News

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To those driving southeast on Grand River Avenue toward downtown Detroit, the Grand Army of the Republic Building looks tiny against the backdrop of taller Detroit office buildings and structures erected or redeveloped in recent years.

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He's the man with the billion dollar vision and big plans for Detroit.

But Dan Gilbert rarely sits down with the media to talk about the future of the city.

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Sixty-six years after WXYZ-TV Channel 7 flickered to life on TV sets across southeast Michigan from its first Woodward Avenue studio in Detroit, the station is expanding its operations with a new, highly visible studio in the heart of downtown. The glass-enclosed, outward-facing studio will be located inside the ground-floor lobby of Chase Tower at 611 Woodward Avenue.

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However improbable it might have seemed twenty, five, or even two years ago, Detroit could well be on the verge of a major turnaround that could make it one of the biggest success stories in urban America over the next decade.  Yes, that goes against conventional wisdom:  The standard narrative for Detroit has been about a bankrupt, vacant, decaying, post-industrial wasteland; an environmental, social and economic disaster.  Detroit has been the quintessential “shrinking city,” the poster child for everything that has gone wrong with the post-industrial Midwest.

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Gilda Snowden, a prominent Detroit artist and much-loved professor at the College for Creative Studies for 31 years, died unexpectedly Tuesday morning of heart failure. She was 60.

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A non-profit organization that partners with Detroit high schools, the Detroit Food Academy is in the midst of a $12,500 Patronicity crowdfunding campaign to raise money to fund its operations. 

According to Detroit Food Academy's Patronicity campaign page:

"The Academy is a 25-week program during the school year. Participants graduate with a polished values-based food product, a certificate in food entrepreneurship, a network of potential employers, and an opportunity to enter our summer employment program.

Small Batch Entrepreneurship Camp is a 6-week summer program that puts Academy graduates in the driver's seat of their food business. They are paid a stipend and employed 25 hours per week to launch, operate, and perfect their triple-bottom-line food business at farmers' markets and retail outlets across the City. The summer culminates in the 'Summer Finale Event’, where DFA’s young leaders pitch their businesses and leadership stories for a chance to win endorsements from the DFA Mentorship Board, scholarships, internship opportunities, and the addition of their handcrafted product to our emerging line, Small Batch Detroit."

Money donated to DFA will support these programs.

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It takes heart to live in Detroit. Locals are quick to acknowledge their city’s challenges, and Jason Hall was no different. “I was feeling a bit beaten down by this city,” he says. But everything changed when a friend suggested he do the simplest thing: Take a bike ride to clear his head. “I got out and started to see Detroit in a different way,” he says. “On the ground level, you see the potential that exists. The city’s wide open for new ideas.”

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What’s next for your city?

This is the question Urban Innovation Exchange (UIX) will be asking at its first national convening Sept.  24-26 in Detroit, bringing together innovators from cities across the U.S. to share catalytic small-scale projects that are transforming neighborhoods.

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A blighted Detroit neighborhood once stripped by scrappers has been beautified thanks to some dedicated gardeners.

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In August 2009, there were 48 big empty buildings downtown. Walk through the city’s central business district today and it’s hard to believe there were that many just five years ago.

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The Avenue of Fashion may soon become the avenue of eateries. And that's a good thing.

The area of Livernois near Seven Mile Road was once known as an upscale shopping area. As the nickname implies, there were plenty of fashionable clothing stores along the strip.

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More than 80 years ago, Virginia Woolf insisted every woman needed "a room of one's own" to do her creative work. If you ask Detroit artist Kate Daughdrill, though, a whole farm is better. Daughdrill is an artist, teacher, speaker, and urban farmer who plants her crops in the middle of Detroit. She grows most of her own food on a multi-lot farm she cultivates with her neighbors, and she incorporates sustainable living and farming into her works. Daughdrill spoke with Cosmopolitan.com about surviving as a well-fed if underpaid artist, digging into the roots of your fears, and what it really means to live well.

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While the tech world is enamored with seed and VC funding, mom-and-pop small businesses typically don't have the luxury of deep pockets. Most American small businesses, says Stephen Roginson, are built on a dream and elbow grease.

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Dlectricity, the nighttime festival of light and art, returns to Midtown on Sept. 26 and 27. A Detroit version of the “white nights” that have lit up New York and Paris for years, Dlectricity debuted to tremendous acclaim in 2012 despite miserable weather.

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In August, a year after I wrote a TIME cover story on Detroit’s bankruptcy, I visited Motown again. This time I found myself reporting on a remarkable economic resurgence that could become a model for other beleaguered American communities. Even as Detroit continues to struggle with blight and decline–more than 70,500 properties were foreclosed on in the past four years, and basic public services like streetlights and running water are still spotty in some areas–its downtown is booming, full of bustling restaurants, luxury lofts, edgy boutiques and newly renovated office buildings.

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