June 3, 2015
It’s the mantra of naysayers and Detroit cheerleaders alike: without fixing the neighborhoods, the city will never actually comeback.
While rampant development, redevelopment, business deals and rising rent costs keep the pulse of the greater downtown pumping, there has yet to be a steady spill over into apparent dead zones in the city.
Detroit Future City is trying to fill the gaps between downtown and other pockets of population on the outskirts of the city.
The group Tuesday night hosted an event inside Detroit’s recently-purchased Packard Plant on the east side as part of a six-part series of talks on innovation in the city.
After a complex 347-page Detroit Future City urban planning document was released in 2013, the group in 2014 introduced a new office and new webpage, listing dozens of pilot projects taking place across the city as officials work to shift the effort from extensive planning to widespread implementation.
Now, they’re taking to community to “delve deeper into the core tenets of what is needed for the city’s transformation.”
Dan Kinkead, director of projects with the DFC Implementation Office, Tuesday said the events frame what innovation might mean for residents of Detroit, specifically those living outside of downtown.
Kinkead and other speakers pointed to the need for an entrepreneurial spirit on a number of different levels.
According to Kinkead, fixing Detroit “isn’t business as usual.”
Detroit Future City stresses need for neighborhoods, new minds in city’s comeback
Ian Thibodeau, June 3, 2015, MLive