The City of Detroit is currently in a state of renovation, and for all its great effort to resurrect from a troubled past, it deserves a symbol of rebirth just as new as the ash it is gradually rising from.

Detroit is in need of a new flag.

Its current flag doesn’t accurately represent citizens today (nor does it pay homage to Native Americans and especially those from the 20th century) and doesn’t follow basic principles of good flag design. The design is too complex, it uses too many colors, and the city seal shouldn’t be on it.

There are many US cities redesigning their flags because their designs are horrible. Detroit's flag is one of them and many citizens and city officials don't even know we have one. As the only US city to be designated a City of Design by UNESCO and one that claims to be so prideful, yet not show its pride in any real way, our image is pretty embarrassing.

The people of Chicago and Milwaukee fly and embrace their flag faithfully, showing insane amounts of civic pride. Why aren't Detroiters doing the same?

Changing the flag is an enormous opportunity to not only fully activate our civic pride and identity, but to captivate the rest of the world to come and see why Detroit is great.

This initiative aims to encourage Detroiters, city supporters, and city leaders to (1) understand why we need to change the Detroit flag and make that effort to do so and (2) to truly reassert our city’s image and show our civic pride by embracing and flying this new flag—the Detroit Rise.