN’s office space. The project brings the Detroit People’s Food Coop grocery store to a neighborhood in Detroit that didn’t have a grocery store in its boundaries. The University of Michigan Law School’s Community Enterprise Clinic provided the primary legal services to the project.

In the inaugural episode of the anticipated podcast on the nexus between higher education and community economic development, called The Common Wealth, University of Michigan Law Professor Dana Thompson invites University of Michigan Regent Mark Bernstein as her first guest. The two discuss Bernstein's legal and professional career and the University of Michigan's impact on the City of Detroit as well as it's continued engagement with the state's largest city. Professor Thompson, who is the founding director of the Zell Entrepreneurship Clinic as well as the director of the Community Enterprise Clinic also discusses with Regent Bernstein the University of Michigan's Center for Innovation in Detroit, which is being billed as a world-class research, education, and entrepreneurship center designed to stimulate economic development in Michigan's urban core.