Have recent developments in Detroit slipped from your mind? Model D has recounted many of the major advances in the past year in its 16 Sweet Developments in Detroit. They include the RiverWalk, Dequindre Cut, Rosa Parks Transit Center, the Eastern Market expansion, Grandmont Rosedale Dev. Corp.’s new office on Grand River Avenue, new stores like Bureau of Urban Living, Mezzanine, and Design 99, and of course Zaccaro’s Market, restaurants and bars like the upcoming Woodbridge Pub (they have a myspace page) and Mercury Cafe , D’Mongo’s, Mudgie’s, El Barzon, and Shield’s and Angelina’s downtown, South University Village, the casinos and hotels. Also there are the many new art offerings from the Hatch HQ in Hamtramck, the new Detroit Institute of Art, MOCAD, and CAID, all of which have added space or changed drastically.
“Pay as you drive” insurance may become commonplace in Detroit someday. But will Detroit be prepared?
PAYD means that the more you drive the more you pay for insurance and conversely the less you drive the more you save on insurance. Like having to pay for gas and, to some extent, more maintenance on a car this rewards those who drive less, those who live closer to their jobs. Some cities already implement this by including insurance into the price of a gallon of gas. Now GMAC and Progressive Insurance are offering these insurance plans to even more people by placing hardware in each car that will report how many miles you drive. If many people who drive less than average switch to these plans and save money than those left on the normal plans will find that they have to pay more and will have to consider driving less in order to reduce their insurance rates. Are you prepared for that?
To many people the urban farming and agriculture movement in Detroit is invisible. Sometimes it’s a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees or in this case the gardens for the plants. But the Garden Resource Program Collaborative website does a pretty good job of being a center of urban agriculture in Detroit and what a great way to learn where to find more information about the large gardening movement in Detroit. As they say:
The Garden Resource Program is an effort to provide hundreds of home, school and community gardens access to resources and information in order to empower Detroit residents to grow, harvest, prepare, and preserve food for their families in their backyards and neighborhoods. Participants in the program receive basic resources for their garden, including seeds and Detroit grown transplants. Participants also become part of a growing network of community, school and family gardeners and garden advocates working to promote and encourage urban agriculture and community gardening across the city. Through participation in this larger network, gardeners gain access to additional resources, technical assistance, and educational opportunities.
There are over 220 family gardens, 115 community gardens and 20 schools in the Garden Resource Program.
Participants of the Garden Resource Program are invited and encouraged to participate in one of 6 Garden cluster groups, which are based on geographic region within the city of Detroit. The purpose of the cluster groups is to connect gardeners and urban farmers living and working in the same area of the city in order to provide a support network and access to additional resources.
These Detroit urban agriculture and community garden programs are a collaborative effort brought to you by the Detroit Agriculture Network, The Greening of Detroit, Capuchin Soup Kitchen’s Earthworks Garden and Michigan State University Extension.
Lee Arthur has left a couple very long comments on a post that was originally about the movie Sicko. But his comments speak to homelessness and many of Detroit’s other serious problems having roots in race and a media bias against Detroit that continues today, even perpetuated by those who will indirectly or directly suffer from it. And did you know that Detroit was responsible for two of New York City’s most famous skyscrapers that are still standing. Yes, not only the Chrysler building but the Empire State Building as well. You can read his comments here.
Some of the best views of Detroit can only be seen from airplane, at least until Windsor builds a super tall skyscraper. Some recent aerial views of Detroit can be found here, including a slice of Windsor and a clear view of just how long and straight Grand River Avenue is. Also shown is nearby Point Pelee, the southernmost point in Canada!
When talking about moving to downtown Detroit the question often comes up of where you can do your grocery shopping. There is always CVS, various delis, and corner stores where you can get your fresh milk or eggs but now there is a more definitive answer for where you would walk to to get all of your groceries in one place. After a long wait Zaccaro’s has opened in Brush Park on Woodward Avenue and Watson. Many downtown Detroit residents can now say simply that they no longer have to drive to do their grocery shopping, even though they can, like their suburban counterparts.
For fresh produce another obvious choice is the Eastern Market where you’ll not only find the largest farmer’s market in the Midwest and one of the oldest in the nation (since 1891) but numerous small stores which fill various niches like spices and other bulk dry goods, delis for meats and cheeses, fish and wine, etc. Eastern Market has been undergoing many changes such as a move to somewhat privatize it, renovating the sheds, increasing the hours of operation for the farmers market, and opening the Eastern Market Welcome Center. The district is located northeast of downtown so if you follow Gratiot out of the central business district, after you go over the highway turn left on Russell and you’ll find yourself in the heart of the market.
There’s also a great choice for grocery shopping on the near Southwest side of the city around where Corktown and Mexicantown meet on Bagley at 18th St. on the east side of I-75 and the Ambassador Bridge. It’s the Honey Bee Market (La Colmena). And another nearby good sized grocery store is the Harbortown Market on East Jefferson (Harbortown).
No seating except at the bar next door so if you’re coming for lunch expected to carry out. Well, you can eat there if you want but there’s only a couple seats at the counter.
Definitely get the shwarma. And if you like curly fries a small order of those is a huge amount.
Metromode Two Wheel Revolution
Ann Arbor: a 2006 Bicycling Top 21 city for cyclists and a designated Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists, still is just under 3% for its bicycle commuting rate although locals wish to change that.
Ferndale: the city has a new bike way network with 3.5 miles of bike lanes and more to come.
more blog results for bikes
When isn’t money on our minds? While there is still half a month left before you have to file taxes you might be salivating over the economic stimulus check for $600 that is supposed to come by summertime. Let’s make sure you and everybody else in Michigan gets theirs. All you need is $3000 in income of just about any kind from last year and you’ll have to file taxes even if you normally don’t have to. You can even do this online for free on the IRS website. These tax rebates will start coming to our mailboxes in May based on the last two digits of the filer’s social security number.
The Southeast Michigan Regional Asset Building Coalition will host an “Economic Stimulus Payment Day” from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at the St. John’s Episcopal Church, next to Comerica Park, at 50 E. Fisher Freeway in Detroit.
The Detroit office of the IRS also will have hours from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at 477 Michigan Ave., which is the McNamara Federal Building.
I’ve been looking around for Detroit-related blogs and I’ve found a couple that are obviously set up as spam/automated sites, not very good ones either. I don’t want to actually link to them since that would help them but this is what they look like: the domain names and in detroitmi.us, they are very generic WordPress with the default theme, they take summaries of articles about Detroit from other sites and then add random text that repeats what I assume are high-value keywords, like healthcare, travel and tourism, hotels and real estate… and boat shows? The summaries are often nonsensical and definitely generated by software, but I wonder what this is really all about.
