Detroit's Audacity of Hope.

Is it weird that both Violet and I have been thinking way too much about Detroit lately?

Since you are bright and well-informed, you know that the city of Detroit is basically dying because it has gone into economic atrophy. It has been suffering from this awful confluence of events. The car companies collapsed, the housing market collapsed and, now, it has gotten so bad that the city only has FOUR Starbucks left. Four. This is a city that still has almost a million people. There are more Starbucks than that within five minutes of my apartment.

Here is an interesting article about how national retailers and fleeing Detroit: ONLY FOUR STARBUCKS!

But here is the really interesting part, because the housing market has fallen through the floor, it is –obviously – really cheap to actually buy a house there. So now there is this movement of “artists” to Detroit. These artists are snatching up houses for literally thousands or even HUNDREDS of dollars. Here is an article about that:ARTIST INFLUX, HIDE THE WINE AND CHEESE!

It is entirely possible that Detroit is going to be the coolest city in the country in like ten years. Or! It is going to continue to whither and die and in ten years it will be the only post-industrialized ghost city in the Unites States. Weird, right?

I’ll tell you, if I didn’t have a “plan” to go on and get an MFA and stuff, I would seriously consider moving to Detroit and being all artist-y with all my new baguette-eating, black sweater-wearing artist friends.

I mean, sure, there are no jobs there, and the house I buy for $2,000 will not have any plumbing or wiring left and sure, my house will probably get broken into once I move in my Mac and all my other fancy artist gear, but (and Violet made this point, not me) the city might be so cheap to live in that an artist who can sell their work elsewhere (think of graphic designers, web designer, WRITERS, photographers, etc.) can actually live on what they produce. Try doing that in New York. Or LA. It means that if you can make a little money, you don’t have to have a day job!

Although it is also possible that Detroit will get so bad that ALL of the retailers and grocery stores will move out and then it will get SUPER expensive to, you know, buy food.

But do you know what else they are doing out there? They have started growing community gardens on vacant lots. So – to some small degree – they are even producing their own food. Imagine how awesome it would be if I showed up with a couple of cows! And maybe a chicken!

Anyway, the point is just that Detroit is undergoing something right now. I don’t think it can be called a renaissance yet, and there is no guarantee that it will get there, but I think it is fascinating to watch.

Here's an interesting article about a couple of artists who are opening a gallery.

And here is the super-cool website ABANDONED HOUSE OF THE WEEK!
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