Detroit : In the News

Last year Miley Cyrus (and Demi Moore and Marlo Thomas) Metro Detroit stood in for Chicago while shooting the movie LOL. The teen comedy's trailer is now live on the interwebs. Blink and you'll miss Grosse Pointe and Greektown. Though we love that Hollywood has discovered SE Michigan it'd sure be nice if movies shot in Detroit were set in Detroit?

Here's the trailer.

From contaminated wasteland to verdant wildlife habitat, the EPA is in the process of rehabilitating a 44-acre industrial property on the Detroit River in Trenton (formerly owned by Chrysler).

Excerpt:

The new funds come as the refuge prepares to celebrate its 10th birthday next month.

In that time, the refuge has grown from 300 acres to more than 5,700 acres in the heart of an industrial area stretching from Mud Island in the Detroit River near Ecorse to western Lake Erie, along a 48-mile corridor.

It boasts bald eagles, including a recent baby, peregrine falcons, 23 species of hawks, deer, sturgeon, walleye and stunning views of the Detroit River.

Read the rest of the story here.

It's nice to see the narrative shift from broken Detroit to can-do Detroit, but could someone tell these out-of-town journalists that Detroit actually has grocery stores?

Excerpts:

"Nevertheless, there is more than just demolition in Detroit. Families who have lived there for generations, as well as recent transplants, are taking back their city with their own hands. Old Detroit still offers a stunning collection of art deco architecture, a museum with a billion-dollar art collection, and a solid manufacturing infrastructure.

Now, all of it will be embedded in an environment that offers both the urban and the rural. And it is the rural, built with those determined hands, that could change our conceptions of what a city is. Detroit will be model for ageing cities and towns looking for a redefinition.

The wide open spaces now prevalent throughout Detroit have given residents an opportunity to reconnect with their food. With supermarkets almost non-existent and drugstores selling mostly processed food (or fresh food imported from South America), civil organizations such as Earthworks are teaching local people everything about growing fruits and vegetables, including planting, harvesting, composting and canning."

Read the rest of the story here.

Even Denis Leary is using Kickstarter to fund a film. The documentary, about Detroit firefighters working to protect a city so many wrote off (until recently, of course), sounds really promising.

Excerpt:

"Leary and Serpico are trying to finish financing the movie through the crowd-funding website Kickstarter and “are offering products and experiences to entice Kickstarter donors, including a Boardwalk Empire set visit and an autographed helmet signed by the Rescue Me cast.”

Read the rest of the story here.

Could partnerships between social nonprofit agencies and manufacturing companies be a part of Michigan's recovery? Governor Rick Snyder sees Detroit-based nonprofit Focus:HOPE's agreement with Auburn Hills-based Android Industries to assemble parts for the Chevrolet Volt as a template for workforce development around the state.

Excerpt:

"About 50 workers, mostly from Detroit, have been hired by Focus: HOPE for manufacturing positions at Android Industries, which leases the employees and manufacturing space at the nonprofit. Company officials said they hope to hire a total of 150 Focus: HOPE employees in Detroit and another Android facility in the neighboring suburb of Warren by early 2013 as demand for the Volt increases and the number of shifts grow.

"This is about a 10 percent footprint of what we're going to be doing (at Focus: HOPE)," Android Chief Executive Gerald Elson said."

Read the rest of the story here.

Five thousand cyclists hit the road in Detroit last Saturday for the the tenth annual Tour De Troit. It may not have had the hills of the Tour De France but our potholes offer their own challenges.

Check out WXYZ's video on the race.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Detroit Symphony Orchestra conductor Leonard Slatkin rhapsodizes on the big city, the Henry Ford, and that sushi grande dame, Clawson's Noble Fish. Plus he thinks Detroit is sunny. Go Blue skies!

Get the full story here.

Gamers, designers, and urbanists, take note: Along with Shanghai, Montreal, and Singapore, Detroit gets cast in the Deus Ex: Human Revolution action role-playing game. Could this be Detroit 2027?

Get the full story here.

Not wanting to miss the innovation boat, GM emerges from bankruptcy to become an aggressive investor in venture capital.

