Building the Civic 'Net

Meadow Brook Hall Young Writers Camp

2009-07-01T11:11:00.002-04:00

The Meadow Brook Writing Project's first week-long camp for young writers at Meadow Brook Hall is now complete. Two more sessions for children between 3rd and 6th grades are set for July 6 - 10 and July 20 - 24.

With the help of their grant from Building the Civic 'Net, project leaders have so far produced two videos available here for your viewing pleasure.

This first video gives an overview of the program:

This second video focuses on a day in the life of camp attendees:

Introduction to "Building the Civic 'Net"

2009-05-28T11:30:00.008-04:00

"Building the Civic 'Net" is a philanthropic initiative sponsored by the Village Square blog and the Village of Rochester Hills. We are currently introducing our first group of four grantees at the Village Square blog.

"Building the Civic 'Net" awards grants to institutions, organizations and or individuals in Rochester Hills and the surrounding areas that propose a creative way to use social media to improve our shared public life. We define social media as a participatory use of the Internet through interactive forums such as a web log (blog), or online service such as twitter, facebook, youtube, flickr, etc.

These grants aim to help catalyze a larger opportunity for Northern Oakland County. With the closing of the Rochester Observer and Eccentric, we believe it is more important than ever that communities use new tools to inform themselves and one another in new ways. We call upon a wide variety of civic, cultural, and educational leaders to pioneer the use of social media to support their missions, build community, and deliver important information to their constituents. If this were to happen, this array of institutions could then form multiple inter-connected hubs online. The sum of the parts would inform, strengthen the ties that bind, and enhance the quality of life for local residents. It might also make Northern Oakland County into a vibrant hub for innovation and experimentation in the local use of social media to enhance the standard of living.

Our hope is that current and future “Building the Civic 'Net” grantees will help the communities of Northern Oakland County pursue this goal of innovation.

Participate in the Building the Civic 'Net initiative by joining our facebook group.

You can also follow us on Twitter.

Detroit Public Television & Digital Content Strategy

2009-04-16T09:56:00.009-04:00

Given on-going travails in the newspaper business, Detroit Public Television has an opening to step up its game.

Newspapers are sanctioned in the U.S. constitution as a great search light, a critical check in our democracy on government and other powerful local stake-holders. Yet The Detroit Free Press and Detroit News cut home delivery to three days per week. The Observer & Eccentric Newspapers closed five local editions, including Birmingham, Rochester, Troy, West Bloomfield, and Southfield.

With these institutions battered and weakened by the ‘Net, it is imperative that other institutions emerge to ensure the health of local democracy in new ways. Some of these can and must grow organically out of the creative capacities unleashed by the ‘Net. Nimble old institutions intent on reinvention, though, also have tremendous new opportunities to contribute.

It’s not clear in this topsy turvy media landscape that DPTV can emerge free and healthy. Old institutions in the digital age, with all of their legacy assets and liabilities, can struggle to choose a path free and clear to a prosperous future. The newspaper business has learned this. The Detroit automobile companies, with their vast dealer networks, health plans, and pension funds, also understand how burdensome legacies are.

Some of DPTV's assets are favorable, though. First, DPTV has approximately 1.6 mm viewers; a solid foundation built over decades. Second, DPTV is locally connected, in an era when local content and voices are badly needed; yet they can also draw on strong national resources. Third, DPTV is a non-profit institution. The problem for commercial newspapers and broadcasters is that the ‘Net and digital technology have killed their business models. They are increasingly unviable financially. DPTV’s hurdle to cover costs is less because it doesn’t have to answer to profit-seeking shareholders or equity investors. The metric against which DPTV measures success, how well it fulfills its public mission, is cheaper. Some in Congress are exploring non-profit models for the newspaper industry; but DPTV is already there.

To emerge into the future as a strong and vital organization, it is necessary for leaders at DPTV to focus on two specific short term strategies. These must be coupled with a critical medium to long-term strategy.

