News

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Three young architects, under the name Parallel Projections, came up with the idea of a global design competition to reimagine Detroit’s Packard Plant. They have no connection to Detroit but still received more than 200 entries from 30 countries.

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"Where are you from?" asks a stranger on an airplane. It's a common first step in getting to know someone, especially when you're travelling.

"Detroit," you answer.

"Oh, Detroit, you say? Whereabouts, exactly? I love Detroit and know all of its neighborhoods."

"Well...er...I'm from Grosse Pointe Park, actually. It's an east side suburb of Detroit."

"Oh, I see..." says the stranger, putting on her headphones and raising her IPad, effectively ending all communication between you and her for the rest of your flight together.

But it doesn't have to be this way! Or at least that's what a recent article from CityLab entilted "Why You Shouldn't Mock Suburbanites Who Say They're From the City" argues.

"We need to allow for more wiggle room," write CityLab's Laura Bliss and Sam Sturgis. "Why? First, it no longer makes sense to generalize the experience of the 'actual city' as radically more heterogeneous than, or separate from, life in a suburb or exurb."

This of course raises the question, "Are all of us who live in this metropolis 'from Detroit?' And what does it mean when we build a barn between one municipality and another?" 

Read more in CityLab.

If your bicycle "goes missing," a new resource now exists to help you get it back. It will also help you be certain that the used bike you are about to buy was not stolen from its previous owner. The Detroit Bike Blacklist is a website where local cyclists can post profiles of their missing bikes (including photos, descriptions, dates when bikes disappeared, and contact information) in the hopes that people who come across them will return them to their rightful owners.

According to Detroit Bike Blacklist's founder, the site was inspired by a personal experience of purchasing a stolen bike:

"So, in October of 2013 I found out that the bike I was riding around on was stolen property.

It had been stolen from Eastern Market, donated to a local bike shop (by a parent maybe?), and I ended up buying it.

I pieced this together by meeting the former bike owner, and then talking with people at the bike shop. It was no one's fault - it just ended up that way.

But what if there was a way to check if the bike you were buying had been stolen?

Thus, the Detroit Bike Blacklist was born."

Have a look. Maybe you can help a fellow Detroiter get his or her bike back.

Source: Detroit Bike Blacklist
 

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Headlines don't paint a pretty picture of the Motor City. Last month marked the one-year anniversary of Detroit becoming the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy. Unemployment and crime rates remain unencouraging, and there appears to be a mass exodus of residents from the once prosperous metropolis.

Read more. 

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It’s the most magical time of year: Hatch Detroit time!

Don’t know what Hatch Detroit is? That’s crazy! Let me tell you: It’s a 3-year-old business competition that offers a $50,000 prize (courtesy of Comerica Bank) to one lucky winner each year. The mission? Rebuilding Detroit by fostering retail businesses and restaurants.

Read more. 

This one is a from a few months ago but recently got called back to our attention. Since we hadn't posted anything about it before, we're sharing now. We love the concept and the vibrant photos! 

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A group of artists and urban explorers are taking on the ambitious task of transforming a deteriorated building in Detroit into a museum of curiosity.

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“I don’t think the bike industry knows what’s going on,” says Zak Pashak. We are sitting in the office of Pashak’s factory in Detroit, talking about the state of American bike companies. “They’re all up in their treehouse, making bikes that they and their friends would ride – bikes that are complicated and that cost a lot. But not everyone who buys a bike is going to use it like an athlete. You don’t need 12 speeds to go buy groceries.”

Read more. 

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A University of Michigan graduate student is growing shrimp in an empty Detroit house.

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Apple's newest iPad commercial turns the spotlight on Detroit community activist Jason Hall, co-founder of a massive weekly group bike ride through the city.

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In Detroit, art isn’t just something to look at. Neither is it something to consume. Rather, it is an active part of civic life, cultivating community resilience by connecting people and places across the city’s 139 square miles. In a city where municipal bankruptcy and deindustrialization has shredded both the public and private sectors, artists and organizations have an unusually large impact—they are literally changing the landscape. Tens of thousands of vacant lots and buildings here mark the daily lived experience of citizens: artistic intervention, whether it is a mural painted on an empty building or an organized program, interrupts the disheartening pattern.

