In large part, our sense of community is defined by geographic circumstances. It plays a big role in determining numerous things, from our lifestyles to the teams we root for.

I grew up in the suburbs of metro Detroit in a middle-class household. Like the vast majority of metro Detroit’s suburbanites, when abroad and asked where I was from, I’d simply reply: “I’m from Detroit.”

It shortened my answer and besides, as far as I knew, if you lived anywhere within the tri-county area, you were considered a Detroiter.

I never questioned this association until one day at summer camp, when an acquaintance casually asked me where I was from.

I replied carelessly, barely even considering the answer until he replied, “Oh really, me too. What part?”

It dawned on me he actually lived in Detroit, and I had no answer for him. I stammered back, “Sorry. Not actual Detroit, I live in Troy.”

Although we claimed to hail from the same city, in many ways, we were worlds apart. Although fewer than 10 miles separated our cities, Troy was the 19th-safest city in the nation — Detroit was the third-most dangerous.

Living in Troy since kindergarten, I had only seen a police car in my neighborhood once or twice. My parents never had to worry for my safety as my friends and I roamed our subdivision.

If I didn’t come back within an hour or two, they’d simply call up one of the neighbors to find out where we had all gone.

This was a reality of my youth I had always taken for granted. On top of that, to my embarrassment, I didn’t even know Detroit had different parts.

Growing up, my father owned offices in the The Fisher Building and my parents were frequent patrons of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Institute of Arts and Detroit Opera House, which I often attended with them.

These buildings, along with the sports stadiums and skyline were all just “Downtown” to me.

In reality, Detroit is 138-square miles — within which San Francisco, Boston and Manhattan all could fit with room to spare. The city is composed of dozens of historic districts and neighborhoods, and I had only ever seen a fraction of them.

I had seen the national news specials on the city. They told me Detroit looked like a war zone — a ruin of a bygone era, and I had seen the books of so-called “ruin porn” that were making photographers rich.

This brief exchange at summer camp, while insignificant at the time, sparked in me a curiosity to better learn the city I claimed to belong to.

Throughout high school, I volunteered with a local nonprofit, Summer In The City.

Painting murals, mentoring kids and gardening in the city exposed me to an enormous swath of the city I never knew existed: North Corktown, Linwood, Woodbridge, Mexicantown, Brightmoor, Del Ray and West Village, among many others.

Now when I see fellow suburbanites walking around with stickers, clothing and all other sorts of merchandise emblazoned with slogans like “Detroit Hustles Harder,” “Made In Detroit,” or “I Am Detroit,” I have to resist the urge to question whether these people are, in fact, the city of Detroit.

Although it’s hard to deny the appeal of a city uniting a large number of people, I’ve also learned the importance of investing yourself in the community you claim to be a part of.

This year will be my fourth with Summer In The City. As the organization’s media coordinator, I’ll be living and working from its headquarters in Mexicantown.

Summer In The City enfranchised me in Detroit’s future, and I can’t wait to be able to call the city my home.

Simon Schuster is a guest columnist at The State News and a public policy freshman. Reach him at schust61@msu.edu.