STAGE ONE
(The Goal: People moving into Detroit from other cities, drawn by the magic of the Detroit name.)
Until the beginning of this year I was Publicity Director for the Underground Literary Alliance, the #1 underground writers group in America. Last year, England's The Guardian, in an overview of literature, "Surfing the New Literary Wave," by Sam Jordison, named the upstart ULA as one of three major literary movements on this side of the Atlantic. Though centered in Philadelphia, the ULA was founded by expat Detroiters.
I returned to Detroit late last year to visit family and take care of personal business. I decided to stick around. My first week back I stayed at the Leland Hotel. The Leland is a metaphor for Detroit: a great seedy beautiful magnificent empty place waiting to be filled.
Compare Detroit's downtown to Philly's. Detroit has the infrastructure to be as vibrant as Philadelphia: the street layout; the buildings (like the Leland); the condos, bars, and restaurants. What it needs is people!
How to accomplish that?
The tops-down approach of stadiums, People Mover, and other big-money projects is fine, but can do only so much. This should be supplemented with activity from the ground-up, which would be quicker and cheaper. The process of gentrification taking place now on a large scale in New York City and Philadelphia begins with writers and artists. (See Williamsburg in Brooklyn; Fishtown in Philly.) If Detroit became NATIONALLY known as the home of a kick-ass underground arts movement, attention and people would follow.
New York City-- including traditional writers havens like the East Village-- has become too expensive for bohemians. Through its success, New York is destroying its roots.
Where are writers and artists going? Where will they go?
Many are moving to Philadelphia. The ULA has a foundation in its hippest neighborhood. Last year I was a guest on the city's #1 public radio show. BUT, the problem with the east coast is competing with extremely well-funded New Yorkers. There are more possibilities here.
(Next-- STAGE TWO: The Boldest Move.)
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The Key Quote
"I lived downtown, in the East Village. . . . It was very funky. New York was going through a recession. It had a bankruptcy crisis that was bad for the city but great for the arts scene. Everything was cheap, and there were a lot of abandoned buildings. The punk independent film scene arose out of that. It was very atmospheric."
-Quote from director Susan Seidelman in the book Madonna by Lucy O'Brien.
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This quote is a big part of the reason why I've remained in Detroit upon my visit back. No city so perfectly fits this quote NOW.
Unless we get into a more severe recession, money and artists will continue flowing into Philadelphia and that town will become a mirror image of New York. Rents have been climbing. The New York Times recently did a big profile on hip working class Philly neighborhood Fishtown, where the Underground Literary Alliance has a base of sorts centered around cool bookstore Germ Books. Action is happening-- people, money, and business following.
An even better candidate, however, is Detroit. No American city can match Detroit's atmosphere, its tough rep and street cred-- most crucial of all, its cheap rents.
The trick is not just to spotlight, nationally, this town's artists and writers, but to get the nation's best to move here. Particularly writers.
Why writers? Because, unlike (with exceptions) rock musicians, painters, and actors, WRITERS WRITE about what they're doing. They're walking publicity machines. They bring more artistic p.r. value, which Detroit needs. And, they write not only about themselves, but about other kinds of artists. (See the Lost Generation of Paris in the 1920's.)
Gentrification is sparked by artists-- it's the easiest way to make an area "cool" and get people moving full-time into the city-- making Detroit the coolest place to live., which I assume is a goal.
The objective of course would be not just to get writers here from overpriced Philly and New York, but to convert other artists across the board into writers, as we were doing in Philadelphia-- and thereby spark a full-scale internationally known literary movement.
Does Detroit want this? Let me know.
-Quote from director Susan Seidelman in the book Madonna by Lucy O'Brien.
**************************************************
This quote is a big part of the reason why I've remained in Detroit upon my visit back. No city so perfectly fits this quote NOW.
