Is your neighborhood a better place because of the efforts of your local community development corporation? If so, nominate it for Detroit Local Initiatives Support Corporation’s (LISC) 9th Annual Detroit […]
They say good things take time, and this will. Revising the city's charter could spell great things for Detroit. But what type of change will come of it, and who will make those decisions? Voters, a lot of that is up to you.
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....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.Read the entire article here.
Detroit, as a shrinking city, may in the coming decades transform to look more like the English countryside and not the metropolis it once was, planners are saying.Excerpt:The idea may sound improbable, but Alan Mallach, a New Jersey-based planner who led the visiting team, said Detroit is evolving in that direction anyway, with large chunks of the city now largely abandoned."In a way, think of it as a 21st-Century version of a traditional country pattern," Mallach said. "You have high-density development on one side of the street and cows on the other, quite literally."The team's recommendations, contained in a draft report by a committee of the American Institute of Architects, are the latest in a flurry of ideas for dealing with Detroit's growing vacancy.Detroit's population is less than half of its 1950s peak, and an estimated 40 square miles of the 139-square-mile city are empty.The committee suggests that Detroit could recreate itself as a 21st-Century version of the English countryside."Isn't that basically what's happening? Even without any plans or strategies?" Mallach asked.Read the entire article here.
Who's the big winner this week? There's been a lot of Detroit tweets in the last seven days. Actually, there are a lot of Detroit tweets every day. Most of the tweets had to do with how the Red Wings suck or how the Red Wings were gonna destroy the Penguins. Sports tend to be a hot topic here in the Motor City -- not really a surprise though.A lot of talk about GM and the auto industry, as well.Of course none of that jazz made it to the final list. No offense Mike Illitch, Sidney Crosby, and those at GM. It just wasn't doing it for me this week.So, without further ado:Here's a trio from our friends at Inside Detroit. They were in attendance at the Detroit Regional Chamber Mackinac Conference last week and tweeted these few gems.@InsideDetroit: Did you know that Detroit has the 2nd largest theater district in the country! #mpc09No, I didn't know. @InsideDetroit: #mpc09: Detroit Zoo as a great model of regional collaboration. We do have big wins.It shouldn't be us against them, urban vs. suburban. The city needs the 'burbs and vice versa. Sometimes both sides forget that.Last but not least from Inside Detroit:@InsideDetroit: #mpc09 If we show people what Detroit has to offer people and that there are tons of us that love it here..others will love it too!It's true. A tweet not from the conference:@Michellellehcim: I'm mad that the Detroit Festival of the Arts is not happening this year... the year I'm actually living down here for the summer. figures!I think we're all a little upset about that one.And the winner is...Sycloneman: 2 hot dogs and a redpop - $5, conversation with homeless person - $1, lunch along the Detroit River, priceless!Not only is this tweet true (lunch on the Riverfront is pretty amazing) and funny, but five bucks for two hot dogs and red pop (we're assuming that it's Faygo)? Well, it's also frugal.
The New York Times drops in on Bethany Shorb, a Detroit designer that created a line of ties inspired by paranoia. Excerpt: “Terminal Illness” is the name of one of the most recent designs from Bethany Shorb, a Detroit artist, and the fact that it has a title is a good indicator that it is not a traditional tie. What at first glance resembles an abstract pattern well within the vernacular of the necktie aesthetic is, rather, a repeated image of the swine-flu virus connected by shapes based on international-airport-terminal diagrams. A tie called “Snoutbreak!” features a simpler graphic that clearly suggests a pig’s nose; if you order this tie, you get a matching surgical mask free. These offerings from Shorb’s Cyberoptix Tie Lab were made available in early May, when the swine-flu freakout was at its height and the director general of the World Health Organization had recently warned that a pandemic had the potential to threaten “all of humanity.” Read the entire article here.
The city was abuzz with life according to FilterD Editor Walter Wasacz. He reviews the 2009 Detroit Electronic Music Festival for XLR8R -- a music, culture, and technology mag.Excerpt:While Adam Beyer slashed, crashed, and burned it up on the Beatport Stage, Steve Bug, François K, and Carl Cox upped the ante on the nearby Vitamin Water Main Stage with even louder, but more varied programs that included rhythms broken and beautifully beaten, disco basslines, and cheeky references to pop and jazz. At the same time, Detroit titan of dub tech-house fusicology, Mike Huckaby, rocked slow and easy on the Made in Detroit stage, situated in an underground cavern beneath the riverfront's Hart Plaza, where all official action was. On top of it all, a cluster of after-parties kept the weekend rolling virtually non-stop, for five days (beginning with the Prodigy at Friday's official pre-party, though topped by a sold-out Sunday post-midnight river cruise featuring Luciano, Loco Dice, Carl Craig, and Stacey Pullen). Choices, so many choices. Wherever you stumbled, it seemed, a party was ready to bust out underfoot.Read the entire article here.
Well, here we are again. Wings vs. Penguins for the Stanley Cup. Time to check in with our friends -- or, in these times, frenemies -- at Pop City in Pittsburgh and see if they've got anything to cheer about. (Probably not the scores of games 1 and 2. Ha ha.)
The USA Today does an in depth piece on Detroit and how the negatives of the city are being used as positives for change. Excerpt:"It's never going to be the same city that it was, but maybe it will be a better city," says Mary McDougall, a Detroit native and executive director of Operation Able, a group that trains older displaced workers. The city's believers say Detroit has resilient residents who will work hard and make changes to help it rebound. "Detroit isn't dying," says Harold Schwartz, 60, who was laid off by an auto-parts supplier. "Too many people love the city to let that happen." Officials and activists see the collapse as an opportunity to remake the city and shift its manufacturing workforce from cars to emerging industries. "We've always dealt with adversity," says Olga Stella, vice president for business development at Detroit Economic Growth.Read the entire article here.
Why do you stay? What will keep you here? When GLUE asked the question and threw a party in Midtown, Detroit, we stayed around for the answers. Listen, watch and learn.
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