Monday, December 21, 2009

Can Detroit be Saved?

I came across an interview Mayor Bing gave to the WSJ. Here are my takeaways:
  • He think there is hope and that miracles are possible, but fixing Detroit won't be easy.
  • Unions look to be his biggest problem right now, and he is keeping bankruptcy on the table to try and bring them in line.
  • He wants to make Detroit the entertainment capital of the Midwest. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but it is a start.
  • His priorities are safety then education.

Here is the whole story: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB30001424052748703558004574581650636077732.html

Friday, December 18, 2009

Unhappy in MI - 49th of 50

Alas, a new study came out recently from the CDC ranking Michigan 49 out of all states in terms of happiness. Aside from climate, the happiest places ranked highly in studies relating to issues like crime, air pollution and schools. Interestingly, New York was 50th, and California was only 46th, so our misery has company. Somehow, Louisiana was first. The News has a bit more detail: http://detnews.com/article/20091218/LIFESTYLE03/912180362/1040/People-in-sunny-states-are-happiest--Michigan-ranks-49th

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Current status and lessons from Europe

Things are bad in the city. According to the News, about half of Detroit is unemployed (http://detnews.com/article/20091216/METRO01/912160374/Nearly-half-of-Detroit-s-workers-are-unemployed), though the official rate is only 27%. The official rate for Michigan is 14%, but including the discouraged and underemployed, it is 24%. Quite the disaster.

On a more positive note, Robert Bobb has rallied 900 volunteers to help students in Detroit with reading. I wouldn't mind helping coordinate that effort - this article speaks to the need for effective organization and management of the initiative: http://freep.com/article/20091216/OPINION01/912160318/1322/How-will-Bobb-lead-his-volunteer-army? - basically, clear goals, training for the volunteers and staff, and metrics for success are needed to ensure this isn't a wasted effort.

An interesting piece from the New Repbulic that I learned from the Free Press (http://freep.com/article/20091216/BLOG2505/91216012/1322/Why-Detroit-must-not-die) about lessons from Europe and how a failure for Detroit would be a failure for America: http://www.tnr.com/article/metro-policy/the-detroit-project?page=0,2

I would recommend everyone read it and take heart - if Belfast, Turin, and Bilbao can recover, so can Detroit! We just have to get our act together...

Friday, December 4, 2009

Land usage - downsizing

Another interesting article from the News on the need for Detroit to downsize.

http://detnews.com/article/20091203/OPINION01/912030346/1008/Downsize-Detroit--Strengthen-city-by-phasing-out-depleted-neighborhoods

Some highlights:
  • Blighted neighborhoods should systematically be repurposed
  • Urban farming should take root in many of the vacant 40 square miles - during the Great Depression, much US produce came from urban farming "Victory Gardens"
  • Detroit had no urban planning in the early 1900s - now we are dealing with the mess
  • Most of Detroit is small residential lots or irregular industrial ones - bad for redevelopment
  • City should retain ownership of empty lots and foreclosed properties to facilitate redevelopment

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Depressing recommendation

Some Harvard economist thinks rebuilding Detroit is a waste of money. He would rather have us invest in preparing our people for jobs elsewhere. Rather depressing solution in my view...

http://moneyfeatures.blogs.money.cnn.com/2009/12/02/economist-dont-waste-money-rebuilding-detroit/

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Cobo plans

The Free Press reports that Cobo is open to some new ideas. An attached hotel and more appealing architecture would certainly be great additions. I did not realize that the plans were still so open - I thought they had to move quickly for the Auto Show. Still, any improvements would be welcome.

Here is a link to the article: http://freep.com/article/20091129/BUSINESS04/911290413/1318/Cobo-makeover?-Grand-ideas-not-so-far-fetched

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Lost chances

In unrelated, but somewhat relevant news, the Silverdome may have a new owner in about an hour, at the end of a no-reserve, sealed bid auction. To me, the Silverdome represents a tremendous opportunity - so many things could be done with such a structure, and at such low cost! Alas, such is the story of many buildings in the D; indeed, the entire city. I would have turned the Silverdome into a convention center but also the headquarters of many non-profit related activities. Previous bids had also considered the convention center angle. I hope they don't demolish it...

http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/12/news/economy/silverdome_auction/index.htm

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Temporary retailing

Very interested idea introduced in the Detroit News today - temporary retail shops downtown. Obviously, shopping has been dead in Detroit for decades - the city has no supermarkets! - but this could be a solution. I imagine rents are rather low, and building owners are rather flexible, especially these days. Anyone with a good idea could probably set up shop rather easily - low barriers of entry, if you know what you are doing.

Here is the story: http://detnews.com/article/20091110/BIZ/911100341/1001/Temporary-shops-may-revive-retail-in-Detroit

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Safe Detroit

Apparently, according to Forbes, Detroit is the 12th safest city in America! Nice to know, especially they said it was the most dangerous one just six months ago...

http://freep.com/article/20091028/BLOG36/91027082/1320/Forbes--Detroit-is-nation-s-12th-safest-city

Friday, October 16, 2009

Wayne County Tax Auction

There is a tax auction next week in Detroit - some 6000 or so properties are reportedly for sale, starting at $500. I have identified a couple of interesting options in strategic locations or to turn into parks, and hope to attend on Monday for at least a little while. In particular, there is one parcel that I would like to buy and donate to the Muslim Center to facilitate their long term plans. If I make it out to the auction, I will post my experiences.

Here is the link: http://www.waynecounty.com/mygovt/treasurer/DP_TFPAI.aspx

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Business model for land

Apparently, renting land out from the city to do things like garden is common on Europe: http://freep.com/article/20090930/OPINION05/909300360/1322/European-idea-could-work-in-Detroit--too

I wonder why they don't just buy it over there? Maybe it is advantageous to avoid the property taxes if they are higher than rent...

Friday, September 25, 2009

Segway tours

A nonprofit is offering Segway tours of Detroit to promote the city: http://detnews.com/article/20090925/BIZ/909250354/1001/Nonprofit-offers-Segway-tours-of-downtown-Detroit-to-lure-investment

We should all consider exploring...

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Time Detroit coverage

Detroit is finally becoming newsworthy to the outside world over the past year. The slow motion devastation has finally started to catch the eye of the world, as Katrina caught it for NOLA. Time Magazine has either bought or rented a house for its stable of Detroit-focused reporters, the city has become such a center of attention. Ironic. Arguably however, we have never needed the attention more...

I saw an article today that has the typical points describing the decline of the city, and also hope for the future: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1925796-1,00.html

Complete coverage of Detroit is here: http://www.time.com/time/detroit

In other news, Robert Bobb has uncovered millions in outrageous overpayment for real estate by DPS over the years: http://detnews.com/article/20090924/SCHOOLS/909240389/Audit--DPS-overpaid-millions-in-real-estate-deals

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Detroit ideas during Restaurant Week

It is restaurant week in Detroit, so I hope you get a chance to partake: http://detroitrestaurantweek.com/ - a good deal to some nice places.

On Monday, CNN.com posted a nice "special coverage" section highlighting Detroit, its troubles, and some positive momentum: http://money.cnn.com/news/specials/assignment_detroit/ (Tania already highlighted one section of this in her post the other day)

A couple of weeks ago, Crain's published 10 interesting ideas to help Detroit in the next decade: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/section/livingd09#

Monday, September 21, 2009

Stopping Detroit's "Brain Drain"

Interesting article on cnn.com about stopping Detroit's "brain drain"

http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/21/news/economy/detroit_plan/index.htm

DETROIT (CNNMoney.com) -- Three years ago, with a freshly-minted law degree, Connecticut native Tom Northrop started job hunting in Detroit. While this seems like a normal step after law school, his prospective employers just didn't get it. Not many young, single, educated people were moving to Detroit. They were so surprised they wanted him to put his reasoning down on paper: He was marrying a girl from the area. Perhaps it was only to ease their sense of disbelief.