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For the first time in decades, someone is paying property taxes on the abandoned Packard Plant.

Read more. 

Meet the civic innovators working to make cities more livable, vibrant and successful. 

Knight Foundation’s Carol Coletta interviews people whose ideas are helping cities attract and retain talent, open up economic opportunity and create a culture of engagement. 

The Knight Cities audio series is an initiative of the Knight Foundation. Join the conversation on civic innovation.

ENT Biotech Solutions recently secured $100,000 in seed capital from the Michigan Pre-Seed Fund 2.0, which is part of a $1 million angel round for the TechTown-based startup.

"We are in the process of closing it," says Andrea Roumell Dickson, CEO of ENT Biotech Solutions.

The two-year-old startup is developing the Elasso, a single-use, disposable device designed as a cost-effective too for reducing the tedious nature of adenoid and tonsil surgery. The one-step tool cuts, cauterizes, and removes tissue, combining the advantages of heating and cutting technologies.

ENT Biotech Solutions is currently waiting for a clearance from the FDA to move ahead with commercialization. That clearance could come as soon as this fall.

"As soon as we receive that we have a green light to manufacture. Our tooling is already cut," Roumell Dickson says. "We are able to very rapidly ramp up for production."

Source: Andrea Roumell Dickson, CEO of ENT Biotech Solutions
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

If your bicycle "goes missing," a new resource now exists to help you get it back. It will also help you be certain that the used bike you are about to buy was not stolen from its previous owner. The Detroit Bike Blacklist is a website where local cyclists can post profiles of their missing bikes (including photos, descriptions, dates when bikes disappeared, and contact information) in the hopes that people who come across them will return them to their rightful owners.

According to Detroit Bike Blacklist's founder, the site was inspired by a personal experience of purchasing a stolen bike:

"So, in October of 2013 I found out that the bike I was riding around on was stolen property.

It had been stolen from Eastern Market, donated to a local bike shop (by a parent maybe?), and I ended up buying it.

I pieced this together by meeting the former bike owner, and then talking with people at the bike shop. It was no one's fault - it just ended up that way.

But what if there was a way to check if the bike you were buying had been stolen?

Thus, the Detroit Bike Blacklist was born."

Have a look. Maybe you can help a fellow Detroiter get his or her bike back.

Source: Detroit Bike Blacklist
 

Non-profit group Power House Productions has been tasked with shepherding two cities, four community arts organizations, and $100,000 in grant money through an 18-month long series of arts and culture placemaking activities along the Hamtramck-Detroit border.

The focus rests along Carpenter Street, Hamtramck's northern border. The $100,000 grant was awarded to the groups by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of Our Town, their arts-based community building and placemaking program. In total, Our Town awarded $5.073 million in grants to 66 projects in 2014.

The Hamtramck-Detroit winner is titled Carpenter Exchange and will begin an 18-month-long run of events this September. Community arts organization Power House Productions will manage events led by the Hinterlands, a performance arts group; Carrie Morris Arts Production, a story-telling and performance arts group; Popps Packing, an arts studio and venue; and the Work Department, an open-source programming and development studio.

"Power House Productions and their project partners, including the City of Hamtramck, demonstrate the best in creative community development and whose work will have a valuable impact on its community," NEA chairman Jane Chu says in a statement.

Planned activities include the Porous Borders Festival, a two-day fest along the entirety of Hamtramck's northern border. Led by the Hinterlands, the May 2015 festival will attempt to engage both sides of Carpenter Street through performance and visual arts.

Carrie Morris Arts Production will lead two events, a large-scale shadow puppet show and a documentary on young women and story-telling. An abandoned storefront will receive the pop-up treatment from Popps Packing as they install a trading post, tool library, and community gallery in the unused space. The Work Department will produce a communications toolkit along with graphic art installations and workshops open to the public.

Source: NEA press release
Writer: MJ Galbraith

Got a development news story to share? Email MJ Galbraith here or send him a tweet @mikegalbraith.