Detroit Lions, Living for the City, Quicken Loans, Michelob ULTRA, lululemon athletica and Yoga Shelter, LLC present Yoga Rocks Ford Field!
This event will bring together the city and suburbs, and provide the community the opportunity to be a part of this one-of-a-kind event, while also getting to see first-hand all of the positive changes going on in the city. Dhive Detroit will be providing bus tours of Eastern Market, the Riverfront, Campus Martius and more!
Yoga Rocks Ford Field will be a 75 minute class taught by nationally renowned yoga instructor Eric Paskel, and will highlight the great companies that are working together to make #Detroit a better place to Live, Work & Play. Benefitting Yoga By Design Foundation, this event will highlight the Detroit Lions commitment to the health and wellness in our community, and will provide the attendees with a variety of other opportunities to become engaged in the city.
DOORS OPEN at 8:30am
The Yoga Rocks Class begins at 9:45am, concluding at 11am
Bus Tours take place between 11:30am-12:30pm.
Click HERE to purchase your ticket!
Join the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Special Olympics Michigan and Moosejaw for a FREE day of Winter Antics!
February 15th 11-2PM across from Milliken State Park (1900 Atwater, Detroit, MI 48207)
WINTER ANTICS HIGHLIGHTS:
- Watch brave Michiganders take the Polar Plunge into the icy Detroit River to support Special Olympics Michigan
- Enjoy free winter safety demos by Moosejaw
- Snowshoe with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources
- Warm up with Bonfires & S’mores provided by the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy*
- Play winter games
*While supplies last.
Free parking is available in Rivard Plaza (1340 Atwater St., Detroit, MI)
It's no secret that Detroit has seen better days. But as good news trickles into the city, there's hope that it might soon return to its former glory. Chief among the reasons to believe in Detroit is its growing number of young entrepreneurs and small business owners who have manged to thrive despite the city's economic headwinds.
Meet some of the success stories that are keeping the hope of an urban Renaissance alive. Here are some young up-and-comers revving up the Motor City:
Veronika Scott, founder of The Empowerment Plan
As a student at Detroit's The College for Creative Studies, Veronika Scott envisioned a coat that is designed to keep its user warm, and that could also be used as a sleeping bag for the city's homeless. That vision was realized with The Empowerment Project, a non-profit Scott started to manufacture and distribute her life-improving outerwear. Despite subsisting off individual and institutional donations, Scott distributed roughly 4,000 coats last year.
Henry Balanon, founder of The Glass Card/Protean
What if you could combine all of your credit cards into a single piece of glass? This sci-fi idea became reality when Henry Balanon founded The Glass Company, which hopes to manufacture an electronic glass card that can selectively act as any one of your credit or debit cards. Now called "Echo," the forthcoming device aspires to transform payment. Balanon is currently fundraising to develop and release Echo, "the only card you'll ever need."
Amy Kaherl, director of Detroit SOUP Detroit
SOUP, a microgranting company founded in 2010, hosts a monthly dinner that not only feeds participants but gives them a hand in getting their business ideas off the ground. Diners pay $5 each to eat and pitch their ideas, with the best idea receiving all of the proceeds from food and drink sales that night. This amount often ranges between $900 and $2000. As of January 2014, Detroit SOUP has donated over $55,000 to community projects and businesses in Detroit.
Click HERE for the full article!
Meet some of the success stories that are keeping the hope of an urban Renaissance alive. Here are some young up-and-comers revving up the Motor City:
Veronika Scott, founder of The Empowerment Plan
As a student at Detroit's The College for Creative Studies, Veronika Scott envisioned a coat that is designed to keep its user warm, and that could also be used as a sleeping bag for the city's homeless. That vision was realized with The Empowerment Project, a non-profit Scott started to manufacture and distribute her life-improving outerwear. Despite subsisting off individual and institutional donations, Scott distributed roughly 4,000 coats last year.
Henry Balanon, founder of The Glass Card/Protean What if you could combine all of your credit cards into a single piece of glass? This sci-fi idea became reality when Henry Balanon founded The Glass Company, which hopes to manufacture an electronic glass card that can selectively act as any one of your credit or debit cards. Now called "Echo," the forthcoming device aspires to transform payment. Balanon is currently fundraising to develop and release Echo, "the only card you'll ever need."
