Event: Meeting on Riverfront projects

The Detroit Riverfront Conservancy will hold a public meeting on the Dequindre Cut, Tricentennial Park, and the next phase of the Detroit RiverWalk at the UAW-GM Center for Human Resources (200 Walker Street) at 5:30 pm on Thursday, March 27. RVSP by March 26 to rsvp@detroitriverfront.org.

Hat tip: Model D.

Talking points

The next time you discuss Detroit, ignore Kwame and cut the nostalgia for Hudson's. Recite this list instead. Model D has listed the sixteen coolest initiatives in the city. This is the future.

Also in this week's issue, eight ways the city is getting greener. Normally I wouldn't promote such pure boosterism, but frankly, in the current political and economic climate (read: bad bad bad), we need it.

"Good government in action" - in Detroit!

Lost amidst the mayoral scandal was a Free Press story on the notable success of the City-County Building downtown, which has reduced operating expenses from $15 million annually to $9 million.

Also to be filed under good news: assaults in Detroit Public Schools are on the decline.

City seeks "creative class"

Crain's Detroit discuses a group working to bring more creative types to Detroit. Design Detroit, a group of universities, creative organizations, and economic-development groups, has a $200,000 planning grant from the Knight Foundation to develop strategies to bring 1,000 creative professionals to the city. Enticements may include "instructor positions at area design schools, real opportunities to see their designs come to life and financial stipends of $5,000 to $10,000 in exchange for commitments to live in the city for a set amount of time." The group will hold a public forum on April 8 at the Max M. Fisher Music Center. Stay posted.

Kwame, Beatty charged

The Free Press lists the charges: perjury, conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office. I hope the mayor has the dignity and humility to resign. The city deserves it.

Securing our cities

The Free Press has another powerful editorial in favor of a renewed urban agenda at the national level. This time the focus is on five key steps the federal government can take to reduce crime and violence in major cities:

• The next president must increase support for local law enforcement programs that work, especially to those cities that have a plan for collaborative, community-wide crime prevention programs. Such assistance should include innovative new programs, such as a national campaign to ensure all city streets are well lit.

• Second, the president ought to strengthen the federal government's commitment to prisoner re-entry programs that help hundreds of thousands of offenders adjust to their communities. In Michigan and other states, such efforts are reducing crime and recidivism. The Second Chance Act passed by the U.S. Senate earlier this month is a good start.

• Third, the next administration must make gun control legislation a priority, as virtually all big-city mayors and police chiefs have urged. At least, the president and Congress ought to renew the assault weapons ban, establish a national data base for guns and gun owners, and require background checks for gun show purchases.

• Fourth, Washington should encourage local rules that require police officers to live in the cities they serve. It could do so by making only cities with such residency rules eligible for certain grants.

• Finally, the federal government must do more to prevent crime. The good news is that, over the last 15 years, the U.S. Justice Department has started to focus on street violence, as well as white-collar and organized, crime. The best federal programs have partnered with local law enforcement agencies and community-based groups.

Detroit & Berlin

Real Detroit has an ongoing series of dispatches from Berlin, a revived city that can serve as model for Detroit's redevelopment. The first says we need hipsters and density. The second talks about cool uses for empty storefronts.

I don't know much about Berlin, but I agree with the premise of the series: Detroit can learn a lot from other cities. Planners and activists in Detroit should be mining other cities for ideas. What's working in Boston? What about Berlin? Detroit may be unique in the magnitude of its decline, but it is by no means alone. We should be experimenting with any successful model we can find as we work to create our own formula for revitalization.

Hat tip: Detroit Yes! forums.

Another new restaurant in Midtown

According to Crain's Detroit, Slows Bar BQ will open a second location next summer at the northwest corner of Cass Avenue and Alexandrine Street (map).

Public transit under attack

The Washington Post has a must-read article this week on the Bush administration's approach to transit policy. This is something we should all be aware of and worried about.

Bush appointees at the Department of Transportation are working to reduce traffic congestion by converting roads into privately-operated, for-profit toll roads. At the same time, the agency is reducing funding for mass transit, denying funds to new light rail projects, like the one proposed for Woodward in Detroit. Most fundamentally, the agency itself is being starved of funds. The gas tax has not been raised since 1993; assuming annual inflation of 3%, the tax rate today is therefore effectively 64% of what it was in 1993. The administration supports the continued reduction of the agency's budget because it will force the further privatization of transportation.