"They didn't understand people coming here who aren't from here," said his wife Lauren, also a lawyer, over dinner one night at the couple's home in the upscale suburb of Bloomfield. Basically, no one moves to Detroit unless they have family ties in the area, she said.

And more often that not, young people just move away.
Along with the exodus of auto jobs over the last few decades, Detroit has also experienced another, maybe even more alarming trend - Its young, smart people leaving for opportunities elsewhere.

Broad numbers are difficult to come by, but nearly a quarter of respondents in a survey for Fusion, the area's young professional association, said they plan on leaving Detroit within the next two years.

Among the larger population of 4.6 million people, 63,000 households left the greater Detroit area in 2007 alone, according to Internal Revenue Service numbers supplied by the Urban Studies Department at Wayne State University.

City leaders are well aware of this problem, and are working hard to fix it.
As it turns out, young people generally want the same things other people want out of a city - good jobs, safe streets, stuff to do at night, decent schools, quality healthcare, ample parks, easy public transport. Basically, they want a pleasant life.

"We can't just create new entrepreneurs and then let them leave," said Mariam Noland, president of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan. "We need to do all the things that are going to attract new talent and make this a desirable place to live in, or to come to. We have to make it so people want to stay."

To that end, Noland raised $100 million in grant money from various foundations, money that is now being used to build the business and cultural institutions that can bring this city back.
That's a tough prospect in an area hard hit by the dual blow of recession and auto industry bankruptcy. But Nolan, along with a host of other city leaders, see the broad outlines of a plan.

Jobs - In a metro area with unemployment running about 50% higher than the national average, putting people to work is a priority.

Many business leaders don't think the city can attract big, new auto manufacturing plants like it once did. The industry has too much capacity even now, and the competition is too tough from other states in the South.

Instead, they're pushing for Detroit to embrace the new economy. The tools are similar to ones towns use the world over - minimal bureaucracy and generous tax breaks.

But Detroit hopes to leverage its natural lead in engineering left over from its days of auto dominance into new industries like automotive electronics, software, and alternative energy.
They've had some success. Techtown, a business incubator started in 2000, boasts 98 businesses in everything from televisions to biotechnology.

Wayne County is promoting its "aerotropolis" idea - encouraging business to set up shop by the airport - taking the lead from cities like Dubai and Frankfurt that have used their airports as engines for economic growth.

Attracted by easy air transport and lots of land, General Electric recently announced plans to build a wind power R&D facility near the airport that could bring in 1200 jobs. General Motors and the battery maker A123 Systems have announced plants for advanced vehicles that together could employ 4,000 or 5,000 people - the size of a large auto plant.

The local Chamber of Commerce is in talks with foreign automakers and parts companies to set up shop in Detroit. It's also pushing a plan to make the region a global trade hub, modernizing the extensive road, rail and water links that already exist.

Downtown Detroit, which doesn't look nearly as dreary as the ring surrounding it, has attracted some new tenants as well.

The technology firm EDS relocated downtown about 5 years ago, bringing with it some 1,500 jobs. Quicken Loans is supposed to move downtown shortly, adding another 3,000 to 4,000 employees.

'It's challenging, and it's frustrating," Brian Holdwick, a 43-year old official at the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation and life-long Detroiter, said about trying to attract new industries to this city that has seen so much decline. "But to see something like the (historic) Book Cadillac Hotel come back to life, after being shuttered for 23 years, it was very important to me. It's very rewarding."

Safety - Detroit has one of the highest murder rates in the nation. There have been more killings so far this year in Detroit than in New York City, and New York has nearly 10 times as many people.

"People get jumped, cars get stolen, everyone's got a story," said Sean Blackman, a 39-year old music composer who's lived in the Detroit area his whole life. "If you move downtown, it's just part of the scene."

Like almost all Detroiters we've spoken to, Blackman loves the city and is proud to live there. But it has got to get safer if people are going to stick around, he said.

The police department has embarked on an aggressive strategy to curb the situation, including inter-agency operations that flood troubled neighborhoods with more cops.

A recent campaign put 360 additional police in a six square mile area, with a particular focus on violent crime. Officers would pay unexpected home visits to violent offenders on parole, often finding guns or other weapons in their possession. They also increased the number of traffic stops in the hope of ensnaring people involved in bigger crimes.

But in a city with a declining population and troubled businesses, finding money is hard. The police force has just 3,000 officers now, down from 4,000 ten years ago.

Culture - From Motown to movie stars, Detroit packs a deep roster when it comes to arts and entertainment. Madonna is from Detroit. As is Francis Ford Coppola, Robin Williams, and the late George C. Scott.

Cheap rents and an edgy vibe have made Detroit somewhat of a Mecca for young musicians in the garage rock and techno scenes, and a lot of people appreciate the city's gritty feel.
"The disgusting kinda looks beautiful after a while," Craig Brown, a 25-year old guitarist in the local band the Sugarcoats, said over beers one night at a barbecue joint in the city's up-and-coming Corktown district.

City leaders are also trying to promote more upscale venues. They're touting a "cultural corridor," a strip along one of the main drags in town that includes Wayne State University, the business incubator, two health centers, the symphony, the history museum, and loft-style apartment housing.

"We're trying to create a density that's attractive to young talent," said Noland, the Community Foundation president.

Connecting it all together - Detroit's redevelopment has taken place in pockets. The city is a patchwork of places. Some seem lively, full of businesses and homes. While others are the epitome of urban decay.

Parts of downtown Detroit seem to be doing well. They are relatively clean, with a nice new river walk populated with both old and new office buildings, although vacant buildings remain. One local tour operator said it's one of the safest downtowns in the country.

Development is trying to expand from downtown along the river, although the new restaurants, lofts, shops and other symbols of gentrification quickly give way to gutted homes and boarded-up store fronts.

The "cultural corridor" and the Eastern Market area - home to one of the oldest public markets in the country as well as a handful of trendy restaurants, are northwest of downtown.
The trick is to grow and connect these lively places so they spark new life in the areas they border.

To do that Detroit needs to shrink. Thanks to suburban flight of the late 20th century, it's a city of under a million people that was built to accommodate twice that many. The city needs to do something with all those empty buildings, and tie the budding neighborhoods together. There's talk of turning blighted lots into public parks, greenways, and of installing a light rail system.
"When you let it go, as Detroit did, you have cascading ripples of blight that move out from the center and keep going," said Carol Schatz, head of the Central City Association of Los Angeles who helped turn around that city's downtown in the 1990s. "But when you revitalize the downtown, it goes in the opposite direction."

The question is, will Detroit be able to get the critical mass going to get things really moving in the opposite direction?

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Lazy Journalists flock to Detroit

This article is an excellent read about how journalists keep coming to Detroit to either 1) focus on the same pics of abandonment everyone sees or 2) write the sappy feel good story about how Detroiters are persevering.

http://www.viceland.com/int/v16n8/htdocs/something-something-something-detroit-994.php?page=1

Reality: We need to get in the city and get it going. We need to improve the 50% literacy, the 25% graduation rate... these are fundamental responsibilities all of us share.

Monday, August 17, 2009

Detroit commercial vacancies


A very interesting article in today's News. They look at all the vacant buildings in our central business district. There are apparently 48 empty buildings in downtown, with numerous more under utilized. The article has a neat map where you can see which buildings are empty (see above).

Here are some highlights:

"Vacant buildings drain the city of potential taxes and workers who pay to park, buy lunches and shop over their lunch hours. The overall image raises further doubts in the minds of outsiders who might otherwise be interested in setting up shop in Detroit. "For downtown Detroit, it really slows down a lot of the progress that was being made," Ball said."

