News broke last Friday that Michigan State University is proposing a $100M plan to create a research center for urban farming. Says a Detroit News article:

“The idea could make Detroit into a global model for growing food and energy crops in once unthinkable urban settings — inside desolate buildings, on contaminated soil and between concrete slabs of shopping center lots.”

Seperately, a quote from an MSU official makes a good point about the real grounding force behind this plan:

“What we’re actually looking forward to is a time down the road where this is a significant part of Detroit’s economic plan, where food and energy production is part of what Detroit is known for,” Foster said. The effort would help “redefine what the city is.”

The full articles discussing the plan:

Detroit News
Lansing State Journal

Meanwhile, Wayne State is making moves with a $93M biotech research hub to be developed at the site of the old Dalgleish Cadillac building. The building was built by Albert Kahn and will undergo a historic renovation. Once completed, hundreds of researchers will be stationed there addressing cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders such as diabetes, hypertension and obesity, bioinformatics and computational biology and biomedical engineering.

More from a Crain’s article here.

Check our latest body of work built out for the DC3 to help in recruiting the next round of Creative Ventures to their business acceleration program. See more info on their website: detroitc3.com/creativeventures.

Music by Detroit’s own Phantasmagoria, the song is titled “Bats.”

Shot, edited, written, directed by DL!: Philip Lauri, Steven Oliver and Scott Waraniak.

A confluence of thought leaders, foundations and media partners have come together to launch the Urban Innovation Exchange. The effort is geared towards placing a value on social capital and capturing the impact that such ventures create with a goal of proliferating models and various types of innovation to further the reach and encourage growth of social innovation in Detroit. We are a very proud media partner in this endeavor, developing film content that will be used in profiling hundreds of social innovators over the next year.

In a similar fashion to the way we’ve been developing content for the Speakers Bureau, we will be releasing two new videos a month for the Urban Innovation Exchange. Each video will focus on an individual and their particular social innovation. The first four we have prepared for the launch of UIX discuss social innovation with Bobby Smith (En Garde! Detroit), Delphia Simmons (THRIVE Detroit), Jordi Carbonell (Cafe Con Lecche) and Amy Kaherl (Detroit SOUP). Each short film tries to capture a sense of impact. How does starting a fencing club lead to the growth of a city, and its people? How does a street newspaper empower others to see a better day? How can a micro-funding dinner lead to the growth of influential community leaders? How does a coffee shop serve as crossing ground and cultural point for an entire neighborhood? These are the answers we are searching for, and this is what we will continue to do over the next year alongside the Urban Innovation Exchange.

Onward.

Oh, and here are all the videos we did for the launch, but go ahead and check out the site in its full glory, it is filled with vibrant images, editorials and community-led thoughts about the forward movements of our city. See the brand new site here: UIXDetroit.com.

Showtime is tonight at 7pm, with doors opening for seating at 6:30pm. Buy tickets at the door or online here. We will do a Q+A after the screening to discuss the film and address any questions, and have some of the limited run of 75 film posters for sale if you want to pick one up.

Hope to see you there!

I am really excited to announce a huge project we are undertaking with the folks at the Goergia Street Community Garden. The basics: With all proceeds from the screening of After the Factory on March 22 at the Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak, we are initiating a neighborhood project on a vacant lot at the Georgia Street Community Garden. We want to use the film as a tool to create real growth and to go beyond just talking about the good things happening. We want it to be a crucial part of the movement, too.

So, a neighborhood project? We are building a remote control race car track (this photo more or less conveys what that means). There I said it. I couldn’t help it. But wait, a remote control race car track? Let me explain.

The idea is to create an attraction, something that kids are curious about and want to take part in. After all, there are no remote control race car tracks in the city of Detroit, so it will also be something very unique to them and their neighborhood. Once the track is constructed, kids will have a variety of ways in which they can earn car time– they can volunteer in the GSCC media center, they could help tutor a fellow neighbor with their math homework, they could volunteer with Mark in the garden, take part in the up and coming youth garden market, or a variety of other things. But the point is this: once they have put a little work in, they are rewarded with some good old fashioned fun at the track where they can race cars and have a good time on space that was previously derelict. But it goes significantly further than that. With enough interest we can run classes that show kids how to build their own car, and perhaps some become interested in circuitry, engineering or product design. Then the universities step in to help make that vision possible with some partial or full scholarships. But here’s the main point: we’re taking dirt, a vacant lot, some extra materials and creating a very unique form of community engagement that is easily scaled up and emulated by others.

So! Who is WE? Well, obviously Mark Covington and the folks in the vicinity of Georgia Street Community Garden, then us here at DL!, but we’re looping in Patrick Thompson from Patrick Thompson Design to help really steer an innovative design process that involves kids and neighbors at the front end of designing this thing (learn about Patrick in a recent short film we did on him here).

Last item: We really need your help. Please buy your tickets for the screening on March 22 and support this endeavor. The more people that come, the closer we get to reaching our mark of raising at least $3,000 for this effort. If you cannot come to the screening, please tell your friends to come through Facebook and Twitter. Next, we will need some volunteers when we get to cleaning off the lot in April. So, get ready, we think this is going to be a really exciting forward movement for the folks on Georgia Street, but hopefully pave the way to creatively thinking about some new forms of neighborhood engagement. Onward.

Good news: We’ve scheduled a screening date at the Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak on March 22. The film will show at 7pm. Click here to purchase tickets in advance or buy them directly at the box office to get around service fees.

We will be making some special announcements about the screening in the coming weeks, so get your tickets while you can! In the meantime, here is the absolutely stunning photograph that Marvin Shaouni took at the world premiere of ATF at the Detroit Film Theatre.

