Downtown Detroit

Local group, Detroit Summer, is trying to revolutionize Detroit’s public schools from the ground up

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August 4, 2009

Detroit Summer is trying to fix the schools from the bottom up and giving students a unique way to have their voices heard.Excerpt:After “Chronicles of a Dropout” was released, the LAMP Summer Program of 2008 created three videos inspired by the themes raised in the previous year’s album, specifically cooperative economics, alternatives to criminalization, and respect. These videos developed solutions through participatory research with youth in the city and researched other places where similar solutions have been implemented successfully. This summer, LAMP is developing a curriculum around the videos in order to broadcast their ideas throughout the community and beyond. Detroit Summer’s LAMP project is revolutionizing Detroit Public Schools from the ground up, and giving Detroit students the unique opportunity to have their voices heard in a medium that sparks their interest and creativity.Read the entire article here.

Free Press lists 10 arguments for charter change, picks best choices for Charter Commission

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August 4, 2009

The Detroit Free Press gives you ten compelling arguments to changing the city's charter and, in another piece, lists their selected choices for the Charter Commission.The first three arguments:1. Voters need more protection from elected officials who violate the charter with impunity. Kilpatrick melodrama proved even a united City Council lacks the necessary authority to oust a rogue mayor.2. The current method of selecting a council president is a recipe for disorder. Council members would be more collegial if they could select their own leader, as the U.S. Congress and Michigan Legislature do.3. Council members would be more accountable if they were elected by single-member districts. Prevailing at-large elections give disproportionate advantage to untested candidates with high name recognition (hence, Monica Conyers and Martha Reeves) and special interests with wherewithal to finance expensive citywide campaigns.Read the entire ten here.The Freep's choices for the Charter Commission here.

Freep says Bing shouldn’t waste time to start ‘right-sizing’ the city

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August 4, 2009

Despite Detroit's economic shortfalls, this Freep editorial says Detroit Mayor Dave Bing needs to think about right-sizing the city now rather than later.Excerpt:Bing must set in motion some long-term fixes, or Detroit will lurch from crisis to crisis. At the very least, he should order the city’s planning department to begin studying neighborhood population and economic development trends over the next 25 years. That information will be needed before the city revises the master plan. The city’s fiscal emergency gives the mayor and city a teachable moment — a telling example of why this process is necessary. Urban experts like John Mogk of Wayne State University have pressed the issue of consolidating population for more than a decade, and most city leaders now understand that it is necessary.Youngstown, Ohio, a smaller city with similar problems, has given Detroit, and the entire nation, a blueprint for how a city can creatively downsize by consolidating neighborhoods and creating parks and greenways.Right-sizing Detroit will take years. The city must start the process now if it wants to sustain a quality-of-life that will stabilize its population and tax base and avoid continual fiscal emergencies.Read the entire article here.

Cobo deal is a victory for city, cooperation

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August 4, 2009

The new Cobo deal is a win for regional cooperation.Excerpt:The legislation on Cobo's renovation, approved by lawmakers in Lansing and signed by Gov. Jennifer Granholm this month, allows for up to $300 million from hotel and liquor taxes in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties, and state tobacco tax revenue. In return, operation of the center is to be turned over to a regional authority.Clearing the final hurdle to renovate Cobo Center, at long last, is a huge step, both symbolically and economically, for metro Detroit.Although some view the final deal as an imperfect proposal, it secures Cobo Center and Detroit as the future site of the North American International Auto Show and should boost the Detroit convention center’s ability to compete for other events."The regional cooperation that took place to get this done is unparalleled," said Doug Fox, cochairman of the 2010 North American International Auto Show, which is, by far, the largest annual event at Cobo.Read the entire article here.

Newsweek explores why urban gardens — including Detroit’s Earthworks — grow

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August 4, 2009

Urban gardens grow during recession and economic hardship.Excerpt:Proponents say there are several reasons why urban agriculture makes sense in 2009. "Before the recession, there was an interest in greening and thinking about food systems," says Patrick Crouch of Detroit-based Earthworks Urban Farm. But he believes a perfect storm of economics, ecological awareness, and basic supply-and-demand could push urban agriculture forward in cities. "A huge number of vacant lots is usually seen as a detriment to a community," he says. But by turning these spaces into farms and gardens, they present long-term greening and financial opportunities for residents that lack basic health and nutritional care, not to mention radically decreased economic opportunities during the recession.Read the entire article here.