City Council corrects itself

According to the Free Press, a rule that would have denied CDBG funds to 105 Detroit non-profits won't go into effect this year. The council unanimously delayed the implementation of the new rule, which requires non-profits to have a majority of Detroit residents on their boards to receive federal funds, after realizing that major non-profits like Focus: HOPE and Greening of Detroit would be denied funding.

The case is another illustration of the region's dysfunction. The rule should have been phased in and framed as a measure to ensure the community's voice in the allocation of federal funds. Instead it was approved without forethought or discussion and then defended in a needlessly divisive manner. Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins said complaints about the rule were paternalistic and reflected a "slave-master mentality." What nonsense! Race resentment is real--Obama did a great job of confronting that reality this week--but it needn't play a part in every minor policy debate in Metro Detroit.

Obama on race

An incredible and profoundly honest speech. Please, take a half hour out of your day to watch it:

Book-Cadillac spurs more development

According to the News, the developer of the Book-Cadillac is working on two more projects downtown. The details aren't public and won't be until summer, but the developments are expected to bring more rental units downtown.

City Council calls for Kwame's resignation

The vote was 7-1. According to the News, Monica Conyers was the only dissenter on the non-binding resolution. The Council may pursue further action after Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy announces her decision regarding whether or not to prosecute Kilpatrick.

Events: urban planning lecture, MOCAD fundraiser

Marygrove College's Institute for Detroit Studies will present “Planning and Race in Detroit: Past Struggles, Future Challenges,” a "Defining Detroit” lecture, in the Main Dining Room in the Madame Cadillac Building (8425 W. McNichols St.) on Thursday, March 27, at 7:30 pm. The speaker will be Dr. June Manning Thomas, a professor of Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Michigan. Hat tip: Detroit Yes!

MOCAD will host the GOLD fundraiser on Saturday, March 29 (4454 Woodward Ave.). For $75, guests may arrive at 7:30 pm and enjoy a catered meal from local restaurants. For $15, guests may arrive at 9:30 pm when "Detroit musicians will play pop cover songs spanning the last 30 years in their band’s own distinctive style." Bands include T3 (Slum Village), The Go, Lee Marvin Computer Arm, Tyvek, Bad Party, Dark Red, EsQuire, Deastro, The Sisters Lucas, The Silent Years, and Dee Jay Frankie Banks. Hat tip: Detroit Metblogs

Goodbye Detroit Boat Club?

In the State of the City address, the mayor briefly mentioned a plan to build a boarding school on Belle Isle. Now that the uproar over Kwame's outburst has calmed down, the plan is finally getting attention in the News and on the Detroit Yes! forums.

The proposal is to build a military-style maritime academy for Detroit high school students where the historic but decaying Detroit Boat Club now stands. It's unclear whether the Boat Club would be rehabbed or razed, but many fear the latter and are outraged. My bet is the school will never be built, so it won't matter, but this serves as a reminder of the administration's a) disregard for community input and b) total lack of vision for the island.


Update: The News published an article last September that discusses the Boat Club's dismal future and its current state of disrepair.

More fine dining in Detroit

The News notes new restaurants and a grocer opening in Corktown, Downtown, and Midtown.

A rebuttal to resignation

I've heard a number of negative, resigned comments about the city in the past week, including the op-ed I linked to on Thursday. The sentiment is justified -- Detroit grinds people down. But working there can also be uplifting in a way that Jackie Victor, co-founder of Avalon Bakery, put best last summer in an essay called "Detroit Is a Spiritual City." Quoting excerpts doesn't do it justice; just read it.

An idealist gives up

An op-ed in today's Free Press gives powerful voice to the despair felt by many frustrated idealists living in Detroit.

I commend the author, who is choosing to leave Detroit, for having committed herself so passionately to her neighborhood, and I sympathize with the frustration she feels. But I think part of the problem is her implicit notion that her individual effort would transform the city. Dedicated citizens have been sacrificing themselves for years to the cause of Detroit without getting anywhere. To effect real change, we need realistic expectations and a realistic time horizon -- transforming a city takes time! More importantly, we need community, both to multiply the impact of our efforts and keep each other sane as we struggle to revitalize this "dangerous, dirty, neglected and decaying environment" that we nevertheless love.