Issue Media Group, the parent company for media outlets like Model D and Metromode, is initiating the Urban Innovation Exchange (UIX) with funding from the Knight Foundation.

It’s clear that Detroiters are re-imagining themselves and their city in very unique ways. Sure, there are traditional developments that are occuring that are rather easy to value– ie, a neighborhood development project that costs 1M and a return of 2M is expected, with X amount of resources coming on the heels of such development. But such a large part of Detroit’s allure right now is tucked in the efforts that are harder to value. How do you economically value a community garden that gives kids in the neighborhood a new sense of purpose? This gets tougher. And my hope is that the Urban Innovation Exchange will begin to disseminate some of the many factors that are propelling this new form of social capital forward and really making a difference in the identity and movements of the city.

What’s exciting is that I think the idea in and of itself is good, but it seems as though the muscle needed to make this happen is there. There are lots of players moving this effort forward, including DL!. We are very excited about being a part of this exchange in a variety of ways– creating original content and also playing an editorial role. Other media partners include the Detroit Free Press, Huffington Post Detroit, Model D, New Michigan Media, Thrive Detroit and I Am Young Detroit. Data Driven Detroit is playing a part handling some of the analysis and codifying the information in to valuable data sets and models that are scalable.

It’s funny, I just had a visitor over the weekend from out of town, and just like everyone else that visits, he said there is something special going on in the city. Something real. My hope is that efforts like UIX begin to put some sensible data sets and analysis around the realized factors and efforts that are moving the city forward. Instead of all this meta-Detroit talk that can sometimes be more emotional than tangible, I hope we begin to put in to place models that disseminate the nature of our innovation in Detroit. And then, from there, we scale it up and really have a hand in writing the rule book for next generation cities.

You know the drill. It’s Monday, we reveal more content that we are developing for the Speakers Bureau.

Today we feature the Carr Cultural Arts Center and the man with the plan Mister Oliver Ragsdale Jr. The Carr Center off of Grand River in Harmonie Park is kind of a one-stop shop for all things arts and culture-related. They teach everything from modeling techniques to ballroom dancing. They have all kinds of space for you to put your creative endeavors to work– gallery space, rehearsal space, classrooms and even a giant stage that they are rehabbing. All in, they play a strong role in making sure the local population has access to the sorts of facilities and mentoring that they help them go from idea to action.

Hear it all from Oliver himself in this week’s video:

Some interesting– not necessarily new– actions around business growth and economic development:

1) The Detroit Creative Corridor Center released their year-end report, which examines the steps they have taken to accelerate growth of the creative economy in Detroit. Some of the highlights after just one year of operation: 200 creative sector jobs were provided through their business attraction efforts. And get this– five more companies and 1,200 jobs are in the pipeline. These are businesses that they have attracted to locate in the city and are bringing jobs with them. Aside from that, over $1M has been raised through their efforts to support investment in the creative sector locally. This means more support for early to mid stage companies through the Creative Ventures program, and more resources to put on thoughtful events showcasing the creative community like the Detroit Design Festival. Two thumbs up. See the DC3′s report here. Moving on–

2) Josh Linkner, one part of the Detroit Venture Partners gang, penned a somewhat interesting article in INC magazine. The message: Detroit isn’t a blank canvas, it’s just a place where “we have the once-in-a-lifetime chance to make a noticeable brushstroke on a canvas whose final version affects us all. Let’s seize it.” Sure, can’t argue with that sentiment and feel-good sorta stuff. I guess the more significant aspect of all this dialogue is that they are creating tangible actions from this genuine opportunity. DVP is investing in mid-stage tech companies, and headquartering them in the nearly three million square feet of office space that Dan Gilbert is ferociously snatching up in the downtown area. Hate ‘em or love ‘em, it’s damn nice to see these guys walking the walk.

Unrelated to all this, but quite interesting nonetheless: the owner of the Packard Plant says that sucka is coming down, with a team that is reportedly just “days away from starting to barricade and fence off the 3.5-million-square-foot eyesore” as part of a larger scheme to demolish the building. Building owner Dominic Cristini claims it is part of an effort to “do the right and responsible thing.” Let’s see if this guy walks the walk, too. (Read the whole article here)

It’s that time of year again— time of course for what is being touted as the country’s biggest local music festival. The Metro Times Blowout takes place starting tonight until Saturday, March 3. We figured it was probably a good idea to give some recommendations on bands to check out, and polled guru Travis Wright, Arts and Culture Editor at Metro Times and host of WDET 101.9′s All Things Considered. The survey says:

1. Wednesday (“Tonight is definitely NOT to be missed,” says Wright): Matt Jones, Walking Beat, KIDS, Belle Ghoul
2. Thursday: Timothy Monger, Lettercamp, Vatican, Danny Brown, Bars of Gold, Child Bite, House Phone, Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor, Passalaqua, Johnny Headband
3. Friday: Troy Gregory, Lightning Love, Katie Grace, Smoke AKA the Black Cal Ripken, Kenny Turdick, Duane the Teenage Weirdo, The Mythics, The Crooks, Darlene, Twine Time, The Sights, Future Slang
4. Saturday: Skeleton Birds, Illy Mack, Phantasmagoria, Rai Knight, Buttermade Records All-Stars, Glossies, Hentch, Dirtbombs, Jeecy & the Jungle

The whole weekend can be had for a mere $20. Individual night tickets are not available, just get the full sheband. Tickets will be for sale at the select locations during the event: at the Garden Bowl on Wednesday, Feb. 29th, and at the PNA Banquet Hall and Detroit Threads entrances Thursday, March 1st through Saturday, March 3rd.