"While there is no official ledger of empty buildings, The Detroit News identified 48 major structures with no outward signs of life in the Central Business District, which covers about 127 blocks. Others have one or two remaining tenants. "

"Vacancies downtown are only a small part of the story: According to the U.S. Postal Service, there are 62,000 uninhabited buildings and vacant lots throughout Detroit. Entire blocks of commercial and residential property are deserted. "

"Meanwhile, the Lafayette is so blighted that the city has been forced to close the sidewalk around it because pieces of the facade are falling off and could harm a vehicle or pedestrian. Inside, floors are caving in, city officials said, and trees have grown on the water-damaged roof. "


Monday, August 10, 2009

What killed Detroit

A status update of my activities:

Conversation with Imam El Amin about establishing a mini-park near the Muslim Center started off great and with interests, but he has not gotten back to me in several weeks about the location and next steps.

My efforts to volunteer with Mr. Bobb and the Detroit Public Schools continue to be fruitless. I have contacted his office over a dozen times now, with no response. I even went to see him two weeks ago, met him and his Chief of Staff, was told of the need for volunteer help, but I am still waiting for a phone call...

Anyways, I came across a noteworthy article the other day. The Free Press commented on an interesting piece the other day by David Frum about the fall of Detroit. It is quite insightful. Here is the piece:

By David Frum

Detroit was the Silicon Valley of the 1920s — the booming home of a glamorous new industry, a place where huge fortunes were conjured in years, sometimes months. But while the creators of the computer industry have as yet bequeathed very little to the built environment, the automobile industry piled up around it an astounding American city, in astoundingly little time.
The Detroit of 1910 was a thriving Midwestern milling and shipping entrepot, a bigger Minneapolis. The Detroit of 1930 had rebuilt itself as a grand metropolis of skyscrapers, mansions, movie palaces and frame cottages spreading northward beyond the line of sight, exceeding Philadelphia and St. Louis, rivaling Chicago and New York.
I had a chance to tour central Detroit recently, my first visit to the downtown core in many, many years.
Some of the old visual magnificence remains, has even been improved.
But for the most part, all is decay. Whole towers stand empty, waiting to join the long line of grand structures that have either been abandoned to pillage and ruin, like Detroit’s once magnificent neoclassical skyscraper of a train station, or else pulled down entirely, like the downtown Dayton Hudson department store, once the largest enclosed shopping space in the United States.
Detroit’s fall was as steep and rapid as its rise.
In 1960 it remained a thriving city, showing early signs of future trouble yes, but still strong, rich, and proud. By 1970, Detroit was a byword for urban dystopia.
Detroit Then and Now, by Cheri Gay, compiles a series of photographs to illustrate the change. The book in one way is a disappointment: it’s written in a tone of forced boosterism that requires the author to deny the reality of the collapse she’s chronicling. Detroit was vibrant then, and it remains vibrant now, she wishes to argue… like Sarah Palin’s career, it’s just advancing in a different direction.
This mode of argument will convince nobody. But sustaining it does require the author to avert her glance from those sections of the city where the theme of evolution cannot possibly be sustained: the acres of abandoned houses, the vacant lots where commercial enterprises once stood.
But here is one thing that I do learn from the book: Detroit has never been protective of its past. In the prosperous early 1960s, it used federal urban renewal funds to pull down its grand Romanesque 19th century city hall. (Detroit wants to use today’s TARP money to repeat its vandalism, this time on the old train station.)
Detroit sacrificed a handsome row of pre-Civil War mansions built by then-leading citizens to allow the Detroit News to erect a bland new office and printing block. It has erased almost all traces of its pre-automobile past from the downtown, and only lack of demolition funds preserved its oldest surviving downtown neighborhood, now faintly recovering as a yuppie-gay historical enclave.
Not all the urban renewal schemes failed. I was dazzled by a Mies van der Rohe townhome project, a human-scale garden streetscape in the middle of the city, so lovely that you could almost forgive the grim adjoining Mies van der Rohe high-rise apartment projects.
More often, however, urban renewal was to Detroit what the RAF was to Dresden. One heart-rending contrast: the General Motors plant in Hamtramck, where acres of solid working-class housing were bulldozed — not to make way for the factory itself, which required relatively little space, but so that the factory could be surrounded by parking lots, grass and a wide moat of highway from the rest of the city. It makes a heart-rending contrast to the abandoned 1920s Packard factory I visited, where cottages had been built literally across the lane from the factory wall: literally 40 feet away.
What killed Detroit?
The collapse of the automobile industry seems the obvious answer. But is it a sufficient answer? The departure of meatpacking did not kill Chicago. Pittsburgh has staggered forward from the demise of steelmaking. New York has lost one industry after another: shipping, garment-manufacture, printing, and how many more?
Two other factors have to be considered.
The first is the especially and maybe uniquely poisonous quality of Detroit’s race relations. Like Chicago, Detroit attracted hundreds of thousands of black migrants between 1915 and 1960, mostly very unskilled, hoping to gain well-paying employment in factories and warehouses.Their arrival jeopardized the ambitions of the white working class to raise its wages through unionization. Henry Ford eagerly hired black workers in order to defeat the unions, and in the violent labor clashes of the 1930s, whites and blacks often confronted each other as strikers and strikebreakers.
After the war, the United Autoworkers union tried to integrate blacks into the industrial workforce. But by then automation had begun, and industry’s demand for unskilled labor would first cease to grow, then diminish, then disappear. For many migrants, the promised land soon proved a mirage. Or maybe worse than a mirage. If the promised land did not yield the hoped-for industrial jobs, it offered something else: generous new welfare programs, the ashy false fruit of urban liberalism. The children of the parents who accepted the fruit grew into the criminals who drove first the middle class and then the working class out of the downtown and then altogether out of the city.
As the white working class departed, Detroit became a black-majority city, governed by a deeply aggrieved and flagrantly corrupt political class. Political dysfunction spiraled the city into another cycle of dissolution and abandonment — and the abandonment in turn provided the politicians with fresh grievances.
The second factor in Detroit’s decline is the city’s defiant rejection of education and the arts. Pittsburgh has Carnegie-Mellon. Cleveland has Case Western Reserve University. Chicago has the University of Chicago, Northwestern, and a campus of the University of Illinois. Detroit has… Wayne State.
A city that celebrated industrial culture spurned high culture. The Detroit Institute of Arts is very nice. But it does not begin to compare to Cleveland’s museum, let alone the Art Institute of Chicago.
Detroit has a symphony orchestra, but its history has been troubled and unstoried in comparison to Philadelphia’s or Cleveland’s. On the plaza in front of the Detroit municipal building is a huge bronze replica of Joe Louis’ fist and arm, as if to say: “Here is a city ruled by brawn.” Brawn counts for very little in the modern world. The earnest redevelopers who hoped to renew Detroit by razing its history instead destroyed the raw materials out of which urban renaissance has come to so so many other American downtowns.
A couple of days after I returned from Detroit, I telephoned a friend who had lived and worked in the city for many years. My friend, it’s relevant to mention, is the son of an Irish cop, ardently Catholic and defiantly conservative. Why did Chicago recover and Detroit fail, I asked. What doomed the city? He thought for a moment. “Not enough gays.”
Detroit confirms the lessons taught by Jane Jacobs and Russell Kirk. Preservation is as vital to urban health as renovation. Indeed, they are inseparable. The preservation of the old incubates the new.
It’s a lesson with application not only to Detroit’s past, but its future. The great factory complexes along the Detroit River have shuttered. America no longer manufactures here. Some will want to rip the factories down. Leave them be — leave them for now as monuments and memorials of the achievements of the past; leave them for the future, when somebody will want them.
Want them for what? Who can say? Who in 1950 could ever have imagined London’s Docklands converted into condominiums? Who would have guessed that New York’s emptied toolshops would provide some of the city’s most coveted office space? The 22nd century will put the artifacts of the 20th to equally unsurmisable uses, if only we permit it. Cities can molder for a century or more, and then reawaken to a new era that rediscovers something of value in the detritus of an earlier time. Brooklyn did. So did Miami Beach. Ditto Boston and Charleston — and even more spectacularly, Dublin and Prague.
The promise of renaissance may yet come true, even for the ghost city of Detroit.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Auto Industry => Solar Power Industry?

This is what I'm talking about - time for new industry to move in, especially in the alternative energy/transportation mindset. Too bad all of the components they plan to manufacture here won't get used here just yet...