First, DPTV must protect and nurture its main asset; the broadcast stream and its 1.6 mm person audience. This is the vital anchor. One problem, however, is that a large percentage of these viewers are older. They aren’t well connected to the ‘Net. As the group ages, it will deteriorate through attrition. The people will be replaced by an audience with consumer usage patterns transformed by social media. If DPTV pursues this as a stand alone strategy, the 1.6 mm person audience will slowly evaporate.

Second, DPTV must invest as heavily as possible in a ‘Net infrastructure tilted to social media. The emphasis should be, first, on the exploitation of free applications such as youtube, google, blogger, facebook and twitter; second, on the purchase of low cost production and distribution technologies; and, third, on investment in a broad array of semi-affiliated content creators, as well as user-generated content.

The users of social media are different than the audience for the TV station. It is a younger demographic, and therefore more culturally progressive. For this reason these efforts should, in the near term, be considered a separate venture. It is a major but necessary investment without an immediate and commensurate return. Such an investment is as critical to the future of DPTV as the Volt is to the future of General Motors.

To emerge in the future as a vital service for local communities, DPTV needs to keep a close eye on medium and long-term strategy. Most young professionals using social media will choose a partner, buy a house, have some kids and become the older audience that has long been served so well by DPTV's Channel 56. A re-christened Detroit Public Media must hustle, as soon as this can be made to happen, to square the circle between the powerful broadcast stream and the new social media ventures. If the station leadership and the Board can maintain the discipline to patiently execute this natural but extended process of convergence over a number of years, than Detroit Public Media can emerge into a radically altered media landscape as a valued service provider for local communities across South-East Michigan

Building the Civic 'Net

2009-03-10T15:34:00.006-04:00

The Village Square blog, an online service hosted by the Village of Rochester Hills, is sponsoring “Building the Civic ‘Net”; a philanthropic program committed to support local social media projects in the public interest.

Two times per year the program will award a grant of $3,000 to an institution, organization or individual that proposes a creative way to use social media to improve our shared public life.

They're taking proposals on how you will use social media on the Web for the public interest of a local community near Rochester Hills, MI. Demonstrate how your project will do one or several of the following:

• Foster entrepreneurship and corporate innovation
• Nurture, protect or teach our children
• Promote lifelong learning
• Build healthier, safer, more vibrant communities
• Provide goods or services to the less fortunate
• Strengthen our civic institutions
• Strengthen our creative culture
• Deepen our individual connections in our communities

Detroit Public TV in the digital age

2008-09-04T10:18:00.004-04:00

Online e-zine Metromode has recently published an excellent profile of new DPTV CEO Rich Homberg. Here's an except explaining some of Homberg's vision for the station:

"Detroit Public Television will involve considerably more community engagement, as the station plays the role of "collaborator, catalyst, co-conspirator, storyteller. … how to help tell a story, how to capture it, how to edit it, how to post it," says Homberg. "That's a new role for us. "Right now we only see ourselves as a big TV station. Documentary is really an important thing that we do, but a lot of times you need start as little TV," with programs that may not be scripted but evolve into something significant. Invariably there are surprising twists and turns.

Homberg anticipates stronger public affairs programming and community engagement, he says. "It probably starts on the Internet and ramps up over time and always offers more depth, longer versions, more content."

It's not just the content, but also the content's influence on the community that interests Homberg. It's this sense of corporate responsibility that impressed Dan Krichbaum, while he was president of the Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion.

"Rich brings a passion about improving Metro Detroit," says Krichbaum, who now is COO for the State of Michigan. "He will get very involved in civic leadership. I would look also for more programming focused on educational, economic, and other issues that are critical to get people and organizations working together more cooperatively. He will bring great creativity to helping media of different sorts combine their offerings and reach larger audiences. Look, also, for more emphasis on diversity and inclusion as Rich has a good understanding (of their importance)."

Crain's Detroit Business: "Use the new media to inform"

2008-08-14T11:08:00.001-04:00

Hey Everybody,

Crain’s Detroit Business published in the August 11, 2008 issue my letter to the Editor, “Use the new media to inform”:

I’ve included the text below.

