Detroit Hope

Since so much of what I post about regarding Detroit is negative, here is a more hopeful outlook.

But so much misery also brought newcomers: out-of-town investors who learned of properties for sale at prices unimaginable in other cities and young entrepreneurs, artists and musicians who said they valued Detroit, in part, for its grit and its seemingly wide open spaces, the very elements that had made some people flee. Business incubators, like TechTown, began emerging, and Michigan business executives began reinvesting in the city, among them figures like Dan Gilbert, the founder of Quicken Loans, who has bought building after building downtown. 

Meanwhile, Detroit’s car companies have experienced what had once seemed like the unlikeliest of comebacks after the financial crisis. General Motors and Chrysler emerged from bankruptcy filings and government bailouts to far more upbeat signs — and with investments in Detroit. Not long ago, Chrysler moved its regional marketing team into a downtown building here, and an assembly plant in the city, Jefferson North, was retooled to produce a new version of the Jeep Grand Cherokee sport utility vehicles, among the company’s hottest sellers.

Private business is what has sparked the revitalization of one of the most Detroit-like parts of DC: H Street.  Whether it is Joe Englert and his restaurants or the Ethiopic owners and their bakery, small entrepreneurs have brought commerce where there was none, on the street where the riots hit hardest. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned here. Of course it takes much more than all of this...