Check it out: Stirling engine solar dish farms also seek to restart Detroit

Also, Stirling engines aren't new, but they're being used in more innovative ways recently: Dean Kamen's company, DEKA, developed smaller Stirling engines to serve as the power source for another device designed to purify water. It was tested in Bangladesh to check the efficacy of removing arsenic and organics (ie toxins) from the water sources they have there. The fuel for the engine? Farm animal waste...

Michigan Central Station

I can't remember who was telling me about this, but check it out: Michigan Central Station

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Schools and parks

It has been a while since I last posted - I apologize for my absence.

In the meantime, I still have not heard back from Mr. Bobb about my offer to volunteer and help his effforts to fix the Detroit Public Schools. I followed up with a phone call to his office last week, and his assistant told me his chief of staff still hadn't looked at resumes and offers to help...I think that is a bit outrageous, but sadly, it isn't the worst I've seen in terms of volunteer management.

Alas, more bad news out of the Detroit schools today - today's Free Press reports that the district may have to declare bankruptcy (that isn't even the worst news - a number of students were shot this afternoon waiting for a bus!). Here are some highlights from the article:

"Calling the Detroit Public Schools budget the worst he's ever seen, the state-appointed emergency financial manager said Monday that he is considering other measures -- including filing for bankruptcy."

" "I cannot balance the budget," Robert Bobb told the audience of less than 100 people at a public hearing at Cass Technical High School. "I never thought I'd hear myself say that.""

"DPS will enter the next school year with a deficit of about $259 million, down from the projected $430 million, Bobb said."

On a brighter note, I am a bit closer to piloting my idea to turn abandoned plots into mini-parks. Imam El Amin liked the idea, and we've identified a small lot owned by the city near the Muslim Center that we could convert. I'll keep you posted.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Lack of Retailers in Detroit

I know the residents of Detroit on this blog have encountered the lack of retail stores in the city and found it to be problematic. This WSJ article discusses the issue.

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/107206/retailers-head-for-exits-in-detroit.html?mod=family-autos

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Returning to Nature? Not a bad idea!!!

"US cities may have to be bulldozed in order to survive"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/5516536/US-cities-may-have-to-be-bulldozed-in-order-to-survive.html

Monday, June 1, 2009

Goodbye, GM (by Michael Moore)

Goodbye, GM
by Michael Moore

June 1, 2009

I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General
Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have
made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.

As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by
friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen
to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in
the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you
lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be
your state of mind?

It is with sad irony that the company which invented "planned
obsolescence" -- the decision to build cars that would fall apart
after a few years so that the customer would then have to buy a new
one -- has now made itself obsolete. It refused to build automobiles
that the public wanted, cars that got great gas mileage, were as safe
as they could be, and were exceedingly comfortable to drive. Oh --
and that wouldn't start falling apart after two years. GM stubbornly
fought environmental and safety regulations. Its executives arrogantly
ignored the "inferior" Japanese and German cars, cars which would
become the gold standard for automobile buyers. And it was hell-bent
on punishing its unionized workforce, lopping off thousands of workers
for no good reason other than to "improve" the short-term bottom line
of the corporation. Beginning in the 1980s, when GM was posting record
profits, it moved countless jobs to Mexico and elsewhere, thus
destroying the lives of tens of thousands of hard-working Americans.
The glaring stupidity of this policy was that, when they eliminated
the income of so many middle class families, who did they think was
going to be able to afford to buy their cars? History will record this
blunder in the same way it now writes about the French building the
Maginot Line or how the Romans cluelessly poisoned their own water
system with lethal lead in its pipes.

So here we are at the deathbed of General Motors. The company's body
not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy.
It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my
hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness,
physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I
grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that
21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job.

But you and I and the rest of America now own a car company! I know, I
know -- who on earth wants to run a car company? Who among us wants
$50 billion of our tax dollars thrown down the rat hole of still
trying to save GM? Let's be clear about this: The only way to save GM
is to kill GM. Saving our precious industrial infrastructure, though,
is another matter and must be a top priority. If we allow the shutting
down and tearing down of our auto plants, we will sorely wish we still
had them when we realize that those factories could have built the
alternative energy systems we now desperately need. And when we
realize that the best way to transport ourselves is on light rail and
bullet trains and cleaner buses, how will we do this if we've allowed
our industrial capacity and its skilled workforce to disappear?

Thus, as GM is "reorganized" by the federal government and the
bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to
implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the
nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made "Roger & Me," I tried
to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power
structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have
been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and
sincere consideration of the following suggestions:

1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor,
the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must
immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass
transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in
Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the
assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion
took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.

We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted
against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate
leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in
Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler
are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for
global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we
call "cars" may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million
daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them
would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies
against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they
can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil
that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are
sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th
century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore
down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are
not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are
only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end
days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people
willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can
of gasoline.

President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert
the factories to new and needed uses immediately.

2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars.
Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of
those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the
new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the
conversion work now.

3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this
country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th
anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens
of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under
30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five
decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology
already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by
train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the
unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country.
Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7
hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done
now.

4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our
large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories.
And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.

5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the
GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.

6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or
all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people
to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going
to have automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be
building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will
take years to retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).

7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build
windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy.
We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an
eager and skilled workforce who can build them.

8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or
train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative
energy.

9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of
gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or
to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have
built for them.

Well, that's a start. Please, please, please don't save GM so that a
smaller version of it will simply do nothing more than build Chevys or
Cadillacs. This is not a long-term solution. Don't throw bad money
into a company whose tailpipe is malfunctioning, causing a strange
odor to fill the car.

100 years ago this year, the founders of General Motors convinced the
world to give up their horses and saddles and buggy whips to try a new
form of transportation. Now it is time for us to say goodbye to the
internal combustion engine. It seemed to serve us well for so long. We
enjoyed the car hops at the A&W. We made out in the front -- and the
back -- seat. We watched movies on large outdoor screens, went to the
races at NASCAR tracks across the country, and saw the Pacific Ocean
for the first time through the window down Hwy. 1. And now it's over.
It's a new day and a new century. The President -- and the UAW -- must
seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very
sour and sad lemon.

Yesterday, the last surviving person from the Titanic disaster passed
away. She escaped certain death that night and went on to live another
97 years.

So can we survive our own Titanic in all the Flint Michigans of this
country. 60% of GM is ours. I think we can do a better job.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
http://www.michaelmoore.com/

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Microtechnology Forum

A few weeks ago we had an event we put together (in Ypsi) with the aim of bringing local startups in micro and nanotechnology together. Eventually the goal is to encompass the entire Midwest. In this post, I want to talk about the need for such a group, and hopefully get some feedback in jump starting it, spreading to other areas, and perhaps focusing on other needs/industries. The City of Detroit is indirectly related to what I am writing here, though it may (and I'll give an example how) serve as the ultimate breeding ground for new businesses since it is a central location.

Background (i.e. why did we put this together?):
We (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) have a newly renovated and expanded research lab open to external users (ie, the industry at large) who pay a modest hourly rate for use of equipment. A local (Kalamazoo-based) healthcare company is probably the biggest (in terms of $$$ spent) user of this lab currently, though the Lurie Nanofabrication Lab has over ~30 different companies partaking in the facilities offered.

Ann Arbor is an enclave of highly-educated individuals - the draw is the university itself. But we're extremely deficient at converting that talent and expertise to new businesses that can hire people - a key, I believe, in getting the trickle down effect to build up the local economy. That is beginning to change. A friend started up a high-technology business a few years back, got a nice tax cut from MEDC (Michigan Economic Development Corporation) to open up offices in downtown Detroit. Today, he's no longer there - he had to move R&D to Ann Arbor (easy access to local talent/brains), and headquarters to Cali. He will tell you, with sadness, that he had to do it because his company couldn't raise money locally. The money is available, its just not here, but in Silicon Valley and California in general. The Cali VCs required him to be local to them and so that obviously meant his company had to split, and Detroit's appeal disappeared.

