A huge part of what we do here is making sure that the work and innovative models we are creating in response to interesting economic circumstances and opportunities is projected outward in to the world. I always say Detroit could write the rule-book for next-generation cities. It’s true. Economic systems worldwide are crumbling, cities are re-thinking their positions amidst globalization, and in Detroit we’ve been confronting the dire version of those circumstances for many years. And over the past three years, we’ve gotten significantly better at innovating with minimal resources. And this is the stuff that the country will deem more and more significant as cities struggle more and more. In the last week or so, two outfits locally have been getting national coverage that plays a significant part in moving the narrative about Detroit’s potential forward.

DETROIT Soup featured in Dwell Magazine, a national publication:

Patrick Thompson Design featured on Design Sponge:

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.

Over the last day or so, there has been a spike in media coverage of Detroit. Yesterday was massive, with two articles appearing in national publications– Fast Company and the Washington Times. It’s kind of interesting to see the message coming from these places far and wide, and mostly positive and underscoring opportunity. The Washington Times covered a young guy plotting moves for his next step and doing it in Detroit because it’s inexpensive and he has the quality of life he desires. Fast Company talked about Detroit SOUP and the possibility of micro-funding as a viable means of community development.

It’s kind of like the news is getting more human, characterizing the components of this city that actually make it enjoyable. The parts that actually keep people here or make them excited. For so long it’s been the structural things that make Detroit “inefficient,” which, sure enough is still present in the city, but one of Detroit’s best assets is how human it is. You know the family next door, you shake hands with shop owners because you play soccer with them and you go to church with your neighbors. We rely heavily on the relationships we have with people in this town, and in a lot of ways, that’s kind of revolutionary in a day and age when smart phones, Facebook and virtual meetups dominate our human existence. Detroit relies on flesh and blood.

For this reason, I always say that Detroit could re-invent the American dream, and now when the news hubs are talking about quarter life folks finding refuge in Detroit’s lack of a rat race or the city’s innovative methods of bringing community together with productive results, part of me thinks that the structural entities reporting on this city are baby-stepping their way to shifting the narrative towards that opportunity. I mean, it clearly has to be balanced, we clearly have our issues, but maybe, just maybe we are getting a little closer to getting the media to look at the opportunities revealed by the cracks in our system– ie, the ways that people in this town are actually relating and identifying with one another, a very fundamental building block of society that often gets overlooked in the “happening” places.

National coverage aside, the locals were busy, too. The Free Press and News published high profile pieces on forward progress in the city. Urban farming got some love via John Hantz and his desire to create forests with oak saplings in the city while a practically earth-shaking Free Press article discussed collaboration amongst Wayne and Oakland Counties. That’s “earth-shaking” only because such coordination has failed for years and years, with administrations squabbling over how exactly to utilize the resources of both counties and move the region forward together.

Sure, this was one day out of 365, but if we widen the reporting time period to last week, then you can include the nationally televised special on Planet Green, “Detroit in Overdrive”– a reality-style program that relied heavily on the “people” side of the city. For better or worse, the world looks in at Detroit through the stories told by these media conglomerates, and when we can stop and isolate particular sample pools of their coverage to see that maybe they are starting to get it, there is certainly something to be excited about.

Peter Kageyama met Richard Florida in 2003 and it changed his career path. He had started a web development firm in 1995, but once he and Florida met the game was changed. Over time, his work became heavily focused on community development, talent attraction/retention and creative industries development. He puts on the annual Creative Cities Summit, produced the documentary “Charles Landry and the Art of City Making,” and recently just released a book called For the Love of Cities that focuses in part on Detroit.

In the book he discusses the notion of “lovable cities”– the idea that in some places people become more invested in the social being and welfare of their city, creating a stronger tie between the city itself and its people. In many ways, Detroit has a lot of this lovin’ going on, and Peter discusses a few local efforts in the book– Sean Mann’s Detroit City Futbol League and Kate Daughdrill’s Detroit SOUP to name a couple. Both initiatives demonstrate non-traditional ways in which once can strengthen the bond between people and place. The benefits of such strong relations, as Kageyama points out, is that “we open up new possibilities in community, social and economic development by including the most powerful of motivators— the human heart— in our toolkit of city-making.”