Unless we get into a more severe recession, money and artists will continue flowing into Philadelphia and that town will become a mirror image of New York. Rents have been climbing. The New York Times recently did a big profile on hip working class Philly neighborhood Fishtown, where the Underground Literary Alliance has a base of sorts centered around cool bookstore Germ Books. Action is happening-- people, money, and business following.
An even better candidate, however, is Detroit. No American city can match Detroit's atmosphere, its tough rep and street cred-- most crucial of all, its cheap rents.
The trick is not just to spotlight, nationally, this town's artists and writers, but to get the nation's best to move here. Particularly writers.
Why writers? Because, unlike (with exceptions) rock musicians, painters, and actors, WRITERS WRITE about what they're doing. They're walking publicity machines. They bring more artistic p.r. value, which Detroit needs. And, they write not only about themselves, but about other kinds of artists. (See the Lost Generation of Paris in the 1920's.)
Gentrification is sparked by artists-- it's the easiest way to make an area "cool" and get people moving full-time into the city-- making Detroit the coolest place to live., which I assume is a goal.
The objective of course would be not just to get writers here from overpriced Philly and New York, but to convert other artists across the board into writers, as we were doing in Philadelphia-- and thereby spark a full-scale internationally known literary movement.
Does Detroit want this? Let me know.
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Why Detroit. . .
. . . NEEDS ITS OWN PUBLISHING INDUSTRY.
In downtown Detroit, a working class city with a collapsed educational system, at Borders bookstore in the Compuware building has stood for a week near the entrance a large display called "The Clique," for stacks of New York-produced books which celebrate not the values of Detroit, but of caste-based Manhattan, a city of extreme wealth, snobbery, and unprecedented inequality.
In downtown Detroit, a working class city with a collapsed educational system, at Borders bookstore in the Compuware building has stood for a week near the entrance a large display called "The Clique," for stacks of New York-produced books which celebrate not the values of Detroit, but of caste-based Manhattan, a city of extreme wealth, snobbery, and unprecedented inequality.
Monday, April 28, 2008
The Scapegoat Mayor
There's a relief and an eagerness about the Kwame Kilpatrick scandals. Things haven't been going well in this city-- for forty years. Suddenly the reason is found. There he is! Fingers pointing; the populace up in arms with pitchforks and torches like in a Frankenstein movie. After him! A culprit has been discovered who can now be blamed for Detroit's many problems. It's all Kwame's fault!
People seem to think we need, and can have, a Mr. Clean mayor on the order of Philadelphia's Michael Nutter, when Detroit's problems are way beyond that. With the city facing even the disintegration of infrastructure, from schools to firehouses, the only requirement now is a person of talent willing and able to turn the city's financial situation around. That's it. Personal corruptions in a crisis situation are irrelevant. The area do-gooders look to the mediocrities of City Council for a replacement, which is no solution at all.
********************************************************
Throughout the discussion about the mayor, the suburban/city, white-black divide in this area remains as subtext. How could it not?
The liberal media feeds into the Subtext with their headlines without context-- with illustrations of the city's failure which fail to mention real causes. The stories sustain the Subtext, this area's gigantic Godzilla monster which overshadows all. On a scale of 1 to 10 of metro area problems, mayoral corruption is a 3, auto company stagnation is a 20, and the racial divide is 100.
An irony is that the conservative business community better understands the importance of the core city. They know you cannot have a hole of devastation existing at the center of your metro area-- a vacuum into which all else will collapse. Or if you do have such a vacuum, and we do, you'd better find a way to "spin" it, to turn devastation-- grittiness; authenticity-- into a strength.
Which is where I come in.
People seem to think we need, and can have, a Mr. Clean mayor on the order of Philadelphia's Michael Nutter, when Detroit's problems are way beyond that. With the city facing even the disintegration of infrastructure, from schools to firehouses, the only requirement now is a person of talent willing and able to turn the city's financial situation around. That's it. Personal corruptions in a crisis situation are irrelevant. The area do-gooders look to the mediocrities of City Council for a replacement, which is no solution at all.