The conclusion that I draw from his experience is that in order to attract businesses, and especially encourage new startups here, we need more money. But its not that easy. There is money (see MEDC, various tax cuts/breaks, grants etc.) but maybe its not being spent in the right way. The local VCs are seemingly more automotive related. Or have software/internet business portfolios. I can think of two reasons why this is the case - 1) expertise (again, local talent), and 2) the VCs are risk averse.

The first one is self-explanatory, but does point to the fact that Michigan, and especially SE Michigan, is a one-trick pony and that is a major problem. The recent (over last 5 yrs maybe) push for the Life Sciences corridor to compete with the likes of Boston (see Life Sciences Initiative, Ann Arbor, East Lansing, etc) is evident that people are aware of how problematic it is that our state's economy is so tied into the automotive industry. Today it is even more evident, so I don't need to say anything more.

The second one I think can also be linked to the lack of local industry talent. If you have expertise in many areas, then risk goes down when a VC evaluates a new venture. However, this is a chicken-and-egg problem - without funding sources taking risks, you cannot create new industries. This is a mentality that pervades the entire Midwest, apparently. In my opinion, the solution is additional grants, University support, and people just taking risks themselves. But it may not be enough still.

U of M is changing - there is more emphasis on entrepreneurial activities in the last one to two years. Previously, only the business school had such courses. The trick, and what will differentiate and jump start the Ann Arbor area in the coming few years in my opinion, is the interdisciplinary approach we are taking here. Train the doctors/engineers/PhDs (or ideators, if you so choose to use that kind of language) to learn how to interact with the business types and to do basic entrepreneurship-type functions so that they know what needs to be done. Simultaneously, train MBAs in entrepreneurship (of which no typical MBA graduate learns about here, apparently) and how to deal and work with typical enginerds who may have no clue on how to explain their technology or creative work to others. There is a lot of work to do though, especially from the Tech Transfer side of things, but they are most definitely listening.

So here's my point: there is money (ranging from tax breaks to VCs), there is talent (see U of M, Wayne, MSU, Oakland, etc), and there is a big city somewhat empty waiting to serve as the center (can anyone say 'Dubai Internet City'?)

The problem is that there is very little interconnection between all the people supporting each of these items. Our microtechnology group aims to solve this problem by hosting events where people can intermingle and share ideas and, most importantly, share expertise. Our event consisted of lawyers sharing ideas with small business owners, PhD students, academics, and VPs of research in automotive suppliers looking to break into new industries. Silicon Valley started the same way so many years ago, so there is a blueprint... and they continue to innovate and bring in the big $$$ and bolster that states economy and therefore their people (case in point: the University of California educational system).

Please please lets get some feedback and discussion going about this topic. In particular, we (as in those of us working on this forum) have a lot of work to do still so I cannot be confident that this is going to work yet. As I have said before, many of you are more tied into relevant industries or are more educated on this topic than I am and your experience is valuable and educational, especially to me, but probably for the rest of us as well. And what may come out of this discussion can affect us all in some way sometime in the near future...

Click here (just use your google account to login I think) to reply. I've disabled adding comments to promote more interaction on the Google Groups

razi

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Why I love Detroit

It has been a while since our last post, and a lot has happened in the meantime. Chrysler went bankrupt. Muhammad Baba moved to the city. I visited the city three or four times. Unfortunately, work has kept me too busy to blog much.

I did come across an interesting piece from CNN that collects the thoughts of some Detroiters about what they love about the City. Strangely, one of the Detroiters came up in a side conversation the other day. Some mentioned buildings, or roads, or even the view. Anyways, here is the link: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/news/0904/gallery.why_I_love_Detroit/index.html

Some day, I will have to post the things I love about Detroit.

Why do you love Detroit?

Friday, April 24, 2009

New retail in the D - Kresge

Today's News is reporting (http://detnews.com/article/20090424/BIZ/904240353/1001/Kresge+landmark+may+get+mix+of+shops) that a developer is looking to attract a bunch of retailers into the old Kresge Building on Woodward and State as a mall-like entity. A good sign, I guess, if the predecessor of K-mart can be brought back from the dead. It might happen soon, too. Here are some highlights from the article:

"For decades, downtown shoppers could walk into the Kresge Building at Woodward Avenue and State Street and buy a variety of goods, from hats and window shades to bath brushes and hair nets.

That one-stop shopping experience has long disappeared from downtown Detroit, except for a few national drug stores. But a Detroit developer hopes to return the historic building to some of its former retail glory: this time as a mini-mall with a mix of national retailers and local boutiques to be called the Shops at Kresge. "

"The odds for me to be successful are probably 10 percent," said Dennis Kefallinos, "But I'm committed to Detroit. I think Detroit has a lot of potential."

"Kefallinos envisions 120 retailers in 40,000 square feet of space that once housed the original S.S. Kresge 5 & 10, the forerunner of Kmart Corp. Plans call for specialty retailers on the first floor and clothing boutiques one level up. "

"The mall will open when 15 retailers commit to the project -- with a June target date. "

"A Web site advertising the downtown project, shopkresge.com, says the center will "offer stunning and countless boutiques that stock only the finest of gifts and other products or services." "

Youth prospects - troubling CNN story

My firm has done work for Focus:HOPE, a local nonprofit that provides work-force relevant education. This CNN article (http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/24/news/economy/detroit_youth/index.htm?postversion=2009042407) talks about how even Focus:HOPE graduates are leaving the area. Perhaps they should focus more on the renewable industry now, instead of automotive. Here are the highlights:

"Focus: HOPE was founded in 1981 to provide free training and education to aspiring machinists and engineers, and to feed the workforce of the auto industry, which no longer seems to want them."

"Machinists are the backbone of automaking, but Brooks might have to leave town to find a job, like many other young people in this city."

"But Rupert said he is feeling the pull of other regions, with stronger job markets. "It's looking like most of the jobs are down South, and most of my family is from South Carolina," he said."

"Triplett said that Focus: HOPE and its students, including teenagers training for their first jobs and laid-off line workers looking for a career change, are retooling their training to other fields that need machinists and engineers."

"Residents' willingness to just pick up and go doesn't bode well for Detroit's economy. But it doesn't have to be that way, according to Alan Clark, 24, who's studying engineering manufacturing at Focus: HOPE. Clark just accepted an engineering job in Detroit at the Pepsi Bottling Group."

"College and high school students interviewed by CNNMoney.com offered a wide variety of responses as to whether they would stay in Michigan, with its 12.6% statewide unemployment rate, the highest in the nation."

" "I'm an optimist," she said. "I see things hopefully turning around. Detroit has a bad rap. But living down here, I actually love Detroit. There's a pride among the people who live here. The feeling is that we know what it's like to struggle, but we can overcome." "

More about vacant land use in Detroit

Today's News had another good article about urban gardening (http://detnews.com/article/20090424/LIFESTYLE14/904240359/1448/LIFESTYLE14/Urban+gardeners+nurture+nature+in+Detroit)

It is pretty interesting. This trend will help unemployment, malnutrition, and land disuse. It seems like there is a lot of activity, and it is accelerating. Here are the highlights:

" "Something has really taken hold," said Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, an outspoken advocate of getting vacant land into the hands of gardeners. "It is attracting everyone. City residents. Suburban residents. Everyone is coming together." "

"Borucki estimates the group will have spent $80,000 to transform the site of a former gas station into a vegetable and fruit-producing oasis for about 90 people. A 4-foot by 8-foot plot rents for $25 a season. "

"A spokesman for Mayor Kenneth Cockrel Jr. said the city is exploring changes to city ordinances that could restore commercial farming in Detroit. The spokesman, Daniel Cherrin, said the mayor also has started a program that would speed up making vacant lots available to gardeners."

