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Urban Neighborhoods: Detroit's Indian Village
The City of Detroit is nationally known for its struggles with white flight and urban blight. However, the city still is home to it's share of impressive urban neighborhoods featuring well manicured lawns and tree lined gridded streets. Today, Metro Jacksonville takes a brief tour of two: Detroit's Indian Village and West Village Historic Districts.
Indian Village is a historic neighborhood located on Detroit's east side and is listed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The district has a number of architecturally significant homes built in the early 20th century. A number of the houses have been substantially restored, and most others well kept up.
Many of the homes were built by prominent architects such as Albert Kahn, Louis Kamper and William Stratton for some of the area's most prominent citizens such as Edsel Ford. Many of the homes are very large, with some over 12,000 square feet. Many have a carriage house, with some of those being larger than an average suburban home. Some of the houses also have large amounts of Pewabic Pottery tiles. The neighborhood contains many historic homes including the automotive entrepreneur Henry Leland, founder of Lincoln and Cadillac, who resided on Seminole Street.
Indian Village has a very active community including the Historic Indian Village Association, Men's Garden Club & Woman's Garden Club. The neighborhood hosts an annual Home & Garden Tour the first Saturday of June, a neighborhood yard sale in September, a holiday home tour in December, and many other community events.
Click HERE to read the full article!
When people talk about the resurgence of urban America — the shift of people, jobs and commerce back to downtowns and center cities — they're usually talking about a narrow group of elite cities like New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston, and San Francisco.
That's why a report [PDF] released this week on the transformation of downtown Detroit is so interesting. It documents the ongoing regeneration of a decent sized swath of the city's urban core. Detroit's Greater Downtown spans 7.2 square miles (reflected in the title of the report). It runs across the city's riverfront from the central business district to trendy Corktown, home of Slows Bar B Q and Astro Coffee; Mies van der Rohe's verdant Lafayette Park and Rivertown, north to the Eastern Market, Detroit's farmer's market; the Cass Corridor, with arts institutions; Midtown, home to Wayne State University, up Woodward Avenue to Tech Town and New Center (see the map below)
The report draws on new and unique data from local surveys as well as national data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey and other national sources. It is the product of a partnership between the the Hudson-Webber Foundation, the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, the Downtown Detroit Partnership, Midtown Detroit, Inc., D:hive, and Data Driven Detroit.
The Greater Downtown corridor has a population of 36,550 people or 5,076 people per square mile. It might not be not downtown Manhattan, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, or Philadelphia, but it compares favorably to other Midwest city-centers, like downtown Minneapolis, with 3.4 square miles and 28,811 people; downtown Pittsburgh at 1.3 square miles and 4,064 people; and downtown Cleveland at 3.2 square miles and 9,523 people. Of these downtowns, only Minneapolis has greater density than Greater Downtown Detroit.
Greater Downtown forms the Detroit region's commercial, educational, and entertainment hub home to major higher ed, arts and cultural institutions, its football and baseball stadiums and hockey arena, and several hundred restaurants, bars and retails shops. Each year, 10.5 million people visit the Greater Downtown area, according to the report.
While Greater Downtown is more affluent than the city as a whole, it lags behind other urban centers. The average per capita income of Greater Downtown residents is $20,216, considerably higher than $15,062 for the city as a whole but behind the nation ($27,334) as well as other urban centers like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Residents of Greater Downtown are also more educated than the city as a whole. College educated residents between the ages of 25 and 34 made up eight percent of the population for Greater Downtown compared to just one percent for the city as a whole, three percent for the state of Michigan, and four percent for the nation. More than four in ten young adults (42 percent) in Greater Downtown were college-educated, compared to 11 percent for the city, and higher than both the state and national rates of 29 and 31 percent, respectively.
Click HERE to read the full article!
"Searching for Sugar Man" won Best Documentary Feature at the 85th annual Academy Awards.
The award for Best Documentary Film honors the best in non-fiction filmmaking.
"Searching for Sugar Man" was the leader of a strong pack of nominees. The documentary focused on the search for Sixto Rodriguez, a failed singer-songwriter from the 1970s who was an unexpected hit in South Africa. Directed Malik Bendjelloul, "Searching for Sugar Man" was an audience award winner at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and won Best Documentary from BAFTA and the Producers Guild of America.
Click HERE to read the full article!
What do you think of when you think of Detroit? The Motor City? Ruins? Segregation? Abandonment? A cautionary tale?