Cheers,

Scott

--------------------

Editor:

It's sad to watch The Detroit News struggle, though it's happening to local newspapers across the country. To simplify Bill Shea's excellent July 7 article (“More bad news for The News”), Internet sites such as Craigslist are starting to dominate the market for local classified advertising. Publishers have to make up for the losses by decreasing news and increasing advertising within the paper. The resulting degradation of the news product fosters a vicious negative cycle that depresses the valuation of the asset and creates financial jeopardy.

Such a course of events in local news is particularly damaging here because good, deep coverage is the life-blood of a desperately needed, vibrant civic culture.

Now here's the rub: The counter-trend to the demise of the newspaper is the rise of the Internet. The shift in power from one to the other is the primary reason that clumsy media companies such as Gannett are in trouble in the first place. The problem in Michigan is greater than elsewhere because, for whatever reason, innovation in local news and information over the Internet using the Web, blogging, YouTube, and social networking sites like Facebook lags other states and metropolitan areas.

Because a vibrant civic culture is critical here, those that care about Michigan can and must make a major push to enable and encourage citizens to inform one another through “self-generating content” platforms such as blogs and social networking sites. Investment of time, energy and resources by civic, political and business leaders into this sector will foster the critical new media ecology for our state. Such investment will pay off by spurring on a vibrant civic culture that serves the information needs of our local democracy despite the unfortunate demise of competitive markets for local newspapers.

Scott Aikens
Birmingham

Manchester, England is a good example for Detroit, Michigan

2008-06-19T16:53:00.004-04:00

mediacity:uk
Originally uploaded by GScott

Recently I watched the movie 24 Hour Party People which is as much about regeneration in Manchester, England as about anything else. Manchester is another leading example of an important industrial hub that, like Detroit, fell on hard times. The movie shows a slice of how it subsequently reinvented itself by exploiting impressive assets such as its architecture, an enduring brand, and artistic talent (not to mention a thriving sports culture).

Detroit has a dated but once glamorous brand that’s similar to Manchester’s, and a pristine stock of mid-20th Century architecture. The metro’s also the place of origin for premier artistic talents such as Jack and Meg White, Marshall Mathers, Madonna Ciccone and Stevie Wonder. Like Manchester it also has a thriving sports culture. So, what’s stopping Detroit from navigating a path like Manchester has? Nothing!

In fact, an old friend and colleague of mine is heavily involved with the BBC’s major new MediaCity:UK project being developed on Manchester’s waterfront, the Salford Quays. This is another inspiring example for Detroit; and deserves closer scrutiny.

Civic group Detroit Renaissance publishes important new report on "Creative Business Accelorator Strategies".

2008-06-19T14:06:00.005-04:00

Detroit Renaissance recently published an important report exploring how other communities such as Orlando, London and Charlotte set up “creative incubators” to spur innovation through networking and support of start-ups. Check it out.

E-Democracy & Michigan

2008-05-01T15:22:00.001-04:00

On Monday, March 28th the Board at the Birmingham Community House agreed to invest in a partnership with e-democracy.org to develop an Online Issues Forum for Birmingham / Bloomfield Hills. The Online Issues Forum is like an electronic town hall in a local community that allows citizens to engage in a civil discourse about relevant local issues with stake-holders in government, the school board, the library board, in the media, and others. This is an exciting development and I'm eager to dig in and help the project evolve over the next year.

Roman columns in Corktown

2008-05-01T15:19:00.003-04:00

Roman columns in Corktown
Originally uploaded by GScott

I really like this picture of a building in the Corktown area of Detroit. The building appears to have fallen on hard times, but it's also full of energy and fun.

Corktown Mural

2008-05-01T15:18:00.005-04:00

Corktown Mural
Originally uploaded by GScott

This is a cool mural found on one of the buildings along Michigan Avenue in Corktown.

The Olde Tigers Stadium

2008-05-01T15:18:00.004-04:00

The Olde Tigers Stadium
Originally uploaded by GScott

The old stadium used to be the "anchor tenant" in Corktown. The stadium's been abondoned now, but the area is working to keep itself vibrant as a funky arts district.

L.J.'s Lounge in Corktown

2008-05-01T15:17:00.002-04:00

L.J.'s Lounge in Corktown
Originally uploaded by GScott

The fourth photo in my series of images of Corktown focuses on the street-level advertising at Wabash Street and Michigan Avenue.