‘It Came From Detroit’ garage rock doc premieres in L.A.

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August 4, 2009

The garage rock documentary "It Came From Detroit" just had its Los Angeles premiere.Excerpt:Well, the Los Angeles Premiere of “It Came From Detroit” was an incredible time. Allison Anders and the rest of the Don’t Knock the Rock team did an amazing job putting together a wonderful night at the Silent Movie Theater. The show was hosted by Michael ‘Murdoc’ Des Barres who was both hilarious and motivational. The house was packed and I thought the film played very well. I’m glad our cynical Detroit style humor translated well over here. Read the entire article here.

Detroit’s Hair Wars still draws national attention

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August 4, 2009

Up until 2006, Hair Wars was a 10-city tour of some of the most exotic hair styles. Unfortunately it no longer tours extensively but the show still goes on here in Detroit.Excerpt:Automobiles aren’t the only Detroit export that’s taken a hit due to the economy. The Motor City has also long been renowned as a creative center for avant-garde African American hairstyles, with its signature event for almost a quarter century the annual Hair Wars.Started in 1985 by Detroit-area promoter David “Hump the Grinder” Humphries, Hair Wars isn’t a competition, but more of a runway showcase that allows stylists to show off some of their most cutting-edge hairdos. It was at an early Hair Wars that the “Hairy-copter” (yes, a hairstyle in the shape of a helicopter with actual rotating blades, thanks to a battery pack on the model’s head) first wowed crowds.Read the entire article and see the pictures here.

City council candidates have ambitious ideas but tight budget

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August 4, 2009

The Michigan Messenger talks with a few of the 167 candidates running for city council. Some of their ambitions and ideas for the city of Detroit are interesting to say the least. But, as ambitious as they may be, the budget will be considerably tight for their plans.Excerpt:Some of those candidates are coming up with answers that make their proposals a bit more memorable. While one candidate wants to build a gigantic theme park on vacant city lots, another wants to power the Cobo Convention Center, home of the North American International Auto Show, on wind and solar energy. One of the candidates with a big idea for Detroit is Annivory Calvert. Calvert wants to turn the Cobo Convention Center, locally known as Cobo Hall, into what she calls “the house that Obama built” and make it the green technology showplace of the nation. In doing so Calvert estimates she’ll create more then 150,000 jobs in the city. “The Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association estimates that for every 100 million that you spend on transportation there’s 4,750 jobs,” she told Michigan Messenger.Read the entire article here.

Windsor creative research group will transmit messages to of solidarity Detroit from Sept. to Nov.

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August 4, 2009

Windsor-based creative research group, Broken City Lab, will be broadcasting messages of solidarity to Detroit between September and November.Excerpt:Cross-Border Communication an interventionist performance series based on the desperate need to communicate with Detroit, Michigan from Windsor, Ontario. Using a 6000 lumens projector, Broken City Lab will transmit a message to Detroit once a week for 45 minutes from September to November 2009. Each week will feature a different message that we write and project onto the CIBC building, located at Ouellette Avenue & Riverside Drive in Windsor and clearly visible from downtown Detroit.Read the entire post here.

‘Detroit. Where just about everything cool originated,’ says Anthony Bourdain in show’s blog

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August 4, 2009

Anthony Bourdain brought his Travel Channel show "No Reservations" to the Rust Belt. He came to Detroit and loved what he found.Excerpt:Detroit. Where just about everything cool originated. As angry as one gets looking at block after block of abandoned row houses in Baltimore and wondering how the hell that happened, it's mind boggling to see how far Detroit has been allowed to fall. But what a truly magnificent breed of crazy-ass hardcase characters have dug in there. Of all three cities we visited, Detroit, oddly enough, even while looking the jaws of death straight in the face, remains closest to being a true culinary wonderland.Read the entire article here.