********************************************************
Throughout the discussion about the mayor, the suburban/city, white-black divide in this area remains as subtext. How could it not?
The liberal media feeds into the Subtext with their headlines without context-- with illustrations of the city's failure which fail to mention real causes. The stories sustain the Subtext, this area's gigantic Godzilla monster which overshadows all. On a scale of 1 to 10 of metro area problems, mayoral corruption is a 3, auto company stagnation is a 20, and the racial divide is 100.
An irony is that the conservative business community better understands the importance of the core city. They know you cannot have a hole of devastation existing at the center of your metro area-- a vacuum into which all else will collapse. Or if you do have such a vacuum, and we do, you'd better find a way to "spin" it, to turn devastation-- grittiness; authenticity-- into a strength.
Which is where I come in.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
East Coast Follies
THOSE who look in on my other blogs know I've been busy exposing the aristocratic focus of those who run U.S. print media from their Manhattan island. Entities like the Conde-Nast empire, which cranks out many millions of New Yorker Vogue GQ Vanity Fair et.al. magazines, are dominated by upper class Brits and wealthy east coast Ivy Leaguers. They know NOTHING about the rest of this country-- and don't want to know.
It's incumbent upon leaders in heartland cities like Detroit to redo their strategic thinking. To realize that the nation-- at least its D.C. and NYC power centers-- right now doesn't understand them, or care about them (largely disdains them) and will not grant them anything. In the new reality of the global economy, the thinking has to be in competing city vs. city-- until original American ideals are restored in this country. As long as Detroit is unable to create its own national media image, it's doomed to failure.
It's incumbent upon leaders in heartland cities like Detroit to redo their strategic thinking. To realize that the nation-- at least its D.C. and NYC power centers-- right now doesn't understand them, or care about them (largely disdains them) and will not grant them anything. In the new reality of the global economy, the thinking has to be in competing city vs. city-- until original American ideals are restored in this country. As long as Detroit is unable to create its own national media image, it's doomed to failure.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
New Hot Dog Vendor
SIGNS OF LIFE IN DOWNTOWN DETROIT
A hot dog stand has appeared downtown at Cass and Michigan, across Cass from the Federal Building. It's an open stand with an umbrella; is run by a black woman. Please frequent so we don't lose this hot dog stand!
A hot dog stand has appeared downtown at Cass and Michigan, across Cass from the Federal Building. It's an open stand with an umbrella; is run by a black woman. Please frequent so we don't lose this hot dog stand!
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Bizarro
WHEN ONE returns to Detroit after ten years living elsewhere, it's like entering a bizarro universe.
Case in point is the article in yesterday's Detroit Free Press by Dawson Bell, detailing how an already-broke Michigan state government will be paying out-of-state filmmakers huge sums of money to make movies here. On a $100 million flick, the state will pick up $40 million of the cost.
This would make sense only if the filmmakers were building infrastructure here-- such as soundstages-- and relocating lock, stock, and barrel, including offices, including headquarters. No mention of this in the article. Without this, as soon as the massive payoff ceases, the individual movies complete, the moviemakers are gone.
This project will be paid for by a state treasury which right now contains only dustballs.
(See www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/NEWS06/803310344&imw=Y)
Case in point is the article in yesterday's Detroit Free Press by Dawson Bell, detailing how an already-broke Michigan state government will be paying out-of-state filmmakers huge sums of money to make movies here. On a $100 million flick, the state will pick up $40 million of the cost.
This would make sense only if the filmmakers were building infrastructure here-- such as soundstages-- and relocating lock, stock, and barrel, including offices, including headquarters. No mention of this in the article. Without this, as soon as the massive payoff ceases, the individual movies complete, the moviemakers are gone.
This project will be paid for by a state treasury which right now contains only dustballs.
(See www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/NEWS06/803310344&imw=Y)
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