On an otherwise typical article about the interaction of city residents, outside groups, and government – Why Detroit Residents Pushed Back Against Tree-Planting – is a mention of a concept I’ve never seen: heritage narratives. The author defines heritage narratives as:

…the stories that people from all walks of Detroit life tell themselves and each other about why city conditions are the way they are. The heritage narratives that residents shared about trees in Detroit were different from the ones shared among the people in city government and The Greening of Detroit.

I love this – this encapsulates what I’ve been searching for when observing that different residents of a place have different views on what the city is, or should be. It brings together the fact that different people, with different contexts, can have a wildly divergent view of where they live, and how they got there.