Local entrepreneurs launch city's extreme makeover in USA Today

A column in USA Today highlighted Detroit entrepreneurs like Phil Cooley, I Am Young Detroit's Margarita Barry and Mental Note's Thahn Tran as examples of the city's welcoming environment for potential small business owners and former auto workers (backed up by a study from the Kaufmann Foundation, which found the rate of adult entrepreneurship doubled in Michigan from 2006 to 2009). While the low cost of living and growing openness to start-ups and short-term contracts certainly bear a mention, we at Buzz liked the nod to our creative energy and down-home loyalty best. Well done!

Excerpt:

And finally, unlike in some more cut-throat cities, those who haven't fled Detroit are eager to see risk-takers succeed -- even another restaurant on the same block. "We're desperate for companionship," Cooley jokes. People buy local when they can and create two-hour lines outside Slows in nice weather. A civic spirit of us-against-the-world has neighbors turning vacant lots into urban farms and sculpture parks, and building a bike track next to a burned-out house.

Read the rest of the story here.
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