"By some estimates, urban farmers could gross $10,000 to $15,000 a year on a one-acre plot or less, depending on their skill level. That figure, however, doesn't include costs for labor, taxes, insurance and equipment. "

" "I don't think we're going to see 1,000-acre farms in Detroit," said Susan Smalley, director of the C.S. Mott Group for Sustainable Food Systems at Michigan State University. "But I do think it's possible to grow intensively on a couple acres in Detroit and get a pretty good return on your investment." "

"Leading the effort in the city is a network of nonprofit groups, spearheaded by The Greening of Detroit, a group founded in 1989 to replace thousands of blighted trees in the city, and Earthworks Urban Farm, a collaboration with the Capuchin Soup Kitchen. "

"Community leaders point to anecdotal evidence that interest and shovels-in-the-ground projects are up:
• A recent seminar at the Ferguson Academy on raising chickens in your backyard -- which began with a disclaimer that the practice is illegal in Detroit -- had more than 100 attendees.
• An annual tour of the city's urban gardens begun in the late 1990s has grown from a handful of people to an event that draws more than 600 who ride in chartered buses.
• In 2007, The Detroit Garden Resource Program helped 340 individuals and groups with their gardens. In 2008, that tally jumped 45 percent with the group providing resources to 169 community gardens, 40 school gardens and 359 family gardens.
• And what can be an indicator of a growing trend, Garden Resource members sold their crops last year at six local farmers' markets and six local restaurants, grossing $14,668. "



Here are some tips the article gave if you want to get involved:

Get your hands dirty

Where to volunteer or get help with your own garden:

Earthworks Urban Farm: 1264 Meldrum, Detroit, has many volunteer opportunities. Call (313) 579-2100, Ext. 204, or contact them via e-mail at earthworks@cskdetroit.org.

Detroit Garden Resource Program: They provide classes, and individuals can become members to receive plants, seeds and compost. For more information, call The Greening of Detroit at (313) 237-8736 or visit www.detroitagriculture.org.

The Greening of Detroit: While focusing on planting trees and creating green space in Detroit, the group also needs volunteers and provides other resources to gardeners. For more information, call (313) 237-8736 or e-mail the group at info@greeningofdetroit.com.

Michigan State University Extension: MSU can help with everything from analyzing your soil to hosting classes on how to preserve produce. They can be reached at (517) 355-2308 or at (888) 678-3464.

How to start a city garden

Here are some tips:

Find a parcel of land. If privately owned, find the owner and get permission. If city- or county-owned, contact Detroit or Wayne County about purchasing the land. Although some people start gardens without permission, the strongest community gardens are those established through legal means.

Get a water source. Ask a neighbor; have the city install a water source and meter -- a cost is involved; haul water yourself; or set up a rain barrel.

Get good soil. The MSU extension can help with soil testing. Or because of contamination fears, bring in new dirt and create a raised bed for planting.

Start planting. Seeds are cheap and readily available. Plants, though more expensive, can also be purchased at local farmers' markets.

Source: Detroit Agriculture Network

Maize n' Blue...A PRIVATE institution?

I think all of us have a special connection with this article!

Although we may differ in the most efficient way for the state budget to be trimmed, we must preserve the idea of "an uncommon education for the common man" at the best University in the state!


http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1893286,00.html

Cash-Strapped State Schools Being Forced to Privatize

In just a few weeks, nearly ten thousand students will rise en masse inside Michigan Stadium and join the ranks of the alumni of one of the nation's premier universities. They'll walk away from the University of Michigan with a top notch education, but also the distinction of possibly being one of the last graduating classes of a genuinely public institution.

The cash-strapped state of Michigan is looking to save money any way it can, and some political leaders have suggested essentially privatizing the state's flagship university. While formally turning the school into a private university would be tricky — requiring legislative approval, a constitutional amendment, and the support of the university's Board of Regents — legislators have proposed eliminating the $327 million in funding that the state provides to the university each year. Making up the state's contribution, however, would require an endowment on the order of $16 billion, a nearly impossible task even in flush times. (Just a few years ago, the school's endowment was around $7.5 billion, but it has taken a significant hit with the fall of the stock market.) Which means that in order to survive, the university may have to make dramatic changes that could threaten its character. (See pictures of the college dorm's evolution.)

Michigan's long-serving 19th-century president James Angell used to say that the school provided "an uncommon education for the common man." But many are starting to wonder if that mission is still possible. And Michigan is not the only public university in crisis. As states across the country face budget shortfalls, leading schools like the universities of Wisconsin, North Carolina and Virginia increasingly depend on support from outside their home states, either in the form of philanthropy or in top tuition rates paid by a growing number of wealthy out-of-state students. The result has already been a quasi-privatization of some of the nation's top research institutions and the economic stratification of their student bodies.

James Duderstadt, UM president from 1988 to 1996, has argued for years that it is a misnomer to call schools like the University of Michigan "state universities." The state's annual contribution to the school's operating budget is now less than 6%, about half the share that California puts into its state schools and roughly the same level as Virginia. "The state is our smallest minority shareholder," says Duderstadt. (See TIME's special report on paying for college.)

The state's financial role has in fact been shrinking throughout the past decade as its economy foundered. Last year, the university provost's office complained in a report to the Board of Regents that the state's "assumed allocation will put our state appropriation at a level that is almost $34 million lower than the amount that was appropriated for FY2002, in nominal dollars, and nearly $100 million lower in inflation-adjusted dollars." At the same time, the university has helped prop up the struggling local economy by approving more than $500 million in construction and renovation projects.

Traditionally, state universities provided an affordable education for its residents by offering subsidized in-state tuition. For Lansing native Anneke Stadt, a sophomore nursing student, the $11,037 tuition is the main reason she's at the University of Michigan. Stadt says she looked into private schools like Hope College ($33,000 tuition) and Kalamazoo College ($38,000 tuition). "I couldn't really afford them, though," she explains, "so I hedged my bets with the public school."

As schools like Michigan struggle to make up falling state contributions, however, fewer students like Stadt are getting slots in entering classes. Out-of-state students pay $33,000 in tuition at Michigan — nearly three times the amount that residents bring in — and those extra dollars are needed more than ever. Non-residents now make up 37% of undergraduates at the university; add graduate students and nearly half the university's students comes from out-of-state. A leading public university like University of California at Berkeley, by contrast, only pulls 8% of its undergraduates from outside California.

The temptation for Michigan to substantially increase its revenue by accepting more non-residents who are eager to attend has to be hard to resist. While speculating what would happen if the university moved to a private, market-based system, current president Mary Sue Coleman wrote in 2005 that "historically two-thirds of our applications have been from national or international students, and yet about two-thirds of our enrolled students have been from Michigan."

"It was the state support that allowed us to have that public character," Duderstadt argues. As that support drops, student bodies are becoming not only more national but also more stratified. "We still promise that no Michigan student will ever be denied the opportunity to attend for financial reasons," Duderstadt says. "But that means we can't provide help for students from out-of-state. So the economic distribution for them is significantly different from those in-state." One fairly reliable measure of the economic diversity of a campus is the percentage of students who receive Pell Grants. Roughly 30% of the undergraduates at UCLA or UC-Berkeley are Pell Grant recipients. At Michigan, by contrast, that number is only around 12%.

So far, public universities like Michigan have been confident about their ability to attract enough wealthy out-of-state students to help fill their coffers. But it will become difficult to continue competing with private institutions if they cannot simultaneously expand their research capacity and recruit top-flight faculty. And the struggling economy is forcing even wealthy families to look for the best value for their tuition dollars. For just $5,000 more in tuition, an out-of-state student could forgo Michigan for New York University, the nation's largest private school with nearly double the number of faculty. In recent years, international enrollments at American public universities has also dropped as more students turn to premier schools in Europe and Asia.

