Iowa's Grinnell College launches urban experiment in Detroit

Iowa's Grinnell College, in partnership with Lawrence Tech University, will spend 10 weeks in Detroit studying how the city is reinventing itself.

Excerpt:

Beginning Sunday, two students from Grinnell College in Iowa will spend 10 weeks in Detroit this summer, learning how the region is responding to the challenges of the economic crash. These two women could have done summer internships elsewhere, so what is so appealing about Detroit? This is an opportunity for them to see, first hand, how Detroit reinvents itself, now that it is going through what economist Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction,” in which innovative people in business, government and the social sectors struggle to replace institutions that have failed.

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In his commencement address at Grinnell last week, New York Times correspondent and author Thomas Friedman asserted that the baby boom generation had made such a mess of the economy that the current generation of students must become known as the “Re-generation,” a role that fits perfectly with the innovative goals of the Detroit Social Innovation Project. Friedman asserted that no other era has been filled with so little certainty but so much opportunity. His latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, may be a great place to start for Detroit’s and America’s Re-generation. We hope to learn from your experience in this important effort.

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