It’s the talk of the town– young people can do big things in Detroit. The NYTimes recently cashed in on that realization with an article about the arts and their effect on changing the image of Detroit and also attracting new settlers. Locally, it’s the hot topic in the media. Laura Berman over at the old Freep-tasty wrote a column today giving three reasons why being in Detroit is a good thing for a young person. The article is short and sweet, here are some snippets:

“You’re smart, you’re talented, you’ve got new ideas. In New York, you’re a sparrow. In Detroit, you’re a prized canary.”

“Detroit’s affordable. Really, really affordable. Here, a young couple can become landed gentry… for a fraction of the cost in a similar community anywhere else.”

“This is a place where you can take raw hope and be part of turning it into a brand new future… It’s a unique time and place.”

The Vice Magazine blog, VBS Blog, featured a photo of the DL! mural I did near Eastern Market. The blog post discusses the sort of new American dream that can be discovered in Detroit.

“The city has become a place where enterprising classes can find the space and time to do whatever they want, cheaply and hassle-free. It’s a raw space where they can create community and start rebuilding their city from the inside out. The people we talked to were all eager to discuss the reasons they love Detroit, and, as importantly, what their vision is for it. Everyone is doing something—making music, buying and developing land, building businesses, and laying the foundation for a new Detroit with a creative scene that reminded us (the Euros among us, anyway) of East Berlin after the Wall came down. What we found there is a DIY paradise where people hustle to survive and use an anarchic sense of creativity to make shit happen.”

This post is part of an ongoing series called “Detroit’s Re-Invention: Lessons from Other Cities.” See all posts in this feature here.

OK. I will concede I am no guru when it comes to electricity or really anything related to electrical engineering. After all, the “door ajar” light on my dashboard has been lit for some three years because of a short circuit of some kind. The mechanic wants like $500 to fix it, and lord knows I’ll be toast if I try to fix it myself. I am happy to stick with DIY projects not involving a crircuit board. The light remains illuminated.

BUT. Here’s some thoughts on electricity. Read this. It’s a diagram outlining the benefits of implementing a smart grid in the state of West Virginia. A smart grid? What the hell? I asked the same question. This document helped. In a nutshell, a smart grid overlays the electricity distribution grid that most American cities currently have with two-way digital technology that more efficiently manages energy usage, therefore reducing costs and increasing the reliability of power. Within the smart grid, digital sensors and control devices are introduced in the system to control the transmission of power much more efficiently. For example, with the use of a smart grid, appliances can be controlled more intelligently through the grid as opposed to being manually controlled by the user which often leads to waste. Clouds are blocking the sun on a Tuesday while you are at work? Appliances (like your A/C or hot water heater) on a smart grid will be adjusted accordingly to conserve resources (and ultimately cost less for the consumer). Currently, Italy is the only country in the world with a full-scale Smart Grid in place that was installed in 2005. Right now, they are seeing savings of roughly 500 million Euros per year. The project cost 2.1 Billion Euros. You can do the math and see that while there is a large cost to install such a system, the annual realized savings warrants it. After four years, the project is mostly paid off.

In the US, ten cities have at least started or initiated the process of rolling out smart grid technology— and in most cases, there was federal money (stimulus and otherwise) involved to help. Boulder, CO is probably our country’s flagship example of a functional smart grid.

So, here’s an idea, Detroit. Based on that diagram from GOOD magazine that looks at implementation in West Virginia, we could create a hell of a lot of jobs on the homefront using some of our idle manufacturing capacity to start making smart meters and then employ people in aiding with the rollout of the new technology. Not only that, but with the Department of Energy in Washington supporting initiatives like this, we could probably get some financial help to do it all. In the end, by using the West Virginia example as our model and installing a smart grid, the economic impact means jobs are created, emissions are reduced to give it some environmental incentive, power quality and reliability is increased and we rely less on foreign oil. The estimated total cost savings of all this goodness? $12.6 Billion. At a cost of roughly $2 billion, that’s about as attractive a return on investment any tycoon could desire. It’s time to get moving, Detroit.

Urban gardening continues to provide an inspiring and positive storyline in the city whether it’s the consistent coverage the city gets or the cool projects that are sprouting up (like Jim from Sweet Juniper’s latest project at the Georgia Street Community Garden) in the city as a result. Speaking to the former, Detroit was recently featured in the Christian Science Monitor as a beacon of awesome in the urban gardening realm. The article talks about the occasionally controversial Hantz Farm, but also RecoveryPark, the lesser-known 10 year, $220 million project putting organic farms in four different struggling neighborhoods around Detroit. Quite possibly the most engaging part of the article is the fact that it exemplifies Detroit’s leadership in pushing forward an agricultural agenda in a post-industrial city. Meanwhile, other places like San Francisco are following suit, lending credence to the fact that Detroit is forging a new, innovative path for modern cities.