Michigan E-Democracy

2008-04-23T14:36:00.004-04:00

[This article was first published as an opinion piece in Crain's Detroit Business]

I was one of those Michigan kids that journalists have written about so much lately. I couldn't wait to leave South-Eastern Michigan after graduating from U of M in 1988 for exotic locales such as, in my case, Manhattan, New York, Cambridge, England, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and San Francisco, California. Like so many others, apparently, I felt that I was growing up in a bland, suburban waste-land. So I set out in search of that something that was missing.

I've returned to Michigan now at the age of 40, and the region is clearly on the ropes. There are many jobs to be done here, not least of which pertains to the economic dysfunction of the automobile business. When things are truly dim, though, political energy can often flow to out-of-the-box ideas that can pay serious dividends over the course of many decades.

Civic, business and media leaders are correctly, in my opinion, identifying the need for robust new civic infrastructure as a long-term well-spring for regional cooperation, creative energy, and youthful entrepreneurship. Having been deeply involved for over a decade with civic initiatives in several high functioning communities, I can tell you that nurturing a culture of civic creativity is the ticket in the long term for retaining more of our own talented children, as well as for attracting dynamic new people from across the world to set up shop here.

More specifically, I urge leaders to consider the idea of creating and implementing a robust e-democracy strategy for the State of Michigan.
E-democracy is the effort to harness the digital revolution to deepen civic life in a geographic community. E-democracy is one cutting-edge area of public policy in which Michigan can seek to lead, and in so doing, set up the seeds for a profound shift over the course of decades for the better in our civic culture.

Of course, Michigan would not be alone. Minnesota, for its part, is commonly regarded as a world leader in e-democracy, as well as in civic culture in general. In fact, when I went there in 1994 to research the impact of the Internet on politics for my Ph.D., I found there what my home – the Detroit area - had led me to yearn for, a deep sense of civic engagement. One also finds in Minneapolis and St. Paul a vibrant youth culture, a huge variety of cultural institutions, and a strong base of entrepreneurial businesses. These good things are built generation after generation on the back of this engagement.

E-democracy.org started in Minnesota in 1994 with the first interactive political Web site, the first U.S. Senate e-debate, and the first community Issues Forum, Minnesota Politics. That august beginning has yielded Issues forums in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Roseville, Winona, Northfield, and Duluth. It has inspired innovation by media companies across the Twin Cities, as well as spawned a robust constituency of citizen journalists that operate their own blogs, pod-casts, YouTube Videos, and Web sites.

I am convinced that a careful process to develop an e-democracy strategy, and a modest investment in Michigan by civic and business leaders in a number of carefully thought out seed-beds can over many years blossom into a rich stew of nutritious and creative self-expression. With good fortune, whole new systems can emerge over time that enrichen our thinking as a community by deepening the analysis of our political and media expressions.

I know too well that this thinking is a world away in Michigan from business as usual. But business here is not so good. This place should think different. Give people what they yearn for before kids leave to find it elsewhere.

Winter in Birmingham, Michigan

2008-04-21T09:56:00.005-04:00

winterinbham3, originally uploaded by GScott.

Here's another image of the deep freeze in Birmingham, MI during Winter 06 / 07.

Detroit Basketball: A lesson in civic entrepreneurship

2008-04-21T09:36:00.005-04:00

[Ed - This article was first published in the June 2006 issue of Crain's Detroit Business]

Pistons President Joe Dumars and owner William Davidson should be given honorary doctorates from the Harvard School of Public Policy. At Harvard, after all, a group of professors focus on connections between civic engagement and long-term prosperity. Right now, the Detroit Pistons are staging a clinic on this topic worthy of a Ph.D..

Here's how, in five steps, the Pistons have made this connection.

First, if talented people subordinate their egos for the greater good, a powerful and dynamic culture can emerge. This culture of sacrifice for the group is civic in the finest sense. Time and again, Dumars and Davidson have made tough decisions to nurture this culture. Most recently, Dumars dealt away Darko Milicic. While very talented, Milicic was not patient enough to work within the culture and earn time. Dumars would not force the issue. According to Dumars, "You lose all the credibility of what you're trying to build with a coach and environment if you start doing stuff like that."