Excerpt:

With a solar charging station as a backdrop, GM's venture capital unit touts a $7.5 million investment in Sunlogics, at the solar energy system maker's new headquarters in a former auto parts plant in Rochester Hills, Michigan.

The investment, announced last month, gives GM Ventures a stake in a company building solar charging equipment. It comes out of a $200 million venture capital budget GM earmarked to spend over three years in response to fears that the world's largest automaker could lose out on the next big thing to start-ups such as electric car maker Tesla Motors

Read the rest of the story here.

The URC – Wayne State, Michigan State and the University of Michigan – has launched the Global Detroit International Student Retention program. Funded with a three-year, $450,000 grant from the New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan, the effort hopes to diversify metro Detroit's economy in more ways than one.

Excerpt:

"The program aims to complete four objectives outlined in the Global Detroit study. These include marketing the region to international students from orientation to post-graduation, recruiting area businesses to build working relationships with international students, working with students to navigate international legal barriers and developing relationships between students, businesses and universities.

Jeff Mason, executive director of the URC, said retaining international students is a critical step in the economic revitalization of Detroit."

Read the rest of the story here.

You jump through enough hoops...

Given Metromode's recent coverage of the budding food truck scene in metro Detroit (we wanted to write 'blossoming' but it's still early days) we thought it right to update Detroit's contribution to the trend. Finally.

Excerpt:

""El Guapo is the first one to have secured a space through the Buildings, Safety, Engineering and Environmental Department," the manager said.

While other food truck operators in downtown Detroit have set up shop without permits, Anthony Curis and Doug Runyon, co-owners of El Guapo, made dozens of trips to City Hall to find a path to legality. "

Read the rest of the story here.

Detroit's Urban Farming did more than just start a local trend, it ignited a global movement.

Excerpt:

"Let's get the gardening puns out of the way at the outset: Rooted in Detroit, Urban Farming broke ground in 2005, planting the seeds for a fast-growing grassroots organization that's blossomed to reap over 43,000 locations around the world, plowing forward with new sites springing up every day."

Read more here.

The headline reads "Detroit's Hiring Surge Is the Economy's Only Bright Spot." Who'd've thunk it? More please. With a resurgent auto industry, SE Michigan is becoming a positive bump in the nation's employment graph.

Excerpt:

Ah, the virtuous cycling of Americans building American things in America, and then selling them at a profit to other Americans, who will borrow American money to buy them and pay American interest which can then be productively re-invested in building more American things that will create American jobs.

Shooting rockets at the moon this isn't, folks. This is how the economy is supposed to work — and create the growth that's needed to bring down unemployment.

Read more here.

In the rush to create new economy jobs in metro Detroit the talk has mostly centered around incentives and support for engineering, life sciences, green energy, and computer technology. But building a creative class is more than hot on the job market front.

Enter Detroit's new Creative Ventures Acceleration Program, an incubator oriented toward design, film, music, and social media. And it's getting national attention.

Excerpt:

"The Creative Ventures Acceleration Program offers local entrepreneurs access to resources, services, strategic counseling, development support and other services that seek to "increase the density of creative-sector businesses in the downtown area," according to the Detroit Creative Corridor Center, a business accelerator that developed the program.

Backed by $500,000 in funding by the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and the U.S. Small Business Administration, among other groups, the program features a 12-month curriculum for "ventures-in-residence" to better identify development goals and best practices."

Get the rest of the story here.

Issue Media Group, which owns Metromode, is partnering with New Michigan Media to help tell the growing number of success stories of businesses started by minorities and immigrants in Metro Detroit.

Excerpt:

"The partnership draws attention to the impact ethnic, minority and immigrant communities have on the economy. Over one decade immigrant- founded ventures created 450,000 jobs and represented a market capitalization of roughly $500 billion. Southeast Michigan's immigrant entrepreneurs were six times as likely to start a high-tech firm from 1995-2005, placing the state third compared to all 50 states, and are nearly four times as likely to file an international patent. Michigan ranks eighth out of all 50 states in filing these types of patents. Immigrants are more than three times as likely to start a new business."

Read the rest of the story here.