Detroit 20 years from now?

[TVN]

Hello from Denmark ;-)

Richard Florida predict Detroit to be potiential attractive city for new creative activity:

Question how could it influence the image and development?


Quote:
Creative class hero and Atlantic Senior Editor Richard Florida debuted the second of five videos produced for the Detroit Rising series yesterday. The first feature for The Atlantic Cities website set the tone with Florida saying, "It is not like there was any big government plan to remake Detroit. In fact, most government plans hurt the city over time. It's really the efforts of creative people." With the release of this week's installment, we see Florida get a little deeper into his creative class theories. Episode 2 is titled Detroit's Creative Potential and has Florida respond to the question: How to get people to move into Detroit?

I don't think we have to convince more young people to move to Detroit. I think it's already happening and the people who want to be here are here and finding it . . . I think what Detroit offers is for young people or interesting people or engaged people — artists, innovators, musicians, designers, city-builders, place-makers — it offers something for them, and it doesn't have to advertise. It'll just happen.
So basically Florida is taking a very Zen-like it's-already-happening-so-let-it-happen approach, which sounds good to us. Past official attempts to dole out "Cool City" designations does not a cool city make. We also get to watch Florida list all of Detroit's music legends, which isn't all that exciting, but we'd be lying if we said it didn't warm our Detroit music hearts a little when he throws Liverpool, Leeds, and Manchester under the bus while doing so. Still, nothing groundbreaking here but we'll tune in next week to see what's next.

[Pilliod Njaim]

I think Detroit will level off at 500,000 people and have a slight rebound from there. I do agree the tech industry will grow large there, and I think the auto industry will continue to maintain a big presence. Metro Detroit has a massive STEM presence that will lead to more start-ups. Detroit's downtown, riverfront, Woodward corridor, and Mexicantown will see the most development. You will also see some growth in Dearborn, Hamtramck, and other urban inner ring suburbs.

One major ace in the deck Detroit has is an arts community that is much larger than in other Rust Belt cities. It has maintained a lot of top notch music venues, clubs, galleries, etc. The high brow market has survived against the odds in Detroit where it has died out in most other Rust Belt cities. The arts scene is no doubt a major selling point, and a lot of big musicians from Detroit still live in the area! That's rare. In other cities, they usually end up moving to New York or LA. Another thing to note is that Detroit is by far the hub of Arab America. That gives it a cultural edge that is often overlooked. As a Lebanese person, there are only a few cities I've found a good quality, authentic Lebanese scene. It's Detroit, Toledo, Windsor, and a few other Canadian cities.

[Pilliod Njaim]

I don't think we have to convince more young people to move to Detroit.

Detroit does need to worry about the pitfalls of attracting the wrong types of young people. Detroit should focus on talented engineers, talented software developers, talented artists, and socially adept entrepreneurs while trying to avoid the hipsters. If it attracts too many hipsters and not enough talent, it could end up going down the path of Portland. Yeah, Portland still looks great compared to the Rust Belt, but it's not San Francisco or Seattle. The economy is much different and it got hit hard by the recession (though obviously not nearly as bad as Detroit, Toledo, Flint, etc.). It's easy for cities to attract the wrong types of young creatives, and this can lead to economic limbo or even decline. Richard Florida overlooks this stuff. The creative economy hasn't saved America by a longshot, it just has led to a few gentrified cities...sometimes hyper-gentrification that cancels out any economic gains.

That's something the Rust Belt needs to avoid since it has already seen so much economic disaster over the decades. Detroit is becoming a clean slate. What happens in the next decade could define its next century.