"In other parts of the world," says Duderstadt, "countries view it as a national interest to build institutions of world-class quality. The U.S. is unique in not having a national strategy for maintaining world-class universities." True, the American system of state universities has until recently done pretty well for itself, building solid schools, fostering strong regional pride and creating some fierce athletic rivalries. But as Michigan and other top public universities are learning, fight songs and sports fans aren't enough to finance a first class education.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Rebuild rather than downsize

Potentially answering our question on whether Detroit will downsize or stay stretched, in today's News (http://detnews.com/article/20090423/POLITICS02/904230393/Bing+plans+to+rebuild+Detroit+s+vacated+areas), Dave Bing proposes to rebuild the vacated areas, although he does allow for some clearing. He doesn't mention anything about farms or parks though (speaking of parks, I read a troubling article about the dilapidated state of our parks due to low state funding; here it is: http://detnews.com/article/20090423/METRO/904230341/1409/METRO/Crumbling+state+parks+threaten+tourism; speaking of low state funding, here is a disturbing article about how U of M is thinking of going private due to low state funding - http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1893286,00.html - that would be horrible!).

Here is the highlight:

"Estimating there are about 70,000 parcels of vacant land citywide, Bing said his first priorities are to clear land near and around schools, churches and senior citizen complexes. He would eventually create areas similar to what people have come to expect in some suburban communities. "A lot of people who moved out of the city are middle-class people, and I don't think a lot of them feel we've got the communities they like to live in," Bing told The Detroit News editorial board. "Wouldn't it be great if we could look at some of this vacant land to build a city within a city? "

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Michigan volunteerism + new Obama push to service = more people working to fix Detroit?

The News had an article showing how Michiganians are already more likely to volunteer than people from other places. Perhaps Obama's expansion of the national service corps (http://freep.com/article/20090422/NEWS15/90422005) will help put more volunteers on the ground in the area. God knows we need them.

Here are some highlights from the News:

"After graduating from college in Ohio, Ava Jackson decided there was something more valuable waiting for her than earning lots of money: helping out back home in Michigan.
" "In corporate America, you don't have a chance to touch someone's life this way," explains Jackson, 25, who opted for a second year to help youths from low-income families. "I have 30 years to make money." "

"Jackson was answering the call to service that President Barack Obama repeated Tuesday as he signed the Serve America Act expanding the AmeriCorps program. "

"Michigan has 1,060 AmeriCorps workers and that number will increase by at least 250, with money earmarked from the federal economic stimulus bill. "

"Marilyn Barber of Detroit, who was laid off from her job as an employment counselor at Wayne State University in 2007, is in her second year as an "urban agriculture apprentice" at the Greening of Detroit, a nonprofit group that plants trees and runs the D-Town Farm. "

"Michigan is a big-hearted state, Census data show: 2.4 million Michiganians volunteered in 2007, nearly one-third of the state (30.5 percent) versus an average national volunteer rate of 26.2 percent. Still, there's a demand for more help."

"VolunteerMatch.org, an Internet resource that links volunteers to charities, lists more than 1,300 positions in Michigan awaiting helping hands"

Shrinking Flint

Interesting article on how Flint City Council is deciding to deal with Flint. Does demolition really mean progress?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/business/22flint.html?_r=1&hp

Monday, April 20, 2009

Fixing Education - April 28th (click here)

Who: Robert Bobb, Emergency Financial Manager of DPS
What: His first town hall meeting, interviewed by Bankole Thompson of NPR
Where: Wayne State University's Community Arts Auditorium
When: Tuesday April 28th, 7 PM
Why: To lay out the vision for education in Detroit and to enable community members to provide constructive feedback to the man in charge of education's revitalization

Since Governor Granholm appointed Robert Bobb to take on the task of fixing Detroit's Public Schools, I had a good feeling. He has neither the baggage nor the corruption of the current DPS board. And most importantly, with his work in D.C. and Oakland he has the experience to get the job done. An open and honest assessment of the educational system's weaknesses and accounts... just what the doctor ordered.

The preliminary results are in, and as he has said, Detroit is Mr. Bobb's greatest challenge yet. He's enacted a hiring freeze, motioned to close numerous schools and layoff even more teachers. This was to compensate for the hundreds of employees on payroll who were unaccounted for in previous balance sheets. He's also proposed a $52M project to improve after-school and summer education for students. Sounds great, right?

The problem is that like an ER doc, Mr. Bobb is not here for the long haul. His job is to start the turnaround, but it is our job to finish it. That is why we must engage in the process and promise of education for Detroit's children now. Showing up at events like next Tuesday's town hall meeting is a good first step. If we are truly committed to reshaping Detroit, we have to make sacrifices - both with time and money - for the education of its students.

See ya in 8 days.

Detroit Public Schools Book Depository


Photographer James Griffoen:
This was the building where Detroit's deeply-troubled public school system once stored its supplies, and then one day walked away from it all, allowing everything to go to waste.
This hurts my soul.

(From the website of the photographer featured on NPR's The Story that Nauman mentioned in a post below. http://www.jamesgriffioen.net/)

Sunday, April 19, 2009

No job for Harvard alum?

http://www.freep.com/article/20090419/COL10/904190463

I will just say it: a movement like ours will not go very far without the empowerment of black people who also want what is best for the city. Whether we work with them or work for them, when 81% of any population is of one race, that race needs to be especially respected and represented. The link above is about Bryan Barnhill. Growing up in a tough part of East Detroit, he overcame living on the same block as a crack house and hearing gunshots while trying to sleep. His perseverance landed him at Harvard where he made a difference. Now he's come back home to make an even bigger difference, but alas, no one will hire him.

We need to create opportunities for talented young men and women like Mr. Barnhill. We need to work with these talents and keep them in the city. How can we do it? How do we make sure our talent sticks around to create the social and cultural revolution we need? One thing is for sure, if we keep letting go of the talent we have, it may never return.

Mr. Barnhill is not from the suburbs and I am not from the city. But I know that we need each other. We need to work together. We need to begin the dialogue. We need to utilize each other's talents. And above all, we need to support one another. What do you think?

Thursday, April 16, 2009

The Story: Urban Explorer - public radio piece on the abandonment of Detroit

My mom told me about an interesting segment on Dick Gordon's The Story last Monday. I listened to it later online. It is about one man's explorations of the city and is quite enlightening. Here is a link to the online archive: http://thestory.org/archive/the_story_753_Detroit_Blogger.mp3/view

The Story had a couple of other interesting links related to this:

http://www.detroityes.com/home.htm about the Ruins of Detroit

http://www.jamesgriffioen.net/ is the explorer's website

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Dutch view of Detroit

According to Monday's Free Press (http://freep.com/article/20090414/COL27/90413077/Mugged+Dutch+reporter+won+t+beat+up+on+Detroit), a Dutch reporter was recently in the D. While she got carjacked, she did have a few good things to say too.

Here are the highlights:
Award-winning Dutch journalist Jacqueline Maris is back in the Netherlands, safe and sound after her reporting trip to Detroit last week during which she and a photographer were carjacked.

“I could have done a very positive story,” she said, “but there are drugs, gangs, wild dogs and garbage.”

In Detroit, she was struck by how much the entire city outside of the central business district appears to be in distress.

“It looks nice in downtown,” Maris said. “The Book Cadillac is very nice, and you see the potential. But when you get in the neighborhoods, it is very shocking. Wherever you go you see the houses that were once the houses of dreams. You see once there was a thriving life there.”

“People in Detroit seem very strong and resilient,” Maris said.

She’s not going to tell her listeners not to go to Detroit for fear of getting shot.

Foreclosure drop

Interesting article in Monday's News about a drop in foreclosures in Detroit. I'm not sure what the driver is, other than the subprime mess was earlier than the unemployment spike. Here is the link: http://detnews.com/article/20090413/BIZ/904130337/Foreclosures+hit+suburbs+as+layoffs+surge++mortgages+reset

Here are some highlights:
"The number of foreclosure filings in Wayne County, dominated by activity in the city of Detroit, dipped in February, the most recent figures available. But Oakland and Macomb counties' share of homes in foreclosure increased by double-digit percentages over the same month a year before, according to RealtyTrac, a California-based company that tracks housing numbers."

"The role reversal is attributable to many factors, including layoffs of suburban breadwinners -- blue- and white-collar alike -- and a recent surge in mortgage payment resets on types of loans more common outside Detroit's city limits."