The TIME machine is still churning out content over there in West Village. Steven Gray pumped out an interesting piece that certainly tells the consistent tail of Detroit’s issues, but follows it up with ample evidence that Detroit is certainly not alone as it attempts to pick up the pieces and start again. Gray rambles off a baker’s dozen worth of other cities across the nation in dire circumstances with budget deficits, necessary infrastructural improvements and things like tax bases that don’t support necessary public services. Hmm. So it is set up quite nicely that Detroit is positioned quite well right now to be a leading example of how these problems can be addressed all across the country. Kind of similar to something Toby Barlow said in a DL! interview, all cities, at some point, are going to be in Detroit’s shoes– and as Gray points out in the TIME article, there may be more than we think. So, if we take the lead right now, we could be looked at down the road for quite some time as a model of re-invention for struggling cities across the country. Quite a nice prospect. Time to get to work.

A recent article written by Ron Williams, former editor and publisher of Metro Times, wrote an article on Detroit focusing mostly on sustainability and Detroit’s potential to be a model city in this department. Some real jewels from the piece:

“… new leadership is coming from the place it always does in the end– from the bottom up. This new life cycle is a grassroots affair with an astonishing number of people fashioning solutions and affirming. There are now eight hundred community gardens on abandoned lots, peace zones for public safety, green retrofitting of empty houses, new open source media projects and an exploding hip hop and poetry scene.”

And concludes:

“Detroit is not about architectural ruins. The future of Detroit is happening in plain sight. The people of the D are re-imagining their lives and their city in fresh and courageous ways. They are on the front lines and there is a lot to learn from them.”

Umm. Cool.

Aaron Renn, the urban planning thought leader from Indiana, has taken something of a liking for Detroit. A few months back he wrote this article touting Detroit as something of a new urban frontier, a place potentially capable of providing a strange new American dream as Mr. Barlow once put it. That said, the last article Renn wrote for Urbanophile isn’t the point of this post. It’s his latest article that’s a treat. It goes down like a tall glass of lemonade on a sweltering Saturday. I mean, good God, nobody has talked this nicely about Detroit WITH photos and data to back it all up. He compares Detroit to other cities in the country and gives some side-by-side analysis that’s refreshing. Then he mentions the sexiness of “Brand Detroit”– the idea that the city has some international accolade and name recognition. I mean, think about it: when you go to Paris and are struggling to order a cappucino in some tasty little backalley cafe and you tell the guy at the counter you are from Cleveland, he is going to choke on his pastry trying to understand where the hell that is. But DETROIT?!!?! “Ahhhh. Oui, oui,” he says. Yep, they know we’re kicking over here in the D.

Lots of pieces to tie together.

For one, the dudes at IceHouse Detroit have finished up their project! They have revealed their location and the house is fully frozen. Go see it before the sun takes over and melts that baby. 3920 McClellan is the address, or check out the IceDudes blog. In the spirit of congratulations to Greg and Matthew for pulling off the IceHouse (and avoiding, for the most part, jokes about cheap beer) and to rip off the ingenuity of Jerry over at LOVELAND, it is very possible another piece of Detroit will be frozen in the appraoching days. Stay tuned.

I became aware of a project recently called DART (Detroit Area Rescue Team). These guys are trying fill in the gaps in the charity scene, which, from the looks of their site, translates to them hitting the streets with gobs of food and clothing to give out to those in need. Pretty cool. They have some photos posted of the latest drive.

Stumbled across this video that gives a snapshot of THE FUTURE with high speed light rail and the way it could affect our lives in different ways. It’s part uber-cool and cheesy at times, but either way, it makes a case for how cool it could be with a ubiquitous high speed rail system in place in the US.

Sports Illustrated did a fantastic piece on Dave Bing. It takes a look at the brain in Bing, his work ethic and whether those things will transfer over in to this mayorial position. It’s an encouraging story, but certainly acknowledging of the fact that whatever does happen is going to be a challenge.

And take a look at this writer’s account of being back in Detroit (he was originally from here) and his step-by-step guide on how to enjoy the city. Something you wouldn’t really expect to see in Vanity Fair, of all magazines. But hey!

Just yesterday the Washington Post released an article revealing some findings from a survey conducted in the area. And yes, some gaping holes are revealed in participant’s desires versus what Detroit is actually offering right now, BUT, the most staggering revelation comes with the realization that even on paper a shitload of people believe in Detroit. That is, 63% of those surveyed are optimistic about the future of the city (see a visual map of the full survey). Talk about getting some mmomentum going! It can start right there. Karen Dybis, writer with the Time’s Assignment Detroit blog, was also quite exhilirated over the figure. And so perhaps it all starts with that vision, that desire.