DSE @ Grand celebrates one-year anniversary with renovation and expansion of product mix
DSE @ Grand opened a year ago as a teeny-tiny tee-shirt shop in Harmonie Park. A year later, its size is still small, but its look and product mix have […]
Downtown Detroit
Council by Districts passes first test, delivers 10,000 more signatures than required
The Council by Districts movement is likely to get a vote in the November election. Though the signatures required still need to be verified, the group turned in nearly 10,000 more than required.Excerpt:A movement to have a Detroit City Council elected by district, instead of the current at-large configuration, appears to be headed for the November general election ballot.Detroiters for Council by Districts delivered boxes containing more than 38,000 voter signatures to the Detroit City Clerk's Office on Tuesday afternoon.With only 29,000 signatures required to place the proposal on the ballot, Mildred Madison, president of the League of Woman Voters Detroit, said the number of signatures collected shows "that the people want representation in their areas."Read the entire article here.Short post about how Detroit is moving toward districts similar to the Boston system in a Boston Blog here.
Recycling, urban farming ideas for Detroit to close its ‘green gap’
Detroit City Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. has been leading efforts to close Detroit's "green gap" by putting forth an agenda through the council's Green Task Force, which he leads. Within that agenda are plans for recycling and urban farming.Excerpt:Rick Bowers Jr., who heads up Cockrel's sustainability office, said a green agenda has huge potential. “If it were in the mayor's office, this green agenda could be pushed along more quickly, but it can be just as effective from the City Council standpoint,” Bowers said. “The ultimate future will be determined by whoever is mayor and whether they will adopt it. The value of it is not only helping the environment, but helping the image of the city that is in need of repair and rejuvenation.” Donele Wilkins, executive director of Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, a nonprofit advocacy group, said a reputation for green investment can be part of a better city. “A greener, cleaner city can bring us out of the ashes and make us a national model,” she said.Read the entire article here.
City council candidates have ambitious ideas but tight budget
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.
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
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.
18 Detroit teens are getting paid to write, act, and produce their own films
Eighteen Detroit and Highland Park students are writing, acting, and shooting their own films about Detroit.Excerpt:This group of 18 high school students from Detroit and Highland Park is filming its own short movie at a blazing pace -- three weeks from start to finish.The teens wrote the script and choreographed the dances. They're acting and doing most of the behind-the-scenes work under the guidance of several professionals through a program called artsJAM Detroit! WAY (Work Alternatives for Youth), which is introducing them to the film industry this summer.Titled "Dreams: The Musical," the movie's theme is about reaching for aspirations. It's broken into four vignettes and is being shot in and around the Children's Center. Organizers expect it to run about 30 minutes.Read the entire article here.
Tweet of the Week: City chicken and Elvis in Detroit
What's unique about Detroit? Well, quite frankly, a lot. In this week's Tweet of the Week, Detroit tweeters reminded us to take a second look at a few things we might have forgotten about.@meggo420 reminded us about the city skyline: sunrise in detroit looking over the city = love love love A reason to get up in the morning? We think so.Another tweeter, @cevan, reminded us that though Detroit is known in some circles for having aggressive drivers, we're also known for our aggressive pedestrians: In Detroit, one crosses the road by jumping into traffic + going one lane at a time. Out here, this maneuvre causes SUVs to swerve off road. We agree that Detroit definitely has its own take on traffic.In fact, @jazzneophyte gave a little history lesson reminded us that the world's first traffic light AND the first freeway showed up right here in the city of Detroit, in 1915 and 1942, respectively. She also threw down another local first: The world's first carbonated soft drink? Vernor's ginger ale - James Vernor, 1866, Detroit pharmacist. Pretty cool. And speaking of food and drink, everyone seemed to be buzzing about Anthony Bourdain's mid-winter visit to Detroit, which finally aired on his Travel Channel show "No Reservations" this past Monday. He had a lot of good things to say about the city. And @lindseywoho reminded us that - though they may be strange - there's nothing like the comforts of home: Anthony Bourdain ate Polish food in Detroit - including city chicken. No matter where I go, that slop on a stick will be my comfort food.It's a nice sentiment, however, @lindseywoho, he ate city chicken at Hamtramck's Polonia. It's near Detroit... but not Detroit. What other Detroit gems are hidden under the radar? @markparton seems to think we're hiding something big: Elvis where are you? (I'm told Elvis is in Detroit at the moment).Yep, he's here. He's one of the 168 city council candidates, actually. (Just kidding.)Have something else to remind us about Detroit? Let us know on Twitter. Until next week, keep readin' and keep tweetin'.
Local group, Detroit Summer, is trying to revolutionize Detroit’s public schools from the ground up
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
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.