Second, the output of this culture can be a marketable commodity. One sees the result clearly on the floor at the Palace almost every game in the extra pass by Billups, the extra block by Prince, or the extra rebound by Wallace. These men trust each other and their environment.
This trust has given the team an extra gear, which allows them to accelerate the game beyond the reach of frustrated opponents and brilliant stars such as LeBron James.

Third, team success leads to individual successes. Four Piston starters, for example, made this year's NBA All-Star squad. Individual success also operates in more fulfilling ways. Because of how these men conduct themselves, each will be treated around Michigan as a civic hero. Not only does this open many doors, it is also personally fulfilling. The lesson here is this: A strong CIVIC culture breeds success and leads to a thick network of connections in the community.

Fourth, this culture attracts people like a magnet. Players want the discipline of the culture in order to earn the rewards. Tayshaun Prince, for example, didn't pursue a maximum salary when he was a popular free agent last summer. He must feel that he is positioned here to receive richer rewards than the extra millions from a maximum contract. Joe Dumars, in fact, no longer seems to have problems luring top talent to Detroit. No problem attracting talent to Detroit?

Fifth, the connection between civic culture and success is inter-generational. This aspect creates the opportunity for long-term prosperity. Past champions Joe Dumars, Bill Laimbeer, and Rick Mahorn all work for the Pistons. When the current players are middle-aged men, they will in turn be the well-educated human assets that drive the culture forward.

Harvard Professor Robert Putnam has studied the connection between civic culture and prosperity for decades. In the 1970's he studied Italian city-states such as Bologna, where local self-government and civic republicanism were born during the middle ages. He realized that these communities had track records of success that spanned centuries, and he documented how this on-going success emerges from great civic culture.

The Pistons have staged a brilliant local demonstration of this connection for everyone in South-Eastern Michigan. The lessons need to be applied broadly.

Urban Planet in Grand Rapids, Michigan

2008-04-18T09:27:00.007-04:00

Rapid Growth is a great Web site in Grand Rapids, MI, that focuses on development and the built environment. Lately, they've been producing a series of videos about cool things around town.

For example, check out this video about Urban Planet. It's a new media community that uses the Internet to help folks discuss community issues similar to those that Rapid Growth focuses on. Urban Planet is based in North Carolina, but the Grand Rapids community is one of the largest in the country with over 250 users, 2100 conversation topics, and 70,000 replies. Perhaps, most importantly, as you'll see in this video, the social media site is also spurring face-to-face gatherings.

Winter in Birmingham, MI

2008-04-18T09:24:00.004-04:00

winterinbham1, originally uploaded by GScott.

While this picture was taken a couple years ago, Michigan was pounded again and again this year with snow. For the past couple of weeks, though, the weather's been great, and nothing beats Michigan in the summer!

Art Bus

2008-04-12T20:29:00.007-04:00

artyschoolbus, originally uploaded by GScott.

I saw this art bus on a random corner lot in downtown Detroit. The area around the bus seemed to be pretty barren and burnt out. It was a pleasure to me to come across something so cool driving through the neighborhood.

1568 Windsor Street

2008-04-12T20:25:00.005-04:00

detroitmural, originally uploaded by GScott.

Occasionally, I like to post to my blog images of civic art. This is a mural over the entry-way to an apartment building near the Eastern Market in Detroit, MI.

The Village of Orchard Hills

2008-02-27T14:32:00.002-05:00

We've created a new blog (The VOOH!) to keep the metropolitan area of Grand Rapids, MI, the community of national retailers, and other interested parties informed about Western Michigan's first mainstreet lifestyle center: the Village of Orchard Hills.

My current update referenced a recent news article in the Grand Rapids Press about a decision by the Planning Commission in Grand Rapids Township to decrease the project size by 11 acres.

The Built Environment and the Internet

2007-11-28T15:59:00.001-05:00

I've been mulling over a theoretical question since becoming more involved in land development a couple years ago. To what are new technologies actually fueling the changing approaches communities in America are taking to the built environment?