Peter’s book is available, signed, for the time being, at Bureau of Urban Living, but something in me says this will not last long. If you miss the book at Bureau, stop by Leopold’s and Greg can probably order it for you. If all that fails, buy the book on Amazon.com.

If you miss all that, catch Peter speaking at the upcoming Rust Belt to Artist Belt Conference on April 6. He is giving a talk around lunchtime. Pick up your tickets for that event and check out the full schedule.

So, you’ve hopefully heard about SOUP by now (perhaps here or here). It’s the monthly gathering of roughly 150 people who pay $5 for a homemade soup and bread dinner. While they eat, a few people who submitted ideas to the SOUP panel present their creative concept for micro-funding. That is, if they get the most votes, they take home all the dinner money. It’s a pretty ingenious form of community development and building a strong base of empowered thinkers. And, quite frankly, it’s just plain fun. A large group converges in the space above Mexicantown Bakery and talks about transforming the city in a lot of ways. It’s exciting and inspirational.

Last night, I had the pleasure of presenting for funding a new DETROIT LIVES! project. And while I came out a loser, that is, completely micro-grant’less, it was still a pretty incredible experience to be a part of. I would honestly encourage anyone to give it a shot. It has to be one of the least intimidating environments, and even after losing, I still felt like I had a decent core of people encouraging me to keep the train a movin’– that is, to make sure this project still happened.

Titled MantraCity (a play off of the word “mantra,” “city,” and “monstrosity”), it’s a large scale mural-project to take place throughout Detroit. Calling on heavy inspiration from Steven Powers’ (ESPO) “A Love Letter For You” project out in Philadelphia, the project aims to take simple, positive and inspirational messages and slapping them on large building walls and structures— with permission from the owners. So far, a couple of walls have been secured in New Center and on the East Side. By winter, the idea is to have at least three done. This a mockup of a potential design to take place in New Center. When looking at the wall, you can see the Argonaut and GM Building off to the side, both of which were designed by Albert Kahn.

The purpose of presenting at SOUP was to try and get funding to cover the costs of the paint. Seeing as how that was unsuccessful, it’s time to figure out a new way. First attempt at this will be to just simply ask people for scrap and extra paint they have laying around. Have any paint that you’d be willing to part with? Give a shout: talk@detroitlives.org.

Got some more photos from Maker Faire posted on Facebook. But big news this morning is the nice little ditty on Detroit that was in the New York Times print edition today. The article is titled “Wringing Art Out of Rubble in Detroit” and gives an uplifting story told through many of the doers around town that are making lemonade out of lemons. Kate Daughdrill and Jessica Hernandez were featured on behalf of their project titled Soup, a monthly meeting on Sundays above the MexicanTown Bakery where participants pay $5 entry, eat some soup and salad, and hear proposals from people all over the city for projects they want to do. At the end of the night, the best voted idea gets all the Soup money to put towards the project. It creates a nurturing environment to do cool stuff. Another feature in the article, Mr. Jerry Paffendorf and Ms. Mary Lorene Carter, got some words devoted to Loveland and the new up-and-coming Imagination Station near MCS– that is, the two houses that were purchased, are now being re-habbed and will eventually be an artists residency program. These fantastic projects aside, what’s particularly enticing in the article is the discussion of folks migrating in to the city and describing the move (from Portland and Montana interestingly enough, two favorite places of mine) to Detroit as poitive and one with “a sense of purpose.” It really starts to paint a much more vivid picture illustrating the real opportunity that exists in Detroit. When one of those featured migrants, the fella from Montana who comes with the intent to be a butcher, actually arrives and starts a charcuterie club and ingratiates himself in the young doer community, it says something about the real opportunity here. Yes, you can DO IT IN DETROIT. You can make it happen here, that’s for sure. And hey, once you arrive, people will listen, you can be an agent of positive change and growth, and holy moses, the frickin’ New York Times might even put you in a feature story.