"The spike in foreclosures has had one surprising effect: Home sales are on the rise. The market here fell so hard and fast that it quickly gained worldwide attention for "$1 houses," which investors have been snapping up by the dozens."

Study by Michigan Future Inc. and a UM Economist

Excerpt:
According to the researchers, the plan for economic vitality is clear. Michigan must:

• Place a higher value on learning and entrepreneurship;

• Create places where young, talented individuals want to live (e.g., vibrant central city neighborhoods;

• Ensure the long-term success of its higher-education system by expanding public investment;

• Transform teaching and learning to align with the realities of a "flattening" world; and

• Develop new private and public-sector leadership that is clearly focused on preparing, retaining and attracting talent — not re-creating the old economy.
http://www.ur.umich.edu/0809/Apr13_09/29.php

Thursday, April 9, 2009

The impact and importance of buying local

The News the other day published an article about the impact of buying local. Here is the link: http://detnews.com/article/20090408/OPINION03/904080366/1148/Buying+American+cars++It+s+finally+catching+on

Key highlights:
"In January, the GM Foundation, the charitable arm of the struggling car maker, told groups like the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Michigan Opera Theater and Mosaic, a youth theater group, not to expect any funding this year. Late last month, Chrysler Foundation followed suit, announcing that it, too, would suspend its arts philanthropy. The Ford Motor Co. has said it expects its giving to fall by about 40 percent from last year."

"Reflecting a similar trend, a statistic has been making the e-mail rounds lately that has galvanized consumers to buy local. According to the Michigan Department of Agriculture, the projection is: "If every household started spending just $10 per week of their current grocery budget on locally grown foods, we'd keep more than $37 million each week circulating within Michigan's economy." "

"In 2003, Ryan Anderson of Lincoln Park says he saw the writing on the wall. The following year, he started the Web site buymichiganproducts.com. "I just figured if people would start pumping their money into the local economy, we just might improve," says Anderson, a Web site development and software consultant."
In the comments, I'll share a related article I wrote for the IAGD newsletter.

Investors and property - key websites

For those interested in investing in Detroit property and contributing to the revitalization that way, there are a few interesting websites you should look into periodically.

BankOwnedBids.com is a newly established site focused on foreclosed and bank-owned properties in Michigan.

I check Craigslist (http://detroit.craigslist.org/rea/) periodically to see if there are any deals.

The city is also always selling a variety of lots and buildings (commercial and residential). Some undergo a bid process every month, while others are available, first come, first served. You can find out more here: http://www.ci.detroit.mi.us/Departments/PlanningDevelopmentDepartment/RealEstateDevelopment/tabid/140/Default.aspx

Lastly, Hudson Marshall (http://www.hudsonandmarshall.com/) do Detroit-focused auctions of hundreds of properties every few months.

City of opportunity - event recap

I went to the Next American City and Model D event last night. It consisted of a panel discussion followed by a reception at the Center for Creative Studies. The venue was quite nice - it was neat to walk around that campus (I don't think I had been there before) - but the event started half an hour later than the publicized time. That worked out well though, as the room slowly filled up after being almost empty at 5pm.

Content wise, the moderator set up the situation, showing a map of where college graduates live in Chicago and Minneapolis and comparing that to Detroit - there was a big vacant space on Detroit, compared to lots of color on the other city maps. Then, the panelists (all from out of town) explained their reasons for choosing to live in the city of Detroit. I found it to be quite enlightening. Some of the reasons included:
  • Affordability - less need to work crazy hours for the "golden handcuffs"
  • Exciting to live in a big city after coming from rural background
  • Nice to have a community
  • Did not have negative perceptions or know much coming in - no bad things have happened since
  • Outside of the US, Detroit does not have a bad reputation
  • Desire to be a part of the revival and "move the needle" (can't be done as easily in other places)
  • Urban experience
  • Increasing attraction with each visit
  • ...

There was some discussion about how Detroit could better attract the "creative class" - they are already here and word is getting out. The big point was to "spread the Gospel" of Detroit so to speak. There was a brief Q&A session. The point was made however, that the event was "preaching to the choir" - it should have happened in Ann Arbor. The moderator ended with an interesting poem about putting commas where we now put periods (when talking about Detroit) - we need to look forward and not try to remake the glorious Detroit of the 1950s.

The reception was ok - lots of attendees. Alas, I am not so great at the schmoozing, so I didn't meet to many people (ironic, as I am giving a speech on networking next week). Did speak to a couple of people though, including one of the panelists (who wrote the op-ed in the NYT about the $100 house). Interesting guy.

Overall, it was interesting event. I wouldn't say I learned too much or met the right people, but it was good to attend anyways, if only just to see a new part of the city. I guess these types of events happen rather often - the key is turning thoughts and ideas into action.

A website was also brought up, http://michiganfuture.org, which seems pretty interesting.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Detroit - City of Opportunity event

I've come across an interesting event happening tomorrow in Detroit. It is about how Detroit is trying to reposition itself. I will actually be attending for work tomorrow. It might be good for some of you to attend as well. Here is the description and details:

the SALON: The City of Opportunity
April 8, 5-8 PMCollege of Creative Studies, Wendell W. Anderson Jr. Auditorium
201 E. Kirby Street, Detroit

Join Next American City and Model D for a salon featuring a conversation about economy and how Detroit is working to reposition itself as the city of opportunity. Moderator Dave Egner of the Hudson Webber Foundation will host a panel of Detroit converts - Toby Barlow of the JWT Team Detroit, Luis Croquer of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Meghan McEwen of CS Interiors and Kirsten Ussery of Detroit Renaissance - to talk about the disconnect between preconceived notions about the city and the reality of moving into Detroit. A reception will immediately follow the conversation.

Admission to the salon is free for all attendees. Admission to the reception is free for subscribers. Admission for non-subscribers is $15 in advance or $20 at the door and includes a 1-year subscription to Next American City and entry to all NAC events and free food and drinks.

RSVP and subscribe at americancity.org/urbanexus/detroit.

Detroit Young Professionals - Check it out

ABOUT US

Detroit Young Professionals (DYP) is a regional nonprofit organization that provides professional development, social networking and civic engagement opportunities. We are dedicated to making metro Detroit a better place and developing our region's next generation of leaders.

MISSION

DYP enriches Detroit by cultivating an environment that attracts and retains young professionals and entrepreneurs. We empower young professionals to succeed and provide resources for them to develop and make a positive impact in the region.

HISTORY

Founded in November 2007, DYP began as a grassroots collective of diverse, forward-thinking individuals with a passion for cultivating creativity, entrepreneurship and a spirit of community in metropolitan Detroit. In our first year, we completed over 25 projects (http://www.detroityoungprofessionals.org/previousprojects.html) and evolved into an independent nonprofit organization with one of the largest networks of young leaders, innovators and changemakers in Southeast Michigan.

GET INVOLVED

DYP is a volunteer-driven organization and we welcome people of all ages and backgrounds to participate. A thirteen-member Leadership Team governs and oversees the organization’s operation and affairs. Getting involved is as simple as attending our meetings and helping out with projects, as needed. Visit our website (http://www.detroityoungprofessionals.org), subscribe to our mailing list (http://www.mailermailer.com/x?oid=1005971p) and join our social networks to stay informed about the latest happenings. If you are interested in becoming an official member to enjoy special members-only events and benefits, please contact our Membership Team (membership@detroityoungprofessiona

Monday, April 6, 2009

Brain drain forum with Granholm on 4/16

According to a News article from this weekend, there will be a public forum with Granholm about our brain drain.
"With half of Michigan's college graduates now taking their diplomas across the state line, Gov. Jennifer Granholm will address Michigan's brain drain at a public forum on April 16. "

"The free forum will be held at 9:30 a.m. April 16 at Fairlane Center North Quad E, 1900 Hubbard Drive, at University of Michigan-Dearborn. "
http://detnews.com/article/20090404/POLITICS02/904040372/-1/ARCHIVE