Then ask: Have you been to Detroit? Have you researched it? How much time did you spend coming to your conclusions? What led you to think of Detroit that way? From what I've seen, few of the modern-day notions about Detroit come from a robust understanding of the place at the ground level. Not even my own.
We are all prone to snap judgments and stereotyping at some level. That's not always a bad thing. If we examined in depth everything we came across, we'd never accomplish anything at all. For example, to label Detroit as "Rust Belt"—a label for cities with older industrial buildings, many of them closed, and a troubled legacy resulting from that deindustrialization—does capture a portion of the truth.
But there's a bigger danger when storytellers—journalists, artists, filmmakers, and pundits—go beyond just shorthand labels and instead use a city merely as a canvas on which to paint their own ideas. Alas, this has all too often been Detroit's fate. In some ways the city has become America's movie screen, onto which outsiders project their own pre-conceived identities and fears. The real city, beyond a few iconic images and so-called "ruin porn" shots, need feature little if at all in these. And it is amazing are nearly devoid of actual people.
Consider some of the identities projected onto Detroit:
America's Bogeyman. As Detroit native Pete Saunders noted when calling Detroit "America's Whipping Boy," Detroit is an all-purpose bogeyman leaders in other cities can use to frighten voters when proposing their next boondoggle. "Better approve this stadium tax. Do you want to end up like Detroit?"
The Really Bad Sinner. Much as we minimize our own failings and justify ourselves as "good people" by comparing ourselves to serial killers and other "really bad people," cities can defend their own manifest failures by saying, "At least we're not Detroit," a tack humorously exploited by one of the Cleveland tourism videos.
Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland. Climate change activists try to outdo each other by presenting ever more apocalyptic visions of what will happen to the planet if their preferred solution isn't implemented immediately. Likewise, many writing about the legitimate problems of Detroit seem to compete with each other in creating the most spectacular depictions of total urban collapse.
"Fear of a Black Planet" (a term I'm borrowing from the name of a Public Enemy album). Racist views are no longer acceptable in society, but for some criticizing Detroit, America's blackest big city, makes an acceptable substitute. By talking about Detroit's crime or poverty or graduation rate, people can pretend to be criticizing "Detroit" when they really mean to criticize African Americans.
Click HERE to read the full article!
The Michigan Film Office announced today the feature film Need for Speed has been approved for a film incentive from the state. The DreamWorks Studios’ film chronicles a cross-country journey at impossible speeds and will film in part in Detroit this summer.
In addition to filming in the state, two Michigan businesses – Race Car Replicas in Clinton Township and Technosports Creative of Livonia – are being utilized to build and enhance cars being featured in the film.
Cast for Need for Speed includes Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad, Mission Impossible III), Dominic Cooper (Captain America, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter), Imogen Poots (Fright Night, 28 Weeks Later) with Scott Waugh directing (Act of Valor).
“Need for Speed was initially just looking at Michigan to do car builds for the film, but we were able to make the case that this was a terrific place to film the movie as well,” said Margaret O’Riley, director of the Michigan Film Office. “This project fits so well into both our reputation as a great state for filmmaking and the automotive heritage Michigan is known for; it’s a strong investment all around.”
Need for Speed was awarded an incentive of $1,370,852 on $4,993,623 of projected in-state expenditures. The project is expected to hire 111 Michigan workers with a full time equivalent of 11 jobs.
The project has tapped Race Car Replicas to build chassis for several of the “super cars” that will be raced in the film. Technosports Creative is working on a vehicle that will also be showcased throughout the film. The work being done at Race Car Replicas and Technosports Creative is not included in, but is in addition to the work being incentivized.
The film adaptation will be a fast-paced, high-octane film rooted in the tradition of the great car culture films of the 70s while being extremely faithful to the spirit of the video game franchise. In Need for Speed, the cars are hot, the racing is intense and the story keeps players at the edge of their seat.
In Fiscal Year 2013, nine projects have been awarded a total of $10,695,291 on $37,346,227 of approved production expenditures for the year. These projects are expected to create 679 Michigan hires with a full time equivalent of 215 jobs.
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) Film Review Committee, comprised of senior MEDC staff including the Michigan Film Commissioner, reviews all completed applications using the statute to guide approval decisions.
The Michigan Film Office was created in 1979 to assist and attract incoming production companies and promote the growth of Michigan’s own film industry. The Film Office also administers the incentive program for film, television and other digital media production in Michigan.
For more on the Michigan Film Office, visit: MichiganFilmOffice.org.
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation markets the state with a focus on business, talent, jobs and helping to grow the economy. For more on MEDC and its initiatives, visit: MichiganAdvantage.org.
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