Amy Kaherl, director of Detroit SOUP Detroit
SOUP, a microgranting company founded in 2010, hosts a monthly dinner that not only feeds participants but gives them a hand in getting their business ideas off the ground. Diners pay $5 each to eat and pitch their ideas, with the best idea receiving all of the proceeds from food and drink sales that night. This amount often ranges between $900 and $2000. As of January 2014, Detroit SOUP has donated over $55,000 to community projects and businesses in Detroit.
Click HERE for the full article!
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| Mmmmm.....Mudgies |
Hope for Detroit would seem far-fetched if you had been on the "pornography of ruins" tour I have been going on for years, led by various residents over the years. But, it turns out that those tours were provided by folk who had lost their beloved city. I recently began to hang around with a younger crowd: Mark Nickita, for example, an architect and a maniacal optimist, and a serial small-scale entrepreneur who runs Archive DS, an architecture and urban design firm in downtown Detroit, and also co-owns eight retail establishments -- including two coffee shops, a café, and a "Culture Shop" -- in and around the core of the city. What he showed me during some recent visits was astonishing. There are in fact two Detroits: There is the oceanic disaster, and then there is an archipelago of vitality and potential, and even excellence. You can experience one or the other. You can be buried under the cold hard numbers of the fiscal situation -- or you can believe the evidence in front of your eyes.
How is this revival happening? The old way it seems; in that sequence that has always pioneered the revitalization of cities: the artists with a good eye, the penniless young people with a sense of adventure, and the fearless entrepreneurs. These were the pioneers of the Left Bank of Paris in the 1870s, Greenwich Village of the 1920s, SoHo in the '60s, Miami Beach in the '80s, and Brooklyn today. They are the first wave in a succession that thrives below the horizon of bureaucratic control. They can be classified as the risk oblivious cohort. Later, as a result of their success, when their neighborhoods have become cool, a risk aware cohort appears. These are the developers, who secure permits and mortgages. Later yet, when it is perfectly obvious that the place is safe for investment, arrive the risk-averse -- the boring gentrifiers called "the dentists from New Jersey." By then, that generation of pioneers has been chased away, only to reappear at the next Brooklyn.
That Detroit is now attracting that first generation is an unintended consequence of its impoverishment. Detroit is now the city where the risk-oblivious millennials can get things done. Elsewhere, over the last three decades, there has arisen a regulatory regime so comprehensive that it is impossible even to make a cookie for sale without a certified kitchen, an accessible bathroom, and constant inspections. Almost everywhere else, the slack that once allowed revitalization to evolve organically has been exterminated by bureaucracies. If this is not obvious, it is because most of us elders have grown up within the rising tide of regulation. We are inured -- and we even know how to operate within it -- but the young folk do not. They are flummoxed and repelled. As evidence, observe the extraordinary numbers of millennials who are currently in the arts. Could it be that art and video are among the few things that can be made and sold without regulation -- without the stranglehold of bureaucracy?
So, why is this happening in Detroit? Because its bankruptcy cannot support it, the glacier of American bureaucracy has receded. Detroit can no longer supervise crime, let alone gainful economic activity. There is a liberating adoption of the Nike mentality going on: Just do it! There is no red tape. So the young are immigrating in droves to start their businesses, to fix the buildings, to live affordably, to make their own security arrangements, to invent their amusements -- unimpeded. It is the agile deal flow of the Internet made physical.
Click HERE for the full article!
The lovely Jennifer Garner, that's who!
She told Detroit sports radio channel 105.1 FM, “I’ll be there this summer. Yep, all summer…Batman is shooting…or whatever it’s called. I don’t know what it’s called. Superman with Batman, or whatever it is. But he is shooting this summer, so we’ll be there.”
Click HERE to listen to the entire interview!
4. Detroit, Mich.
Detroit’s place on this list is boosted by the highest percentage of unmarried residents among the cities examined—with 77.9 percent of folks not having a ring on it. Motown’s cost of a date is the second-lowest of all cities, and although the local economy isn’t great, things seem to be improving—the unemployment rate has fallen over the last couple months.
