News

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"It was the best of times; it was the worst of times."

I kept thinking about that very famous Dickens quote as I was reading two articles in the
Grand Rapids Press the other day. The first article was about the opening of a new indoor/outdoor market in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is in an area that 3 years ago would have been considered unsafe to walk in anytime day or night. The second article was previewing the third annual "Art Prize" starting September 18 and running for 19 days through October 6. This is the fifth year for this fantastic event that covers three square miles of the downtown area, draws upwards of 500,000 people, and awards prizes to the artists through public voting via mobile phone.

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Monica Chadha and Virginia Stanard discuss how Impact Detroit develops novel and interdisciplinary approaches to design by involving a variety of stakeholders throughout the planning process, resulting in meaningful programming that activates the community and encourages imaginative interactions with the built environment. Monica Chadha most recently shared her expertise at the 10th Sustainable Cities Design Academy as a Resource member on the Greensboro, NC team and also participated as a Resource member in 2011. The Greensboro team brought the Integral City project, an arts-led economic development project fostering connectivity and collaboration throughout downtown Greensboro, to the event. Virginia Stanard will soon participate as a Project team member in the upcoming 11th Sustainable Cities Design Academy. She will work on the Bloody Run Creek Greenway Redevelopment Project, a creek daylighting and redevelopment project of a 3,500-acre site. Virginia joined Monica for Sustainable Cities Design Academy in 2011 as a Resource member as well. 

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Artist John Dunivant spent a decade building up the Theatre Bizarre carnival near the old Michigan State Fairgrounds site — outside the law — before the law’s long arm finally caught up with him in 2010, putting the kibosh on that year’s event at the venue. Dunivant, though devastated, wasn’t to be stopped and the 2010 Theatre Bizarre was held at the Fillmore with only 18 hours’ notice. The following year, it moved to the Masonic Temple, which has been its home ever since.

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The Detroit Bus Company, a transit startup founded by Andy Didorosi in 2012 to try and solve some of Detroit’s myriad public transportation issues, announced last week that it has consolidated its operations. It has moved from a depot in Ferndale, MI, and office in downtown Detroit to a historic factory in Hamtramck. (Though Hamtramck is technically a separate municipality, think of it like Detroit’s Vatican City: It’s tiny, and it’s completely surrounded by Detroit.)

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Detroit is something of the poster child for a failed city, but Larry Gabriel, the former editor of Detroit’s Metro Times and UAW Solidarity magazine sees a city that has elements of a potential rebirth through “growing industries, strong communities, and policy changes laying the foundation's for the city's recovery.” Gabriel sees press coverage of Detroit as “reinforc[ing] a tired old story…[that misses] plenty of positive major economic stories…starting with the federally bailed-out General Motors and Chrysler auto companies emerging from bankruptcy with improved sales and record profits, and continuing with the likes of the booming Midtown as a flagship community of the new Detroit.”

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TEDxDetroit is pleased to announce its confirmed speakers for the local, self-organized event that will bring people together to share a TED-like experience on Wednesday, Oct. 2, from 8 a.m. – 6 p.m., at the new Grand Ballroom in Cobo Center overlooking the Detroit River. More than 1,000 attendees are expected to attend TEDxDetroit, an event that will offer deep discussion and connection in an intimate setting.

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For Greg Willerer, Detroit’s new urban frontier is a lot like the Wild West: Grow enough food to support your family, make do with what you have and rely on your neighbors when you need help.

“For all intents and purposes, there is no government here,” said Willerer, 43, checking the greens and other crops he is growing on an acre off Rosa Parks Boulevard, across from an abandoned house with broken windows. “If something were to happen we have to handle that ourselves.”

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I’m in Detroit this week, and am excited to announce the 56 winners of the city’s Knight Arts Challenge. They’ll receive $2.1 million for their ideas.

The winners are mostly small groups and individual artists—homegrown talent working across a range of disciplines. If they have one thing in common it’s that they keep the community at the heart of their projects. That speaks to why Knight does the challenge: The arts don’t just inspire, they help build community—the kinds of common experiences that get people excited about their neighbors and neighborhoods. With our mission to promote informed and engaged communities, Knight Foundation sees the arts as a way to attract and keep the talent that fuels cities and local economies.

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Cobo Center’s 40,000-square-foot ballroom is finally open and what a ballroom it is.

It can seat the entire population of Grosse Pointe Shores for dinner – 2,250 people.  It has more theater-style seating at 3,500 than the theater that hosts the Academy Awards. If people are standing the ballroom can fit 4,500, the same number of people who can fit into the Copacabana in New York City.

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Detroit’s startup row just got a new tenant. Housed in the recently renovated Broderick Tower, Grand Circus just set up shop with the stated goal of elevating the Detroit tech community. The 15,000-square-foot space will soon house tech training, events, and co-working space for up to 49 entrepreneurs — something that will go a long way in Detroit’s nascent startup scene.

“The Detroit tech scene is booming and the supply of talent simply can’t keep up – a characteristic of tech markets everywhere,” Grand Circus CEO and co-founder Damien Rocchi said. “Unlike other markets, however, Detroit has a vibe and hustle that’s unique, and there’s the opportunity to have a huge impact. We both have a personal connection to the area and are thrilled to be part of creating something that’s really making an impact in the city.”

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Automation Alley will open its fourth office, and its first in Wayne County, in less than a month, when current Madison Building tenant Grand Circus Detroit LLC relocates to new training institute offices in Detroit's Broderick Tower. 

The Troy-based technology business association has a one-year lease on an office suite within the second-floor collaborative space Grand Circus is opening to other technology startups in the Broderick. The Alley will review and renew the lease each year on Woodward Avenue "as needed," said Executive Director Ken Rogers.

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The Motor City is going green.

In a city with too much abandoned, derelict, and ruined space, Detroiters are fighting back with one of the country’s largest urban agriculture movements. Residents, nonprofits, and corporations are rehabilitating their city in a sustainable–and often edible–way.

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Rachel Maddow celebrates the use of a 60-foot, fire-breathing, rolling, mechanical dragon (with DJ booth in the back) to protest the possibility that the holdings of the Detroit City Art Museum could be auctioned to help settle some of the city's debts.

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“Detroit is a blank canvas.” I cringe every time I hear this phrase, even though it’s used by people who mean well.

To say something that references “emptiness” regarding a city founded in 1701 is both unfair and inaccurate, as it implies that there’s nothing here—or worse—that there’s nothing worth talking about here.

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The national coverage of Detroit's recent bankruptcy filing reminds me of 1967, when rebellion erupted in the city after police raided an illegal after-hours bar. It was one of the worst of the riots that roiled the country during the 1960s in Watts, Newark, Chicago, and other places.

Detroit remains a major American city.

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