Right now we're experiencing multi-layered and fascinating movements in architecture, building, and development. These connected movements are variously called new urbanism, multi-use development, life-style center development, urban villages, etc. The common thread is that developers are seeking to summon in the locality a sense of place.

What are the variables that are driving private markets to quickly pick up and drive forward such trends? I wrote about this more extensively recently in my blog. In brief, Americans have grown up. We’ve traveled to Europe. More of us want the mix of uses we find in the ancient European high-street and boulevard. We, as communities, are finding our voices.

So, what role is the revolution in technology playing at the grassroots level to help us find our voices and increase the velocity of change? After all, these technologies are now pervasive in the day-to-day and even minute-to-minute lives of citizens. Citizens have the means through e-mail and the web to quickly network on behalf of causes.

This, I argue, is having an impact at the local level in how folks are networking within municipalities to impact the process of planning and development.

Here’s an example: Someone I know posted the design criteria several years ago for a high end lifestyle center on a public Web site. This design criteria subsequently was used at a number of city council meetings in far-flung constituencies where new big box retail strips were being “debated”. The citizen-activists presented the criteria downloaded from the Web at the meetings and demanded that the developers and the city use such criteria rather than other than the same old sprawl.

Here’s another similar example sent to me by Professor Andrea Kavanagh at Virginia Tech. In Blacksburg, VA, a group is using the web to organize the community to fight the development of a new Walmart big box center. Check out Citizens First for yourselves.

These are just two examples. But how pervasive is this phenomena? Folks in the development community are increasingly concerned about the ability of citizens at the grass-roots level to organize resistance to development. My theory is that the new technologically mediated neural membrane connecting us to the meta-social is having a profound impact on driving this concern. The dramatic and pervasive up-tick in organized and effective resistance at the local level is becoming an increasingly important factor in the choices of local politicians and, therefore, developers. The up-tick is forcing stake-holders to adopt more dialogic methodologies to achieve goals. As such, it’s much easier now for a developer to promote themselves as developing a place that will be embraced by the community. They need to do this to innoculate themselves from the resistance they've come to expect, so as to get the necessary zoning changes pushed through municipal government.

A New Vision for Detroit Public Television?

2007-11-14T11:14:00.002-05:00

On Tuesday, April 25, Detroit Public Televison Chariman Steven Strome announced the resignation of President and CEO Steven Antoniotti. The search for a new CEO and President at the station presents an historic opportunity for south-eastern Michigan. The Board at Detroit Public Television is in a position to realize this opportunity. The opportunity is open because the U.S. public media system today is at a critical juncture, hanging precipitously between the old world of television and the new world of broadband connectivity.

The revolution in social computing technologies is currently forcing a profound transformation in our world’s communications systems. Booming businesses such as Apple, My Space, Yahoo!, and You Tube give billions the tools to create and publish advanced media content at little cost. The rich and bloated system of broadcast media, especially television broadcasting, has an opportunity to be incredibly innovative given the new economics.

Detroit Public Media has an exciting opportunity to hire an executive who can forge an exciting new vision—to create content partnerships with more of our major cultural, civic, and educational institutions and to leverage the assets of our local communities. Indeed, in order for the non-profit broadcasting sector to thrive, it must collaborate operationally and financially with existing institutions that can help it deliver high-quality local content to its viewers. Futhermore, it needs to broaden its strategy for delivering this content to include platforms such as cable, computer, audio, cell phone, or Blackberry technologies. Finally, Detroit Public Media should begin to offer venues to deliver user-generated content—a strategy that will simultaneously broaden their audience and will stimulate community growth.

Detroit Public Media might look to Cleveland for a model of how some of these innovations can be implemented. In the late 90’s, Jerry Wareham, the President and CEO of Cleveland’s IdeaStream, along with his colleague Kit Jensen, merged a public radio affiliate and a public television affiliate into a single, unified local public media enterprise. Their team then initiated The Listening Project, in which the station facilitated on-going community-wide conversations on the health of Cleveland, and on how cultural institutions could improve the quality of life. By 2004, Wareham and Jensen had raised enough money to create the Idea Center at Playhouse Square, a state-of-the-art headquarters in the theatre district with fiber connectivity and media access ports. IdeaStream is now forging content partnerships with technologists, schools and universities, theatre and arts groups, philanthropists, corporations, and civic organizations. They are funding and producing programs and services that solve problems identified through The Listening Project, and are in turn changing the cultural environment of Cleveland.