Click HERE for the full article!
The Public Lighting Authority of Detroit (PLA), working in cooperation with Mayor Mike Duggan, has scheduled a series of three public meetings in its two demonstration areas to explain recent updates to its plan to rebuild the city’s street lighting system.
At the meetings, Duggan, PLA Executive Director Odis Jones and PLA Board Chair Dr. Lorna Thomas will outline key revisions of the plan, including converting the system to Light-Emitting Diode (LED) lamps, accelerating the pace of installation with a goal of completing all neighborhoods within 18 months, and requiring a street light in the middle of any block that is more than 300 feet long.
The PLA estimates that the two demonstration areas will be completed in May and that work will continue uninterrupted moving out into the remainder of the city.
WHEN & WHERE
The PLA community meeting schedule is as follows:
- Wednesday, February 5, 7:00-8:30 p.m.– Westside Christ the King Parish, 20800 Grand River Avenue
- Thursday, February 6, 7:00-8:30 p.m. – Eastside WOW Church and Life Center, 14111 E. 7 Mile Road
- Thursday, February 13, 7:00-8:30 p.m. - Westside North Rosedale Park Community House, 18445 Scarsdale Street
All overhead wired lights will be replaced in the City by the fourth quarter of 2015, with the neighborhood portion of the project completed in 18 months. All work on underground wiring, primarily along major thoroughfares, is scheduled to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2016.
The first shipment of LED lights was ordered following the last board meeting and is expected to arrive within two to three weeks. In the meantime, crews that have been installing lights in the demonstration areas will carry out general repair work that is required as part of rebuilding the system. The High Pressure Sodium lights that have been installed in the initial phase of the demonstration project will be replaced as part of a normal maintenance schedule once the work in the rest of the city has been completed.
The east side demonstration project is comprised of an area with boundaries of Eight Mile, Kelly Rd., Hoover and Houston Whittier. The west side demonstration project has boundaries of McNichols on the north, Southfield Rd. on the east, Fenkell on the south and Telegraph on the west, with a small extension in the Five Points area of the city south of McNichols and west of Telegraph.
About the Public Lighting Authority of Detroit
The PLA was authorized by the Michigan Legislature in December, 2012 and approved by Detroit City Council in 2013 to design and implement a three-year plan to improve Detroit’s public lighting system. The PLA is governed by a five-member board, all Detroit residents, appointed by the Mayor and the City Council.
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| Hugh |
Detroit was one of the hardest-hit cities in America during the recession.
Unemployment rose to 20% in the city in 2011, but could have been as high as 50% if you include people who stopped looking for work.
But every bad situation has a silver lining. The lack of enterprise and abundance of failed businesses left great opportunities for newer and cooler businesses.
From restaurants and bars to bike shops and tech startups, these are the coolest businesses in Detroit.
Click HERE for the full article!
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| Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg |
Over the course of the 13-day show, which ended Sunday, some 24,080 messages posted on Twitter (TWTR) crowed about Ford’s lineup, more than triple the tally of Toyota Motor’s (TM) Lexus, the next most-discussed brand, according to analysis for Bloomberg Businessweek by Networked Insights, a company that helps major brands craft digital-marketing strategies. Here’s how the field finished in terms of Twitter volume in Detroit:
1) Ford: 24,080
2) Lexus: 7,460
3) BMW: 7,030
4) Mercedes: 6,220
5) Chevrolet: 6,180
6) Toyota: 5,960
7) Audi: 5,610
8) Nissan: 5,270
9) Porsche: 5,160
10) Cadillac: 3,570
The Twitter traffic wasn’t entirely surprising given Ford’s schedule for the all-important auto show. Its unveiling of its new F-150 pickup on Jan. 13 was one of the first and most anticipated revelations of the event. Ford’s new Mustang, which was first shown in December, also drove a lot of online updates, roughly one-third of Ford’s total social buzz, according to Networked Insights.
But it wasn't just the splashy new cars that made the difference for Ford—after all, virtually every car company had a shiny new ride to crow about in Detroit. Mercedes (DAI:GR) even hired singer Kelly Rowland, of Destiny’s Child fame, to give an encore at a press conference held by its chief executive.
Click HERE for the full article!
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