About

Alissa is endlessly curious and committed to how we build places together—both physically and through community.

Alissa Shelton is a Master’s candidate at Università Iuav di Venezia, in the Urban Planning for Transition program. Prior to returning to academic studies, Shelton was most recently at Detroit Future City—a think tank and policy advocate for a more equitable an sustainable future for Detroit. In this role, she led the Detroit Neighborhood Housing Compact, a forum of 80+ stakeholders tasked with increasing the availability of stable, healthy, and affordable homes for both renters and homeowners in Detroit.

Alissa served as the first Executive Director at Brick + Beam Detroit, working to grow capacity around home repair through hands-on classes. Alissa was the Director of Training for the Incremental Development Alliance, a national nonprofit focused on citizen-led real estate development, where she worked on the national workshop and training series. Her initial introduction to community development was through media in the 2010s at Model D, and she has consulted and worked for many Detroit small businesses and non-profits.

She is the owner and co-founder of Bank Suey—a 1920s corner bank building, recently Chop Suey restaurant, now turned community space. Initially an experiment in how we use main street spaces, exploring layered uses and curated programming the space has now evolved to house a cooperatively run bookstore.

Alissa is a 2022 GMF Marshall Memorial Fellow, a 2017 Salzburg Global Fellow (Young Cultural Innovator seminar), a Licensed Builder in the state of Michigan, and holds a B.Sc. in Psychology from Wayne State University.