Cleveland is not alone in experimenting with the format of Public Broadcasting. Communities in states as wide-spread as Washington DC, Connecticut, Minnesota, and California are also broadening their reach and their influence. The Board at Detroit Public Media has an exciting opportunity, and a civic responsibility, to seek a new leader who is innovative and eager to integrate new strategies into the mission of the organization. Under the right leadership, Detroit Public Media can make a huge contribution to the educational, cultural and civic life of Michigan for years to come.

Article on Trends in Real Estate Development

2007-10-12T09:53:00.001-04:00

Southeast Michigan is a suburban metropolis. Although we should continue to improve downtown Detroit and make it a crown jewel unto itself, the fact remains that approximately 83% percent of metropolitan Detroit residents live outside city lines. One way to promote well-being as well as growth across the metropolis is to nurture and create many great places. As Sherri Begin wrote in the June 4th edition of Crain’s, "…young people … are making decisions (on where to live) based on … the environment, sustainability, walkability, the opportunity to interact with other people and the quality of life."

Fortunately, there’s currently an expanding movement in the planning, design and development communities. Whether it’s ‘traditional neighborhood development’ promoted by the ‘New Urbanists’ or ‘main-street lifestyle centers’ and ‘multi-use town-centers’ on drawing boards at developers’ offices nationwide, Americans are transforming the built environment in profound ways.

What I’m talking about is this: Have you ever been to Europe? When you walk through an old European town you stroll down a magical high-street or boulevard that supports a bustling mix of shops, cafes, and flats. The combination of commercial, residential, and leisure establishments in one area creates dynamic places.

Today both young and old Americans are more sophisticated than they used to be. They’ve traveled to Europe. They’re demanding better places.

Big money is getting behind these changes. General Growth Properties, for example, is the nation’s second largest shopping center owner. At a May conference for New Urbanists in Philadelphia, GGP’s head of development, Thomas D’ Alesandro IV, said that “going forward, (GGP) is going to be a different company”. He foresees “the reinvention of existing malls into mixed-use centers”. This strategic shift is framed as a response to evolving living patterns and opposition to sprawl.

Despite Michigan’s current economic woes, good things are already happening. General Growth itself is creating the Shoppes at Gateway Park at 8 Mile and Woodward in Detroit. They’re marketing this urban project as a main-street lifestyle center, similar to the Village of Rochester Hills, the first of its kind in Michigan, developed by Robert B. Aikens & Associates, LLC in 2002. The Village, after five years in operation, is currently welcoming to its mix the national power-house Whole Foods. Players like Whole Foods move in because the people they want to associate with are already there. People are there because the development functions in ways like a traditional town square. Taubman Centers, based in Bloomfield Hills, will in October be opening an open air center, the Mall at Partridge Creek, in Macomb County. With this development, another major national player may be stoking the flames of change.

Downtown mixed-use projects, such as the new Burton-Katzman building in Birmingham and the many new loft projects in Royal Oak, are also important harbingers in this area of wider trends. These two villages provide excellent examples of how traditional downtowns can update themselves while maintaining their charm.

So, what do successful projects like these teach us? Great places are places that make a variety of people happy. The design attracts the people, the people attract the retailers and restaurants, and the total package generates energy. The energy can be invested back into the place to make it even better. That’s what Michigan needs.

First entry to my new blog

2007-10-12T09:52:00.000-04:00

Since the early 90's I've been a participant and keen observer of 'civic culture'. Global forces always push the evolution of the social fabric. I would argue, though, that the strength of forces acting on civic culture as we evolve into the 21st Century are particularly strong. This blog will feature my observations, as practioner and critic. The topics that I will primarilly focus on include the re-shaping of our built environment and local communities, and the impact of digital technologies on community life.